Whistle and the Binkies

Unlikely media headlines: The house is very clean again. A swirling burst of creative colour came into our lives. The princesses' arrival occurred, all rolled up in a tube. Pigment flying everywhere, across walls and floors and into the very corners of our minds. A left over stir fry. The never ending rain and the fake weather from the opposite direction. My key isn't working and a screw driver it certainly isn't. Wet logs, dry logs. Pulled Pork Practices. No dental problems. Cats avoiding unnecessary contact. Band practice. Chicken teeth. A fine wine from Portugal. You're driving in the wrong direction on the supermarket road because the arrow you clearly ignored is pointing the other way. A gift for the rats. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his secret name. A couple argue at a bus stop. Sweets from Poland. The news is dreadful and nobody it seems can improve it despite all their lofty positions and qualifications. We didn't vote for this. Yogurt turned turtle but recovering. No one selling the Big Issue today? Back to Mozart on two sides. Same as it ever was. Squiggle. Where are Whistle and those naughty Binkies when you need them?

Pretend Snow in a Real Country

The pale winter of discontent arrived as we slept. The yellow warnings were real, but up to a point only. That point was an icy mixture of frosted surfaces and fake snow that failed to deal any serious blow to movements and fixtures. In any other time it would be classed as a normal December day. The first snow of the year and now it's downhill all the way into a season of peculiar customs, a mish-mash of ideology and tinsel coated forced sentimentality which we are all expected to enjoy. I'll get over this eventually. 

A Nice Pair

I'm a person who doesn't really care for pears.

According to some religions and ideologies this is how it feels when your soul ascends to wherever it is you imagine your soul might ascend to. I consider the prospect interesting and enviable but also pretty unlikely. Believe what you will if it brings you peace and harms no one else.

Yellow Weather

An elevated state of paranoia and anxiety is to be encouraged. Spread fear and control the mindless activities of the common people. Let's make every day a "Yellow Weather Warning" day, even if it's just a bit windy and rainy. Stick it up on websites, on the news instead of actual news, tweet it and plaster it across motorway warning signs. Basically it's not safe to be outside and moving about but also if you're at home you're likely to be flooded out or have a tree fall onto your conservatory or perhaps be struck by lightning. That'll fucken' sort them. Don't forget to buy a lottery ticket either.

I liked it better in the 60s when we were simply afraid of nuclear devastation. We were taught to take cover under our school desks or hide below the stairs if the sirens sounded or the maroons were fired (who remembers maroons?). We never even considered the futility of acting on any of this "practical" advice. Imminent white hot death from the heavens could happen on any day at any time but we respected the fact that various VIPs would be able to use exclusive bomb shelters. Meanwhile rain, high winds, snow and ice were just seen as normal, shitty weather conditions and schools and railway lines were not going to close because of any of that bollocks. Get back to work the lot of you!

In many ways nowadays it would make a lot more sense if the actual warnings were targeted towards global warming and climate control messages. Motorway signs could declare "Don't be so smug drivers, you're all fucked, change your ways!" instead of check your tyres and phone conduct drivel. Weather forecasts should include the bad smells, contamination and fumes caused by sewage outfalls, chemical processing, industrial and plastic waste and landfill sites. Consumers should be encouraged to stop buying crap on line that ends up being binned ten minutes after delivery (kids "toys" being the worst offenders here). Package holidays into the bleached and unforgiving sun could have cancer warnings. And so on ... 

So we're staying in today for safeties sake, piling on the logs and filling hot water bottles, it's going to go down to at least -3 at about four in the morning. There may be a light breeze, sleet even. Occasionally we'll peer outside using the Ring doorbell camera via our phones. Stay safe.

Soupable

SOUPABLE  Adjective.  [ soo - pa -bell ] *

Able to be made into soup. Has all of the qualities necessary, after going through a preparation and/or cooking process, to become soup. The completed soup is assumed to be edible i.e. fit for consumption.

Relatable to all matters involving the creation of some kind of soup using any relevant recipe.

