Times

That time I ate a Pot Noodle. That time we handed out leaflets. That time we were runners up in the pub quiz. That time the lady had an epileptic fit. That time we met a dog. That time when it was really sunny all day long. That time I got hives with the heat. That time I had a really good sleep. That time the gas boiler got a service. That time I visited the local pottery. That time I looked out of the window. That time that I had a shower. That time we didn't bother with the news. That time I gave the cats tinned cat food. That time the exam results came through. That time I played guitar. That time we practiced SOS phone calls. The time I didn't use the car. That time I pulled an enormous weed out of the garden. That time I changed shirts three times because it was hot and sweaty. That time.

Don't Join Our Club

Now I have to think of some content that goes with this picture I took at a nearby motorway service station car park. It's a detail from a well weathered Costa Coffee hoarding. The photo doesn't really show the damage the aging process has done all that clearly but in real life the letters have a 3D quality thanks to the build up of dirt and crud. If only all fonts could age that way and that well, eventually turning into a shallow comment about the muck left at the bottom of consumerism's cup. Strangely I am not tempted to join this neglected club at the moment. Costa clearly don't care that much about their advertisements survival once they are set loose into the wild. I guess we always get the environment we deserve.

Football From Afar

Pretty much the definition of football from afar. FC Edinburgh's Meadowbank venue is a disaster for the spectator. Full price tickets get you views like this or if you're really unlucky you might be stuck behind the dugouts or the pole vault cushion (covered by an 8ft tall lid). Yes this is footy in the Scottish lower leagues and certainly the worst away ground I've ever visited. It's even worse than when Meadowbank Thistle played there many moons ago when the grandstand existed. 

At least Dunfermline won on the day but I can't imagine any visiting fans ever wanting to return here either regardless of the outcome. By way of completing this brief review we had four portaloos for about 1200 fans 😒 and two fairly basic burger vans on the catering. I felt sorry for the ground staff who were all nice and welcoming but the overall experience was pretty poor.

Air Kisses

Nobody ever asked for this but you're getting it anyway.

AI Writing Festival

Every so often for reasons of experimentation and to test the temperature of the water everything on this blog is handed over to an AI program to complete. Sometimes this process goes on for months, whirring and running in the background like a well oiled knitting machine working on cushion covers for carrots.

He Died for Our Sins (Mostly)

 

Apparently he died for our sins; pathetic, selfish and downright evil as they are and will always be. Here are are some (below) that may or may not be covered. You can never really tell. Theology is quite a tricky subject to pin down to actual facts and evidence.

Human Death Star

Outside (and I'm glad it's outside) the wood pigeons are building some sort of structure in a crab-apple tree. There's debris below the site as the messy business of building a nest (I presume it's a nest and not a piece of artwork) carries on. It doesn't seem to be the correct time of year but what do I know? Industrious animals always make me feel lazy. What's not admire about building your home from found items and natural materials? All quite impressive but you wouldn't want to live in it never mind raise a family there. 

I'm a long way from being one with nature but maybe slowly getting closer to some kind of understanding. The ritual of mowing the lawn is less frequent this year, I'm trying to respect the various tiny eco-systems, insect cities  and virtuous weed networks that exist out there in the dried leaves and clover covered grass, but I've no idea really. I'll just try to protect more things than I kill as the various wild life colonies struggle to survive. I guess I'm a clumsy version of the  Death Star to their fragile rebel bases and buried strongholds and it is hard to understand how we all came to be in this strange universe and have still survived for this long.

Colours Down

"Colours Down" is the title of this short video but in some places it may be read as "Colors Down". I as ever am respectful of differences in language and in other areas. Differences are important and whenever possible and safe to do so should be celebrated (unless they are really extreme, dangerous or just made up on the spot in order to be "different").

Pathetic Technical Note: The visual material created here was captured by me lying on the floor in summer sunlight, filming a plant pot through a glass panel in a door frame on a slightly windy day. The colour was then somewhat filtered out of the film (albeit small parts and blips remaining). Not a complicated or very original process but the colours are down to some extent.

Petanque

Today we are celebrating Petangue, or maybe not.

