Wednesday, September 27, 2023
Friends
Tuesday, September 26, 2023
Bandcamp Paranoia
Nine new tunes: I've never been much bothered about Bandcamp but I know that for some it's a successful and useful platform for selling or just giving away music. Having said that I've tentatively launched our latest offering "collection" there, pending it becoming available on the "other" sites and us actually getting a CD version put together and distributed. We're not really in any kind of hurry here so I suppose this is a kind of a teaser and marker for the slow and ponderous growth of this latest project of ours. As they used to say; obscurity knocks (or might it be obscurity rocks?).
Monday, September 25, 2023
Car Culture
Friday, September 22, 2023
South Queensferry Daily Sunflower
Just to prove that it's not quite as bad as it seems, here's your daily sunflower photo. A patch of blue sky is also visible. As an added bonus below there's some evidence that the repairs on the town's harbour, mostly re-pointing the stones today at low water, are moving along.
Also from today or thereabouts, parking in the street near to us without an official permit might well cost you a £100 fine. Resident's only parking it appears be. Some serial misuse of the car park has occurred and the empire (contracted out to a "parking" company who are not gangsters I assume) has struck back. I imagine the local Faceblip group page will be a bin fire of insightful comments and stoical observations.
Thursday, September 21, 2023
Kittens
Reasonably reasonable but nonetheless cute cat photo collage complete with badly formatted naming system and a poor choice of fonts. I'm not any kind of perfectionist other than a bad one.
Wednesday, September 20, 2023
Sign
The occasional and elusive department of "I sincerely hope this is real" has opened for a few brief moments. Probably the best door sign (and response) I've seen in a while. If it's tomorrow by now, I'll still be laughing at this. It's childish I know and probably been doing the rounds for years, it may even be AI or another dumb fake but I don't care. It's the idea and the situation that I find funny.
Monday, September 18, 2023
South Queensferry Dreary Photo
The stone cold grey blocks of the imperial past, buildings and works of a type we'll never see again. Nobody is going to build anything this way and so many of the skills have faded away. There would be no good reason to try and the costs would be eye watering. It's drab and imposing, familiar and disturbing, heavy in resource and labour, crafted rather than "thrown together and built on an austerity budget". Blood, sweat, tears and exploitation ... you do it your way because you can.
You're known as "His Excellency" from Sydney to Bombay and beyond. In every gentlemen's club, diplomatic office and government building doors are opened for you. You have a boy to bat away the insects. Cool drinks are poured as you sit back in a leather chair. And when the tour is done porters with horses and carts carry your heavy trunks mixed through with pillage and profit down to the waiting ships.
There the nimble dockers handle all those wooden cases of valuables with care and a grim reverence, the special instructions have been branded onto the timbers in the Queen's English, it's clear what's happening. Ropes and bindings cut into their edges, nails groan as the crates are stowed away for the trip home, down in the dark hold. Ultimately those fine item's long journey ends with them sitting behind glass in some great house, away from the real world once again, fearful of dust and handling. Trophies of forgotten wars and conquests. Everything is now in it's rightful place.
"Plant something in the old horse trough to brighten up the square."
Only Murders
Bungle, the pyjama wearing kitten enjoys another riveting episode of "Only Murders in the Building" on Disney+. It's typical of our normal evening activities. Fine food, fine wine and then lounging on the couch as our minds are slowly churned and turned into scrambled eggs by the mysterious and unwelcome force known as LG TV. Hard to imagine but our day normally begins with a rigorous Joe Wicks workout followed by the serene inner silences being explored in a deep transcendental air-bathing session before a breakfast feast of curried bananas, ibex cheese and a lettuce, barley and semolina smoothie.
Sunday, September 17, 2023
South Queensferry Daily Photo
Saturday, September 16, 2023
Wine of the Week
The wine of the week is red, it's from Bo'ness (well the local Lidl therein) and possibly put together in Chile. I've no clear idea what Chilean life might be like at the moment, I hope it's OK. The grapes are Merlot. It's sold in a glass bottle for a reasonable price as you'd expect being wine of the week. Scoffed easily and no sore head. What more could you wish for? Shout out for Bo'ness by the way, there's a lot of good things going on in that wee town. Worth a visit for multiple decent cinematic, bakery, auto repairs and railway museum visiting reasons, amongst other things.
Friday, September 15, 2023
Unconnected Outputs
Thursday, September 14, 2023
How To ...
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
Things are Everywhere
Tuesday, September 12, 2023
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.
Monday, September 11, 2023
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.
Sunday, September 10, 2023
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.
Saturday, September 09, 2023
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.
Friday, September 08, 2023
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.
Thursday, September 07, 2023
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?