A place to park those random thoughts, stolen images, hidden conversations and incoherent babble from beyond the wall of sleep. Odd bits of music and so-called worldly wisdom may creep in from time to time. Don't expect too much and you won't feel let down.
... and it has not aged well.
The conversion chart illustrating how to move from being a Grateful Dead fan to becoming a Steely Dan fan. Stereotypes as points of reference abound of course. The good part of the comparisons is that they confirm my chosen life long position as a happy misfit - I'm not in there at all. As if you can't be both GD and SD and enjoy a flexible lifestyle. File alongside the dinosaur's remains.
It did make wonder about other equivalent conversion charts: Steeleye Span to Steely Dan, Alanis Morissette to Billy Ellish, Van Morrison to Morrissey, Public Image to Public Enemy ... and so on (groan).
The marketing men (and women) at Suzuki now think that my name is W'Barclay. I am newly baptized. The remains of my old name lie on the cutting room floor. Quite interesting for about 10 seconds I suppose. I did own a Jimny a few cars ago and it was a fun kind of vehicle in a quirky way. I'm unlikely to buy the yellow peril in this promotion however but I am intrigued as how my name has evolved within their system into this version. The Post Office are also already implicated in this affair.
Perhaps it's finally the real me coming through via the various distorted mailshot gremlins and it's been my proper name all along. My soul must now travel a long and winding road to find a way to connect to the new auto given name, punched into my reality through the fog filled ether. You just never really know what's factual or correct in the matrix.
In other less cynical news here's the 'Ferry foreshore from last night.
I hope you're happy. We're voting today, a nation shuffling along, pens in hand, masked and confused, oppressed under a number of contradictory delusions and bored with unreadable pamphlets. The recycling is collected today, eerily, a bumper haul for the industry as the unread rubbish slips away.
I'll be holding my nose as I tick the pale boxes in this almost meaningless democratic exercise. My sense of "this time we're really fucked" is registering at about 11. I say that because whoever wins it's the same old ... we've fallen into the hands of professional politicians who view themselves as being right ... all the time. Mistakes, they've made a few and on a regular basis but whatever transpires there will be no reckoning or retribution and no resignations. And they also reserve the right to kick unpopular political footballs into the long grass.
"It's an easy gravy train that's running and when you make the rules and can interpret those rules as you like, it's all gone for a ball of chalk. But we'll blame the pandemic, Westminster, Channel 4, Brexit, fishermen but never ourselves because "we" it seems cannot be wrong. We're all things now; queasy green, tolerant, transparent and listening. All fine messages to tweet as bullet points, but we're not going to take much notice of your petty grumbles or aspirations of social mobility and don't even mention the Alba word, however you pronounce it."
"We're the only Holyrood mafia now, we own the place, all colours welcome in the canteen clique, we'll stick together, it's our careers and elevated status that are stake you know. Debating is just a farce and a media show, don't expect anything serious, it's not our style. You should see how well we all get on at the Christmas party. Oh and we've done a few good deals, it's either the UN, a UNICEF post, the Lords or a nice speaking tour of US universities once you're fed up with the daily struggle."
Everything else? Well that was just a dream.
The twist is that, subject to the judgement of nutritional experts the winning chef must then survive on a Martian probe simulator eating only what was created for the daily menu. They are sealed into the simulator for six months with other err... well chosen victims (fellow celebs) in a Big Brother/Gilbert and George style space flight where the food choices are repeated every day. All filmed live etc. At the end the judges decide if the participants remained healthy as a result of the diet. Prize? Say a million pounds. Any takers?
Future series will of course feature an actual flight to Mars, post 2030 onwards.
Actually these are the good boys but I just wanted to use that title in a blog post (also a good song title that needs to be used). I quite like this photo anyway. I'll think of some relevant content and add it in at some future content adding and editing opportunity. Maybe tomorrow, maybe not. Nobody reads blogs so why not just park things in them?
Not the usual blurry Luftwaffe view of pieces of industrial Scotland often seen on these and similar pages, this is a little more recent and from less of a lofty altitude. For reference the tree in the centre just at the road junction marks the edge of what is now our front garden. The retaining dyke running from there down to the left is our southern garden wall nowadays. Our house would be in the middle - in a vague area of swampy wasteland. Our swampy thoughts remain as a tribute.
