Ideas used as maps

What is it about those old Bob Dylan songs covered and performed by the Byrds? There's an almost perfect pop quality in them, a lightness of touch, an innocence and a freshness in the dreamlike delivery. The simplicity and brevity of the arrangement, nobody trying too hard. It all just works. For all the styles and genres of music I've enjoyed over the years this still pleases me the most, well most of the time (?). I'm probably losing it. Don't look back, don't go back.

Crimson flames tied through my ears

Rollin' high and mighty traps

Pounced with fire on flaming roads

Using ideas as my maps

"We'll meet on edges, soon," said I

Proud 'neath heated brow.

Ah, but I was so much older then,

I'm younger than that now.

(And so on)...

National Careers Service

 

Above and below: Just some of the wonderful career advice I received from the National Careers Service when I stumbled into their website. In a highly optimistic and positive manner, having analysed my answers to various questions the helpful site offers up possible careers for the bewildered and the confused. I've always felt at home in that type of category but their recommendations did surprise even me, particularly in these peculiar times when retraining and upskilling are being advised by the powers that be as a sensible course of action for those out of work. 

It seems their outlook is biased towards a kind of "anything is possible" or "be all you can be" form of thinking with all the tonal variation of an episode of Trumpton or Camberwick Green (a reference for readers of a certain age) or Blue Peter on a bad night. The harsh reality of the big bad world of work is played down and swept away in an almost narcotic and fanciful fashion. There's fake fairy dust scattered across every web-page.

I was naturally intrigued by how they assessed me now that I'm into my twilight years but it seems they don't give up on anyone and the possible variations for the things I could do are many and varied. I've only included a couple of tell tale screen shots of the outcomes, I kind of had to walk away after a few minutes browsing the results. So it's boxer, football referee (nice and specific I thought), actor, or editor for me. If these don't work out there is also stockbroker, engineer, dressmaker and leather technologist (?). 

In the end I'm a bit puzzled and quite unlikely to follow up on these suggestions. I'm reminded of the old Ian Dury song "What a waste" and left with a strange, hollow feeling of just what might have been.

Hold on to yourself

Like something from the last days of Pompeii we toddled on, on our fitness route we meandered and then we ate out yesterday, a very pleasant brunch. We failed to share it via Tweeter or FarceBook so I'm sharing it abstractly via Blowger now. No images however. I may have missed a bit here and there and my camera wasn't used. We enjoyed brunch as the sun peeped through busy windows by the waterside, on a brave new morning. There was coffee and bacon, pancakes and French toast and syrup and a kind of serene atmosphere of pretend masked up normality. We sat and chatted but not for too long. How long does a welcome last these days? Don't overdo it.

The staff were attentive and friendly but I guess by 1800 today they'll be packing up and heading off into the sunset till who knows when. This is the new reality, living and working in the moment. The cruel uncertainty of what might be around the corner. Some peace and order or some fresh eruption? I hope the promised safety net is tough enough and big enough. I hope we can do this again soon.

P.S. We have dead mouse odour circulating. You see the signs, you apply the treatment, you wait, no signs of life ... just the feeble but pungent smell of a dead mouse returning to nature in some unreachable part of your property. No need to explain but you want to know it's fate and those unbothered by mice simply don't understand.

Not going out

So for the foreseeable future (currently looking at about a fortnight) we're stuck in Lothian. Lothian is a vague kind of a concept of a thing, a mythical place and a set of boundaries that exists only in some Health Board definition of where things might be or should be put. I guess the provision of health services looms large in the thinking but not in the same way as the emptying of dustbins, allocation of parking permits or postcodes. 

It's abstract in a way that challenges spacial perception and makes a person question quite where they might be standing in the universe (or if that is even possible). So as my shoes touch the muddy earth or the damp and rotting autumn leaves on the path or the new tarmac on the road I live near to I'll wonder to myself, "Am I really here or am I really in Lothian?"

In the end I concluded, after some slow coffee and rapid chocolate, that I knew what I always knew but perhaps due to educational influence or societal programming I did not dare admit it. Like Camelot or Middle Earth, Valhalla or Narnia, Lothian is quite simply a state of mind, and for the time being nobody can leave it or enter it. Peace be unto you all on your abortive travels.

