Fake Plastic Trees

 

Out and about in the East of Scotland: I admit that for a few seconds I was fooled but once I had got myself together (as the younger folks might say) I realized that I had simply encountered one of either China, Israel or Russia's carefully placed and camouflaged not so secret listening stations suitably disguised as an innocent indigenous tree of some sort. 

Thanks to meeting strict award winning environmental and design guidelines you can see how well it blends in with the surrounding soft, green and pleasant West Lothian countryside on a braw May day. Worried about intrusive fascist states? Just relax, think daft and happy thoughts and talk any kind of lively Edinburghshire bollocks on your phone or enter them in the comments, then let the AI bots in Texas and Tel Aviv try to make some sense of it. 

Once you get a little closer to the "tree" you can see where they put in the AAA batteries and their multiple USB connected connections feeding back to Air Force One (the updated Qatar "Kamikaze" model), BBC Scotland and the Vatican's dungeons and torture gardens.

As a warning though, please don't get too close, it may be protected by a state of the art Golden Dome. The local MSP and the council are well aware of this fixture (a site of outstanding scientific interest) and have assured nearby residents that the access road will certainly not be maintained unless a new set of speed bumps are deemed to be necessary.

Life Still

Life still/still life with socks.

It was a plain kind of day. All I had to do was take a pictures of things. That was the job I'd made up. I didn’t want to do it, but I did it anyway. Something told me to. I don’t know if it came from inside or outside my head.

I was calm about everything now. The people I loved. The money. The world pressing down. It would all go the way it would go. Kismet.

The only thing left was to keep a record. A record of what had happened. What was happening. What might come. 

Then the mirror writing began but from the keyboard.

That was enough. Quite enough. 

Cat/Parts/Befuddled

Zippy the cat is pretty obsessive about trying to open up closed doors for no obvious reason. This bathroom door is a particular favourite and we just capitulate and open up the door. Slowly his persistent claws are breaking down the painted surface. It seems that no amount of counseling, bribery or diversion tactics can stop this behaviour. Send help money.

It's very satisfying to try to buy a second hand auto part on eBay and be able to confirm that the correct stock and model number match up before pulling the trigger. Then when it arrives (really quickly) and it easily fits and works because they actually did send the correct part, then you are, for a very brief period of time, the king of that very small world that you seem to inhabit when awake.

People often ask me just how posh I am and despite my rich (?) working class heritage I sometimes struggle to arrive at a decent and honest response. It's a befuddling enigma. In order to help answering this question I've developed the "Brie" index. In simple terms I believe that your poshness can be measured by how much Brie your household consumes in a single European week i.e. 7 days. Turns out our household consumes one reasonably sized pack, as above. That's all I know. The research is at too early a stage to draw conclusions. You are welcome to take the test, free of charge.

Noodle Pots

"This egg tastes like nothing". 

He shifted the white around with his fork, explored the smooth white surface that rested on the plate, casually probing it like a specimen. He added more salt, a little more pepper and moved the salad portion from side to side, as if exploring it for signs of life. 

"Nope, it's bland. Like a black hole on my tongue, just nothing. I wonder whatever happened?" 

I didn't bother answering. It wasn't even meant as a question. Yes there were eggs to eat but there were no chickens, they were long gone. They'd crossed over to the other side but found only a void. Now we had simulated eggs made up from some concoction of things that were not eggs. They had egg like colour texture but little flavour. It was a poor start and an unsatisfactory finish. Modern life eh? 

"Time passes and you get used to things but memory plays tricks. We're old enough to remember an ancient world that doesn't exist anymore, it's far away and fading. Still I just can't escape the man traps my own mind lays out for me."  

It had become a common experience for our generation.

Conversations about unsatisfactory food were embedded in everyday banter and the fodder of jokes. Complaints were voiced but just kind of floated and faded over onto some futile level of faceless authority before they were erased. The complaints became observations and then settled into something more to do with "at least we have ...". The slow acceptance, the lack of resistance, the carry on and keep drinking your prune juice attitude though no one under forty knows what a prune was or how you ever came by it. That part of history hasn't survived. I wondered what kind of history should survive; unending documentaries about real estate business from when it was "real", alien hoaxes, unsolved crime and extinct animals that we still think are OK and scratching about out in the wild somewhere.

