Tiger King Kong

Netflix exhaustion, take the necessary precautions, wear a cowboy hat, if you're a wild cat.

Big cats and small cats; we're slowly catching up with the Netflix Tiger King chronicles and the jaw dropping antics, crimes and weird lifestyle choices that those people obsessed with having wild cats at home experience in the USA. After a few short episodes you start to understand why people voted for Trump and why things are as crazy as they are nowadays. I'm trying to think of the UK equivalent so as to explain why we might have the current crop of idiots running things here. I can only think of blaming inter-breeding, top-tier private education and unrestricted historical privilege. Must be the BBC's fault then. 

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Supermoon over Kelty

"Kelty Supermoon". Strong tone water colour on pained and strained vellum with inserted shotgun cartridge and magnesium traces. Superb example of the recent larger than life but smaller than reality moon that visited the highest village in the Kingdom of Fife from a lunar altitude. Taken from exclusive stock footage and reworked examples from the Friday edition of the Central Fife Times. This prime piece is retailing at only £1500 but is open to reasonable offers. Priority with be given to bids from ex RNSD Lathalmond employees and residents of Blairadam Forrest.

Heroes of the Motorway

"Heroes of the Motorway" Digital acrylic on Orkney sheepskin with Duckhams 20/50 and ashphalt rendering in the Gregorian tradition of many other great landscapes. Please note that this is a non-specific motorway scene and therefore suitable for all locations and lifestyles. Some noticeable odour. Bank transfer and credit terms available (£2300 as a starting price) but would consider part exchange for low mileage diesel Ford Transit (white) panel van. 

Berocca Sunrise

"Berocca Sunrise" mixed media piece from reputable Caledonian source with Sharpie, cornflower and corrugated iron flourishes. Offers in the region of over £1000. International buyers and hedge fund managers please phone for PayPal details. Thank you.

Fruit and Veg

"Still life with celery". A fine selection of random fruit and veg, washed clean in soapy water and relatively free from terrible viruses. Oil on canvas with wellingtons and a jaunty sou'wester. Offers over £666 please.

28 Days and a fire drill

Daily Strudel, in the current climate a strudel a day keeps the medical profession away for a reasonable time, all being well.
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As it's Good Friday I've decided to abandon my religion(s) once and for all in the sweet candlelight of meditation and reflection, what a relief and load dumped from my mind that is. I may indulge in the odd Ester egg however. Hell awaits as sure as eggs are chocolate.
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Losing track of time is nothing new for me but this has been going on for a long time now. Trapped in this bizarre world of disease and government skullduggery and incompetence, it's not even a good sci-fi script any more. There's no Bladerunner soft underbelly or noir tones, it's just posh, over grown school boys showing us that they don't know how to behave or take responsibility for their lack of action while things break down and people suffer. 

So to brighten things up we had a fire drill this morning, an unplanned and impromtu one set off by an unattended grill set to low and ignored. The cats reacted perfectly and bolted out through the cat flap in seconds the instant the smoke alarm sounded. We can learn a lot from them. Humans are of course slower to react and whilst I issued ridiculous orders mostly to myself I was as confused as any 65 year old would be in a potentially burning house. Good to know your capabilities. 

Eventually the red hot and smouldering grill pan was identified and retrieved and our systems reset as you would on the bridge of the Star Ship Enterprise. And plop, we splash back into our locked down and ill informed present day, whatever one this may be (Good Bad Friday, see above).

Songs about bad things

Good songs about bad things.

The truth is upside down.

For me to stand still you must move.

God isn't love.

The answer is everywhere.

Words are meaningless.

Wild Willow Hairdressing

The dead fruits of my labours.

It turns out that one of the most satisfying things you can do on an April afternoon is give a Pussy Willow tree a good haircut. By haircut I am of course referring to the seasonal task that is basically pulling away all the dead branches, twigs and debris that have accumulated and become stuck somewhere in the rat's nest that is a spring time willow. I'm avoiding any jokey pussy or bushy mentions here, this was strictly a normal gardening task and humour isn't really required. For a few brief moments I felt like a surgeon or a vet freeing up a living organism that was trapped and unable to get the better of it's own frame and situation. Now that it's over I feel I may deserve some kind of low level Nobel Prize for gardening or tree surgery if there is such a thing. I doubt there is but if there is I nominate myself.

