What Success Looks Like

Stream of consciousness time: The evolution from clay based cat litter to the "green green forest" alternatives resulted in the purchase of two small inner trays to line the bigger litter tray. Now I have to drill 99 holes in the inner trays to allow sifting to take place. I've got 99 problems but the drill ain't one etc. Then there's the 30kg of wood pellets. I also bought about 15kg of bird seed, I'll plant it out soon hoping to see a decent crop of birds shooting up and blooming in the spring.

I constructed a concrete channel under the gate to allow for the laying out of a water hosepipe in dry weather when the gate might be closed. The design was created in my head but once I'd turned it into reality having poured the concrete I realized that many things that exist inside my head have no place in the real world and this was one more. I intend to cover the design's shortcomings with liberal scatterings of top soil (around the edges). Vegetation from unknown sources will complete the transformation.

I also bought 4 bungee cords, their precise use has still to be defined. Unexpectedly a strong wind sprung up or blew over or something. It was followed by stinging rain so I ate my sandwiches earlier than I intended as the cats looked on chewing on their cat sticks.

A brief phone call confirmed that my oil pressure sensor will be checked for oil leaks first thing tomorrow morning. I'm quite looking forward to it as a ramp has been freed up on my behalf. N.B. take cash if you want a coffee and bacon roll, there's no cards or whatever at the nearby caravan cafe.

Up on the top right of this page I've installed a player that plays our latest album using that notorious music system known as Spotify. I really don't know why they picked so dumb a name for their product nor do I know why artists get so little per play from their players. Chicken feed springs to mind and I have a rough idea what that costs and Spotify don't even match that; I'm almost scunnered as a result. Click on it and listen if you will. Be unafraid. Ho hum.

Kittens Update

As you might expect the kittens are still busy being kittens. This involves a high degree of kitten mischief being on display in proportions that Beatrix Potter would be proud of. Then there's the unrelenting spectre of continuous cuteness that rears up with little or no warning though usually when we're trying to sleep, opening a cupboard or just making some innocent movement that the cats perceive as an invitation to play. It has the power to stop any train of thought or activity for an indefinite amount of time as they gain our full attention. I guess this is why nobody drives with cat passengers (there are other reasons too). When this isn't happening and they're not eating then they're asleep. That only means further cuteness will be on show amid emitting strange noises and getting into peculiar bodily positions that makes sleep look like hard work but also relentless fun. 

Obvious downsides are as the grow so do their appetites and the amount of pee and poo they generate. We rotate between three cat litter trays and are bravely moving over to the "wood pellet" solution. We have not arrived there yet and are operating with a rather clunky hybrid method. The wood pellets are good but any spillage results in wet sawdust debris on floors and paths but that's still better than floating clay dust in the atmosphere. Then there's the final "sifting". Despite all this trivial moaning the signs are that the environmentally unhealthy clay will cease to be used from ... whenever we can get our act together. 

Something of Little Importance

Second track on the new album: So the slow slog in the life cycle of one of our home made videos duly begins. Birthed painfully into the algorithm driven world of YouTube to the usual minimal response and pale fanfare. Ground down by the relentless grinding and crunching of those fitful gears that are  hidden behind the smiles and flashy adverts. We're easy about all of that as it slides to the bottom of the pond and into the muddy sediment. 

Being competitive is as pointless as it is absurd.  There are millions pissing into the same sink. Shorts and snippets carefully created using a tortuous and intensive process that hardly involved AI at all (?), this sensitive piece is now ready to be aired; hopefully to confuse, delight and entertain. Well we like it anyway.

No Greater Love Had Amanda

 

Happy to say that the installation of the new solar panels for the garden water pump system has gone well. Even in dull weather the output has exceeded all of our expectations. As an added bonus so far; I'm pleased to report that no distressed hedgehogs have had to recused from the virgin wetlands that have been created. 

Some time today was spent at the "Pillars of Hercules" cafe and gardens in and around Falkland. Not far away from there we discovered a museum/art exhibit describing the life and Fife heritage of Jonny Cash no less. It seems he was a descendant of King Alexander IV and, in his day, the man in black was a regular visitor to Scotland and of course the kingdom (Fife that is).

No greater love had Amanda? What's it mean? When you know you know. YouTube and AI strikes again.

Capital Models

 

It's a set up*: I'm now something of an apprentice member of the Edinburgh band "Capital Models". I may be on probation for a bit for obvious reasons. They have a long local history and, like most real bands, have managed to skillfully avoid fame and world domination for their entire playing career. I'm not sure that my inclusion will change any of that but you can never tell. It's all about having a bit of fun really, playing covers, making mistakes, supping coffee and eating cake.

*By set up I am of course referring to my hastily rebuilt and minimalistic decking pedal board and tiny studio amp. Photo by CBQ.