I was brought up on the Lomond Books of Education, an austere set of school textbooks covering numerous subjects. It was a Fife thing, a Scottish thing in the mid 20th century. The Lomond Books on Scottish history were sparse on facts and speculation wasn't really allowed. Thin black and white illustrations of Wallace and Bruce, Mary Queen of Scots and James VI that told you nothing. Coloured print must have been too expensive so our historical viewpoint was like a brass rubbing extrapolated into an action figure but without the action or any drama in the narrative. Flat and grim, faceless people in armour and gowns who were long dead. 

The historical text was the same, the human touch conveniently missing, just in case you thought these people might actually have been really flesh and blood. Births, deaths, castles, conquests and battle dates. Nobody ever said anything out loud unless they were a Shakespearean character traveling from A to B to C. Those "lines to take" had survived but no teacher ever explained what that complex dialogue might mean. We only had our uneducated guesswork to go by but were too bored to fully investigate it. The delete key had not been invented but they still knew how to use it.

So where did the chickens go? Like everything else they were replaced. They'd had a good run, however many thousand years of clucking and pecking but then along came a better, more cost effective, fully industrial and environmentally cleaner way of a) producing chicken meat and b) eggs, so they said. A few people spoke up for the chickens; chicken farmers probably and foodies and activists but "they" got rid of them. Quickly, quietly. The system works. Now we have a synthetic alternative but without any real alternatives. 

I used to complain about having too much choice out in the world of modern retail. Too many varieties, too many products, all competing for space and attention, all getting in the way, all needing HGV transportation and temperature control and shelf life monitoring, crowded out with adverts and shelves and pop ups and fridges. Click and collect, delivery in minutes, everything there when you need it, food, drinks, clothes, anything. Well that way of being passed away. Things are still "available" but via ration, allocation, status and location. Not too much choice but it's all "good for you" and "good for society" now. Now a lot of the boxes to tick or click are greyed out.

The delays can be annoying but you get used them. We all keep emergency noodle pots in the bottom of our cupboards but I don't really know how we'll boil the water when the power is cut. Did I mention that I'm turning one hundred and four on my next birthday? I think they might have put something in the eggs.

Banchory Daily Photo

 

Bacon, eggs and toast. Obviously.

The River Dee.

Highland Cattle.

Highland Cattle and Calves.

Capital Models - Rock and Roll

We'll be playing this and quite a few other tunes this Saturday (May 24th) at the Leith Dockers Club in Leith, Edinburgh. 

The noise starts at about 8pm.

Free entry and reasonable bar prices.

Call Any Vegetable

There once was a time when we all were less removed from the food that we ate but there's a hazy fog coming down. I know it's true but I struggle to recall how that time was ...

"He spoke often of carrots and greens, of beets boiled firm and eaten with salt and he said a man who ate well from the rich earth would live long and die with his boots on. He believed it, or said he did and there was truth in his voice when he said it. It was the kind of inner truth that needs no volume. But sometimes, alone at night with the seabirds calling into the empty darkness and the moon low and dull, he thought of cheeseburgers wrapped in paper, fries and mayo and the snap of cold cola. His hands would tremble a little. He never said anything about it. Everything remained tight. He only chewed his kale slower and told himself that he liked the bitterness."

East Kilbride Daily Outlaw

Got to love an Outlaw.

The Scattered Spider Boys

The Scattered Spider Boys came quiet, like a wind through the dry grass, invisible until the damage was done. They weren’t dusty farm hands or seasonal fruit pickers but the children of energy drinks, slim devices and code flickering screens. They were nimble-fingered and mean-eyed, coaxing secrets out of machines like a man might coax water from a dry well. They talked their way into systems with the same smooth patience a gambler might use at a crooked card table. Social engineers and scavenger hunters they called themselves, though there was little in the way of art or plain old hunger in what they did. Big firms with big gates and taller walls still found their vaults clean and empty and their names blackened. Their managers stood clueless. No code was too neat, no password too long for them to whisper their way past and steal the bread from the Co-op's shelves and the children's mouths.

To stop them, you can't just build walls higher or install tougher locks. No, it takes vigilance, the kind that doesn’t sleep. Teach the men and women who tend the systems not to trust voices on the wire, not to click the glinting lure of a message too sweet to be true. Multi-factor it like a farmer double bolts his barn. Monitor like the man who knows a storm’s always out there, just beyond the hills. And patch, by God, patch sweetly, like you're mending a fence before the cattle find the gap. It’s a hard kind of labour, the kind that doesn’t yield easy thanks, but it’s the only way to keep the systems safe from those who come like ghosts into the circuitry. Then again if you're old school like me you might try just switching it off and on and taking a fifteen minute smoke break.

