Box of Frogs

 

Sorry, what I actually meant to say was box of logs.

In other news I hear that Edinburgh is now sadly without it's Duke. It stands Dukeless and bereft I imagine. No mean city. A mere shadow etc etc. I wonder who will step up and into this prime vacancy?

Meanwhile on Friday the BBC shows it's respect by disrespecting a few million licence fee payers, and there will be blanket coverage probably for the rest of the week too. This is neither healthy or balanced. Strange how they, by that I mean the establishment, assume that we must all feel the same way no matter what, they're afraid so they overplay their control. National mourning etc. All trouser legs to be set to half mast. If you want to count me ... count me out.

Big Cat Little Cat

 

Cat Diary: Rare and unusual photo of our two cats actually sitting together - peacefully. They remained in this position for a while just chillin'. Odd to see the relative difference in their sizes, Clint has a huge head compared to his mum and is obviously heavier, though not as heavy as he once was. She's tiny in comparison but far more energetic and active, but they are both well past middle age now so warm spaces to relax are more important than dark places to hunt.

Valneva to the Rescue

Valneva's new anti-Covid bombs: Made in Scotland but not from girders, condensed milk or turnips. There's a fairly complex pharmaceutical process involved I imagine that requires better, more sophisticated ingredients. 

Valneva (they're from France you know, but don't tell the government), manufactures its Covid vaccine at a plant just doon the road in Livingston, said the results of their phase one/two study showed the vaccine was "highly immunogenic with more than 90% of all study participants developing significant levels of antibodies" to the Covid virus spike protein. Those who received a medium dose of the vaccine showed an 89.8% immune response, while people given a high dose showed a 100% response. 

This is good news for Scots and humanity (in an otherwise slow news kind of week, apart from some welcome colour returning to the streets).

Mystic Mons Meg

 

The future is a strange and unknown country and there are many views and opinions as to how it might look for us here in Alba-Land. So I've been flexing my spiritual muscles and peering forwards into the gloom by getting in contact with Mystic Mons Meg, just to see how the old cannon might be viewing things from the rarified heights of Edinburgh's fortified buildings society. The consultation was a bit one sided, perhaps the spirits weren't really moving smoothly in the pre-election climate. Unsurprisingly it was looking like a more or less a "wait and see" kind of non-verbal answer for me. That's the world of spirits for you.

The air and water were undisturbed and the fire was gently snuffed out by the chill of the north winds, but then from deep inside Meg's own rusty (unused in anger) barrel a small, still voice whispered; "You know the SNP don't really want an independent Scotland, they're quite comfortable riding along on their own wee gravy train." I nodded silently and walked off home, back down the deserted castle esplanade.

Then out of the blue (and the red) the postman unwittingly provided welcome kindling for the log burner wrapped up in some views and ideas for me to ponder. Nice to see some agreement between the reds and the blues as they tackle key issues; the common enemy and general disquiet (as understood by their lords, ladies and puppet masters in the fair city of London). 

Bothered by Tory leaflets?

Stick them in an envelope addressed to:

FREEPOST RSBB-XRZT-ZTXE

Conservative Party Foundation

30 Millbank

London

SW1P

Thanks for not joining our club

 

Nothing personal, there's nothing wrong, nothing bad to say. I'm just not up for joining your club or clan. All the best with your social endeavors, motoring trips and so on. Cars, coffee and Instagram are fine by me, but I'm possibly the wrong age and don't fit the demographic. My clothes and hair style might look out of place. You wouldn't like me much either. I can be a little awkward over things, but not really.

I often (actually not very often) wonder if this might be the story of my life ... or is it simply a story line that I'm conveniently telling myself as some entertaining piece of fiction? Or am I just on some immature superficial journey of self discovery, an internal and voluntary meander with no final destination? Yeah, blogging's such a grown up pastime. 

Cat Food Fingers

Cat's are fussy buggers. Our two have lost their taste for the posh cat foods, marketed with sophisticated human sensibilities in mind but designed for the feline animal appetites. Now we're onto Asda Tiger meaty chunks in rich gravy, the Aldi equivalent is equally prized but harder to come by (Aldi's inventory balance being a lot more volatile).

