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.
Then they circle the chair you are sitting on so to encourage you to stand up and follow them but then they go nowhere. They lie on your tummy and deliberately ignore you because you are a couch now and when you need to move they are upset. They hang around by their feeding dishes as if hungry but as soon as you put some fresh food in the dish they escape via the nearby cat flap.
It's a bit like living with some benign and almost human looking member of the Conservative Party who abstains from parliamentary votes they said they'd take part in or an elderly, regular reader of the Glasgow Herald who is unaware that they are now living in a care home. God love them though (cats, not the human equivalents), for some reason I'm addicted to this odd and slightly abusive treatment.
What is the point when most things are pointless? Nothing undermines or frankly destroys the power of your witty or pithy Tweet like a well placed spelling mistake. OK I'll be generous and allow for typos, they happen, usually in the searing heat of the social media moment. Then there's also some bits poor of punctuation and grammar that are questionable, additional pieces of delight for the critical and uncaring reader. Of course looking back over my own body of shambolic work I've little right to even make such puerile observations. But I will.
On a positive note I've designed a special font named "Eagle Eye" that hopefully will mask any errors caused by hasty or thoughtless typing. It's main strength being the fact that it is mostly illegible. Examples are as below (a short extract from Finnegan's Wake). It's free at the point of use.
Outside, in the shimmering cold a puffy, poisonous cloud sinks below the moon, sneaking along some uneven path in the night time air, like an old man on his way back to the barn after an unexpected and over indulgent night out. Alternatively some alien life form or a ghost from outer space drifting along with no particular purpose. Maybe even a lost weather balloon from the Soviet era.
I saw it with my own two eyes and took a photo with those same eyes. Plain as day but at night. It was a revelation but only on a small scale. It hardly counts. In the dark you can make up what you like. When I awoke it was another day.
Often humans just invent their own reality and then decide to inhabit it. As George Orwell said "Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them."
*The shop was one of the latest "horse free" supermarkets where there are no horses roaming around distracting or possibly intimidating would be and otherwise carefree shoppers. I'm quite glad that the concept of a "horse free" supermarket has finally caught on around here. It certainly alters the retail experience in a good way. I realise that this is a topical topic but if you will just imagine going in to do your grocery shopping and not being even gently harassed by a horse (however friendly or nice it may be) and it certainly makes for trouble free Polo Mint and apple purchases, including the multi-packs. There's also a lot less dung in the aisles and fewer confusing altercations at the check outs when people try to buy the horse as part of their shopping tally and cant find the barcode. If any of this seems ridiculous to you then we're clearly living in different universes.
Another superficial film and drink review: Wine now comes in cutting edge design, ultra thin, recycled something or other bottles. There's no glass or anything. A triumph of modern fabrication in a satisfying shape. It's from Australia but bottled in Basingstoke or someplace. It makes a few journeys and there's a manufacturing process that are not too helpful for the green credentials but it's a reasonable try. Saving the planet one skinny weird bottle at a time, though your fridge shelves might need to be adapted for a good fit. We sipped the red and white varieties whilst watching the new mumble-core movie adaption of Dune. Quite thirsty work with all that heat, sand and wanton destruction.
It's part of your five a day. Five fruity treats you're allowed by law. The Scottish Government might think so. They know what's best for us some say, now that they lost their profile pronouns to keep the oldies on side. Back to oranges; ironic somewhat in a country where our national fruit is the bramble, available fresh for only one week in September weather permitting. So scoff some fruit and take a brisk walk and a wee peek at the tweets from observers of the GB news.
They being the dodgy commentators and smarties who certainly know where the bodies are buried. They're just not telling anyone because, well in their opinion nobody could care less anyway. Just best to appreciate that the bodies were buried there by the Russians, though some may indeed have been reanimated and continued on as MPs. Nothing to see here.
I hadn't really enjoyed oranges for years. I felt guilty. Imagine the Tudors getting a crate of them from the King of Spain, between wars that is. The food taster would be busy but eventually they'd be able to eat some. It must've been a knockout moment at the court. "This (orange coloured?) fruit is fuckin' brilliant your majesty!" In return they sent them a crate of cabbages and a bucket of welks.
Looking back in history it's hard to understand why more Scottish people(s) didn't up sticks and move to Spain, the South of France or Italy just to get out of the dreich and gloomy weather. I suppose there were various employment laws, ongoing inquisitions and religious persecutions that may have discouraged such free movement. There's always some Priti Patel type waiting out there to piss on your chips. Anyway I'm back to liking oranges.
There's a rumour that it's going to be a different season soon. The weather may become milder or colder. There's road works, traffic lights, tourist types circulating and political uncertainty in the air. An unspoken sense of some kind of unpleasant "change" being brought upon us. By degrees Governments and authorities being less able to cope with sharing the planet with regular humans. Odd and complex creatures. It's a familiar script in life's recurring cycle of dramas.
So I was considering the fate of the Kerfuffle family. They live nearby and unsurprisingly their lives seem to be in a permanent state of kerfuffle. Their neighbour, Freddy the Fish has confirmed this in some of his more lucid moments, messages from across the bar room floor. Freddy likes the odd drink or two, anytime, anywhere. He is quite observant and provides a droll commentary on local events though not always as lucid as I might like. Too much detail and the shutters go up, as has already happened in the mysterious house down the road. Freddy knows the truth but isn't telling.