Cheap Sunglasses

My one and only Wayfarers, bought for about $25 over thirty years ago from a Sunglass Hut in Fort Lauderdale when £ to $ rates were good. I recall that I was driving a wine coloured Plymouth Acclaim at the time and I marveled at all the cup-holders. I rescued the glasses from their years of oblivion at the bottom of the bedside drawer's darkness and wore them the other day. My head might have shrunk over time but it's been a flaming May so there's been some involuntary blinking and the classic shades are now back in vogue with me. Along with my now battered and bruised 1980s Swiss Army knife (an essential requirement at all the Bomb Doctor's meetings) they were a treasured possession. 

These were the times before Ray-Ban was a proper designer thing and the name was embossed on everything and owning a set was still kinda cool. "Those days are gone forever, I should just let them go but ..." I'll admit now that Don Henley's "Boys of Summer" was probably playing on a loop in my head at the time but I'd yet to get into the Grateful Dead. I still think that the term "Dead Head" is more of an Easy Rider reference (Billy, a simple martyr for the hippie dream, being killed off at the end) but "Touch of Grey" eventually lit the fuse and then Jerry Garcia died a bit too soon.

I splashed out on a copy of the reworked Pompeii the other day having missed out on the full I-Max experience. I did see the quarrelsome foursome do much of this material live a number of months after this was filmed but I've to still to catch up and watch this hyped up super duper version. I imagine I'll be slowly wallowing in a further bout of nostalgia and possible disappointment but that's life. Somethings change, some stay the same. 

Island of Strangers

Now I'm puzzled, I can't seem to agree with anybody these days. I've always been convinced that we lived on a island of fuckwits, (well not entirely but there are quite a few). That simple thought gets me by, it explains everything but also means nothing, just being the way it is. Much of human life is taken up by wasted effort, cruel intention and absurdity. Wednesday eh?

Ivy and Me

Ivy was never a girl. No, Ivy is a plant. You can't tame her. A wild plant. Crazy, maybe. She grows where she wants, climbs where she shouldn’t, clings to brick and bone and doesn’t let go. (Try ditching the "she" for "it", don't encourage the metaphor; a much better idea.) You cut it back and it comes again. You burn it and the roots wait out the fire. It has a kind of green hunger I don’t understand but almost admire. 

There is something in that stubbornness. Something in the way it never quits, but I can only watch so long. I can only let it grow so far. Enough is enough. I took the knife. I cut it down. The sweat of my brow and the cuts on my hands, the infernal dust it generates but yes, still in those moments I knew it would come back. Things like that always do.

Then the darker day dawns when you realize that the Russian Vine is gingerly making a comeback now. When you cut the dense ivy down, all that fresh sunlight hit onto the sleeping vine ... all of life is emptiness and chasing the wind.

The Poached Egg Principle

Inspired by both real life and imaginary events: I was reminded this morning that if you have a method for doing something/anything regularly and successfully, meaning the method works well, then you must never deviate from that method unless exceptional circumstances apply. Today I deviated from my normal poached egg breakfast process - I simply began the task at a different kitchen worktop. This small change resulted in chaos. That being I spilled the egg white which caused a mess on the worktop, cupboard door and floor. It took me about ten regretful minutes to clean it up, all because I thoughtlessly moved away from the system.

At different periods of time in my working life, between logistics and technical jobs, I was involved in work study and also production control. I "learned" that once a working method is established and is understood whilst it can be refined it may be costly and counter productive to make changes for the sake of it, i.e. if you introduce new personnel or technology without proper planning and training. Understanding how the work is actually done whilst taking into account any limitations etc. and then sticking to and gently improving the proven method* unless there's an obvious flaw, is the key to a consistent performance. Poorly considered changes are messy and costly. 

*Don't fuck about with guitar and amplifier settings.

 Don't fuck about with car radio or hi-fi settings.

 Use a regular routine in the shower.

 Hang up your coat in the proper place.

 Don't change the temp guide on the toaster.

 Always drive your car into your garage the same way.

 Microwave cooking times are not negotiable.

 Use the same pattern when mowing the lawn.

 Always make a paste first when using Nesquik.

 Don't forget to use toothpicks after eating fish or chicken.

 Half a bottle of red wine is enough for a quiet evening.

 Only ever fill bird feeders up to 50%.

 Check the family birthday list on the last day of the month.

 Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre.

 Spellcheck your docs.