Willow in the middle, looking rather bald.

Faded Rainbows

The Faded Rainbows were a Los Angeles based alt-rock hippy band in the 60s. The line up varied due to excessive doses of unreality but most songs were written by the partnership of Ricky Puddles and Sally McMaserati. They recorded two albums: "Rainbow's day's off" (the first double apostrophe album on vinyl) and "We are the parents our children warned us against". Sadly both sunk/sank (you choose) without trace following a cargo vessel striking an iceberg in the foggy Straits of San Francisco. However their music lives on thanks to a dedicated cult following and a tribute act, "The Phased Out Rainbows".

Don't despair is your carefully constructed rainbow has faded a little or lost colour recently. Most likely explanation is that there has been some kind of weather event, rain, moisture etc. that sort of thing. If life seems more monochrome than usual, well maybe it is just due to un-seasonal seasons but that will pass once you pay the licence fee. 

Inter-dimensional

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT.

Willow tree caught up in an inter-dimensional static and blueberry yogurt storm (brewing). Early morning alert! They say that it's the season. They say that it may be the time. Stay safe and indoors if you possibly can. Too many threatening situations out there. Take care on the cycle path. Carry protection at all times and beware of the sign of the cat. 
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Staying positive

I saw a #clapforboris tag on twitter: I certainly won't clap for BJ but I don't wish him any further illness either. That's it. I prefer to applaud the "ordinary" efforts in the NHS, in services and shops, in homes and in families that are ongoing and extraordinary. Day in day out. Keeping it together, keeping things going, running sizable risks and living with fear in highly uncertain times.  There's so many good people struggling and just plain putting up that deserve to be celebrated and better rewarded. But the entitled few who see themselves as above all this, in power and preaching, beyond accepting advice or acting upon it, happy to be secret life hypocrites as they soar in some lofty intellectual and rarefied air where they can do as they please, looking down with disdain at the common man far below, well they can just fuck off.

Bricks and Coffee

In my spare time (which I seem to have plenty of) I collect psychedelic bricks. In less troubled times I'd be meeting up with fellow enthusiasts on Sunday mornings and comparing notes, brick styles, scoffing coffees and the like, it's not happening at the moment though.

Slow day, mainly working on my brick collection, out there in the weather, concentrating on getting them together in one distinct area. Previously they were scattered around the garden in no clear order. Some idiot did that in the past, that's when most things happen. Now now I've got them in piles, six per level and in an interlocking pattern. It's been a satisfying if tiring time for me. Those who know about these things know that some measure of interlocking is important when dealing in bricks, just look at any house or reasonably well constructed Lego example. 

Yes, there's a lot to bricks and a lot to admire and say about them, hence the vital nature of the regular Bricks & Coffee circuit where like minded brick aficionados can exchange tips and techniques. I wonder if, when things start to improve, that all aficionados should regularly meet up at Nandos? Maybe they don't have to be brick experts, just a certain type of person. That's for another time though. I'll certainly not be  taking part in their blethers until the hysteria that will arrive with the new age of unfettered virus free normality dies back to a civilized whimper.

A regular brick-fest.

Every motorway a garden

An old inscription in the crypt of the monastery of Santa Lucia de Ponderosa in Galatia reads as follows (translated and adapted):

"The stones shall be upturned, rolled flat upon their faces, great bridges will crack and their bullwarks breakdown, the houses of the rich and mighty shall tremble and the greedy and good will suffer as plagues and ruin overrun the villages. The woodlands shall swell up in green and quash the dragon's fire, the smoke will rise to tell the tale. 

The iron people will see their forges and waterways crumble and their mineral mines shall collapse. The weeds grow wiry and strong across their ruins. Bread will buy gold, water will buy oils, spells will fail to test the conundrum. Wild flowers shall return to their paved over spaces and there will be a terrible silence as nature regains control and the earth mother's  judgement passes across the land. 