 - In his opinion the chicken stock and vegetables were soupable.

 - She went to the supermarket in order to purchase some soupable         ingredients.

 - The chef declared his creation to be both soupable (soup)       and suppable (supped with a spoon).

 - Have a look in the cupboard and see if there is anything that might be considered suitable to be soupable.

 - We may be in for some soupable weather (soup needed).

 - A shopping list of soupables.

Also:

soupable vegetables, 

duck soupable, 

bird's nest soupable, 

mock turtle soupable,

cosmic soupable.

*Just taking the occasional opportunity to increase and enrich the vocabulary of all you ignorant plebs out there. If the cap fits wear it. Consider yourselves lucky. This is a test broadcast.

Greensleeves

Based on an impulse married to a whim and mixed with pinch of desperation and a dash of "you know I don't really give a fuck what anyone thinks" we decided to do a different kind of version of Greensleeves (a while ago now). Some might say a completely over exposed, dead in the water, cliche ridden and uninspired folk song that every school child knows and that figures in the most basic of play in a day guitar and keyboard books isn't worth it, but aye, that one. 

I actually ended up doing a bit of research ... well keyboard warrior style and still went ahead with it anyway, digging deep of course. I was kind of thinking "what if the Byrds or Tom Petty or Jonny Marr did a version of this?" That might be a good idea. In the end the jangle, jingle and excessive reverb I imagined isn't really there but strangely enough something else is. It's a combination of a secret chord and Ali's rather pleasing doubled up vocals. That's about it. It's traditional folk music but not as you know it. We get all the money too.

Unrelated Media

Thanks to GD Art for the photo: Shore Street, Cellardyke, Fife, 1963. My granny lived up in the next street; Dove Street. I lived there too when I was very small in the 1950s. There were tiny shops like this one nearly every hundred yards all along towards Anstruther. These shops were functional but fake, really just converted houses, often using the front room with minimum facilities. Readily available Walls ice cream, Hendry's lemonade and penny sweets were a big attraction for the kids. Paper money was a rare sight. Coins were dirty brown, still with the faded head of Queen Victoria stamped into them. People remembered Victoria. 

The shops were run by older women wearing headscarves and long woolen coats. War and fishing widows or eccentric old maids with some mysterious back story that was only every whispered to those locals within the circle of trust. They sold basic groceries, vegetables, milk, sweets and cigarettes. People just came in and bought what they needed when they needed it from the shop next door as if it was a bigger larder. There were no bright shiny supermarkets or discounted suppliers, that bombshell was unthinkable. They all had a strange, distinctive  smell, as if something was not quite right. Some dead relative in the parlour behind the makeshift counter top or under the potato sack. Maybe it was just how those times were, things were more smelly and not quite right. 

Art is everywhere.

If you're practicing guitar then it's consistency you need or so the gurus might say. I've never been so good at that. Too many other things to do, too many distractions. Maybe I'm just not so keen on music. I can't be bothered. There's a cat asleep on my lap so I'm stuck. Repetition and exercise kills creativity. Old dogs, new tricks. Been tinkering on the margins too long. YouTube experts that kill the joy. Where am I even going with this? Is there a good film on somewhere?

Merry Christmas

One of more peculiar sights in South Queensferry is that there is a private residence in the High Street flanked by two of the rarest things you'll see in any Scottish town these days; two public conveniences. The Gents and the Ladies are bookends to this house's front door. I don't I've ever seen that anywhere else, albeit it's not a topic I've ever researched. I guess everyone around here takes this feature as quite a normal thing because it's been this way for a while. The bright Christmas sign above is I think a part of the town's seasonal decoration, it adds a surreal dimension to the scene.

Rude Index

 A quite satisfying photo poster for a photo exhibition in 1977.