You'll be glad to hear, if you didn't already know, that the Kerfuffles are presently nestling down and lying low. Their assets may well be seized at any moment. The Kerfuffles are in a quiet kerfuffle. Financial clarity is important. "Dictators don't play chess", says Mr Kerfuffle, "they don't like the rules. They gamble, they play Blackjack, they bluff and they smirk in the face of their victim." "Maybe so", says Mrs Kerfuffle, "but don't try to tell me you wouldn't want to play just a single hand with one and try to win big".
"I am not a victim!" Mr Kerfuffle thinks to himself for a moment. He can only do this because he cannot think to anyone else. His eyes are on fire, almost. "I would play, I would play my hand but I would hold my nerve and take the match to the limit. That is how you play against a dictator."
It was at that moment, across town that Mr Dick Taitor walked into the local pub, ordered a beer and asked the barman if he knew of the whereabouts of the Kerfuffle family. "I'd like to spend some dirty money" says Dick. "I'd like to take your dirty money" says the barman. At the other end of the bar stood Freddy the Fish, he was playing close attention to the conversation. Mr Taitor looked to him to be an "interesting prospect". He said that to himself a number of times, allowing the cement of that thought to cure.
Back at the Kerfuffle's sleep had broken out, well it had for Mrs K. Mr K decided that it was the perfect opportunity to head away as his good lady snoozed in the armchair. There was a message from Freddy on his phone he felt he should respond to. He stuffed a biscuit into his mouth, put on his jacket, grabbed his wallet and quietly crunched his way out of the door without rattling the door lock at all. As the door quietly closed Mrs K opened one eye and smiled a little smile to herself.
Mr K entered the pub by the wrong door. Nobody cared. He recognized the rear profile of Mr T and hesitated for a moment. There was history. The jacket was quite distinctive. Helly Hanson. He turned headed out the in door. Nobody cared. Once on the street and in the air he began thinking again. He knew Freddy would be in there and may have spotted him. Freddy was all ears and about 50% eyes. Mr K had a few drinks down the road and then, propped up with Dutch Courage headed back to see what Mr T and Freddy might be up to.
Now, an hour or so later all three men, Mr K, Mr T and Freddy are in the pub, sitting together around a round brown pub table of the kind we all know and damage occasionally. There were conversations, these are in the past now. They are playing a discrete game of Pontoon and drinking red wine from a bottle in the centre of the round table. Dirty money is being passed between them. A sly enquirer might just see the wads of cash hidden in their fists or being quickly moved in and out of pockets and transferred as the games progress. Most locals are smart enough to look away and the bar staff are whispering to each other about their own little windfalls of dirty money tonight. It came via a series of "keep the change" orders. "Nice" is what they are thinking.
In life however everything ends in tears. Sometimes these can be happy tears, other times not so happy. You can never really tell. It's all in the turn of the cards and the whirring of the wheels ... maybe some beads of perspiration too, oh, and you might find that you have a dry mouth. If this was all just a dream I'd say so now but it wasn't. It was a full set of dreams, one after the other. In proper order. They only became jumbled as my recall fumbled. It's a poor excuse but the best I can do.
So the three of them are deep in the dirty money card game.
"Fuck me that was grim", says Mr Taitor as he trousered close to £1000 in scraggy notes. The other two said nothing, both are observing their sorry shoes and the sorry bar floor. The word "sorry" seems to have been added to every area they encounter within their blurry field of vision. The cash machine up at the Co-op also took quite a hammering.
"Time Please!" The bar staff are eager to tidy up, they've had a good night, well a good night of extravagant tipping and they sense that the best is now over so best end it here. It's getting close to home time. The body language from Freddy and Mr K is fairly low key, subdued and pale faced. They both have a story to tell but no one to tell it to. Before they could collect themselves it became apparent that Mr Taitor fled the scene in his pre-booked taxi, at least five minutes ago.
Freddy makes it home. The house is empty like always. There's no drink, no cigarettes, no heating right now and the bed is unmade. He slinks in, avoiding noise as if he might wake up some imaginary sleeping partner. Tomorrow will be ... tomorrow. Perhaps his pension payment will hit the bank a few days early. He remembers working on the railway. Happy, greasy, grimy days. That British Rail pension's traveled further than he ever did.
Mr K returned home also. His wife, whom he had sneaked away from without so much as a word, was still in her armchair and wide awake. She was engrossed in a cookery show she was watching on catch up TV. Mr K opened his mouth and hoped he'd quickly find some reasonable explanation to offer for both his absence and his loss of a significant amount of money in the disastrous card game. "Shoosh!" She cried, "this pasta bake recipe is one of the best I've ever come across". Which, strangely enough is also how my family and I discovered this delicious meal, so anyway, let's all get on with following the recipe...
Friday is the day we* moan about things we* seem to be unable to change, the steam can then slowly escape: Let's not fool ourselves*, at the moment the UK is one of the least inspirational and respectable places to be. We* are reduced and diminished by the antics of the present government, the feebleness of the opposition parties and the inept devolved parliaments devoid of power and focus. Some humane leadership would be nice, some honesty would be better. When nothing is true and everything is possible and we* find ourselves here, on a downwards trajectory.
Today's artistic effort: Black doves crossing the once purple planet.
Message begins: The Rest is Politics is worth a listen (mostly). You may or may not agree with the two nodding and talking heads, what with their diverse backgrounds and reputations but (there is always a but) it's accessible and informative, mostly. It also means I'm in a little less of an echo chamber regards opinions and outlook, that's pretty important now that our homeland has lost it's moral compass and it's way in the world. I'm not really liking this new, blunted instrument version of reality. Message ends.