All this, after the great wars and the shortening of distances, after the destruction of the dark and quickness of tales passed. Ever the hungry seek the miracle, ever the miracle is between their ears". 

Brother Salonica, 1496.

Bike Ride

Hurst Point under a bridge.

Hurst Point headed for another.

Like young and light headed characters from some Enid Blyton tale we rode our bikes across the Forth Bridge today. Silver streaks in the morning mist, sun glinting on our polished helmets and sleek machines. There and back again, nice and early before the crowds and the social distancing police were about. What fun. Under the bridge there was a ship sailing east towards the rising sun, the Hurst Point, passing by on a milky sea. In a previous life I was aboard this ship numerous times, in all weathers getting up to ... actual business. Those days are gone and I don't really miss them but it was nice to see this old lady (?) sailing by and looking to be in decent health.

Yesterday's Breakfast

French toast and tomato with a light drizzle of brown sauce.

Already more than 24 hours old, a fading memory (sigh); another day passed leaving only the slightest hint of a trace of a whisper of a tiny part of a sliver of a piece of a snippet of a moment of a fraction of a shade of a subtle little bit of yesterday's breakfast. Coffee and orange juice (with bits) not included.

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Another photo I didn't take

A drug induced vision of a small corner of Edinburgh that isn't quite a corner and isn't quite Edinburgh. I've had a drink in the pub at least once in my life time, perhaps. In the old days tourists used to hang out here, now it's just foggy with a zombie mist. Tomorrow it'll be boarded up.

I confess to not being the person who took this photo. There, in a few words I have destroyed any credibility this blog post might have had but I am telling the sad truth. I pinched it from somewhere on the web. I was trying to play it safe, I could have jumped onto a No 43 bus and rode, in relative isolation into the great granite and sandstone heart of Edinburgh simply by using the free bus pass granted to me by the Scottish Government (all because I've managed to avoid accidental death and missed out on any fatal over indulgence in numerous areas of life for over 60 earth years) and then sauntered up to Grey Friars. 

That was not for me though, I chose another path, another paragraph even. So I stayed home and avoided the risk of the heaving herds of mountain goats and confused residents padding around the streets (as I imagine), all at a loss with what to do with their time now farmer's markets, slave markets and insider trading have ceased. Bereft of the hope of future festivals and fascist tattoos the city is but the hollowed out shell of some kind of hollowed out shell for the time being. The magic money tree has been chopped down, or at least pruned back until Christmas (which may be postponed until 2021).

As for the surgical mask on poor, historically maligned Bobby, it's just a social comment,  a "thing" these days, a common and amusing addition to statues all across the world as we mourn the loss of something we don't quite understand. So the statues are united at least, apart from in Forfar because it turns out Bon Scott has chosen, as a proper rock-god statue, to remain fashionably anonymous and aloof, plus they've no actual masks left. 

Neon Beard

A portrait of the artist as a shriveled up prune of a person but with a useful atomic beard that lights up at night to enable easy bedtime reading whilst warding off burglars and the like.

Over the winter I aged terribly, I never was much good at aging but now it's all come home to roost, like a rooster. A drooping rooster with an atomic booster, what a strap line. I have a fearsome beard now. Everywhere I go I release spontaneous electric forces that flash and buzz all around me. People run from my visibly sparky mutant state, quite understandably. Electronic devices short out in my presence and in my jacket pockets, car electrical systems die and occasionally planes fall out of the sky. I'm not too happy about that part, all rather awkward and disastrous. I just hope the authorities don't track me down. Luckily for me at this time they're busy quelling civil unrest such as single person picnics, flagrant dog exercising, over zealous walking and cheeky cyclists operating in pairs and swiveling in a precarious fashion near to innocent social workers taking their lunch break on the Yorkshire Dales. 

The truth is that over winter I transmogrified into a wizard with only one small z. I wanted to be a two z wizzard but the spell checker (which checks all your magic spells not your spelling, the Illuminati have lied to you about it's actual use all along) prevented this from happening. In due course I will wreak a terrible revenge on humanity but that's another story and I'll wait until things get back to normal so there's a convenient gap in the media to cover it all very sensibly and in a balanced BBC kind of fashion. 