The gourmet sachets and tubs have experienced the unclipped claws of customer betrayal and are now sniffed and ignored, the cat's just want some basic chewy meat from unknown sources and the fatty gravy. Those high end "recipes" with the stupid names and prime cuts no longer make it. 

I'm fine with that but the cheaper cat food does stink, at both ends of the process and of course neither posh nor economy are as good as a succulent fresh vole, mouse or baby blue tit. Wash all cat food contaminated fingers diligently after use.

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Oh, here's a link to the banned study piece on Scottish Independence by Scott and Chapman, that's nothing much to do with cat food of course but I'm parking it here anyway, mainly because it seems that "they" don't want it to be read or shared ... or do they?

Memories of burned pies

                        

We're currently operating under kitchen duress and below our normal standards with a less than perfect gas oven that refuses to be regulated. It's old and broken.  Everything ultimately burns up, the only two working settings being on and off. Like some solar giant spewing erratic streams of fire it's slowly dying and it's unpredictable. We've learned the hard way that gently heating things up as opposed to cooking them requires precise timing and calculation ... in other words it's impossible. 

Having said that most items that emerge from the oven are pretty much edible, there's just that element of danger and uncertainty about how things will turn out. You need to remain very observant and alert during the process. The good news is that our new oven is on the way (via Singapore and the Suez Canal or somewhere), all subject to Covid sorting itself out and various other 2021 shaped imponderables. 

We have decided against a new B&Q oven and the matching kitchen units for obvious reasons.

Yesterday's beer/tomorrow's coffee

Using the term "beer" rather loosely as this is actually porter, darker, thicker and a bit more bitter to the tiny taste buds on the human tongue. I was wondering how it might taste to an animal, say an octopus or a kangaroo. That's a piece of research I've not heard about nor have I seen any of the results. Nice enough tasting for me though. 

To sum up: I was out of doors then I went into a shop. Once inside I saw this beer on display and bought a couple of bottles. Then I returned to the outside world and gulped a few lung fulls of fresh air and then I went home (still quietly gulping air using my automatic breathing function). Eventually I drank some of the beer, as pictured. By this time I had removed my face mask. The bottles will be recycled. 

On line people were asking me questions about coffee, mostly  Nespresso, as if I cared. Posh tiny metallic pods of coffee that they like to pretend rich folks enjoy, apparently I should try them too. Not sure about that. It's a broken model in my opinion. It also requires some investment in a possibly corrupt coffee distribution infrastructure that I'm not ready for.  How was your day?

POMPLAMOOSE - Bby Shrk

This is not becoming a habit but ... It's pretty easy to fill the vacant white space with somebody else's content. Anything goes in the gnawing emptiness of a polluted and lost soul; searching, reaching out and finding validation in vapid social media nonsense.

Shameless opportunism and laziness etc. That's show business (there's no business like it you know). 

But it's a sunny morning, My mind is elsewhere. Good Friday even. 

So there's a high chance good things might even happen on such a day, though not much can top human sacrifice, crucifixion and an ultimate work of redemption for all mankind; unless it's a sizeable and chunky chocolate Easter egg gift.

Pop goes the fire cairn

I've no clear idea what's going on here, some arty kind of thing I suppose. An artist looks to have been involved. Piling up stones and composing. 

I'm not really connected with that world at all - composing using stones.

But it's all quite interesting. 

The installation took place down by Dunbar. A town on the east coast (the opposite of the west coast) where unsurprisingly the land and sea connect, complete with jagged edges. As a result they have some cliffs and beaches that look quite tricky to access. No bad thing. Keeps the zoomers out. 

The old furniture burned quite well. 

Eventually the tide will extinguish the fire, I imagine.

That may be a metaphor for something.

On April 1st I keep my head down for reasons of temporal humour.

Message ends.

5 for a Fiver

I'm not sure what I was thinking, a fairly common experience for me. I'd been watching a YouTube snippet of Terry Reid performing at Glastonbury in 1971 and was also idly reading a little about his musical career, or his lack of a career you might say. A nearly man who seemed to miss out on one opportunity after another but is still going (?) strong  somewhere in the music business, in quasi obscurity. He was always highly regarded by the press and his peers but lacked that magical edge the others had. Wrong places, wrong times, who knows? So despite a decent voice and a quirky kind of talent he remained a ghostly figure during rock's golden years when the rest were cashing in. Now he's old and grizzly, like me.

