John Barleycorn (Must Die)

Idly creating collages of things that I randomly encounter.

Happy to be ignored.

Ghost in the Machine

Slithering up icy pavements on a curiously cold Edinburgh morning. I don't think my soul fully left my body as it was pulled upon by the warm exhaling of my breath and my stoic determination not to fall on the frozen concrete. The older you get the more you fear falling. Experts say it's a possible end of life/end of mobility moment at certain ages. Climbing ladders isn't recommended either if you're a male craving adventure. It creeps up on you but then everything does in life, like some slow motion catastrophe you're catching in your peripheral vision. 

I was wondering if other people, some pulled along by dogs, had pairs of magic shoes that grant traction and stability in frost. I lacked the courage to ask why they were progressing along so much quicker than me. I'm never sure if there's some universal truth or power out there that I've simply missed while others just use it continually and quite naturally while I struggle. Am I one of those people? 

Anyway everybody should have a near death thought experiment when heading for a health check and interview. It makes life all the more wonderful and appreciated when you emerge out at the other side under the illusion that you might just be immortal providing you can stay indoors all winter.

As I slid back down the hill from my encounter with the world of medicine I slowly careered into a chilly but welcoming cafe and ordered and ate some Scottish soul food. Braw brunch at Braw Brunch, East Fountainbridge. I'd score the food a generous 7/10 and the service was very good.

Hollowing

They're hollowing out the world

As we quietly stand by

They say it's something of little importance

I don't understand why.

Snow Apparently

The chimney sweep can't get here today because there's snow apparently. I presume all the chimney sweeps are stuck in it. Now the chimney won't be swept until 2023, a whole long period of time away. One health and safety situation just creates another and so it goes on. As a mark of respect and show of solidarity with those frozen chimney sweeps I lit the log burner anyway, mostly as a test but also to generate heat. There's snow apparently. 

The Roads to Freedom

When you're busy trying to understand and map out your younger self's life and attitudes but retrospectively. It never did look quite like this but perhaps it came close at times, or so I imagined. I simply wasn't that deep. "Tried picking up guitar but stopped because he wasn't immediately good at it", sounds a bit familiar. We've all been there. Good choices in music and clothing though, if a bit obvious, spanning a few generations too. Where's Jack Kerouac when you need him?

Edinburgh Daily Icicle

At this time of year Edinburgh is at it's shabbiest. Grit and tinsel on roads, pavements and ground into potholes. Fairy lights, buskers and beggars. Fairgrounds and stalls have "popped up" in order to cash in on some seasonal rush of outdoor activities despite the weather being sub zero and canned music fills the grey air. Desperate and frankly half hearted attempts at Christmas cheer abound, they mainly consist of contracted out tat supported by perpetual scaffolding works. The stalwart locals carry on despite the ironic sense of gloom while the blinking but eyes wide tourists are politely fleeced on every street corner. I can't quite fathom what is needed to fix this. We have as much culture as a fucked cement mixer it seems. 

Would Scottish independence transform this delusional paradise? Bail out the fabled Athens of the North though it has more economic woes than present day Greece? A nice idea but I doubt it. Politicians can't deliver miracles or traffic solutions and God clearly hates us all at Christmas and you cant blame him for that. On the bright side I did see these interesting and 100% natural ice forms and I also had the pleasure of purchasing the world's smallest latte and largest pain au chocolate for a measly £5.50, this is known as street food now and is all the rage apparently. 

Long Twitter

 

Are there any people out there who don't like or appreciate geometry? There's a bit of the golden ration going on here, in a less developed form. You could of course apply this to any piece of composition. That doesn't make it any less interesting. So hardly a month goes by without me making some cheap and predictable reference to the work of Caravaggio but I can't help myself. Elon Musk, inventor (?) of the burning Tesla also likes this, that doesn't count as any kind of Musk endorsement or supportive message from me. Since he bought Twitter it's become ... a bit different. Either that or I've just flip-flopped into following other types of accounts and it's been more interesting. They've reworked some gears behind the scenes. Upping the character limit to 4000 is not a good idea either. Nobody wants "long" Twitter. Nobody wants change. 😉

To be honest I found eating this chocolate bar to be a bit of a disappointing experience. I may include it in my thesis about why modern generic chocolate is all a bit shit really.

