Monday, September 23, 2024
Signs and Sights
Thursday, September 19, 2024
Bridgerton Hobbits
It's finally happened: watching the latest car crash (also worryingly enthralling) episode of "Rings of Power" I was struck by the odd possibility of some hobbit world that had developed a quasi-Bridgerton culture. I know, daft but somehow closer than you might think. The "Derry Girls" Irish speaking, dirty and clumsy hobbit ladies have now strayed into some unlikely hobbit/halfling camp in the middle of a desert where equally idiotic hobbits dream of ... the Shire (didn't see that coming). Despite living in a subsistence based economy in a wasteland, nobody actually does anything. Hmm.
The good news is that romance and relationships are now rearing their quirky little heads. The girls with mushrooms and carrots teased into their ratty hair and horrid grimy fingers are the new evangelists for some dear green place over the hills. Their peculiar beauty routines and the fact that, as active refugees, they have time for all this, following ordeal after ordeal, can only lead to some Bridgerton style mash up. Love and guerrilla gardens in the sand dunes as they pamper themselves before attending the Great Royal Ball; after that they find the promised land and are summoned before the queen for a success rating and a pat on the head.
In order for it to work Amazon and Netflix might have to compromise their flagship shows, but it could all happen. Never let artistic integrity (long gone for both now) get in the way of a genre bending opportunity and reviews that might actually be positive.
I'm only scratching at the surface but here are some ideas: The mad multi cultural Scottish Dwarves (yes they are fucking crazy and not in a good way) might team up with Rebus to solve crimes in an even more gloomy version of Edinburgh's underground crime world than the real one. Also I'm actually insulted by the way these two dimensional dwarves are written and portrayed. Not sure why.
The stiff, stuck up and frankly stupid elves could work as "agents" on Selling Sunset. Elves zipping about in high powered sports cars is something I'd watch. Perhaps their complete absence of body language, fashion style and sense of humour would transform the luxury property market in LA, just maybe not in a good way.
As for Sauron, the clearly psychotic demi-god with multiple childhood issues; a dose of fun and lighter relief in the spectrum of evil is required. Some sunshine, lost souls, cocktails and proper hedonism. I'd transport him back to ancient Greece to team up with Jeff Goldblum's Zeus in Kaos. They'd set the world to rights, no problem.
So what about the dumb-ass, space hopping, clueless Gandalf hanging out with Tom Bombadil? Tom never did make sense in the books but was an interesting enough diversion, now I'm not sure. He comes complete with a bizarre Dorset accent, one set to rival Robert Fripps'. Words fail me, so I'm stopping now.
Tuesday, September 17, 2024
Cats V Helicopters
Putin must be stopped (said no western politician ever). Our flimsy defences are no match for the might of the Soviet forces and the backhanders the Kremlin has given to our illustrious political classes over the years. Who would have thought that 60 years of defence reviews, each one less thought through than the previous one would leave us with weakened and light weight armed forces? Nobody really knows what to do other than wag fingers and be photographed at the right places and then discussed in tedious Guardian articles.
Never mind all that, the military are on exercises this week. Scotland is under some imaginary siege. Grey/green convoys are out on the roads upsetting the traffic watchers. Greggs are doing record business as the September sunshine continues whilst the squaddies vape in unison in their break time. There are warnings and signs (?), paranoia and headlines and we have low flying helicopters buzzing our town. Well not very low but very loud when flying over us. Our normally stable cats don't like these pesky machines, understandably. They fill the sky over the garden with their engine noise and the cats scatter, headed into the relative safety of the house. They dislike them even more than vacuum cleaners, their other mechanical nemesis. Won't somebody think of the felines?
Monday, September 16, 2024
Aberdour Daily Photo
These photos are not really of Aberdour but more taken from Aberdour on a very calm, balmy September afternoon. A day of Indian summer weather. In the distance there is Inchcolm, an island in the Forth complete with ruined abbey and various abandoned fortifications. St Columba never did visit but stray angels can be seen there every Halloween. Below is a zoomed in shot.
The afternoon is spent lazily wandering along in the sun, kicking the dust and making up band names up whilst discussing the physical ailments of the over 60s. We're filled up full with heavy but tasty sandwiches, along with soup and salad from a local bistro . (Never liked the word bistro but it is what it is - a sort of cafe where things are slightly more expensive and a little bit nicer but the service is worse).
Sunday, September 15, 2024
Outbreak
There's been a nasty outbreak of these screens on my Planet X feed. Maybe it's me, maybe it's things in the wider world, maybe it's retribution. I'll never know and I'm not bothered. If the whole thing folded tomorrow we'd all just go elsewhere and browse. We're basically all cattle in little herds chewing on straw bales and looking blankly over the fence. X is just one of many straw bales. I'm also well aware that I'm only really writing this insignificant message in Sharpie on yet another brand of straw bale.
Wednesday, September 11, 2024
Grand Designs
Monday, September 09, 2024
Webs of Silence
I have become the sort of person who takes photos of spider's webs when out in the garden in the early morning foggy dew. Little did I think that my golden autumn years would be spent this way. All that training, education and workplace experience have led to this kind of thing. The crown of creation on my life and career are now activities that some may consider to be fine examples of wasteful, hollowed out and vacuous pastimes. But ...
"What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare."
"Leisure" by W H Davies.
P.S. Here's George quietly sitting 20' up a tree in a pigeon's nest.
Sunday, September 08, 2024
Cellardyke Daily Photo
Saturday, September 07, 2024
Friday, September 06, 2024
Winter is Coming
Thursday, September 05, 2024
Wednesday, September 04, 2024
Sixteen Once
Tuesday, September 03, 2024
Night Bird Flying
Friday, August 30, 2024
Last Resting Place
Thursday, August 29, 2024
Thursday Already
Monday, August 26, 2024
Little France
Sunday, August 25, 2024
We're Almost Everywhere
Our music has been on Amazon for years, even before everyone disliked Amazon and online shopping, exploitation and everything. Sad to say it's not really taken off for us either, we regularly receive only the tiniest of fake buttons on a monthly basis from the great Amazonian cash collecting beast. I blame lack of promotion and imagination on our part, that and the economic downturn which prevails on most of the planet's battered surface.
Saturday, August 24, 2024
Cockroach of Vegetables
Our mostly futile bid for some sort of self sufficiency in vegetables took another blow recently*. We've reached the second wave of kale planting as I defiantly tried again with another type of kale plant. Hopefully more resistant to being scoffed by tiny mites. I was encouraged by in depth and verified (?) scientific research found on YouTube that held a view that kale was a plant that couldn't fail. Tough and idiot proof they said. Hmm. It was described as the cockroach of vegetables, one that had survived all sorts of cataclysmic disasters and severe environmental events and moreover is highly resistant to pests.
Unfortunately the various pests of South Queensferry (most of which are largely invisible) have not read this particular memo. After a week of being planted, these kale plants are slowly being decimated by something unseen. It may simply be God yet again acting out his judgement upon us in the form of pestilence and famine (except for the actual pests), and that's nothing more than we deserve. I take heart however from knowing that some small creature is doing well and feeding it's family from my £3.99 tub of kale plugs ex-Brechin Castle garden centre and in the end are probably scoffing even more of it than we would have had it survived and thrived.
*The peas, potatoes and plums do seem to be OK, maybe we should just plant things that begin with P?