In other news the nearest Aldi store is in Borrowstone Town Ness and the nearest Greggs is in no man's land between Broxburn and Newbridge. I'll just play relaxing music during the essential journey.

Meanwhile far away across the water, Fife burns like a Big Country lyric. (Photo Tom Duffin.)

Over our heads

I walked by this the other day, the steps on the left are a particularly poignant little detail in the photo. It's an empty boathouse, the flood whilst an unfortunate event didn't harm anyone.

I saw the image below yesterday having seen the message* repeated all over social media. I guess the government have truly given up on anything remotely creative now. The UK is just a royalist, delusional, colonial minded dustbin. Only drones are required in this Brave New World of continual TV repeats, no fresh ideas, lift music playing quietly in every venue, human rights eroded and all design and innovation fully snuffed out. Great work at a time when imagination and inspiration is badly required. Here we are, wriggling around under the thumbs of idiots. (I'm sure we'll still prevail in the reworked underground). So much to get outraged about, so little time.

 

* I understand the great man and financial mastermind has taken these remarks back or played the "taken out of context" card. Ho hum.

RIP #EVH

 

The River

As per the previous post: I was out the other day just idly standing by the river checking for the bodies of any of my fairly few remaining enemies in the torrent. Nothing to see so far and the river was flowing well above it's normal level (see the handy park bench indicator above), it'd been a wet weekend. Maybe tomorrow. I guess I don't really care enough to actually wish a watery grave on old enemies and I doubt I'd even recognize any of the bloated, discoloured bodies ballooning by after all this time. They'd probably be the enemies of other, random people hoping I'd adopt them in death because their own enemies have grown bored with the exercise and ignored them, no longer being on station on the river bank.

Title

Suffice to say walking away from a working project generates mixed feelings. I've experienced this recently following a bit of a meeting of minds and subsequent departing of minds. It was all reasonably good natured but in the end the final straw was the final straw. I walked away a free man but one without a "title", a label or an occupation. I no longer contribute. I'm in that limbo that is, as actors might say, between jobs. I'm too gravely perhaps, too unsettled, too difficult to influence, too old ... I'm OK with that. Things come and go and usually come back again. "If you stand by the river long enough the bodies of your enemies will eventually come floating by", I've never quite seen that actually happen and I've stood on the banks of many rivers.

War Criminal

 

"He always had those cold, dark eyes that you could never trust," said the prosecuting inquisitor. " He would repeatedly say things like 'I can't imagine I'm the only person thinking this', when he clearly was the only person thinking that (based on experience and as far as we can ever know what other people are actually thinking, assuming that they made honest and truthful admissions). Terribly misguided and lacking in self awareness, one to be avoided".

Over the years, as I've aged, I've somehow managed to cultivate the look and perhaps the demeanor of some kind of second rate (?) war criminal. This is not who I am I assure you, it's just turned out that way due to some lifestyle issues, questionable diet, haphazard choices and the poorly executed use of photographic tools and effects. I stand or more truthfully, slouch a bit, as a warning and signpost and an example to you all.

Our Covid Love Affair

The fine art of getting by.

Covid isn't going away any time soon:  Nobody is going to rescue us from the imminent threat to life and civilization we've slowly come to love or at least get used to, the unseen beast that is Covid. We're all fully fucked up in a global Stockholm Syndrome that punishes us all, rich and poor, we're caught up in this abusive but loving paradox. Covid walks behind you and whispers in your ear. "Life on the edge isn't a proper life but it's better than life over the edge, let me in at your peril." 

This is science fact not fiction, ugh.

So we're lost in a post Covid world where there are no rules, the fields are already alight, travel plans are a thing of the past and Christmas looks as dismal as if Banksy had re-imagined it using only neutral tones. But as compensation, there's still that terrible sense of joy you get watching the government's twists and turns and lies as they try to avoid blame or take responsibility or simply explain themselves. When you are in a hole stop digging, as wise man alone in a muddy field once said. 

I dislike all of these sentences.