Argus

Blethering on about Angus made me remember Argus. Good, tuneful stuff from Wishbone Ash, a band I occasionally think about or sometimes even listen to. They probably are still chuntering on in some form here and there but I think this was when they hit their high water mark. Happens to us all. They're like musical granola, a touch now and then keeps the system clean and regulated but you don't want to over do it.

Maybe I'll be buried in Angus to the strains of Argus. Buried by a red Kubota mini digger, dragged up the glen's winding roads behind a Transit pickup truck. Not by a team of silent workers wearing flat caps and blue dungarees one of whom is holding a Clydesdale horse steady as the work progresses. Then again they might all be convicts sent out on a forced labour trip to dig out my one and only grave. They work on in the hole with little concern over who might occupy it. That really doesn't matter. My executioner has already walked away from whatever the scene was. I just hope the ground isn't hard frozen at the time. This is quite a strange line of thought for a Tuesday morning. All very Wednesday Adams.

Angus

Peaceful scenes amid the rampant stupidity that surrounds us all as it oozes in from the TV and squelches underfoot from social media and unfettered "opinions". World Cups, politics, celebrity nonsense and non stop weather warnings. A tedious soup that's impossible to avoid or navigate, like some clogged ring road you simply must use to get home, but there's a blizzard and a thousand other idiots daydreaming behind the wheel and your traction is lost. 

Positive thinking. Some time in the peaceful glens of Angus, birthplace of Scotland (so Angus says but doesn't quite explain) might be an antidote, a cure or at least a temporary form of relief. No signal, no waves, no electrical connections, just the wind and the weather and a smattering of elements across the landscape.

Friday Gibberish

It's Friday, it's December, it's not Christmas but everyone else seems to think it is. I realise at this point that I live in a slightly different world to, well not everyone but a fair few. My world is full of slow starters, late adopters and streams of thought that might be considered gibberish if tuned into by others. Sharp encounters over these differences never happen so I'm hardly bothered or affected. The season of assumed jollity along with the mighty tinsel avalanche that we are headed for will pass, like everything else and soon we'll be back to cultivating rhubarb and thinking of future pies, crumbles and reasonable harvests if the fates allow. 

Meanwhile artists are getting annoyed by AI high-jacking their stuff and remodeling it as even worse bits of tacky art. It's a fair if slightly Luddite styled objection. Those hard working artists may down tools and leave us to stew in our AI juice and where will we be then? Eh? We all want recognition and credit even after the destruction and corruption of what we believe we built. Future researchers will study the rubble to check for AI jpegs covered in dust and cobwebs and try to decode their source and muse about "what it all meant" and "what kind of people were they?" We'll look down from our ageless matrix homes, groan and whisper "None of this matters, you should just concentrate on finding a decent, straight, well potted Christmas tree for the house."

I Had One

I didn't draw this but at least I owned one of these beasts for about three years and 130,000 miles. Happy(ish) days.

Dial of Despair

Another movie franchise bites on the credibility dust it seems. Indiana Jones' last hurrah is about to burst onto a bemused public thanks to the lemon squeezers at Disney. I suppose it never was believable but this one features a time travel twist that will make a bonfire of even the worst of the previous films. A slow but predicable death of a legend as Disney churns the life and fun out of once solid gold creations. Frail old Indy travels back in time (I presume once he's discovered the dial of destiny under the Pope's throne or some other unlikely spot), of course he encounters his younger self and along the way ends the Jones' timeline in a muddle of time paradoxes and flying fists fighting against the Nazis.

