Spartacus

Spartacus, aka Tesco Cat (@TescoCat) has moved into a new form of social distancing at his occasional Tesco home. Instead of sitting in the foyer proudly on top of the anti-freeze or curled on the logs and firelighters he's now staying safe, below the radar in a cardboard box that only contains an actual cat and no flammable materials. Stay safe Spartacus. You'd all do well to follow his good example.

For the Record

 "Being retired from full time work is fine but one of the things I really miss is the undoubtedly wonderful feeling you get when  finishing the working week on a Friday. During this part of the lock-down (since October anyway) I've been doing some (paid) work every week and I can honestly say that the Friday Feeling is the best and most satisfying thing about actually working. There, said it!"

WFM or iRobot?

I am not (quite) a robot but I'm close to being machine busy (not true). It's just innocent social research work from the cat infested couch. In my revised working life I've become a professional voice. A hollow set of questions and polite noises trapped and wrapped in telephone wires and imageless Skype mechanisms. I chat with my clients carefully, safe from Covid and ridicule so they can tell me what they think and I can silently nod or roll my eyes or smile, sticking to the script, mostly. People, it turns out are not so bad, they just need to talk, to tell other people things. Who would have thought that? If you don't ever talk out loud and hear your own opinions then you're a ticking time bomb. It's that simple.

Not only am I a professional voice, a bit like Sean Connery used to be I suppose, I'm also a professional listener. Children crying and dogs barking in the background, over tuned TV sets, traffic grazing past, eating sounds, piped music and mysterious electrical blips. Is anyone listening to the listener I wonder? And then there is time, time monitors calls and conversations like an industrial process, we always know how long it all took. Unrecorded bits of history that are actually recorded and will never die as they translate into binary segments or summaries chasing themselves around in hot servers for what passes for a day's work these days. WFM, Working From Home. What does it all really mean?

There's an decent online forum happening that's all about paranoia but I don't think that you were included in the invitation.

Heaven and/or Hell

The ugly truth about how bad people can be: So when it all breaks down and when the crazies hit the streets, well there's nothing new here ...

Goya, the burial of the sardine: 1812.

I'm only posting this to remind myself, as if I needed reminding, that this shower of useless criminals and liars remain for the time being in charge of the country (wherever you might like to crayon in the borders). A government incapable of showing any compassion towards children and families in poverty etc. etc. it's a long list ad nauseum. Also we should never lose sight of the fact that as surely that Trump is the worst American President in history, then these tow-rags and charlatans form one of the worst British Governments ever. 

I don't believe in Heaven or Hell but every so often I like to fantasize that there is indeed a nasty, fiery hell and that these "righteous" politicians, greedy capitalist blood suckers, grey minded fascists, bigoted born again Christians and TV Evangelist types will simply wake there one day and get a nice surprise and a warm glow in their nether regions.

 Don't believe a word.

Jethro Tull - Live 1969

A strangely visceral little piece of film that captures the rough and ready rock experience of 1969 (Sweet Dream and For a Thousand Mothers live in Southampton). The quality is surprisingly good with the camera man being lucky not to have been punched in the face by Ian Anderson. That flute waving could have cost you an eye. Life was so simple then, a couple of WEM PA columns, 4 stacks of 4 x12s and no discernible light show, foldback or props. All for the purists and at bargain prices with no criminal ticket tout apps or fuss. You stood in a line and bought a ticket and you'd be home by ten thirty.

This is the original JT line up with Glen Cornick, Clive Bunker and Mick Abrahams backing up Ian Anderson. I met Mick Abrahams in a pub in Dunfermline a few years later, he was a sales demonstrator for Yamaha guitars and they'd just brought out their SG model. The Skids were there that night as he showed off the capabilities of the guitar. I think Stuart Adamson bought one there and then and the rest, as they say, is history.

The many things I don't understand

 

Some say this is a special and unique kind of show, new from Marvel. It's called Wandavision. There's a lot of hype, Twitter bursts and odd Gifs moving around in my peripheral vision like the survivors of a haunting. I'm slowly taking the bait, it's what I do. It's on Disney + however and at the moment my life is simply not compatible with this alternative televisual system. The fault of the Samsung engineers we are told although we've not been told anything official. So it will remain an enigma to me, wrapped up in tinfoil and smeared with melted chocolate of the darker kind and slightly frayed around the edges.

ASDA Sunset

 

Marvelous photo by Mark Fleming; the petrol station, ASDA, the Jewel, Edinburgh - under a blood red sky.

