Trains across Norway

A relaxing train journey is good for both the mind and soul: Stuck indoors in Tier 4 lock down? Can't squander what little remaining cash you have in the new year sales? Fed up with virtual log fires and chaotic Russian traffic videos? Why not try train driving (or at least pretending to drive one) across the snowy wastes of Norway from the relative warmth and safety of your own couch? Any port in a storm as they say.

The only god I listen to

 

Back in the day when we shopped, visited cafes and walked freely across the earth, as some might say god intended (also carrying the weight of our own sin on our backs): The still small Dickensian voice of Christmas Present (well yesterday's voice) leads me to an enticing free gift guide. The guide is free but the gifts are expensive and are slowly destroying the planet. Best to stay home making plans for using up your "prepper" stash of tins of chopped tomatoes in the most creative ways possible. The destruction of the planet was previously being carried out by cats but they're currently on a break and the humans have taken over for the time being. I suspect it will not end well for any particular species apart from the cockroaches. Having a pleasantly bemused Boxing Day so far.

Christmas 2020

 

Happy Christmas 2020. Whether you're a good person or you're a Russian Bot, a Republican Bot, and Tory Bot or a Bot who's just plain conflicted about things. Frankly right now I don't care, it's Christmas Day and I'm making the best of it. Take it easy but remember, you don't actually have to take it.

P.S. This is a popular card around these parts, for reasons obvious to us.

And another thing...

Exposed to Normality

I completed this personality test (or something like that) I happened upon via my questionable friend Mr Twitter, the results are pictorially displayed above. I'm exactly half normal and half abnormal, a statement that makes no sense. I guess the numbers pretty much add up to an old git who grew up in arguably more troubled and less affluent times - or maybe not. Anyways it's Christmas eve and there are other things to do, so enough of the reflection and the futile search for self understanding. Have a "normal" Christmas if you can.
 

Window Sharks and a Dog Bakery

Tis' the season to go a bit mental and nobody would blame you or your poor punctuation. A few things in the street nearby; the traditional Christmas Shark is now decorating household windows and bestowing good fortune on observers below, as is the custom. Meanwhile the "Dog Bakery" (an interesting and surreal addition to the selection of local shops), should be opening soon, sadly it wont be in business until that fateful new year known as number 2021 arrives with all it's pratfalls, complications and inevitable disappointments. Right now I'm unsure about how I feel with regard to most things. Life's a gas, possibly an inert one.

 

The Great Conjunction

 

Jupiter meets Saturn and everybody has seen this: However until my dear wife mentioned that this was happening I didn't know anything about it. Straight over my head. Now it's all over the media as the word spreads. Heavenly bodies behaving like heavenly bodies for once in a lifetime, anyway Google think it's worth a mention. So I borrowed their Gif. Oops.

California Dreamin'

 

Old, familiar words on a new wall. None of this will happen any time soon but it's nice to just imagine sometimes. The fourth line doesn't really make any sense either other than to shift blame or push a little poetic power into the statement. Mentioning the Devil in any song always adds a touch of glamour and danger. So any chance of getting back to the garden? Things have always been in some kind of a mess and wistfully and wishfully thinking of somehow going back and starting with a clean sheet is very appealing, just ask any old hippie.

Still droning on

This may seem a bit obtuse: I'm not a bible believer (and I'm ignoring anything to do with Christmas right now for obvious reasons), but that doesn't mean that I don't recognize that there are some profound truths held within it's (corruptly edited and compiled) much misunderstood pages. This little snippet, some time after the famous ark and flood adventure is, in my view, far more significant and insightful than the whole "two by two" and rainbow nonsense. 

I should add, there are some things in life that you can only understand when have traveled a fair distance and find yourself high on a hill and are able to see a long way in at least two clear and opposite directions. This may be the beginning of wisdom but it also may not last very long.

 

Genesis 9 v18 - 24.

v18 The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.) v19 These were the three sons of Noah, and from them came the people who were scattered over the whole earth.

v20 Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard. v21 When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent. v22 Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father naked and told his two brothers outside. v23 But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it across their shoulders; then they walked in backward and covered their father’s naked body. Their faces were turned the other way so that they would not see their father naked.

v24 When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him, v25 he said,

“Cursed be Canaan!

The lowest of slaves

will he be to his brothers.”

 

Historical footnote: If there ever was a real Noah you can be sure he did not look or dress like this nor did he have a collection of handy and attractive zoo animals paddling around the Middle East in a large wooden boat.

Iceland v Scotland

"Came from the land of the ice and snow etc." Marvelous pic of some unpronounceable, remote Icelandic spot, complete with Northern Lights, shooting stars, fractured ice and wispy snow. Scotland is a pretty decent looker of a place but Iceland is just ... far out. 