Then into my irregular Amazon feed came a daft offer; five of his albums in a box (I don't mind CDs either) for a fiver. I agreed to make the transaction. That was a few weeks ago. I'm now trying to decide at what point I give them a listen, perhaps on some future longish car journey when Radio 4 isn't interesting. I'm procrastinating. 

History is repeating itself here, I'm sure back in 1971/72 I saw Terry on the Old Grey Whistle Test playing songs from "The River". Bob Harris was very enthusiastic about the album. I meant to give it a listen, but I never did. It all just floated away, for me and about a million others I guess. We moved on silently. Now I find myself in the same place. When will I ever get round to listening to Terry Reid? Deja Vu.

Your Theological Questions Answered

So is jealousy a sin?

Jealousy falls under the tenth commandment - do not covet. Jealousy is the noun that relates to the state of being jealous: “feeling resentment against someone because of that person's rivalry, success, or advantages; inclined to or troubled by suspicions or fears of rivalry, unfaithfulness.”

Is God a jealous God?

"Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. Exodus 34:14.

In Exodus 20:5, when God commands that His people worship no other gods, He acknowledges it is because “I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God". So he's pretty much admitting it.

Scholars might say, God isn't so much jealous, he's just zealous ... hmm.

(The old "lost in the translation from the Hebrew/Greek/whatever" explanation).

I think God's jealous and therefore, on balance, he's a sinner. And a pretty big cosmic one.

He's a Boogie Man.

That explains a lot.

It's not a firm base on which to build a religion either.

Nobody cares anyway.

Gateway to Disruption

 

From a Scottish perspective: I'm quite enjoying the SNP's shock and outrage that "somebody else" should have the temerity to start up other political party focused on delivering an independent Scotland (whatever you may feel about that as a goal). The Alba Party and the ISP (there may be others) have a perfect right to exist and to mount any challenge over key issues they feel strongly about. (I'm ignoring personalities here).

That was how I thought democracy worked. It's certainly how disruption works. It's also a taster as to how the political landscape might look post independence. It's going to be pretty toxic out there.

Turns out not everyone thinks it's a good idea to have more choice or more voices puffing and spouting into the ether. I'm thinking that with all the finger wagging, high energy rhetoric and spitting taking place ... media types, journalists, spads and politicians need to remember that they really don't own anything. Not even their self generated hot air.

At best they might construct a policy, perhaps even deliver on a policy. At worst they are just mouth pieces and influencers; positively or negatively or quietly ignored. So don't believe a word - or at least very little of what's blethered, boasted and leaked until something tangible is produced.

Social Commentary

For those with severe unicorn envy I can only say, please don't try to be something you cant quite be (to the point that you become a danger to yourself or slightly delusional ). In due course the universe will reward you. I'm not sure with what though.

-------------------------------------------------------

Also:

I realised properly today that most adults eventually become "Collies". They want to put disorder into some kind of order. It's a powerful urge. A group of youths moving down the street or across a car park seem to pose a threat. Why? Because they move randomly, they'll stop without warning. They chat, shout, behave in an unpredictable manner, maybe turn round suddenly and head off in the opposite direction, like sheep. 

Adults see this disjointed and illogical behaviour as dangerous. It's not, it's just kids moving around,  making noise, having fun, being; without having the burden of purpose and timing in what they do. Adults quickly forget this and need to create order. They (we) often judge kids too harshly, expecting them to act like adults when they are not.

I'd also add that kids are obviously not angels, things can escalate quickly in groups (adults are also prone erratic actions - big time) and get out of hand. The trick is to know when the tipping point occurs, then you might have turn on the sheep dog (Collie) instinct and authority .... or turn a blind eye. 