Silenzio

More archived material that's been set alive/alight/akimbo by the wonders of last century's flickering technology with some low-fi works chugging on in the background. It also features an actual slice of silence we imported from Japan in a can from a vending machine. Something that you can quietly enjoy or even speak over if you're inclined towards that sort of thing.

Things of Very Little Importance

A sympathetic rendering of a fretboard minor pentatonic musical scale schematic, executed in the bucolic style by the largely unrecognized and unknown early 20th century French artist Pierre L'Jambon (1871 - 1919).

L'Jambon famously said: "I rise early each working day and paint furiously or perhaps very carefully according to my mood. My juices are exhausted by lunchtime so I stop. Then I succumb to the French traditions of bureaucracy and guilty ritual and smoke, drink, snooze and ponder for the rest of the day. I neither look up nor down or think of paint or composition as my mind wanders and stutters across an absurd world. I consider all of these fleeting and perishable things to be of little importance."

Inner Wings

Been connecting with my inner wings recently (easier than the whole third eye turmoil). That's the inner wings on a tame Volkswagen of course. The dark and mysterious place where all manner of unwelcome road crap ends up stuck between the body and the liner and weighs down your ride nicely. It's all damp and contaminated and likely to eat through the fragile body of your car at any moment. It was a perverse joy cleaning them out, hosing down the muck and collecting it in a nearby skip, then painting them with special paint designed to withstand a nuclear attack but maybe not a mild Scottish winter. We'll see. Having said that I can remember when cars didn't have inner wings and just rusted away and died by the roadside, invariably just a few days after you'd bought them from a "reliable dealer". 

Dr Strange was a Doctor

They called this the "Silver Age" of comics (1960s) with the "Golden Age" following on shortly after I presume. Not sure I agree but our history is unreliable.  Anyway young Steven Strange first got into magic after getting a Chad Valley Conjuring Kit for his 7th birthday. It was a slippery slope from there into what some might call the dark arts and then eventually becoming Sorcerer Supreme. Sorcerer Supreme was a level of magician skill not really possible with the Chad Valley kit. There also was a decent magic kit that the glove puppet Sooty promoted, I'm unsure as to the educational merits it had. I suspect again that it was set at less than Sorcerer Supreme level. "Izzy Wizzy, let's get busy" was the only famous incantation I learned as a youngster.

Seems to me if our toy industry had any vision at all they'd have raised their game back then and added a bit more spice to the conjuring box. Mind you a visit to Woolworths might have been quite risky during the party season. Some households and Scout huts might have experienced real damage as a result. So we remain a backward country for two reasons: mind control and social strangulation from a class conscious education system and our dismal failure to promote the use of magic and sorcery as a means of making your way in the world(s) and so destroying slimy despots and corrupt political opponents.

Apologies

I often think the modest cod, the oddest of god's odds and sods.

To cross a line you shouldn't cross but maybe you don't give a toss,

And loss is all you know.

It's reprehensible to moan, to be alone and on your own.

The things you have you'll never own. Just moss upon a rolling stone.

Your fishy cover has been blown.

(With some slight apologies to Spike Milligan).

Hints of Blues

"Hints of blues on a china plate."

"There's a spinning wormhole in a phantom galaxy". The message came up on my phone this morning in the news feed. I'm unsure as how to react. Is there a clear and present danger? Does it make the various climate, economic and political perils we face seem trivial in comparison? I dare not respond and click on the story just in case my day is ruined. A bundle of huge astronomical facts and some well intended speculation will collapse on me and I won't be able to deal with them. That's how I face up to things, by not facing up to things. Sound familiar?

Perpetual Darkness

 

No one really knows what causes your perpetual darkness. It could be due to the sun setting, clouds obscuring the sky, or even a power outage. Regardless of the cause, it's a state of mind that can be felt on certain days. Most people associate perpetual darkness with the night, but it can also happen during the day. It's a state of mind that can be quite eerie, and it can make you feel disconnected from the world. Some people might find it relaxing, while others might find it oppressive. It's all a matter of personal preference. I tend to follow the sun, all the way across the universe and back.