Forth Crossings

I see these bridges nearly every day. I can check them out from our sitting room window provided I'm motivated enough to stand up and look out. It may be in a Covid racked Scotland, curled up and angry with it's twisted fate, an oppressed colony of the evil Empire of Westminster and perpetually bewildered, but it's still all pretty good to me. This sanitized but realistic picture was taken from the nearby sea front, which provides a clearer and more satisfying view of the night-scape Forth road crossings. Thank you for your time and patience.

Daytime TV at night

 

We're still sticking with the YouTube logs as a means to heat up the house and provide some ambient flickerings, working well so far but the weather remains unseasonally mild. By doing this we have erased the invisible and sometimes disputed links between daytime TV and night time TV, they have merged into one homogenized glowing screen of impenetrable warmth and a vacuum of subjectless content. A rainbow bridge across the chasm of puerile programming and the Nirvana of a mysterious black object staring back at you from space. Stanley Kubrick was seldom wrong.  Perfect for the times we exist in.

Jolly Penguin and his pals

It could have been Noggin the Nog in the form of sweeties but it was not: Always a pleasure, never a chore, the ceremonial demolition of the Christmas chocolate boxes began earlier than usual this year. Blame Covid and a lack of social life and decent TV I suppose. The bar was set unnaturally high with this massive single tier offering from some Hotel chain somewhere that is apparently constructed mainly from chocolate. Quite a claim but one I would not dispute. Taking a measured approach to this challenge we worked steadily through it and deliberately did not scoff the lot in one binge watch or rainy evening sitting. It took a little longer (which was worth the mild frustration) but now it has been picked clean. The happy vultures were agreed that this is possibly the highest scoring selection already and we don't even know what is yet to come. Hail the Jolly Penguin and his brown and white entourage, as Alan Partridge might say.

 The carcass, picked clean.

Swan Theme

 

Captain's Log, Stardate 47634.44. A locally produced and loyal swan complete with large swan's feet takes a moment to inspect possible rudder damage that may have been sustained during a recent shallow dive manoeuvre. As it turned out all the rearward facing control surfaces were found to be fully serviceable and in good order and so the long journey across the pond continued without further event. 

Distorted Materials

Essential Sunday evening viewing: 

Children running about looking angry and confused, one has a knife but no idea what to do with it. The heroic girl is baffled. You know they're just going to run around aimlessly in a repetitive film set for most of this episode. The boy with the knife isn't feeling too good.

A man in a balloon reacts slowly to having a practicing Shaman on board and assumes the laws of conventional physics still apply to his trip. 

Priests talk very slowly and deliberately then frown and use the word heretic like it was some kind of unexploded bomb buried in the crotch of their cassocks. They are in a state of perpetual outrage. 

Grumpy woman arrives in a strange world wearing unusually practical clothes, encounters ghostly CGI monsters and scares them away, purely by using the strength of her mind and her determination. Her pet monkey does not seem to be fully aware of her intentions and is surprised at her show of force. 

A roving Irish woman hands out drugs to innocent kids. 

Meanwhile in the mountains, wooden witches act as if they were in some early Dr Who episode where every badly written line requires an excruciating level of over acting in order for it to be delivered. They perform a healing ritual before being attacked by some more CGI monsters.

The grumpy woman casually downs two bottles of wine, crushes a snake and kills the man who insulted her. 

The evil grey airships attack the balloon but the Shaman summons up thunderstorms and crows to down them. They plummet down in flames. Hundreds may be dead in the disaster, nobody is sure. The balloon may well crash land.

The end titles run. Well that was actually quite good.

Alternative History

 

The alternative history of the world in 101 household objects. Today it's the stereo owned by Jimi Hendrix which is "recreated" in his London flat. Presumably along with a set of his records and albums and other groovy stuff. I suppose this is actual recent history but it does seem like a lifetime ago (because it is!) when these crazy, daring types were barnstorming across the musical landscape, leaving incredible tracks and then self destructing either quite quickly or in some slow and terrible way over the decades to come. We all watched their collective pain, noted their suffering and wrinkles but didn't really learn anything. Not sure what's worse,old hippies, old punks, old Goths or just old people in general. Hmm.

Minimalist Nativity

One hedonistic moment after another: Obviously inspired by the scene depicted above I decided to create my own less well composed version of the classic Nativity grouping (below for the avoidance of doubt). Imitation is a reasonable and justifiable kind of flattery I suppose. Basically it's just stealing someone else's idea and then not executing it quite so well but still trying to claw some creative credit together for yourself. Then, if you wish to go deeper, there may be coded theological references hidden in the names and types of products used (?). One for Bible scholars there. Thankfully no cleaning products were harmed in the creation of these slightly disturbing images.

