How To ...

My friend John Farrell knows a thing or two about a lot of things including DIY, healthy smoothies and espresso as he demonstrates here.  He also pulls off some mean guitar playing in the process.

Things are Everywhere

A photograph by Lee Miller taken in war torn St Malo in 1944.

Surrealism is everywhere, it was around 13000 years ago apparently and I don't doubt that. There are carvings and cave paintings to prove it, I've just not seen them yet. Mixed in amongst all the serious, tedious and sombre are the alternative spirits of absurdity and experimentation. They live on despite themselves, such strange, unwelcome bedfellows. 

They are only another force of nature, as right and proper as all the "right and proper" things that your elders and betters told you to take so seriously or else you'd be left behind. Well 60+ years on who's laughing now? Not me really but I do indulge myself with the occasional sly smirk.

Two Castrations and a Spay

Yes, those are the cat's pyjamas. Typical Monday kind of day around here, two castrations, a spay, a brown rice stir fry, a bottle of wine and the purchase of a 4" drainage pipe from B&Q. Sometimes it's hard to just keep up with any version of our regular routine, pedestrian or dismal activities. Anyway the cats are now recovering from their various surgeries (all of a planned nature) and we're hopeful of getting back to normal ... never.

Three Objects

 

Subject yourself to some mental torture using only three objects: One intellectual and creative challenge you might try is to write a dramatic short story using only three objects that make up the basis for the tale*. Any type of everyday item can be used, maybe a picture you've found. Stretch your imagination and see where it takes you. What exotic places, esoteric problems or exciting situations might you imagine? The sky is the limit (unless you write a story telling of how the sky is simply the cosmic gate way to somewhere else or it's a large dome's interior structure in a simulation or it's God's bathroom ceiling and we're all residing on a tiny speck of poo that's stuck to the toilet bowl that could be cleaned off or flushed away at any moment). Eek!

* I can tell you right now this is exactly the sort thing I never would/could do, so I won't be bothering with any of this utter nonsense.

Scottish Breakfast

Scottish Breakfast at Peggie Scott's - not a proper review: Actually tastes better than it looks and being quite hungry also helps. Incidentally I ate every scrap. The brown sauce was added later but omitted from the photo for clarity. The drink is a latte, everything else is self explanatory. Peggie Scott's diner is a three quarter way road trip stop between here (where's that?) and Aberdeen. I've no complaints.

Masters of Silent Reprisals

A small colony of intergalactic mushrooms have invaded our nice, quietly blossoming floral planters. I don't think that they're safe or edible either but I'm sure they want us to believe that they have come here "in peace". Yeah, every invader starts off with that line as they plan their next move of mass exploitation and colonial conquest. Meanwhile they're crowding out our summer plantings and sending their spores and probes deep into our hallowed compost in order to connect with the mother-ship or whatever underground HQ they might have. 

Communications will be established and ... I forget how it all works for fungaea with their tendrils, networks, electrical impulses, delicious flavours and mind warping chemical properties. However their texture can sometimes be a little unpleasant if they're not properly prepared i.e. cooked. (Never let them hear you say that). They must not be underestimated, they are the masters of the silent reprisal and time is on their side.

Scotch Mist

 

Day two in the midst of the mist: Recently the factories and mines that produce Scottish Mist have been working overtime as our mist (from an ultra secret recipe of course) increases in popularity. Supply has been exceeding demand and as prices rise there may be a glut of "Mist Millionaires" as we like to call them around here. There's speculation that Scotland may soon be able to boast of our first Mist Billionaire but nobody is quite sure. On the other side of things many lower output manufacturers are also concerned that bigger, non Scottish companies may edge into this lucrative market and use complex deals and cartels so as to squeeze out many of the smaller historic families who have been producing high quality mist since the days of Rob Roy MacGregor (no, not that one). 

Back in those days it was a cottage industry that thrived up until the Jacobean wars and the subsequent Highland Clearances. A long period of decline followed before a revival took place mainly thanks to the success of over enthusiastic You Tubers travelling around Scotland in self modified vans, drinking coffee and filming themselves in various historic locations; ones that no self respecting Scots person would ever bother to visit. It just goes to show you never can tell. 

By the way that "family friendly" firm Ineos is now the favourite to snap up the small providers and go global with the magical mist. They say that their values match well with ours. Many (in the know and in the underground) think that such a move might well spark a bloody revolution leading to various famous heads meeting up with various less famous spikes. "There might be other, nastier consequences if that happens" said a disgruntled highlander from lowland South Queensferry who wished to remain anonymous. I've no idea what's going on myself, if I hear more I'll post it.

Play Misty For Me

 Misty morning, foghorn calling, etc.