Perpetual darkness refers to the lack of daylight that occurs at certain times of the day in any place of the world. It means the absence of any source of light for a certain period of time that can last from a few minutes to several hours. The effects of such a phenomenon vary from one place to another depending on the location and season of the year. In general, perpetual darkness is associated with a feeling of loneliness and detachment from the world. For this reason, some people choose to experience this phenomenon by living in the countryside or in a rural area where there is controllable exposure to natural sunlight. Others might prefer to seek professional guidance by visiting a therapist who can treat disorders such as depression or anxiety disorders that are commonly associated with this phenomenon. Perhaps not for all at this curious time in history. You could have simply overcharged yourself on the credits of happiness.

Perpetual darkness is a state of mind that can be felt but only on certain days or when I say so. Oh how we laughed.

Friday Quickly

About time: This particular week Friday seemed to fly by. It was supposed to be the same length as any other day of the week, but it just seemed to go by too quickly. I was confused, and couldn't figure out why. I thought it was strange that Friday would change without any warning, and I couldn't help but wonder why. Friday had developed a peculiar personality without any warning. Those other dull days just couldn't quite manage to do that, I suppose. It was written yesterday.

Maybe it's just something that happens sometimes, and we can't really do anything about it but it still seems strange, and I can't help but wonder what could be behind it. I may just have to live with the fact that now Friday can change on a whim, and I can't always predict when it will happen. But at least it's a kind of new normal and we can just go about our drab little lives as usual while Friday sweetly or menacingly runs riot in the background, or is it the foreground? Perhaps some evidence will emerge, either after the past or before the future.

Old Man Shouts at Pharmacy

 

Another "old man shouts at cloud" style post mostly using tiny writing.

Since Covid the world has changed. One particular part is now almost unrecognizable. The Pharmacy. Now there are crawling queues, shortages, puzzled customers, and disgruntled OAPs, confused staff and a general air of disorganization. I have to say it's also mainly the Lloyds branches. In my limited experience it's a real mess of a business.

Companies in customer facing retail like Screwfix and Argos seem to be able to handle multiple orders and a quick and accurate stock turnover far easier than the pharmaceutical world can. The staff seem lost and honestly uncaring at times. What is the problem? Supply lines? Staff skills? Have we just given up? OK it's mostly potentially dangerous drugs and medicines they're issuing, nobody wants mistakes but with modern inventory software and verification systems how difficult can it be to smooth this out?

Animal Art

It's usually pictures of lazy house cats here so I've decided to broaden my horizons and be a little more exotic. I've no idea what's going on in the piece either.

The Other Summer of Baccara

 

A weekend outing to a local pop festival: We were there, hot, wet in the rain and as baffled as ever by the bizarre line up bingo we were taking part in. By that I mean I seldom seemed to see who I expected to see, program changes and happenstance simply conspire against the fragile plan. Neither did I expect to join in with a few thousand other mad folks in singing along to (a version of?)  70s euro pop divas, Baccara. They were received in truly heroic fashion by an eclectic mix of Scottish Ska devotees and as they might have said in the old days of music journalism, "the fans went wild". It's all true.

In the "luxury" toilets they actually had this stuff available for use, once a Twitter hit and now a real life trope and no doubt a shock to anybody indulging in substance abuse. That's all I really want to say about the toilets.

A Saturday morning hunt for coffee found me at the Churros van (the queue was the smallest). There was a lot going on; of course queue anxiety and shortage of coffee cup lids (I'm carrying them a long way back to the tent), some staff meltdowns inside and out of the van and the surreal experience of my part of the queue snaking across a Leslie Riddoch lecture in the marquee next door.

Our lovely tent: a reasonably sized base camp from which to explore the site. Of course we've all moved on from flashy tents and huge camper vans now. I does seem that the most desirable fashion accessory these days is a dog, preferably an exotic breed with a decent bark. It used to be hippie kids or unicycles but now it's dogs that rule as their owners struggle on. I suppose the other essentials are a gender confused friend, a talented acrobat who'll amuse bored audiences and somebody quite over weight who just dances to the point where they require an ambulance. A lot of festival attendance centres around people watching and spotting as much of the actual music is pretty dull to be honest.

My final study: an early morning tree set with a broken couch and various bits of old furniture and deck chairs. People just land there, have a drink and smoke, read a book and then move on. A metaphor for all of life itself. We'll probably be back for more of the same next year. Bollocks to Covid and the Tories etc. and who cares who is on the bill anyway.