Christmas Telly

As everyone knows, traditional Christmas telly is in fact traditional Christmas shite with few if any redeeming qualities, all seasonal special programs are best avoided. This year we have endeavored to redress the cultural imbalance and now simply watch one of the many YouTube seasonal offerings i.e. "log fire c/w soft seasonal jazz background and crackling log sound effects", 10hrs of relaxed viewing well spent. A highly suitable and soporific background for home working, cat antics observations or constructing elaborate fish finger sandwiches. It also saves on logs, reduces greenhouse gases and gives off a reasonable amount of sustainable heat (that is completely imaginary).

King of Screenwash

 Winter cats* don't go out in rain 

Stare through glass silently complain 

Lick up the gravy ignore all the fat 

Nine times nine times lives of cats.

----

Winter cats curl up and purr 

Sneak and scamper scatter fur 

Sniff the air and lie down flat 

Nine times nine times lives of cats.

----

Nine times nine times lives of cats.

Fine time nice time Winter cats.

*Original handwritten manuscript discovered hidden in the archives  thought to belong to Bob Dylan's grandmother in 1966.

A certain sense of speed

Driving north on the silky surface (?) of the M90, going down the big hill towards Bridge of Earn in the outside lane and overtaking some large HGVs. Wheeee!*

*A journey I only make occasionally and not so often in these troubled times.

Episodic Episodes

How I discovered... 

(An occasional series that may never be repeated but this is the first episode in a lifetime of episodic episodes): 

Hejira / Hegira. 

An album of songs by Joni Mitchell.

The Hegira is the journey of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Yathrib, later renamed by him Medina, in the year 622. In May 622, after being warned of a plot to assassinate him, Muhammad secretly left his home in Mecca to emigrate to Yathrib, 320 km north of Mecca, along with his companion Abu Bakr.

Hejira is the eighth studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell. The songs on the album were largely written by Mitchell on a trip by car from Maine back to Los Angeles, with prominent imagery including highways, small towns and snow. Characterized by lyrically dense, sprawling songs, as well as the overdubbed fretless bass playing of Jaco Pastorius (whom Mitchell had just met), Hejira continued the musician's journey beyond her pop records towards the freer, jazz inspired music she would adopt on later recordings.

In about 1974 or 75, I returned home from the ashes of a failed musical venture in Jersey and fell down a black hole that did not look like a black hole at the time. Some might say that is exactly the problem with black holes, being able to identify them and avoid them in good time. Mine had a few silver linings, it's just that they were not obvious to me. Anyway I failed to correct things and was engulfed in the black hole for a while. I was also unaware at the time that any of this was happening being a black hole denier. Turns out that you only learn about your life by looking backwards at the various ruins and piles of rubble peppered with odd spots of colour along the way, I'm now a master at this grim but amusing art. 

So the circumstances leading up to me discovering Hejira were nearly really normal but not really normal. When the album was released in 1976 I wasn't listening to music, I was a ghost. I did see a mirror depicting the cover on display in a market in Cockburn Street Edinburgh. That was my only experience of it but the image stayed. Joni Mitchell was OK but nothing special. Life moved on. Occasionally I listened.

A few years later, I'm married, I have kids and I'm holding down a job and for fun I'm attending college in Bath, England. Though my family are down staying in Bath with me, after a while they move back to Scotland and I travel up and down as work and study times allow and live in a room in a Victorian mansion out on London Road. Everyday at lunchtime my group of students go for a run along the canals. We socialize a bit, have meals together and nights out, mostly we're not local so it helps keep spirits up and passes otherwise dead time. It's 1985 now. I may be losing bits of my hair at the edges of my head.

Finally, before the exams and assessments were carried we meet up one last night for a meal and whatever else. I remember it was the first time I'd encountered Grolsch beer bottles and their revolutionary caps. We ended up in some club but only all got in after we managed to all convince the doorman we had ties (?). This involved some subterfuge whereby in order to arrive at the correct number of ties per person, ties had to be smuggled out and reworn by the person hoping to gain entry. My thin red leather tie was one of the main assets in this venture. It worked and soon we all back on the bottle and bopping to Simple Minds or some other 80s twanging chancers from Glasgow. 

Suffice to say I never did see the tie again (not a problem) but the guy who'd last worn it was a good sort and he recompensed me some time later with a HMV voucher for £10s that one day arrived in the post. I was back home by now, the hectic, mid-life student days being a thing of the past. 