By that time newspapers as we knew them will have died, replaced with scary graphic novels and advertisment heavy click-bait apps that tell you nothing other than what's going cheap at Wish.com. As a result of that we'll all be a lot cheerier but uninformed as we're freed from the deluge of corporate junk and propaganda they generate and spout. In this unfamiliar new chrome and tumbleweed landscape my fictional story can finally be told. Happy Days!

Let's talk about Oreos

"Distraction, distraction, distraction". As Tony Blair once didn't quite say, as far I know. Here's a pretty good snippet from an article about why the Labour Party are in their current state of disrepair and why we now have a woefully inadequate Tory Government.

Having got that out of the way it's time for further distraction and the ongoing use of a smaller font size. Never a popular choice with the older readers but why should I care when I'm already one of them and in a permanent state of bemusement anyway? I'm peering into the dark most days.

So on to the main part of today's business; showing some love and appreciation for the twin "pillow pack" version of the chocolate covered Oreo. Arguably the greatest chocolate biscuit of our day, not too big, not too clumsy but just right as Goldilocks might have said. They arrived from out of the blue a couple of years ago, often on special offer in supermarkets and they have, in my opinion moved the humble (and let's face it over rated) naked trailer trash Oreo and the Oreo brand, which is pretty over exposed with a range of crossover products, decidedly up market. 

Actual naked Oreos are OK but not a patch on their funky chocolate cousins. They are available in both white and regular coverings. Yum. These are the current kings of the biscuit piles and aisles with no contemporary competition. So forget your ancient Kit-Kats (even chunky), shrinking Clubs and thin Breakaways, these are the best and the ones to buy or shoplift depending on your own anarchist tendencies. They are a very special snack and will, with care, stand a little dunking if you like that sort of thing (I don't). Rumour also has it that a regular dose of Choc Oreos can help reduce Covid 19 symptoms as well as kill the actual virus*, all provided that you belong to the elite blood group that is Type O+. 

*Disclaimer: none of this is actually true but they do make you feel good.

Your own personal respite

Following in the illustrious footsteps of the equally illustrious David Hockney I'm releasing an exclusive set of pieces of my own art to act as a "respite from the news". They are above and below: Firth of Forth Rainbow Distortions 1, 2 and 3. That's it. Enjoy your brief respite.

I am not at the moment holed up in a farmhouse in Normandy with only my assistants and dogs for company, in fact there are few similarities between us. I'm a simple retiree with latent charlatan tendencies and he's a respected artist, part of that stellar establishment firmament mere mortals can only gaze at from a safe distance or partake of via BBC4 or iPlayer (always available). Of course we are both elderly (?) gents who still possess at sparkle in our eyes and a deft touch when it comes to manipulating computer graphics and related playthings occasionally. We've little else in common really. He probably enjoys fine wines on a regular basis, I enjoy bottom shelf wine on a regular basis but it's all OK. I've been to Normandy, nothing against it, it's fine as is the rest of France but I could take it or leave it right now.

So what made me happy today and gave me personal respite?  (Which was in fact yesterday):

Ali and I having another early morning walk around the town.
Cat did a poo in the garden after about 6 weeks of litter tray exploits.
Bought Dettol and toilet roll at the shop.
Enjoyed a cinnamon and apple hot cross bun for elevenses.
The sun shone through from time to time.
Had my hands sanitized in a supermarket queue. It felt like some strange baptism but I enjoyed the temporary feeling of belonging.
Reduced my mental list of odd jobs only see it increase again.
Writing this list and realising there's a lot more I could add.

The Great Escape

Various well chosen bricks form the stylish anti-cat wall. Just enjoy the textures.

Trying to cat-proof a garden isn't easy. I thought I'd cracked it using a combination of old pallets, bricks and pieces of timber. Of course cats always know better than mere humans and my impregnable wall turned out to be less than capable of confusing a cat. I did manage to apprehend the errant cat and hopefully I've blocked any future exits. We'll see. He used to be called Clint but in a true Hollywood and utterly predictable style we're renaming him Steve McQueen.

Introducing Steve McQueen, the artist formerly known as Clint.