Cake

Two band practices this weekend, Sunday's was spent doing covers of material by Bowie, Lou Reed, Eno and Bryan Ferry. I find myself almost but not quite mentally and physically exhausted. Here's a photo by CBQ capturing a piece of the sponge cake we've been living on. Once you reach a certain age (?) and stature all you really need is one square meal a day (usually on a round plate) and miscellaneous pieces of cake or similar sweet treats. Younger people know nothing of this life changing change and I'm not going to be telling them as they'll not believe it.

Anyway today's session, something of a spur of the moment and mostly unplanned thing was recorded and is available here on Bandcamp. For various reasons it's called Minimal. All organized and executed by Dave Reilly.

Dugs

More animals: I was on a sensibly slow day once, far from away any of my pseudo intellectual musings so to celebrate here's something from the irregular family dog portraiture series. Bez and Baxter on standby.

Toyah and Robert's Rabbits

In a strange case of accidental interweb interference* (if such a thing is possible) I discovered a video about Robert Fripp and Toyah's two new (?) and very cute pet rabbits. Their names are Fripp and Eno and that tells you everything. I'm not sure which rabbit is which. I'm also not sure quite what to make of seeing large rabbits asleep inside someone's house, so says a man with three cats regularly sleeping all over his house. Also there's a hell of a lot of frets on that guitar in the first pic.

* I'm only on here for the days when stuff like this arrives to be honest.

South Queensferry Daily Photo

Random skies possibly from a recent Friday night sunset show. We're easily excited and entertained here, stuck on the same latitude as Moscow and staring out of the windows to the hypnotic beat of the town's malfunctioning car alarms.

A more sober photo of a bit of garden fence that I spent almost a week removing ivy from and then repairing the main support posts. Not really a technical challenge more a war of attrition between me and the willfully stubborn ivy. There's a lot more ivy to go and two more sections to tackle before bolstering more failing posts. The fact that ivy isn't edible or remotely useful provides yet more proof that there is no god. This is how I spend my time these days, punishing innocent ivy and idly reflecting.

The Real Disease

Wow! That was all I thought, there he was, hunched over a plastic table outside a Waffle House just off I-40, smoking Marlboros, staring into a coffee mug and wearing a t-shirt that read "Jesus would be alive if he'd had a gun."  The kind of thing that makes your brain stutter. My early morning buzz hadn’t even peaked yet and already the universe was unraveling. One numerical string of reality at a time.

He had the look of a man who’d stared too long into a gas station microwave and found some meaning there. A greasy truth. Worn out eyes, cracked lips, a .45 bulge on his hip, this wasn’t a man playing dress-up. This was the real disease, the terminal velocity of American lunacy. God, make us great somehow.

I asked him where he got the shirt. He mumbled about an online store someplace. $20 worth of makeshift theology. “It’s a statement,” he told me, eyes twitching. “A spiritual one.” And then he laughed, all sharp, dry, like gravel in a blender. I didn’t argue. You don’t argue with a man like that in a place like this, not with that shirt and not in this heat. No sir. The line between prophecy and psychosis is thin, and I was in no mood to find out which side he was preaching from.

A Tree in the Wrong Place

Every so often my internal narrative decides to debate the pros and cons of stylistic consistency and conventions on this blog page. Honestly I try not to listen but I keep getting sucked in. There's the usual basic stuff about what regular font to use, what size and when a change might be useful. Then links, paragraphs and indents etc. Also maybe a more rigid structure in terms of subjects, post lengths and photographic content. I'm starting to doze by this point, under normal day dream circumstances.

The topic that jars me back to life is about what way to go regards capitalization in the title bar: should all words be fully in capitals, should all words begin with a capital, should it just be keywords - nouns, adjectives and pronouns, should there be none, should I even bother? It's a dilemma of sorts without an easy end as a) I forget and b) who cares? I'm going to have to move on. This (semi capitalized in the title) post was brought to you by using the latent energy of a Katsu Curry pot noodle thingy.

Minimalist Shoes

Still don't know what I was waiting for and my time was running wild, a million dead-end streets and every time I thought I'd got it made it seemed the taste was not so sweet. So I turned myself to face me but I've never caught a glimpse of minimalist shoes until a few days ago. Now I own a pair. I've no idea what I'm doing anymore.

It seems that in the 2018 paper for the Journal of Sports Sciences, Devon R. Coetzee defined minimalist footwear as having a sole and upper that weighed 200-gram (7.1 oz) or less and were highly flexible, a heel height of 20 mm (0.79 in) or shorter, and a "heel-toe differential" of 7 mm (0.28 in) or less. They're supposed to be good for the feet and the foot area's general health and well being. So the trial begins. I've always seen myself as a complicated minimalist.