Nothing to do with the pic above: I probably have to be careful quite how I put this but I was thinking about a certain snacking experience I recently had; munching salted peanuts. I've never liked inserting my fingers into packs of crisps or nuts or whatever. I don't like the moist salty substances and crumbs that end up covering my fingers. It only gets worse the further into the bag I reach. When it comes to peanuts, they're actually quite difficult to pick up with human fingers, we've not evolved very far in that direction. Nobody eats one peanut at a time either so I'm using my hand as a kind of shovel to get a decent amount of them into my mouth. Not a great look to achieve in public. Perhaps a tool is required.

I googled "peanut spoon" and realized that any spoon associated with peanuts is meant for peanut butter only so there's nothing specific. Eating peanuts with a spoon would likely be considered odd I suppose. There is a view on peanut etiquette that suggests you never eat more than two peanuts at a time, it's in the "Rude Index". They don't recommend using spoons either but you should place the empty shells into a dish. A normal dish I presume. I imagine there are a lot more peculiar things in the Rude Index but I'm not going to be going there. I don't want to know how rude or offensive my manners might be. I just want a better way of consuming peanuts. Then there's popcorn ...

No.3 and No.4

 

Every guitarist has a No1. and presumably a No2. instrument. Their most usable and playable guitars and obviously many more beyond that, certainly for live work. My first two* are the light maple topped Les Paul "120" and a red Washburn 335 semi. The guitars in the picture however are currently vying for positions 3 and 4 in a relatively small field. Three being the Sunburst Partscaster and four being the highly modified Les Paul DIY effort. 

These are both pretty comfortable and playable but naturally they have issues, common problems with Frankenstein guitars. Mostly the problems are about set-up and intonation, things that by degrees I'm slowly solving. The Les Paul, now that I've played it again after about a year's hibernation, certainly needs new machine heads - that could be a pricey improvement. There's no point in skimping and pussyfooting around. Then there's the bigger question, do I really need number three and four at all?

*Not counting acoustics here either.

Goblin Golden Hour

The golden hour arrives at South Queensferry whenever the great and powerful goblins who rule the universe turn on their spectral filtering system so all us poor wee humans can be momentarily distracted and puzzled by these suddenly visible heavenly events. It's a treat for the bored pensioners too. Usually it's the northern lights they turn on because that gets everyone's attention and all the snappers come out and swamp Instagram with their greeny weirdy photos from somewhere up by Dundee or down by Berwick upon Tweed. We don't have a northern lights experience here as we're continually bathed in light pollution and astral sewage. Edinburgh Council have also banned them as they might distract cyclists. So as some compensation for our pleasurable misfortunes the space goblins give us the odd daytime golden hour just to keep us happy. (Photo taken from a Canberra.) 

A Predictable Outcome

 

Yes it's that wholly unsatisfactory time of year when we can all enjoy participating in the hectic queue for tickets to some major festival event or other. It's a bit like buying a lottery ticket and then quietly watching the balls jiggle round for at least an hour and then being slightly surprised that after all the waiting and apparent activity you didn't even get a single number in the draw. So you take a deep breath of the pale Scottish version of oxygen and mumble to yourself philosophically, "well there's always next year". Indeed there will most likely be a next year but where exactly will that next year find us? 

I'm also glad I'm not at all a privileged and entitled person right now, how shattering must it be do get randomly declined after a public free for all?

Everybody

Everybody these days does the same shit really. We're all carbon copies. If you're lucky enough to have Netflix (?) then you binge on The Crown. You can't avoid the reviews and criticism or whatever else is bouncing about. So you sit on the couch, wine/coffee/beer/tea at the ready and absorb this version of the shared experience that being a "subject" is. Whatever your opinions or views on the royals might be, if you're a certain age it all rings true as part the fabric or backdrop to years of your life. The common national memory clinks and snaps into action as fierce as some animal instinct. I think for us all on this scabby island that's really what it's about; the collateral damage done by the relentless pushing of the royal narrative and enforced flag shagging and standing to attention for people that you're actually better than. 

