Alfa 166

I was moaning and droning on about ugly modern cars and SUVs a few weeks ago, a pointless rant really, as if my opinions might actually change anything. So by way of an upbeat and positive alternative here's what I consider to be one of the best looking cars ever, though possibly not the most reliable; the Alfa Romeo 166. 

I nearly bought one (two actually) a few years ago, just as I was moving from my Ford Cougar ownership phase. The first was a dark blue one with a lovely tan leather interior but I rejected it as it clearly had a faulty info screen and a repair would have been costly. The other one was silver with a black leather interior (like the one above) but the deal seemed dodgy. The seller met me in a Macdonalds car park which is never a good sign. The car checked out OK but there seemed to me to be something odd about the log book details and so I just walked away (still with a wad of cash in my inside pocket). I still wonder about that car ...

Tuesday Morning

Here's my latest self portrait wittily entitled "Tuesday morning, none the wiser". Before settling for that title I did mull over "Tuesday moron, appetizer" and "Tuesday moaning, no Alzheimers" but after those three strikes I got bored and moved on to elsewhere, wherever that is. I also hear that there's a 9% chance of rain today, at some point.

Terry Reid album score: I'm currently sitting at 4 out 5 CDs listened to. Quite a strong listening performance over the past week.

Cashew number three please: an actual photograph of Sunday's roasted sea-bass with cashews and badly placed cutlery.

Little Nemo

There's a Twitter account called "International Times" that publishes a few old pages and articles from the infamous late 60s/70s rag from time to time. Mostly Fat Freddy's Cat, the Freak Bros and arty mind blowing shit etc. The other day this page from Little Nemo in Slumberland by Winsor McCay was posted, a bit of a memory jogger for me. His artistry and imagination always impressed me and his huge scenes of curvilinear perspective work were incredible.

This predates the normal IT cartoon fodder by 50+ years but McCay's work always had that extra trippy factor that appealed to the hippie types that IT pandered to, namely the likes of me. Of course Nemo was of his time and so a few awkward stereotypes and well trod cultural norms remain there, unedited for a modern readership that knows better. Also a reminder that long before Finding Nemo's clownfish adventurer there was Little Nemo and of course Captain Nemo before that.

Don't dream it's over

There may be open roads, 

There should be better days,

Not for the few but the many,

In our time, times can change.

Avocado Farming

 

First of all I apologize for this weird phallic-like image, it is of course a primitive avocado farm set in a wobbly glass and nothing else. The milk bottle does have a certain history and may well be older than me but that's a story for another day. So we've been trying to grow avocado plants for a while now, almost a year and there has been not a lot of success. Methods have varied, all based on cherry picking internet search advice but for one reason or another all we've seen are slowly rotting seeds floating in murky water. 

This latest attempt is no different and nothing noticeable has occurred with this seed in about three months. However it's now facing west rather than east, will the weather and fertility gods look kindly upon it? I doubt it. My wild dream of owning Scotland's most successful avo-farm is slowly dying and quite rightly too.

The Sound of Metal

A bit late with this but hey ho. I watched this film a few weeks ago, it was surprisingly good (not even sure why I think that) and quite moving. Only really a few minutes of noisy metal music so nothing for the sensitive or uninitiated to fear. It left me with no desire whatsoever to play the drums, drive an enormous RV across the USA or lose my hearing anytime soon. Overall that's a positive outcome I'd say. 

Sonic Cathedrals of the Head

 

Inner voices: Who can fail to be seduced and beguiled by the over optimistic tones of a voicemail voice? Your call is always wanted and welcome but dash and darn the recipient just cant pick up now because there's chickens to be fed, fresh white bed sheets to be hung out in the sun, milk to churn to butter and an apple pie that just wont bake itself. Busy bees are we in the warm darkness that lies in the silent vacuum beyond the unanswered phone. They'll be so pleased on that one wonderful day when you call and they pick up and all is well in the world.

Nothing is real of course. How would you feel if your number was blocked, that they see it on the screen and with no thought other than to just button you out? The have better things to do. You don't belong in their world and your only compensation is to be calmed by the smooth tones and oscillations of the prerecorded voicemail fairy - unless you're with Giff-Gaff where the voice belongs to some drunk bloke from Yorkshire bellowing in a pub at about 10:30 on a Saturday evening. He was paid for the gig in pints I believe.