Friends

Impossible noodles: Sticking with a familiar and simple video genre and with no expense spared here's a taster/teaser of a track from "collection". 

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?).

Car Culture

A question that often bothers me is, from a social perspective, "where do I feel most at home?" Would it be at a gig, a football match, in the pub or elsewhere? I'm no kind of car expert but this year I've attended a few racing events and car shows up at the local circuit, Knockhill. I've sniffed and sucked in the full petrol head experience. They've all been different types of event but I've enjoyed them all; watching competitive sports, showing cars and also watching people. There's a unique car culture in this country that's truly "out there", some of it is in fact outlaw by nature and certainly rough around the edges. 

I've met some really nice people though, all of whom, often along with their whole families are devoted to car culture as a hobby and lifestyle. So how is this noisy, smokey, brash and expensive hobby going to fare against the rise of the EV and the obvious measures that will truly "outlaw" chunks of ICE motoring? EV racing is a thing that's growing but in car culture it's not just about speed, it's about accessibility, modification and a certain style and history that EVs don't have (yet).  

People often talk about the "soul" in engineered items. Steam, diesel and petrol and the heritage that goes with them. Watching the circuit racing, the donuts and the drag racing yesterday I could feel some kind of soul in those ridiculous machines; playing like kittens, scrapping like bulldogs and flying, smoking and breathing fire like the dragons in Game of Thrones. Then meekly rolling over, bonnets and doors open to reveal over spec'd and titillated engines and lurid custom interiors.

I've driven for about 50 years now, it's been a work, holiday and utility thing that's provided a sort of freedom and a certain amount of fun.  If it comes to it and I can afford it I'll probably get an EV, but it'll be more of an appliance than a buddy or a project. I just know it. Meanwhile where will all the petrol heads be in 2045? Holed up in some lock up trickle charging a battery that's never topped up by it's host vehicle? Paying £50 for a gallon of 97 octane? Sneaking away on back roads at the dead of night for a rare burn out? Sneaking onto sacred and shaky forums and old instagram postings somewhere in the dark web calling the disciples to meet up sometime somewhere for a low revving encounter?

Who will be the enforcing goons here, who are the goodies and the baddies? Who are the victims? People who's only crime was to follow some misguided but understandable motoring dream of romance and danger? What do oil companies and car companies really want? Ford, maker of the Model T has stopped building small cars - there are thousands of Ford Fiesta, Focus and Mondeo people/owners out there desperately trying to keep them alive just because (and it's kind of strange I know) they love them.

Our corrupt leaders just try to extend the deadlines with bribes and meaningless chatter. It's all a cheap and easy political football and our fragile reality remains for them undefined. Climate change already is at a point where we should be "on a war front" says Chris Packham, and he's right. Everyone is sleepwalking into disaster and superficially happy to do it. Car culture, a crazy and wonderful thing it may be but it can't last for another twenty years ... well not in this part of the world. We're fucked really and nobody wants to face up to the unpalatable damage and costs of change.

Photos from yesterday: Above, two highly modded VW Beetles, proper old school. Below: my personal favourite out of hundreds of cars, a Datsun Skyline 2000GT from 1972. I've never seem one before and this one (imported from Japan recently) is a peach.

 

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.

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.

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.

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.

South Queensferry Daily Photo

 

Whilst it isn't really in South Queensferry I still consider Hopetoun House to be near enough to be in it. Having lived close to it's environs in Abercorn for quite a few years it's always meant something to me, I'm not quite sure what. The "ruling" families and their influence and all the awkward and uneven history doesn't sit right with me but Hopetoun ... remains a conflicted guilty pleasure. We're all a bit hard wired on the habits of the deferential respect we are expected to show to the upper class, their estates and their trappings. Class remains king in this fractured and deluded country and so is a continual and unavoidable embarrassment.

Yesterday we had a wander around the gardens in search of unicorns, my least favourite fantasy beast, eventually we found them, or at least very cute four hoofed facsimiles. Wide eyed kids could walk along the path with them for a small fee, as is common practice in all true unicorn encounters. In these photos I deliberately avoided the unicorns (for fear of magical reprisals) and also the big house so it's the back lanes, steps, walls and little details here.  

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.

Unconnected Outputs

I'm no authority but I understand that in certain places cats are thought to be witches and conversely witches are also thought to be cats. They appear to be interchangeable. This is not how things have seemed in my experiences of either cats or witches but I'm going be a bit more tightly focused from now on, regarding my somewhat hazy observations.

I've never really liked the term "antique land", why not just say "another land" or something? Apart from that minor criticism the wee poem stands up quite nicely and err... pretty much tells it like it is, whoever you might be.

Meanwhile here's a fairly straightforward and accurate bit of advertising:

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.