Inner Conflict

When you buy things you don't really want to consume but that simply look good on the fridge shelf so you'll be cheered up every time you open it's door. There may well be a longish German word/term for this kind of eccentric behaviour, I don't know. If there isn't then there should be. I'm looking forward to handing one these, along with a glass nicely topped up with ice, as a cooling drink to a visitor one fine day in the near future.

South Queensferry Daily Photo

FFS South Queensferry, you need to up your game. What is this? Street Art? A prelude to the Edinburgh Fringe? Perhaps it's some piece of social commentary referring to homeless issues, refugees, the plight of wildlife or poor waste management. Surely everybody knows that a good teddy bear like this deserves a more dignified send off than abandonment on a rubbish pile. Anyway no worries, he's coming to live with us now*. There, that's it sorted.

*Subject to Home Office clearance, security and criminal background checks, ethic origin evidence acceptance, health conditions, vaccination records, suitable bio-metrics and having a fair wind behind us.

Coasting

Concrete barriers from a time when coastal defences were required, not for increased sea levels but for possible invasion. They still speak of threats, remote for a time but maybe not so remote now. Their defensive moment is long gone but I bet the builders felt good about putting them in place. Funny how people need to just do things; bake a pie, cut the grass, hoover the stairs or build a barricade. Somehow it makes things better even it the final product is ineffective or irrelevant to the situation arising. It fills up the time, coasting perhaps. I'll go on and boil a kettle, just in case. 

Football

 

Yesterday's foray into footballing misery found us at Gayfield Stadium in Arbroath. Like a poor pop festival on concrete. Plump security staff preside over our entry, the Pie Hut and six sad portaloos provided for the seven hundred that made up the traveling support. That's the common standard for what you get with an £18 ticket. We saw our team, Dunfermline, beat one nil. On a sunny afternoon and despite enjoying a black pudding and steak pie and some good company the universe was clearly against us. It's the one thing you cannot beat. Footballing fate is always cruel for one of the teams involved. Neither side played particularly well. My team hit the post twice, the bar once and were denied a penalty. In my head we were 1 - 4 up. How a fan sees it versus reality and the universe.

Lower league games maybe lack the quality and panache of the higher leagues but as a "fan" who attends this subtle torture once a month I see it as a better, earthier experience. The top needs the bottom to survive. Where players and coaches learn their trade, hear the praise and abuse and remain unrewarded and unrecognised unless they break through the pie crust and into a top drawer club. You sell your soul on the way there but what were you ever planning to do with your soul anyway? The unsold souls of yesterday's game have their aches and pains this morning and probably don't care much about the scores. They put a shift in, just like a team member at McDonalds or a Russian soldier and now it's all about the next one and a bollocking from the manager. Just you against the universe, that's everyone's fate. 

Coffee, pies and concrete.

Dead Meat

We don't eat this sort thing very often, a big chunk of meat that is, cooked to perfection. Consuming it might take a few days. It did.

Royal Yacht

I'm not a serious economist but clearly there's now no need to order and build a new Royal Yacht for the royal family (God bless them and keep them in their ignorant splendor) and waste mega-bucks. Simply seize any one the numerous ex-oligarch yachts lying idly about in whatever watery space they are parked in and repurpose it. Then the royals can take it out for a paddle whenever they like if they simply cover the running costs; two weeks in the summer and week at Christmas. Also when not in use it could be on Airbnb and offered up for holidays and weddings for the general public at discounted rates. 

An easy win for taxpayers and those who want to see Russian criminals served a nice cold plate of revenge. It's the basis of the whole colonial "get rich quick" theory that Britain's used for hundreds of years. Simply steal stuff from people, doesn't matter who they are and then consider it all your own. I don't think the royals would have a problem with this tactic, it's in their blood and the present government would happily loot and pillage from any poor unfortunate that got in their way. What's the problem?