I'm not too excited about the voucher so it goes in the wallet and I guess I'll spend it one day.  For some reason I had to go into Edinburgh so I decided to go in on my motorbike, a small Honda. It was a windy April day and I can recall not enjoying going over the Forth Bridge but eventually I got into town, did what I had to do (can't recall) but also wandered into HMV for a browse.

These were the golden years of the Sony Walkman and the stereo cassette tape. It was to that counter I was headed. Regular journeys down to and up from Bath had made the Walkman essential and I needed new or at least different material. So I idly picked up a copy of Hejira, remembering the mirror in the shop many years ago and I picked up another cassette, I've no idea which. Impulse buying at it's finest. I was in no hurry to listen to them, I headed home and put them aside, as you do.

Somehow Hejira made it's way down to Bath with me where, apart from odd sparks of  college social life I was mostly alone, evenings and weekends. I was supposed to be working on some project management kind of thesis, writing it longhand as these were the days before laptops and PCs, strange to think of that now. Eventually it would be typed up and bound by some disinterested typist, and it duly was and again, as is normal, duly forgotten once marked. As fudgey and tortuous a piece of drivel as you'd never wish to read but it gained me a pass.

In the background I had started to listen to Hejira. It was akin to beginning some strange drug taking habit. Silent and dark, growling calmly, mysterious and smokey in some elusive but heavyweight way like an opium paste dripping slowly from a knife blade. It was in the spindly headphones, regularly competing with passing traffic, the landlady's hoover or my own thinly spread out thoughts.

It wasn't a particularly productive period of my life, I was skimping on expenses so we could have a family holiday in Ibiza, I wasn't writing or playing music, it was heads down and study and get myself comatosed by any cheap alcohol and music, Herija was starting to get a grip. Train to Reading, bus to Heathrow, flight to Edinburgh, car back to Fife, the soundtrack was forming up. Then back down again on a Sunday afternoon and into the Huntsman by the Abbey or the Boater by Pultney Bridge for a quick pint and the required stare into the oblivion of bar room mirrors.

"I could say each song is an actual journey but that would be a lie. They do transport the listener, whoever that might be." Quotes courtesy of the bad journalism of the NME. I never did take that paper seriously. What was serious though was the live version on "Amelia" on Shadows and Light. The songs is stretched out by a lengthy coda in the form of a meandering Pat Metheny guitar solo. As he starts he heads up a scale and it just sounds a bit out, there's this one single note that jars. It's weird, I think about that note a lot. That's also weird.

Meanwhile in Bath my life was slowly unraveling to the tunes of Hejira. I could feel the stitches come apart, one by one as I descended into getting to know myself as a fully formed adult. One Saturday I had a strange epiphany, I was walking down Walcott Street and I decided to buy a burger for lunch. Designer/fancy burgers were a new concept to 30 year old me,  a man unsure what mayo was and how garlic might taste, I was in a dietary slump. I bit into the garlic mayo burger out on the cobbled street as "Song for Sharon" played in my headphones. Looking back it was the precise moment I lost my religion, I couldn't care less about god or belief, I saw myself alone and confused but rooted in the material world. I didn't look back and I didn't tell anybody. It was all to complicated and I knew I lacked the basic vocabulary to describe what was happening.

Fast forward, life's wonky cassette player is running too quickly. I'm in Scotland on the A811, a road as straight as a crooked arrow. The same songs are playing. Everyday I drive 75 miles there, 75 miles back. I'm in a state of hypnosis for the full 90 minutes. News, music, news, tapes, Hejira. This is the journey. The strange thing is it gets me nowhere. I'm a tiny spec moving across a landscape, that's all it every is, moving. One morning, about 6.45am a huge white owl hit my windscreen. It bounced off and way into the darkness, the windscreen remained intact. The car was a battered Rover, tougher than I'd imagined it would be. Owl proof. A great white portent had marked me now, sought me out and awoken me. The tapes kept on rolling as I mulled things over and began to wake up. Heaven was trying to get my wandering attention, as were the twists on the A811.

Now I'm older and wiser. I tell myself that I understand myself much better now. I understand many things I might have misunderstood, an advantage of the aging process and the ongoing delusion of progress. I tune in on a occasional basis, just to keep grounded, mostly while driving, that's their natural setting. Back and forwards across the Queensferry Crossing, slowing down then speeding up, searching for a break in the traffic, taking the exit lane, respecting other road users, watching others speed off into the distance and wondering where they might be going. Then, quite by chance seeing yourself in another car, headed in the opposite direction.

These are not songs for funerals, old men or the bewildered. They're not for background noise or filler. Nor are they fit for some kind of careful eulogy or signing off, there's no apology to be had for listening and no easy explanation as to what they might mean. They are about something that's more than something. I just can't quite put my finger on it at the moment though, but on my next long journey I'll be there, alone, listening.