When everything seems to be a bit rubbish, you feel like a prisoner in your own home, feel guilty if you stay out a wee bit too long, can't see family and loved ones, can't think straight as the weirdest news bombards you and every politician just angers or irritates you with their ineptitude ... find beauty in simple things, everyday things, regular and obvious things. Also ignore the fact that petrol is for some reason back to £1.11 a litre, it's only one week in 2021's shit show and the fridge is broken down.

Despite the fridge being poorly, or at least running in an erratic manner, the current freezing weather, due to end shortly, means that perishable food, full fat milk and strange cheeses can safely and happily reside in our entrance vestibule. That is not any kind of euphemism or any other kind of ism, it's what you do when the technology breaks down. You work around it and triumph, eventually. 

J.A. Braithwaite Ltd.

Back when we used to go out and visit actual places: J.A. Braithwaite Ltd. Unexpected beverage shopping* and a journey through the past. Dundee's oldest shop has been selling fine teas and coffees since 1868, moving to its Castle Street premises in 1932. It's still there in 2020 and still trading and fully fitted out with all the necessary period coffee grinding and roasting equipment. Strangely (not sure why I say that but...) it has a Facebook page and not much else. I'm guessing people travel from far and wide to experience the blends, the very visble hand made process and the ambiance of a bygone age. In the current Covid Age, as it will be remembered, I imagine it's now firmly closed. Simple pleasures denied, I hope it survives.

*This could form the start of a new series: "Shops I've walked by 100s of times and never entered". 

Tesla and Revisionist History

Vehicle and appliance designers like to sell their newly dreamed up wares as clean, simple and desirable (aside from those in the wayward and over hyped Steam Punk universe), easy on the eye and pleasing to the person in the street. So could the Sinclair C5 and a Tesla vehicle go head to head, 40 odd years apart? One design that arrived at the right time in history and one that clearly didn't. 

But as an alternative view just imagine the C5 in late Victorian or Edwardian times (also imagine no cobbles but smooth roads and streets in those times) ... OK that's a rather large leap in imagination but if Nikola Tesla and Clive Sinclair had ever met up in a twisted warp of recent history; now there's an interesting sci-fi premise. Elon Musk could be scripted in as the eager if incompetent lab assistant who understands the magic of numbers and commercial persuasion better that the actual science. The typical maladjusted sideman/lab assistant trope really. 

He's the one who steals the ideas and eventually takes them to market as the two old heads look on aghast but with a strange sense of relief. Eventually the leap in technology they unwittingly create with their inventions and Musk's sales techniques and vision usurps the US rail and oil barons and also undermines and removes the corrupt European monarchies and World War 1 is averted and a golden age of science and technology dawns. 

Highways and bridges are built, electric airships and vehicles are commonplace and the oil stays mostly in the ground. The Titanic is still afloat and there's no Wall Street crash or Third Reich. There probably are a few other problems I'd imagine; Israel, Russia, China and Japan maybe? Oh and the the restless and down trodden Scots. We've still to conquer outer space though. This stuff just writes itself ...

Fine Figure of a Blackbird

One of the weird things about wild birds (or one of the weird things about people), is the way that once you recognize or become familiar with them in your garden. Then you begin to see them in other places. I should add these places are mostly outside in areas where you'd expect to see birds, in the air for example. 

I've been seeing "this" blackbird when I'm out enjoying my regulated times of allotted perambulatory exercise, some distance, but not too far, from home. It's as if he's following me like some guardian angel or dead relative. He communicates via head nods and imagined winks that I repeatedly fail to understand but he remains persistent, even as the message is lost. 

I've noticed both robins and blackbirds seem to have this curious ability. They crash into your world and then pop up unexpectedly in some hedgerow or bush. It's as if there were many wild birds out there, just appearing randomly and impersonating the ones in your garden and passing messages in some avian chain. Either than or yet another glitch in the Matrix.

Now he's tap, tap, tapping on the window glass ... you know where this leads.

Sharing Fun Facts

Once upon a time Facebook was cool: It was all too good to be true really, freely sharing fun facts, silly stories, holiday photos, cute pets, and birthday wishes with friends and family while the Facebook machine callously and coldly harvested all our data, sold it on and then allowed it to be used to influence and control global political outcomes, consumption and appetites. A kind of feast of digital cannibalism that we were eager to take part in. It seems so long ago now.

