Psychic Quicksand

 

Tips and techniques: despite twenty odd (?) years of striving for the mastery and well controlled use of the cast iron log burner or stove I have little or no useful advice to offer. I think I've experience of living with, cleaning, fueling and burning in most types, from a simple open fire to a closed kitchen stove but in the end have I really learned anything of value? Not much, it's all just a bit of whatever you make of it and avoiding burned fingers. However I've learned to wear the tough gloves.

The thing is that log burners are a lot like old Volkswagen campers or beetles - they look good and they smack of a certain lifestyle and in a wacky way freedom from the grid but ... they burn up dinosaurs or dead trees and put bad particles into the atmosphere. Having said that a lot of houses, furniture, guitars and all sorts of stuff are made of dead trees though it's the burning process and fumes that are the problem ... unless you're out in the wilds, like us ... well almost, despite sitting smugly on a bus route. This life is all just warm and woolly psychic quicksand.

WHERE'S MY F****IN' BUS?!

Inspired by real life events: A song about a rather pressing matter here in the slowly/rapidly crumbling First World*: For some reason Danny Sapko and Justin Hawkins keep turning up together in the socials and on YouTube. They also turned up during my family birthday lunch, a few weeks ago but that was all down to a mixed up business card set of card tricks that I was under performing (in). 

Here's Danny (no Justin however) in a band (?) where he doesn't even play bass  but this song's had thousands of plays already. OK it's been up for a few weeks but fair enough. They do all their own creative work too - home made, not too impressive. Ladies and gentlemen ... the Mellon-Collies. I don't recognise the font either. I wrote this bit today which was yesterday. 

*Not everyone on the planet thinks this way.

Old Plans

 

Rosyth imagined: I came across this old street plan of Rosyth the other day. It's from 1917 when the first phases of the town were being put together to house workers for the nearby Naval Base and Dockyard. I arrived in Rosyth as a young 'un some time in the late 1950s and stayed at two different addresses with my parents and one later on when I was first married. They're all visible on this map. 

My primary school was where the word "school"  is tentatively written on the right side of the plan. The actual house plans were all based around those of the "Garden City" project put together to house the chocolate factory staff down in Bourneville near Birmingham. 

If you were a dockyard worker (this was about 1977 for me) you were entitled to a "dockyard" house in Rosyth should one become available, so as a young married man I eventually got one to rent. We were only in that house for a year or so before buying a "project" up in Dunfermline. I've always had a soft spot for money-pits, rescues and daft projects. What's life without a small element of risk?  

Meanwhile Rosyth has expanded and been rehashed and redrawn - though this part hasn't changed too much. Well, the M90 now dominates the landscape towards the east and the fancy looking stuff laid out on the west of the drawing never quite came to be, it's a mess of housing estates at the moment. Fifty years or so later I don't think I would recognise or know anyone who lives there now ... times have moved on nicely.

Celebrity Everything and Nothing

The headline reads "I'm a Celebrity 2025 has kicked off, here's all you need to know": The crop of celebrity shows - Dancing on Ice, Strictly, I’m a Celebrity, Traitors, and the rest - regularly roll across the TV screens like long caravans of chatter, noise and light. Who are these people? Are they special or interesting in some incredible way? Perhaps we'll all discover something new during another marathon watch. Meanwhile those mostly unheard of C and D listers come into the event the way tired factory workers might walk into a bar at the end of a tough day in the 1960s - looking for something to keep them going. 

They dance, hunt the traitor, or eat strange things while the crowds watch from the other side of the reality looking glass. The tasks or trials are staged and planned out but essentially small, often foolish, but that is the point. Small tasks are easier to endure. They do not break people. They only mess up their hair or muddy their boots a little in the mediocrity of some group achivement. PPE will be provided and a personal sound bite in which you can explain yourself.

The producers build these worlds so nothing truly dangerous can happen (understandable enough). It may look hard, but it is not the kind of hard that leaves a scar or a mark. A celebrity can get wet, cry in a jungle, or wander lost through some invented ordeal, and still come out clean. At worst, they may look silly. At best, they can look brave and clever. None of it costs them more than a few days of discomfort, and discomfort is something a person can fake if the cameras and final edits are kind. That's entertainment these days.