Thankfully his younger and leveled headed assistant (played by the snappy Phoebe Waller-Bridge from Fleabag) survives and takes on the Indy mantle (as per Dr Who) for the foreseeable future (?) in subsequent films*. You can imagine the scenes of joy and table thumping when the producers and writers came up with this idea. Not too much to think about now for the next ten years, just keep the contracts solid and the cast alive. We can confirm that the public will watch any diluted shit for a given period of time if the title rings a bell for them. 😕

*None of this may ever come to be but the rage and outrage in the internet rumour mill is a wonderful if bitter sweet thing.

Cat Food

The internet is going crazy for cat food, three brands I've never heard of are bombarding me with offers on various platforms. The pressure is intense but don't they know we buy our pet food at B&M? All other cat food doesn't even contain meat apparently. There's something rotten at the core of the world of cat victualing they say, hardly a surprise, the competition is stiff but then their full menu is "slow cooked" and that makes all the difference. As for the cats, they just like chewing on Tesco chicken pieces from the cooked meats aisle, at £1.79 a pop.

Warm Wishes

"Warm Wishes". My charity shop bought Christmas mobile motto. To be honest "warm wishes" sounds a bit like somebody has wet the bed or partaken in water sports of some sort but then it's an official Chinese Disney jumper. I'll wear it with some pride and a seasonal dose of irony. Hope it's not itchy. The older I get the more I fuckin' hate Christmas (well the warped mass media version of Christmas that's been shoved down our throats since October). First of December and I'm ready for a Christmas rant.

Biting The Hand That Feeds You Crumbs

Everybody says that the music industry is in terrible shape. I guess that makes it like all the other industries then. There is no balance, mainly because "we (the business) take all the risks". In the words of Scotland's national bard, "Aye right!". Of course most of us bottom feeders in the "industry" accepted long ago that we'd never make anything but we'd carry on building the blocks for the pyramid anyway. We like building blocks after all and the general public are pretty happy to collect them from wherever they're cheap or free. 

Actually you can get our music free in loads of places but if you want to pay, best go along to Sonstream. It's a pretty bleak looking site, no bells or whistles but the musicians actually get a reasonable return on every stream or whatever. I'm still leaving the Spotify link up above because despite the obvious I haven't got a better idea at the moment.

What's 26 countries worth?

Wow!

The spacey theme continues as Orion flies beyond everywhere: Surprisingly I didn't take this photo nor was it taken by the wonderful iPhone XL5. Anyway if you look very closely at the blue planet you'll see me waving and supping on a tepid cup of Nescafe.

The Red Planet

Mars seems closer than ever these days. The extreme gravity created by Elon Musk's self awareness and gravitas is obviously pulling it towards us. I took this photo with a stock iPhone XL5 from my back garden after the (mental) fog had lifted. Absolutely buzzin' with the result. Also considering digging down and building a fall-out shelter. I always had a soft spot for the 60s.

Winter Gardens

November in an urban version of the Garden of Good and Evil: Sucking up leaves with a leaf sucker/blower when the leaves are wet isn't easy. The damp leaf material clogs the machine and it's basic metabolism is changed into a kind of super glue come super mud. A handy material for emergency shoe repairs. The internals of the machine are not impressed and a pit stop is necessary to clear the plumbing. This is akin to sticking an electric screwdriver up a cows arse in the dark and hoping for the best. It's an almost satisfying procedure. Thankfully I'm good at hoping for the best and now our winter garden is pristine in a kind of untidy and damaged way and the brown bin is full of horrid leafy material that's ready for collection tomorrow. As a result of this I'm now quite relaxed.

Handling the Truth

The truth is that there's a hotel toilet and a rather effective shower behind this door in Aberdeen. However all the towels have been used. Just turn the handle to reveal this truth if you are in that part of the world. If not you'll just have to take my word for it.

Ukraine

Some early seasonal gifts from Ukraine. Even in war, turmoil and loss, kindness and appreciation can still prevail. Most people are good, it's just tragic that the rotten ones rise into powerful positions that they then abuse for their own personal gain and ambition.