All we wanted were a few birthday reminders and for people to know the kind of films, music and sports we liked and maybe that we were happy, enjoying a sandwich or at least having a nice day. But we failed to realise that our simple wants, needs and likes were actual commodities as valuable as fossil fuels, gold, human trafficking or a large amount of the correct type of sewage. 

There are hungry markets for everything and, for the average person these days, you're either sold or about to be and you're going to be none the wiser or better off for it. Should you allow it? Someone is always greedily watching you and your precious data, it may well be us. Did you get that* Alexia?

*Finally there's the curse of experiencing Facebook remorse. That hollow, weird feeling of having finally done it, said it or shared it. Have I shared too much? Can I delete it before it's noticed? Is anybody listening? Nobody knows. Nobody cares either.

Hand to Mouth

The reasons why I couldn't bake this home made soda bread are many and varied so I'll not bother listing them here. Instead I'll just enjoy the bread and reflect on the next few weeks more of the Great Scottish Lockdown; not seeing family and friends, working from home and a January and February mostly spent on reflection, mopping up the debris from failed freezers and learning life's cruel lessons. Please note that going stir crazy is not an option.

For one thing I've now learned some baking facts regarding the various white powders you might use. It has come to pass that mostly by trial and error I now know that baking soda, bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar though similar are not the same. I did not learn this by baking but by purchasing, one of my shakier lifetime skills that I'm now eager to develop, that and listening properly. Those small pieces of key knowledge should see me through until the end of January anyway. After that I'll try to focus on learning something else.

Crisp white snow on frozen fields

1. The Met Office have issued an amber warming that the recent fall of slushy and watery snow has resulted in a highly dangerous amount of "Wintry Scene" Instagram, Facebook and Blog posts. Please take great care when entering this area and try to limit your usage and exposure. You risk being duped into believing that some of your friends as well as random App users actually have perfect lives. Ultimately the weather's own honesty will put paid to this exercise as the cold rains wash the planet clean again. Thank you.

2. Over in sunny Italy the following diagram has been widely circulated amongst the general public. It's being held up as describing the great plan to inject 5G chips and tracers into unwitting humans as part of the Covid vaccination program. Bill Gates is, quite naturally blamed for the entire ruse. The sad truth is that it's a circuit drawing for a guitar "metal tone" boost pedal.

3. It's also been established that our friends (?) in the Luftwaffe were planning to bomb our house back in 1939, even before it was planned or built. How's that for forward thinking?

Know your socks

If you don't already know your socks then you really should start to know your socks. Start by noting nomenclature, design, size, type and manufacturer. This knowledge could, during a period of instability, social breakdown or temporary insanity save your life. You know that knowing this sort of thing makes a shed load of sense. For reference the socks pictured* are "Nordic Socks" in the style of "Ragnar". Size 6 - 11. Other makes and styles are available on request.

For best effect please imagine that this instruction is being bellowed into your left ear by a shrill male voice on an icy cold military parade ground at 6.30 AM.  

*Not all the information displayed is correct and we take no responsibility for any unfortunate consequences following on from your stupidity.

Fergus Sings The Red, White and Blues

I've always had a soft spot for this song and for Deacon Blue, even if they were never really cool. I guess they had integrity but I'm unsure how that might have manifested itself other than in this song. Actually I've never listened to an album of there's all the way through, just singles here and there. But this song seems to me to be valuable stab at expressing some kind of self awareness regards the pitfalls and contradictions that come with being Scots and trying (or at least hoping) to be artsy or soulful or just a little creative. 

There's some baggage here I fear. Scots can do these things quite well, world class even, but the nagging doubts remain and corrode the shaky outcomes and we can so easily self destruct, curl up and hibernate. Our traditional home grown tunes remain tricky to navigate so we embrace and misappropriate all those other peculiar styles that we feel must be better than the tartan bass-line and the shortbread beats.

The truth is Fergus can't sing the blues (though he can certainly try and have fun doing it) and he can't sing Hip-Hop, Ska, Rap, Mid Atlantic Jazz or Thrash Metal either. He lacks the authenticity, he's lived the wrong life. You see poor old Fergus is from a housing estate in Central Scotland and, well, he is and we are a wee bit of a joke when it comes to entertainment and art ... so some may say. Too small, too stupid, too self conscious and much too self aware ... but we still dream of Memphis.