A lot has changed as time rolled by but since we followed the carefully constructed clues in the treasure hunt, allowing for demolitions and the beheading of the golden rabbit and the lead whale meltdown we are now home. We eventually found the missing pieces and inherited the lost kingdom of pinkish blocks and unmarked burial mounds. There are ghosts of course but we make our peace with them on a daily basis by offering the smoky bread and pale whisky to whatever ancient god will bother to listen. One tip: never wail at your demons, it simply makes them stronger.
Supermarket fruit is of course notorious for being tasteless and having a short life span (because it's been factory farmed out of any sensible season and flown here in the hold of some cargo jet). Yet we persist in buying the stuff, expecting the best and not getting it.
Stupidity is pretty much defined as doing the same thing over and over, hoping for a different result. Retailers don't really care as long as there's a "range". We didn't ask for robot tills, artisan bread counters and unseasonal produce but we got them. Oh, and much as I like Aldi, their fruit isn't up to much either.
Having said that vegan fish fingers made from breaded tofu infused with seaweed flakes do not really belong in a world that I want to live in. Nobody ever said "I could murder a vegan fish finger right now". Sometimes choice and privilege go too far.
Frankly I've always thought Waitrose was a wee bit shit, their store in Morningside Edinburgh is a tatty, pokey mess filled with overpriced products and shuffling, confused people like me (pensioners) hoping for a free coffee, but that's just my somewhat jaded opinion.
Hi, you can purchase this great colourful sonic beast on my eBay Channel right now for anything around £99,999; maybe slightly less or make some very decent offer and in so doing give me financial palpitations. Stupid bids and slightly intimidating messages are also welcome but only up to a point.
I can assure you that this block of wood has never belonged to any of the guitar greats, been played by them or even been in the same room as them, nor have any of them set fire to it or rolled a joint on the back of it or sniffed up any Charlie from the scratch plate through a milk shake straw. It seems those days are long gone but go on and smash that like button anyway.
Perhaps it's too boring for you, so I could, for a small fee, forge a celeb autograph and scrawl some daft message onto the front. Otherwise it's a fine and tuneful instrument in the hands of a fine and tuneful player, non-players will struggle however. We always negotiate with prospective buyers in a very civilized manner despite the reservations we may have about what we know about you and your life choices and motivations. Over to you.
However as a mere mortal you can buy what you like but you can never own Excalibur:
A very interesting archaeological discovery was made today in the ancient foundations of the chicken coop that once stood proud against the ravages of time at the bottom of our medieval garden. An early 21st century craft beer bottle was found whole and embedded, not in amber as is customary with this sort of find but in a mysterious substance that I suspect to be incorrectly mixed Blue Circle cement/concrete.
The bottle's original contents were gone however and it was filled only with a murky brown liquid that may well be muddy water. We await the results of the chemical analysis and the carbon dating process. The humans that placed this object there are now long gone and there are few remaining traces of their clearly primitive civilization, their artifacts and dark religious practices.
All we can do is gaze in wonder at the little that remains of a baffling lifestyle and hope that other forms of historical evidence or clues pointing to whatever purpose they may have had in their bizarre lives will be discovered as the excavations continue. Scottish history remains a baffling conundrum of conflicting fact, fiction and fabrication. Were they the good guys or the bad guys in the warped weave of the colonial tweed, or just hapless victims? If only a reputable intellect like Neil Oliver could shed some light on historical events with a well photographed but vacuous TV show.
I've already been in contact with the Discovery Channel and I can say (in the strictest confidence) that the offers are pouring in from museums and institutions all across the globe for this priceless and culturally significant object. You just never know what treasures are hidden there, maybe only a few inches below your tired and itchy feet as you mow the battered lawn.
Is it my maker?
Am I the breaker?
Has it come too soon?
Only the other day (as part of a freelance project I'm working on) the pack of PDF instructions was conveniently emailed rather than printed and posted to me. There's one print job that wont ever be happening on my patch. I suppose small pieces of some useful planet are being saved ...
I probably have to type out a message like this every few years just to clear the grit and smog from my soul, like some fugged up diesel particulate filter, so I'm not going to apologize.