There's little in the way of revelation or novelty in the story line, you've heard it all before, you've just not seen it this way with all the big money production values air brushing across your own feeble memory and recollections. Now it's this version of the truth that prevails until another comes along in 20 years time. Life didn't quite seem this way when you were living through it with all it's painful and often bleak reality buffeting you. The old BBC footage, grainy tabloid photos, interviews and snippets all of which were unavoidable at the time even for the most desperate of republicans have been overwritten and buried by the bright spectacle this provides. God no ... but yes. There's still another six episodes to go. 

Typical Guardian Readers

I'm firmly in their woolly pullovered demographic but that was never my intention: Grown up family, three cats, retired, to the left of centre, quizzical and critical, watch Netflix now and then, concerned about the future, a bit hypocritical, try to eat right but don't, weary of politics and human idiocy, bored with any arty or theatrical stuff. I still check the news most days because I've a need to feel I'm keeping up. The Guardian on-line being more entertaining than most media sources but I don't agree with a few of the editorials, some featured material or the positioning of news. 

Too much weekend whinging, grandiosity and contradiction and that just switches me right off. Can't be bothered with guest pieces that are either vague muddles of inarticulate grumbles or mindless, ignorant privileged rants. Also Scotland barely gets a mention unless it's food, holidays or some not too well informed piece about nationalism; but still I come back, maybe it's for the cocktail of world photos right at the end. Bungle the sleepy cat finds it all pretty dull but still a good place to nap.

Two Restarts

Two restarts and a cold, cold heart: Living with an aging laptop is, I presume a bit like living with an aging relative of some sort. The grumpy soul who you feed with soup, small talk and AC/DC on the headphones while trying to ignore the numerous slip-ups they make. So as my laptop is too old for an upgrade to the lofty heights of  Windows 11 we struggle along together through the maze of regular Windows updates, administered like the bedside drip of drugs or fluids plumbed into the limp arm of some terminally ill patient. There is a real buzz of satisfaction when it's done and knowing that Windows is smooth to use for a while.

Without these regular clinical boosts and the ever lengthening restarts that accompany them it would all be over in seconds as the Windows 10 mechanism and it's aging processors slowly slip away into a numb coma of flickering chips and failing connections. Then total shutdown and onwards into the pile in that special place where old laptops are stacked awaiting ... a fate nobody quite knows anything about. They are simply there like the old phones, chargers and connectors that we have no more use for but can't quite face the treacherous act of disposing of them.

But it's not dead yet. I see it as being a bit like a classic car, overtaken and made obsolete by bland looking EVs, bristling with screens and apps, fancy door handles, distinctly iffy build quality and a pitiful range. All the faithful laptop needs is that odd jump start to get going again to get back to wagging a finger at you and crunching a few of your files. It's not as if I'm asking much of it either, it's hardly pulling a caravan, nope, just a few documents to tweak, editing photos and routine browsing mainly. It's in a permanent and sedate retirement place really but for those bullies at Microsoft shoving down our throats the fairly obvious news that it can never be compatible with Windows 11, oh no, never and that's their final word. We're living the twilight life of the cancelled.

I recall Apple doing the same over their operating systems in my Mac Book days. Just keep churning out the devices and make sure everybody has to keep up, all appliances are cash cows. Obviously they're right in as much as the systems move on but it just riles the gristle filled, stubborn part of me that admires 40 year old fridges, real books, cassette decks and the odd German built sports car from the last century. Whatever happened to those ridiculous ideas of sustainability and continuous improvement that might consider the end user as possibly being important?

When We Got Older

An old friend is featured in a film: When we got older we headed off in different directions. It turns out that this is a common experience, in other words it often happens and happens often. We move even if we stand still but that's all in the past now and the maps are lost. Everybody thinks, "I've never done good things, I never did bad things, I never did anything", or so it seems at times. We leave a trail and a legacy, all of us; but this is about the graphic scores, the artwork, delirious museums, Dundee, countless reflections and a whole lot more. An actual documentary. See/stream/download the film* here. 

 

Cats have no real ear for music. They often seem indifferent and a bit different. You try to tell them to listen up but do they even care?

This is happening in real time as opposed to some other kind of time. The quickness of the hand deceives the eye. There will be a full explanation.