Lords and Gods of Progressive Rock

Vague truth: When you download it is it really down and when you upload it is it really up and where exactly is all this material kept anyway? Does it exist at all or is it an illusion? As history unwinds it's tortuous story down a fairly uncertain path why are there always more questions than answers and why have the great gods of progressive rock with all their lyrical flights of fantasy failed to stumble onto even the vaguest of truths? 

Of course you could argue that they have pursued many vague truths quite diligently and neither proven or disproven any of them because the subject matter is mostly fictional, which is an answer of sorts. Word salads from the creative corner isn't any better than word salad from anywhere else. It's still salad. Don't start me on country*, punk, hip hop or AOR salads either.

Protest singers, god bless them, are far more certain in their chosen line of business, they tend to deal in facts but allow for a certain amount of warping in the process. Their salad is warm or just around room temperature (that used to be a thing). Right on. Somehow I find that rather more satisfying. I still like mellotrons though.

*Just taking a moment to reflect on the enormous contribution made by the oh so tragic country duo Sunflower and Catfood. In the end Gram Parsons was so proud to have been associated with them as was I.

Sunflower and Catfood

 

Sounding very much like an up and coming country and western duo we have here, as special guests on the blog, none other than the fabulous Sunflower and Catfood. Sunflower is in the first bloom of the (summer?) season, short and to the point. The taller and more beefy looking plants have yet to flower. Will they ever? I wonder, it's getting late.

Cat food; here it is specially prepared to entice the not so hungry kittens at bed time when we're hoping they'll quietly settle for the night after a decent meal. To attract them to the table, the food is cunningly garnished with squirts of a cat friendly street cocaine known as Liki-Lix (available from all good super-markets). It works, they certainly eat it all up but are not so eager to fall asleep.

As an added bonus feature you might like to see the photo below not as a high class feline dish but rather as an artistic attempt to create a version of Micky Mouse rendered as cat food. A barbed social comment from the wider cat community as they strike back at the Disney empire.

When you ask AI all about the fabulous "Sunflower & Catfood" and how they're musical careers are going, this is the image you get. Marvelous people and great entertainers according to the stalwarts of the music press. Great to see you both looking so happy and well, folks everywhere are so glad you're together. You make a lovely but unreal couple.

Concrete Plans for Schooling

A stick-man government fails to invest in school infrastructure. They sit on their arses. They cut the budget by 50%. They hid the facts. It's deliberate. Nothing to see here.

In simple terms Conservative governments don't care about improving the standards of education for ordinary people. Quite the opposite, it matters to them that the education of the masses is delivered to a poor standard. This applies to every aspect of education from pre-school to university. Nobody in power wants a well educated electorate actually understanding the history, nature and levels of corruption that exist deep in British high society and maybe then trying to change how the state is run. That's a threat to their system. And they're pretty safe in there.

So keep the plebs stupid and ignorant, dirty and drunk, hopefully to the point where they will be apathetic about politics and just not bother to engage or vote. That in very simple terms is the plan. Survival  through substandard. So if a few state schools are broken or off line for a while they will be quite happy. It wont affect their kids will it?

Sorry, Tuesday brings out the worst. Tomorrow we'll be back to light weight surrealism or something similar.

The Scarecrow's Beautiful Wife

Available for sale as a composed NFT only: Multi digitized image of imaginary Chinese celebrity scarecrow "Footsy" on a coach tour holiday with his wife visiting active volcanoes in and around Indonesia in the early part of the 2000s. The scene depicts the infamous incident that took place when their tour bus had a flat tyre as a result of accidentally reversing into a pool of lava on the edge of the parking area whilst all the wardens were on their lunch break. The lunch menu has never been recovered.

It was thought that the hostages would escape at this point but Footsy calmed them with a hastily conceived meditation bomb. Nobody was injured as a result but prayers and thoughts were asked for by multiple social media users all across the world's scarecrow community. Some say that they fell on deaf ears. As you may know scarecrows are currently threatened with extinction as result of recent aggressive and biased economic policy amongst at least nine countries in the G7 group and also guitarists in the F#m group. Price(s) on application. Crop rotations are not affected by this offer.

Photos of Food

Last week's menu: Actually just a food related photo taken prior to warming these trays up. Waitrose fish pie* smells like cat food but actually tastes fine. Is this true for all ready meal fish pies? Probably not. It could also be that cat food aromas have become trapped in my nostrils since the kittens came to stay as I'm on fairly regular preparation duty dishing up their high protein meals. In other words everything smells like cat food.

Fish pies don't always taste "fine" (which is hardly a scientific measure of anything but reflects budget buys mostly) but they may well all smell like cat food prior to being heated to perfection assuming you're regularly scraping cat food into cat dishes with nostrils that are slightly conflicted. This revelation and observation follows on from very little extensive research and too much imagination. 

*Reduced to clear etc.

Below: That time when somebody forgot to order the fish pies in time for the meal.