Goals for 2021

 

Where to start with this one? I guess most people's goal for 2021 would be just to get through it, to survive, to be there at the end ready for 2022, still standing. That's a reasonable enough aspiration and if your circumstances are tough then a fair one. In 2021 I'll turn 66, not a bad age to be, but one that comes with some questions, the normal wear and tear and baggage. I'll be an official pensioner then, so how should I behave or conduct myself, how do old age pensioners actually think? The same as everyone else I imagine, apart from the fact that you're a few years, days, minutes closer to the cliff edge that is your own mortality. Don't take risks, eat sensibly, don't break a hip etc. Or, drink, smoke and eat all you like, say what you like and don't give a fuck?

Apart from the continued confusion and human fallibility it's all probably going to be fine. I've garnered enough life experience to know that what I say and most of what I do doesn't really matter, it's already floating off into the cosmos and leading a reasonable little life of it's own. A silent echo of what was and what shall be. So, I'll be content to leave less mess, clear up as I go, try to be kind, try to listen, try not to bite when antagonized and avoid too much alcohol and spicy food ... and love as much as I can when I can. That's a good start.

So is there a difference between "goals" and "own goals"? Yes, own goals hurt a whole lot more and their impact and legacy last a whole lot longer. I know I'll score some own goals in 2021, I just hope that they don't make any real difference. It's scoring real goals that counts. In conclusion, just live your best life. The score you get will reflect that.

Troublesome Moon

From our soon to be released winter collection for 2021, "Troublesome Moon", seen here creating trouble (as the name suggests): Producing bouts of insanity and strange behaviour, provoking werewolves and vampires, turning tides, inspiring bad poetry and art (?), giving people funny ideas, shaping months and time in general, encouraging the exploration of space and nearby planets and lighting up the night. The spooky old moon has a lot to answer for. Available early January from the usual outlets and on-line galleries. Ask for a discount and see where that gets you.

._______________________________________.

P.S. So as the end of 2020 rolls around, what are we to say? The slow end to a deflated year where one bad thing happened after another (there were good things too, I'm sure). That sense of being ground down and then just floating, trapped in lock downs and weird isolation periods in an out of body experience, political fibs and poor excuses, clock watching and then calendar watching. Your soul drifting away in some deep and disturbed Covid dream like a loose balloon, no proper work or purpose for periods of time and a nagging anxiety about nothing that can be easily described. Looking back it's a grey cloud, hanging up in a pallid sky set across specks of lost and dusty time particles, mostly punctuated by hastily arranged, oddly happy picnics and spells of mild delirium. Thanks 2020, it's been interesting to say the least. I'm also still firmly European and I refuse to be crushed.

Stream them on Spotify

Stream us on Spotify, we'll never make any money anyway so what the hell. Despite the scenario above and the pained expression on Bart's face, it's not some kind of punishment, honest.

Spiders on Drugs

 

Some modern/recent history:

Allegedly scientists from NASA gave spiders drugs and recorded and measured the outcome of the exercise by comparing the webs they had spun. I'll leave you to your own conclusions.

A similar study was carried out on a selection of fifth year pupils at Dunfermline High School in 1971, the full results were never published but I understand that Skol lager and water chestnuts did quite well.

The "Spiders on Drugs" came very close to being David Bowie's backing band about the same time. Not sure what became of them.

This is not here

It's that Covid time of year again here in Tier 4 country: To be honest there's a kind of chilly, winter grubbiness hanging about the village, curtains twitch, dustbins overflow and in the distance hounds howl. The street Christmas lights and decorations have an ironic, tired out ring about them, then some bulbs flicker and slowly fade and pop. The shutters are down and the cobbles have the icy blue sheen of slippery wet dolphin backs. Here in the still and baffled never-land between Christmas and New Year, all non-essential shops and businesses are closed, there are ragged queues at take-away cafes and bored visiting city dwellers shuffle by, eyes half open and shielded from the cold by grim, seasonal determination and well planned layers of sports clothing. 

Staying safe and at home, trapped by TV,  might be a better idea. Why get yourself struck down by Covid in a coffee queue just for some fresh air ten strange miles from home? Going out when you needn't for a drink you don't enjoy in a town that's firmly locked up and fashionably ghostly. Ho hum. Of course I'm one of those lost and wandering zombies too, part of a cloud of a crowd, safely social distancing by walking in the middle of the road. All dressed up and nowhere to go and unwilling to stand in line for a tiny flat white in a paper cup, paid for by contactless; how appropriate.  Business as usual I suppose.

By the way nobody wants any 2020 review TV shows, no comedic reflections on Brexit, no "why Barnard Castle became a tourist destination" articles and no lists of the Top Ten items to panic buy and stockpile in 2021. Thanks.