Lovely Pics

Bad news everywhere, I know I sometimes don't help with the opinions I share. So here's a lovely picture painted by one of my grand daughters. An unusual piece of colour, composition and white space. There's a lot of original thought and maturity in the detail.

Meanwhile in the kitchen back to taking simple flowery photos ...

Bathroom Great Coat

WC Fields always said that a wise man should maintain a decent Great Coat hanging up in his bathroom "just in case". Who am I to disagree with this ageless and sound advice? 

EU Blues

I see no reason why Ukraine should not be allowed to join the EU, there's a fairly obvious space opened up recently. British dumb-fuckery still abounds. Strange how some close at hand didn't appreciate the opportunities at the time but as things slowly unravel it's a little clearer who has been calling the shots and who has been played. I can still recall those words from my youth, "I wonder who they are, the men who really run this land..." Evolution is a slow and unpredictable process. Painful at times too.

Black Soil

“We've already suffered so much. We’ve lost so many people to war, and famine, and historical events. Almost seven million Ukrainians were killed in World War II, more than any other country. We don’t need much. We’re not an imperialistic people. We aren’t very warlike. Our land is covered with black soil, so we can grow everything we need. We just need peace.”

(Baryshivka, Ukraine: Humans of New York Archives 2014)

Fulfillment

A feeling of pleasure and satisfaction you may experience because you are happy with your life.

My friends in the AI world would argue that all humans are on a long route out from nothingness and perpetual doubt to a final place of fulfillment. AI can create shortcuts that allow such a journey to be made in other ways, obviously artificially. Me, being an awkward sort of person and generally belligerent towards myself, decided on trying to make the trip in reverse, from fulfillment to a place of final nothingness and perpetual doubt. For clarity I've cut out the intermediary stages. 

The picture above illustrates that starting place; fulfillment. I do find that blankly staring into it does produce a feeling of fulfillment (as far as I can trust myself). So that works.

Below is the final stage of this reverse journey; the nothingness of perpetual doubt. As the work evolved, the figure (?) on the upper right slowly appeared and took shape while the lines hardened. We were traveling backwards in time at the time. All a bit cartoonish I know but in my judgement the image of a fragile human - of some sort. Alone in the experience and staring out onto the far horizons of fulfillment? Possibly me I thought, only because of the stance and body language. AI is always listening. I'll just leave it all here.

Polonium Tea

Traditional philosophy, standard political ideals, and notions of "right" and "left" have precious little to do with modern power struggles. Perhaps they never did. The idealists might start the argument or the movement but those who complete them are those hungry to rule, hungry to be the Alpha in the room, hungry to oppress. Ethics, principles and promises are meaningless, you'll get no credit for holding onto them. 

History proves that things are set and cemented in such a way that greed and an overwhelming desire to be top dog will always win. The views of the common man or woman are irrelevant as are their values and welfare - to the would be tyrant. It is not people who are ungovernable it is governments that are uncontrollable. 

The answers to world hunger and global warming problems are there, affordable and in plain sight, but nobody in power wants to solve them. Meanwhile Britain lights up public buildings in Ukrainian colours but refuses entry to the refugees fleeing from the war. The sickness is running deep.

So take your flask of polonium tea and off you go in your wafer thin uniform and do a 15 hour guard duty down at the Chernobyl gates and what ever you do don't let anyone in but more importantly don't let anyone out.

People Selling Mirrors

 

In my, reasonably frequent lighter moments I'm often entertained by the Twitter pictures based around the theme "people selling mirrors". There's an account that harvests them from Gumtree or Facebook or wherever. I was curious to see just how the sales of second hand mirrors were going in my area, coupled with the photo standards and hopefully some displays of eccentricity. Turns out there's quite lot of activity and some is perhaps accidentally quite artistic, you can't be sure. My faith in human nature etc. has temporarily been restored. Be assured that it wont last.

The dog, the ducks, the garish shed, the mirror frame and the cobbles. What's not to like in this marvelous piece of artistic mirror advertising composition? All to sell a mirror for £25. 

