Swiss Army Knife

I've had this Swiss Army Knife since 1988. The logo has worn away and the tools and blades are a bit beat up but it's still OK. I was trying to work out if it's my oldest physical possession. It's not, turns out I still have some music cassettes and vinyl records that predate it. Nothing else that I can think of though... doesn't seem quite right. I guess everything else was lost in the fire.

Seventeen Apples

The obvious mistake of counting your apples before they're at all ripe: There's six in the picture, the rest are elsewhere on our small and solitary apple tree. Still growing. I'm actually looking forward to trying these as we've had no fruit from this tree for two years. I presume Covid was/is to blame.

Plums seem to lack the stability and serenity of apples, they just want to jump. Undeveloped plums are forever falling from the tree for no obvious reason only to die on the concrete path below, so we're seeing a pattern of diminishing returns from what seemed like a bumper crop a few weeks ago. Frustrating. 

There are a lot of pears on the pear tree. They are stubborn and willful fruits that ultimately will turn into baked concrete, inedible versions of themselves. We have loads and will face the conundrum of what exactly to do with these stony and pretty much tasteless lumps of fruit. It seems a waste not using them but they just need too much processing. In the event of us ever being besieged they would be useful as ammunition for the catapults as we defend ourselves from our attackers. Lethal at 25m I'd imagine.

Dull as Ditchwater

If you've thirty pieces of silver, then sign up here

Sabotage community, spread a dose of fear

Make measly contributions, type your name in the space

Support unethical work, no need to show your face

 

If you want to crush the commoners and stab them in the back

Make markets better off,  lobby with the rest of the pack

Lead the others to the drop, your busy life will never stop

Cheat and bleat, you’ll be on top, you can cancel all that’s taught

Just sign up here

Then sign up here

You're dull as ditch water, you're dumb as fuck,

You're dull as ditch water; up to your neck in muck.

Privilege gets you everywhere, what a piece of luck.

You’re dull as ditch water, you’re dumb as fuck.

Geranium Time

Probably the shortest song in our vast back catalogue of short songs. I'm sharing this now, fully aware that the weather has just broken and that the unfortunate geraniums in our garden are probably going to take a bit of a battering. That's mother nature for you; angry and confused by human stupidity and greed, she's a bit off kilter right now. I'm not wishing for natural disaster but if she struck back at us I could hardly blame her. The trick is to target the correct people and installations. I'm not sure if we're in the firing line or not the more I think about it. We're all using blunt instruments these days.

Cat with a Feather on her Head

Yesterday morning I opened the back door and there, on the mat, sat a cat, with a feather on her head. Her tongue was also sticking out, just a little. She looked at me, I looked at her and she just sauntered past and into the house hoping for a second helping of breakfast.

Burryman Friday

 

There was of course that one unfortunate year where they all got a bit carried away while making the costume.

So today is Burryman day in SQ. The living embodiment of the Green Man or some forest and natural spirit, walks the streets for about twelve hours plied with alcohol. It's not an easy job in the summer heat being covered in Burdock burrs whilst stuck in an almost crucified position. A strong and brave man is required for this arduous task, supported by a faithful entourage of assistants. He's quite the local hero.

Folk traditions like this always hit quite a few cultural and religious marks, that's probably the best way that they can survive. It's important to tick all the main boxes of fear, retribution, fertility and good luck and then you and your village and crops are probably ok for another year. Let's hope it works and there's no more plague or pestilence and that the Westminster Parliament is hit by some fiery, stray meteorite during Prime Minister's Questions.

Enjoying the Weather

I can't say I'm able to fully enjoy this spell of hot weather. Maybe if I was elsewhere (Spain or Portugal etc.) it would seem OK. The heat being welcome and expected as it fits a holiday mood. Of course we've had hot and dry summers before but I can't quite get past a certain sense of foreboding and uneasiness this time. We're on the edge of a lot of trouble here. The slow decline into the "end times" perhaps, if you'll pardon that overused biblical trope. The end of what? Plus having a government that is both vacant and tone deaf, only able to act in it's own interests and with no clear concern for the lives and well being of it's people doesn't help. Low level but regular stress and anxiety prevails. At least that's what I think I'm feeling, not to mention being small and powerless. Something needs to break in this country and it's not just the weather.

Anyway, whatever the weather you can always trust the general public to behave like idiots at any given moment. Here's how not to have a picnic BBQ in a public park, (the Meadows in Edinburgh).

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.