Everything is open to interpretation. Everything can be spontaneous and can be improvised. I'm doing some of that right now.

Behold: The Graphic Score.

*These screen shots are all deliberately badly done by me, mainly for effect.

Octopus Curiosity

I know it's hardly important these days but we did have a bit of discussion about track order when we were putting together the album "collection". Track order in these days of streaming might seem a naive idea and unnecessary and that may well be correct, however it is satisfying to put your songs into some kind of order, like books on a shelf or the final edit of a long article. 

The song "curiosity" created an interesting problem for us. It's more of a kids song than anything else so where do you place it in the track order? It shouldn't jar with the others but needs to stand up for itself and still fit into the overall flow of the album. Of course that's easier said than done. In the end we went for an Abbey Road solution; we thought of Octopus's Garden and where that sat and the impact it had. Small fry like us can look up and learn from the legends even if nobody else really cares. So it's there, second from last (as per the first side of AR), works for me too.

This is the second Curiosity video. The first was a 16 Bit styled Rotor effort, just to get something done really. This newer version is an odd mix of AI cats, cafes, noodles and jumpy animation. Working on a zero budget with limited skills and resources gets us here, all scuppered of course by the constraints of the YouTube algorithm. If you don't have 1000 subscribers you can't be taken seriously and get listed ... how do you get 1000 subscribers? Make better content?

The Persistence of Paper

Polyptych. 

The shallow depth of a single sheet of blank paper. 

Photo real montage. 

Wordlessly saying nothing.  

An original piece that is instantly forgettable. 

As exciting as standing on one leg. 

How profound is the single bead of sweat upon the brow of an artist staring up into the midday sun? 

Paper can be made from trees or grass but looks like neither in the end unless you draw or print such an image onto the blank page. 

A rough scribble may be enough to convey the idea. 

Our minds are designed to recognize suggested shapes in all manner of things. 

The medium is irrelevant. 

Is a question a question without a question mark. 

One sunny day in Memphis 3500 years ago the Egyptians invented paper. 

I could be wrong.

Wrap ideas in it very tightly before you write down your thoughts.

What are your thoughts anyway?

Dr Who: Return From the Bin

 

Doctor Who is already lost in a world of AI and heritage based confusion, with over exposure and over blown attempts to remain relevant, as some might quite reasonably say. I know I don't watch it anymore, but I do like the breaking news story of BBC employees who, rather than throw away original 1960s Dr Who filmed episodes, took it upon themselves to save the precious classic TV series by taking them home and simply hoarding them rather than dump them in the bin as ordered. You have to wonder what the fuck was going on at the BBC in the 1960s, too mean to pay for storage space?

The hoarders must have known that a day of reckoning would come and lived in fear of it, as if criminals who'd committed a massive but unreported robbery. Now older and afraid of the establishment's retribution and presumed white hot wrath they are conflicted and as frozen in inaction as the films they possess. 

Dear unemployed script writers everywhere, here's your new drama series (or at least a decent 60 minute playlet) to batter out of your greasy Mac-books. The punchline is that many, not all, of these almost mythical but rescued and now theoretically available episodes are pretty much artistic shit and completely unwatchable for any modern audience (but there may be a big market in the care home industry).

Um

Growing old in and around social media: One thing I notice is the slow degradation in the comments and postings of those "peripheral" friends we all have. Folks you met a couple of times along the way maybe (if at all) or through some second hand contact and they just stayed in the margins of that unreal slice of life. As they grow older and you observe but don't interact with their comments and output, there's often an gradual element of craziness that emerges. 

These, once seemingly reasonable people just start, often slowly, to kick around ideas and opinions that you didn't quite see coming. Little hints, slurs, awkward wording maybe, or just plain inappropriate nonsense begin to appear. Growing old with a daily blank sheet of paper to fill, plenty of time and no editorial oversight (just like this page I suppose). Welcome to an unhinged world. What could possibly go wrong?

Perhaps someone will spend £10,000 on a Marshall CD juke box?