Pond Life

Unsightly garden features - continued: Following on from the reasonable success of the log store project I also up-cycled another pallet and somehow managed to build this elevated garden pond. Obviously it's only pallet sized but I tweaked it with extra timber to make the pond about a foot deep. You Tube experience and guidance can be a good thing, I've confirmed that there is clearly nothing new in the world. Fish are not part of the plan at the moment, more like "lower level creepy crawly wildlife", water happy plants to keep things clean and occasional support for bird baths. It's all gone very Zen recently. Yes that is second year asparagus growing on the right.

Taylor Swift: The Complete Eras Megamix

I'm impressed: But I don't much like the term megamix even though it's an accurate description. At some point I'll no doubt write something critically meaningful about this and the impact of Taylor Swift on things in general, but just not today. It actually has everything. 

More Logs

The up-cycled log store* I built a few weeks ago is now full of logs following a delivery on Saturday. I'm not sure how I feel about this. Part of me never wants to remove a single log from the store. It's quite a big part of me. My brain I think. Fortunately we have another (smaller) log store and also some surplus logs put aside in the shed, so time is on my side for when to I have to decide what to do with them. Perhaps by that time I'll have matured into a better person or suffered some kind of health breakdown where trivial things like logs wont bother me. 

I feel like an evil billions bloke hoarding his log-based wealth that grew from a hedge (fund). Maybe we'll be living on the moon soon, logs will be obsolete then. We'll be burning Tesla batteries instead. I shouldn't think like that. Incidentally the logs are two deep on the shelves and I figured out that there are about 300 in this store, maybe 100 in the other one and about 50 in the shed. That's 450 logs in my collection of logs. Do I have enough for the horrors of winter and what about the smoke and fumes given off by actual burning? Damn. The future is bright, probably lit up by smouldering logs and burning EVs.

*Other garden projects are available.

Deviants

 

A Scottish politician is upset because somebody called him a deviant, twice apparently. He's informed the polis. Something will happen eventually. He might have been frothing at the mouth in rage, he takes things like that seriously being a public figure. He may have led a sheltered life (?). I'm not so well educated but I do know the meaning of deviant. It just means "different, not part of the norm, having different standards etc." Seems to me that's not really an insult either but a fairly accurate way to describe any modern politician. A sorry, funny but humorless bunch in my opinion (on both sides of the border), all hissy fits, posturing and taking the line however ridiculous.

Deviant is quite a useful word. In fact I just might be a deviant of some sort. I'm pretty sure I can quite easily disagree with many of the "popular, populist and woke" opinions that slide out of the orifices of many of the spokes-people who occupy positions on social media and unsocial media too, so I'm qualified. Anyway, who really gives a shit? Above is a photo of the 60s band "The Social Deviants". Writer and journalist Mick Farren was their leader. Back then you could be proud to be a deviant, it was a badge of honour, up to a point.

Unfair World

Simple things too complex for our simple minds: Why did it take so long for some kind of socialism to rise in the world and why does it ultimately, always fail to deliver on it's ideals? It must be a people problem. Greed. Fear. Religion. Maybe all human systems of rule and power are tyranny. Even if we started again with a clean slate it would all go the same way.

Delete the Internet

 

Burn down the mission etc.* I confess that I have just watched twelve (entertaining but ultimately disappointing) episodes of  "The Traitors - Australia". Now I've come to the conclusion that for the most part the human race is doomed. Watch it yourself and see if you agree. I also think this doom will fall upon us sooner than we think. Maybe next week or perhaps later in September, who cares anyhow?  Anyway that's because we're mostly smug and stupid fucks that don't listen, miss the point, are easily distracted and are totally unprepared for the consequences of our own irresponsible actions. Apart from that everything is going to be fine.

So what does any of this have to do with deleting the internet (clearly not a technical term or reasonable option)? I don't know I just like the phrase. Now that the internet drives everything it cannot be deleted ... but we can. If and when everything stops so will the irritating 80's style post punk soundtrack that seems to accompany every media snippet as an intrusive backing track. I'm quite looking forward to the silence.

The doorbell talks to the microwave. The curtains are in a relationship with the light switch. Alexa does whatever the flip she likes whenever. The oven is brooding over the fridge's somewhat frosty attitude. Hive just want's everybody to be cosy so that more deadly germs can breed and that it's masters make a fat profit. There's a Tesla in the driveway that thinks it's the only conscious being in the area or even the world.  Deleting it all might not be easy after all. It's a good thing that the phone is always on the alert.

*This type of post appears on a regular basis and generally adopts a gloomy but slightly self deprecating tone. As you might expect they are written by a benign chat-bot from an open source, most of the time.

Sometimes

Photo by Fife Jammer: When you, through no fault of your own, find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time but don't actually realize the significance or danger of your situation. It's now been more than a full week since the last Friday came around, I can't quite understand what happened to all that time and probably never will.