Bot Conversations

 

Some recently composed examples of the dialect spoken (and typed) in Botland. A slightly wild place that's  just over there, nearby in the distance. Even though I don't speak the language it all makes perfect sense to me. In time I plan to make peace with the natives and establish diplomatically harmonious relations. I don't intend to fall into the trap of playing at colonial conquests either, an attractive though inhuman objective. Then again I may just ignore them, as you would noisy neighbours who have some other good qualities. 

Unnecessary Things

The tracks of my tears and personal data: 

All those sadly redundant cables that live in the darkness of our drawers and cupboards. Throwbacks to old equipment and connections, a multitude of ways of doing things in non standard ways that were standard once. The different ideas of joined up thinking and disjointed disposable devices. A competition that was hard to win because there was no finish line, just a vanishing point. The odd lost socks of electronics. 

All before the days of the blue toothless, wireless and whatever else that was less and could be under engineered. Progress doesn't care about anything, except for seeing it's own dust in the rear view mirror. Now it's hard to part with these dinosaur bones and so they languish. You never know, they all might come in handy one day. Just not anytime soon. 

Just another Twitter blocking

Keep your enemies close they say. Well these guys aren't my actual enemies, they just get right up my nose and I cant be bothered with them, so if they happen (via a sponsored link no less) to appear uninvited in my feed I feel obliged to push the block button. There are better things to read and/or ignore.

Numerous other organisations and bots have felt the weight of my mighty index finger in this way, sending these irritating accounts to Room 101. Blocking Gov.uk was a particularly pleasing little moment. Also quite nice to zap those stupid click bait accounts that pop up like early morning lawn mushrooms, those and banking adverts.  It's one of my few chances in life to be some sort of digital hitman, delivering a humane form of judgement and retribution ... quietly.

There are of course some baddies that I tolerate, if only to see what bollox they are peddling or purely for some feeble entertainment and shock factor. There is always the vague hope that they will in some way blow up in flames whilst I'm watching. Social media is just a primitive and destructive visual lottery of chaos.

Other Bricks, Other Walls

Late to the party? Every other day it's something's 50th anniversary. That's a useless fact. The culture of eternal replay is strong right now, grainy clips championed on YouTube and boxed sets with extensive notes and "tell all up to a point" books. So many memorable things happened about 50 years ago, most of which I've failed to remember until some active Tweeter or digital journalist reminds me by posting a brief celebratory message. Mostly along the lines of "they're not quite dead yet!" The product parade duly follows. 

I imagine older folks being jolted out of their surgical couches and spilling their porridge as yet another King Crimson, Pink Floyd, football (when it was good), punk, movies or motoring milestone is mentioned, or even worse the lives of our Royal Family or some (golden) TV series are given the hallowed retrospective treatment. For these icons, a certain age of being creates opportunities for sanctification, redemption and revenue; so many grizzled heroes stuck or lost in the woolly mists of the past seeking a final fling of revival and explanation. 

Of course I completely understand the need to keep things alive and despite myself still grudgingly support these odd activities, apart from those feckin' Royals.

Funny how trying to understand the past seems quite important, even the quietly irrelevant and trivial parts, as if that knowledge,  once acquired, would somehow help us to fix the present and make safe the more scary aspects of the future. All very unrealistic in it's analogue splendor, but an occasional quick dip into nostalgia's unheated pool can be refreshing. The past is OK but it's no place to live.

Drone Orchestra

These quasi-silent, singleton, single tone musical works in all their avant-garde splendor are easy to access and enjoy; music lover and friend we're whispering into your being's very core. 

Listen carefully as we broadcast directly to your inner ear, somewhere above the plane of a dog whistle and below the hum of your age induced tinnitus and in between your cynical outlook on the arts. 

The sweet spot in other words.

You will probably hear nothing but you will definitely experience something. 

Money back guarantee if 100% complete, soul filling, over powering aural pleasure is not experienced (up to a point). 

Regular music is so overrated.

The Modern Interior

 

"One fine day, subject to the will of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, we may well all live comfortably indoors, agog and aghast and surrounded by some unexpectedly stylish and fashionable furniture of one kind or another. We have no doubt that it will all be fully functional, compact and bijou. Remember, we have your inner peace and satisfaction firmly in our mind. So thank you kindly for the enquiry, your call is appreciated and will be returned nearer the time once more sign up information becomes available."