Now all the old school chums and cronies have had their slices of the contracted out works, and have failed to deliver workable solutions. What next, who do you blame? The young, the poor, the people who went to the raves or pubs, the immigrants, the refugees, the care homes, those fucking over 60s boomers, the NHS and the Chinese. We're all jolly hostages here and our leaders and power brokers are out of their depth. 

Things that the BBC/establishment media knows and understands but wont say because why would it?

For the time being we're kidnapped and bound, we adopt that mentality, we fall in love, gradually, gingerly, taking tiny steps with the great beast, the bringer of destruction and pestilence. We are the love slaves of Covid our captor. Now we have direction and purpose, just the wrong direction and a warped purpose. So that needs to change, fight the virus, resist the brainwashing of the government and the media, wear a mask and think carefully about what you're doing and any possible consequences. I sometimes that wish I, like most of the human race, wasn't such a conflicted hypocrite.

None of these bigger things will happen, we'll soldier on, pay the higher prices, hibernate, quietly sing in the shower and watch more Netflix. A few pensioners might die*.

*Wait a minute, that's way too close for comfort.

               

P.S. Donald and Melania Trump have tested positive for the virus. Thoughts and prayers go out to the poor virus.

8:55

 The clock that seldom lies, unless it stops.

The cock that cannot fly that sits on top.

The bell that chimes away the hourly slot.

The people down below say, "What, what, what?"

"You're making the High Street one way?"

Robert Burns 2nd October 2020.

The pandemic will accelerate the evolution of our cities.

 

Frankly I disagree but I understand where you're coming from. Enforced evolution seldom produces the results you expect. Art will destroy itself, a culture vacuum will strangle initiative, capitalism will erode the very idea of health and welfare and the green movements will destroy humanity in order to save the planet. 

Please don't blame the pandemic for things and outcomes that are fundamentally human in origin. We may well look back and yearn for this time of opportunity and the clear chances to make changes that our rulers missed.

First World Problems

 

"Can you please help us, we really need the Date of Birth field in our data gathering App re-coded so that instead of pulling up a current AirBnB style calendar it shows a simple data field that accepts dates as birthdays, you know the whole 1940, 1950, 1960 thing, please?"

It was that kind of day yesterday, and I burst a tyre (changed the spare myself), and my car key fob went wonky and set off the alarm numerous times, my contactless card failed at the till and I'd no proper lunch. First World problems abound you may say with a scoffing tone and you'd be correct, just don't start me on the traitorous app that I've trying to do actual field work with.

Actually I'm reasonably exasperated in what I consider to be rather restrained and civilised way with project that I somewhat stupidly volunteered to take part in. The truth is hurting a bit. "It seemed like a good idea at the time", a statement I am considering for either a digital virtual gravestone or a series of fashionable apparel pieces I'll release on T Spring or Shirt Genie or whatever.

Seaways Kilimanjaro

6.50 am and the sun rises silently over the Seaways Kilimanjaro, a bulk tanker moored at Hound Point that is, I imagine, being pumped full of oil, fresh from the North Sea. I'm newly awake and wondering around the house considering coffee, a shower and an early morning walk and this is/was the view from the window - yesterday.

The sweet, warm promises of the red dawn slowly died away as the day unraveled and a dull grey mist descended in the still air accompanied by some feeble rain. Autumn is proceeding at her own slow, grim but curiously pretty rate. Red sky in the morning is somebody's warning I guess, a reminder that the Covid never sleeps (until it's about two years old that is, weakened by relentless mutation and so it becomes just another annoying but powerful version of the flu).

Cat fight

 

Our cats (or the cats that we belong to, you can never tell) are not subject to any lock down as far as I'm aware but from time the do exhibit some signs of cabin fever. Can't blame the weather either but it may be something we're doing or even not doing. So they seem to celebrate their frustration by  participating in the ancient martial art of  ineffective indoor feline kung-fu. The worst possible injury being a mouth full of fluff. Nobody enjoys suffering from that.

Here's the shorter version, or the highlights even.

The wisdom of light

 

The four pillars of wisdom (at the moment).

1. The thinking persons light is designed for you to control your self imposed darkness, however you may wish to manage it via a switch. It can adopt two positions, off or on. There are no other options. Next step would be to discuss this with a like-minded friend using only binary terms.