Oat Milk Bomb

Just because I haven't mentioned milk bombs for a while doesn't mean they've become obsolete or gone away. They are constantly evolving in this house. Now the oat based bombs are currently popular here. Simply add a "bomb" of  Actimel to a glass of (oat) milk, fresh from the fields and bang, or slurp I suppose.

Please don't take this as an endorsement for ASDA or Actimel products either. I'm a free agent, unsponsored and without any valid means of commercial support. I happened to purchase these products on a rare day out and they work well for me.

Everyday Things

Among our food stocks these baguettes are relatively long lived. On constant display in the kitchen they have failed to look attractive enough to eat for about three months. I think it's down to disliking the effort required to heat them up in the oven,  for at least ten minutes, that and fitting them into our wonderfully eclectic but conservative weekly menu. This carefully constructed menu is mainly based around impulse buys, the occasional surplus and strange leftover combinations. Sadly these baguettes will have failed to be part of that, but I remain confident that their time will come. 

So back to everyday things, a short list:

Discovering MORE buried paving blocks in the garden, digging them up and planting clematis.

Listening to Radio 6 for a morning and discovering I'm not completely out of kilter with the world of Radio 6 - not sure if this is a good thing.

Painting white over dark grey over light grey in a home decoration experiment.

Visiting the local recycling bins and coming to the conclusion that nobody gives a fuck.

Sitting on the couch along with a cat desperate to scratch his ear on my laptop as I try to work.

Trying to understand the media's obsession with the Mitfords, mainly anything they wrote, said or did.

Hoodwinked by feeble key rings.

Something Else Wrong

Old news in tin hats: "Send in the gunboats!" You can be sure the Daily Mail and Daily Express will use this kind of stupid language anytime that the UK's sovereignty is seen to be under threat. As if the Navy can somehow fix things by pointing guns and missiles at innocent people. I worked in and for the Navy for years, they really don't like this kind of trashy talk. It would be nice to live in a country where the media is actually grown up and mature in it's outlook and comments, but that's not how it is. Just look at the election coverage this weekend.

Absurd Foods

Tales of absurd food No.1 - A special effect that turns high quality eggs into tomatoes has been developed by NASA and Lockheed Skunk-works. Apparently they taste just like chicken though some extra seasoning may be required for actual space flight use on the up coming Mars program. 

This might not be important

 ... 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).

Suzuki Thinks

 

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.

Voting Today?

 

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.

Menu to Mars

Going full on accidental Alan Partridge with this one; a TV cookery show pitch with a cruel twist. Celebrity chefs/cooks have to design a daily menu that will sustain life and maintain health on a journey from Earth to Mars (however long that takes but I imagine six months). The meals must contain all the essentials needed to survive and thrive but the menu must be repeated every day during the flight, there is no variation. 

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.

What Use Is That To Anyone?

Rather good song and rather good lockdown style video to go with it (as is the custom) from some Edinburgh based friends. They're so busy and creative with their big city EH postcodes while we're just looking at the moon in puddles and trying not to burn our fingers on the fake gourmet macaroni cheese we're munching whilst Netflix buffers. Anyway, what use is that to anyone?

A series of unfortunate events

 

Everything was going quite swimmingly; Canadian and Mexican breakfasts, David Crosby's sloop turned up in the marina (anchored for a day), we lost ourselves in a B&Q maze and a Colin the Caterpillar cake was happily scoffed. Then the curse of the ubiquitous raisin (or sultana) struck and an unexpected emergency occurred. In the end it was a "phew, glad that worked out" kind of incident. 

As a means of relaxing we changed the habits of a lifetime and decided to watch a live (?), final episode of Line of Duty rather than just catch up via a 60 second segment on Gogglebox. Is this how TV should actually be watched these days? I'm not sure but as for BBC drama, it all seems to be hastily written and focused on a series of unfortunate events.

Last of the good girls

 

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?

Some far away field

 

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.

Horrible Grapes

Yesterday I was horrible to Waitrose so just to maintain a balanced output I'd like to say these grapes that I bought from Tesco are about the worst I've ever tasted. Seedless and with a strange taste from both the red and green. Bad medicine in the guise of fresh fruit. Avoid these at all costs - £2 a punnet. 

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.