As if in a Dream

"I once dreamed that I was a cat crouching under a Cymbeline tree, or am I now a cat under a Cymbeline tree dreaming that I am  man." 

The quote is attributed to the famed Taoist Chuang Tzu but I have distorted it slightly, as if in a dream.

How We All Feel

In Scotland there's rain every day ... but it's February and it's Scotland. Did anyone expect anything else? It's not the (reasonably predictable) weather that beats us down here though, we're resilient enough, it's the rest of the world. Well the rest of the world's news, their weather and scandals and gossip, maybe with a bit of our news added too for extra spice. There's just too much news. 

If only people would stop doing things, invading spaces and talking needlessly, fibbing. Then there would be less news, whether reported or unreported (then it's whispered and leaked and toxic), it's still a plague of sorts. A drain on attention and appetites. No news is good, possibly even better news. Mine's is a simple but personal solution, I've taken to drugs. I choose their simple mainline effects as I enter the void. The glorious peanut butter and toffee intoxication ... as below.

Pizzeria Molotov

Given the chance I'd probably try a slice or two of Pizzeria Molotov's fine looking pizza. I'm unlikely ever to do this as they are located in the Republic of the Congo, that's a long haul for Deliveroo even on a quiet Tuesday night. I do love the name though, it deserves to go global and become a chain or at least be taken up by some indie band as a name or an album title (do people still record albums these days?). It's a wild and crazy daydream but I thank Twitter for sharing this material, trouble is you have to withstand a load of other five star gunk just to get to it.

Dunfermline Daily Photo

Brutal Post Urban: Contemporary street scene from the ancient capital of Scotland. Home to bar room poets, thinkers, musicians, shipbuilders and skivers of all sorts. Some say it's even the birthplace of various famous people who trod the long pathway of human history that leads out of Fife and into the light of civilization. It's by no means perfect.

For today though it's also site of the aftermath of a traditional and tragic sky funeral for a pair of worn out trainers. Never forget that King Robert the Bruce, mythical leader and alleged spider biased philosopher is buried nearby minus his battle scarred heart. Death walks behind us all, but not in these shoes.

When The Levee Breaks

Another great piece of work from Playing for Change.

Grateful Death

I've obviously got a problem. It seems I'm a misfit. A modern, socially dumb, fully paid up misfit. I understand that I'm out on a limb now as I'm not infatuated or obsessed with Wordle, Sudoku, Scrabble, Candy Crush, Word Searches and the like. If I had a score I wouldn't share it (OK I would if it was a brilliant one), but that's never going to happen. I self identify with a peculiar game deficient disability.

I'm missing the competitive games gene thing. I'm not seeking the challenge. There's a little black hole in my brain where that whole piece of creaking clockwork is absent. I don't know why. There's a foggy, soft centre of vague toffee in there. The thing is I've tried games and now that I don't try games I find that I don't miss them at all ... because I never did.

Out of Africa

A more serious post as Europe gently sleeps: While everyone seems to be losing their shit over Russia and the Ukraine there's a lot less attention being paid to the Russian mercenary teams (like Wagner) who are propping up or deposing various shaky regimes in Africa. These guys are big time players in Sudan, Mozambique, Central African Republic, Libya, Mali, Burkina Faso and god knows where else. In time their expanding sphere of influence will enable them to control large areas of land, resources and millions of people. Just as a reminder, warlords like these can easily turn settled people into refugees who will quickly be headed north and across the Med. 

The Kremlin knows that refugee movements are an easy lever to pull on to upset Western/European leaders, effectively an itch you can't quite scratch. Ultimately it's a tragic situation where innocent people are exploited over and over again, always in the course of creating disruption and the dangerous mischief that our naive and self righteous European politicians can't handle. Putin's having a good laugh at all of this - the Wagner Group are firmly in his pocket and so is much of Africa. Anyway back to the Ukraine ...