2. Sometimes, when the internet is slow to provide immediate or vital information or maybe I'm just feeling a little jaded, I simply stare into a low wattage light bulb. It can be a transporting experience. I'm thinking about typing up a helpful pamphlet that goes into more detail.

3. One thing about the so called "Ancients" is that they certainly knew what they were talking about. How have their words survived all the way to today?

4. There once was a time when I do believe I had the knack of arranging words into sentences that actually carried some kind of meaning. Now I'm not so sure.

Climbing the Walls

 A famous old Edinburgh pub, near and dear to folkies, story tellers and singer songwriter types and a once regular stomping ground and meeting place for the outlaws of our local music scene. Not sure who took this great shot or how it came to be, somehow seems appropriate in these troubled times. We're all climbing the walls with our fears, contact limitations, restrictions and general uncertainty over so many aspects of everyday life. It's easy to say "man up" and we will but events and attitudes are still determined to grind us down. I don't want that to happen, I want to defy the gravity of the times. I want to climb the walls in a good way. So it's nice to see the Waverley looking spic and span, hope the dodgy beer keeping has improved and the toilet smells have been eradicated. There is an inside stair too if you really need to access the upper lounge bar. You don't have to be clad all in blue either.

SQ Daily Photo

Daily photo: Featuring the Jubilee Clock Tower in South Queensferry as RFA Fort Victoria sails by, past the rooftops, under the bridges and out to sea. What happens once she gets there only those in the know get to know. I certainly don't know. I do have some working history with this old ship, I was first aboard her in the yard where she was being built in Birkenhead, before her launch or commissioning. That must've been around 1989 or so, her paint was still wet and she was the first of her class. Turns out that idea, there were to be seven ships in class, didn't go so well. Over the years I saw plenty of action (?) with her in all sorts of circumstances. That part of my life is now long gone, it helped pay the rent for a bit and I'm left with many bitter-sweet and fairly confused memories. That's life in the MoD for you.

Barkley the dog

 

I've been wondering for a while if one of the local dogs we see every morning was in fact a small person in a dog suit, obviously acting like a dog and doing so in a reasonably authentic fashion. He or she is very convincing as an elderly husky lazing on somebody's driveway, a regular and well executed performance. So convincing that passing (genuine) dog walkers feed the beast with sausages. This led me to think about "fake" dogs and other beasts in the entertainment industry. Barkley from Sesame Street is probably the most famous (though the actor inside isn't). I wondered what real dog/animal actors made of a human getting a regular gig like that. I imagined Lassie, Hobo, Cheetah, Flipper, Mr Ed and Skippy all writing strongly worded letters of complaint via human lawyers about their status being undermined by so called "human animal actors". 

It is a pretty clear case of cultural misappropriation I suppose and I'm doubtful if this type of animal rights matter is taken as seriously as it should be. Humans as animal actors is a more economical and simpler solution and they'll take direction a bit more easily but they will also talk back and complain etc. They do need good costumes so that's possibly a problem. 

I've nothing against Barkley as such, I'm just thinking about those poor, unemployed animals out there and how their careers might be going. Please note I've avoided the rather difficult area of glove puppets, ventriloquist dummies and so on, oh, and pantomime horses and cows. Then there's the more complex issue of CGI ... and dinosaur rights.

DIY Swimming Pool

You may have noticed that garden improvements and outside living have become so 2020ish in these troubled times. Only in the fresh air can we meet and greet loved ones, albeit in strictly limited numbers. So, in preparation for the undoubtedly muted and chilly oncoming Christmas celebrations, I've imagineered a lovely dipping pool filled with Pacific style, warm, clear blue waters without plastic tat, sharks or used floating face masks. Potted plants from the tropics line the edges and tiny, weird fish swim past you and snap up your dead skin and toe nails as you relax in the clear, healing spa waters. There will also be a soft wave machine and mysterious champagne bubbles from sub-sea sources. It's still all at the planning stage but I've no doubt Edinburgh's forward thinking authorities will allow it to go ahead. The actual budget is a bit of a problem however. Further vigorous injections of furlough cash from HM Treasury may be required at key stages in the project.