In these shows everyone behaves well. They smile even when they don’t mean it. They speak softly. They praise one another for small things, normal and often banal things. It is the habit of people who know their fortunes can shift like winds over water. No one wants to be the weak link. No one wants to be the one the public turns away from. So they choose courtesy or humour. They avoid petulance and hard truth. They choose the safe road, because the safe road keeps them visible. It's all good PR in a fragile and fickle business.

And that is why they come. Not for the dance, or the trial, enlightenment or the journey, but for the light of exposure that shines on them while they do it. They need that light. Without it, the world forgets them and to be forgotten is the worse kind of death for a celeb. So they step forward, smile, and do the absurd activity set before them. The audience laughs. The show hits a groove and goes on. A favoured charity gets a cash boost and some names and curated images will hit the headlines. There will be celebrity chat of course and more back slapping as they all reflect. Then, for the next season, that caravan moves on down the road again with some new and over excited passengers.

Of course it can be fun but the real news is ... elsewhere.

Yesterday's Papers

Above is my one time road to retirement. Meanwhile from the Guardian: 

"Defence officials have identified at least a dozen disused oil refineries and chemical plants as possible sites to make explosives and ammunition, including Grangemouth, Southampton and Teesside.

The Ministry of Defence has been scouring Britain for places to build at least six new munitions factories as part of a £6bn programme to increase its supplies as part of a Nato-wide rearmament push.

Emails released to the Ferret website show the MoD, the Department of Business and Trade and the Health and Safety Executive believe that at least four sites at Grangemouth, where the UK’s oldest oil refinery closed earlier this year and several chemical companies have shut down, could be suitable.

Other sites include the proposed BritishVolt battery plant near Newcastle, Milford Haven oil refinery in Wales, Workington and Ulverston in Cumbria, several places on Teesside including Seal Sands, and an oil terminal on Loch Long in Scotland, close to the MoD’s underground bomb store at Glen Douglas, which is said to be the largest in Europe.

The sites were inadvertently revealed when MoD officials failed to properly redact a freedom of information response about Grangemouth, allowing the blacked-out sections to be read. The MoD apologised, admitting it had breached the confidentiality of officials and its business partners. ... "

Every so often (must be an age thing) aspects of my past life rise up from nowhere or at least get a small mention in the media. This "leak" is quite interesting if only for some of my old personal working connections with Milford Haven, Broughton Moor, Glen Douglas, Loch Long and God knows where else 😉. What goes around not only comes around but really just runs in a repeticious cycle. This is what you get when you have a succession of UK governments who don't really understand how things work in the real world, from the ground up and don't seem to know their own history.

One more thing, I've not looked at any actual papers today but the socials are quite rightly celebrating Scotland's brilliant performance last night at Hampden. Good news at last albeit it's a shame the WC is being staged in the USA - there are a lot of reasons why that seems like a bad idea to me. I hope I'm wrong on this.

8

 

I'm in a restaurant in Edinburgh. It's after lunch time has been cleared up and it's almost empty. I look down at the wooden floor. I notice a mysterious looking figure cut into the wood's surface. A lot like the figure eight. It's also framed by a square of wood that's more lightly tinted than the rest of the floor. I check  around but I don't see any other figures or lighter squares. I begin to wonder if there's something I should know, something more. An eight based sign or code perhaps. It may not even be an eight by design, just some marks that turned out that way. Table or chair leg marks. What might be going on here? All meaning is lost in the twists and curves of quite recent history. I'm standing on a reasonably firm, aged but well enough maintained wooden floor in a French themed Edinburgh restaurant and seeing what looks like a symbol of some sort - or wear and tear set in a pale square frame. That's all I really know.

Send More Cat Pics

I was just about to sit down and relax with a coffee and have a quick read of the Big Issue when Bungle the cat appeared on the scene. She quickly made herself comfortable, as cats do. So that was the end of that little idea.

Top of the Bots

I was mostly against robot checkouts in shops for the usual Luddite reasons but like everyone else I've slowly given in, not to the customer exploitation or the fabricated convenience so much as the time taken. If you've only a few items to buy, then waiting in a queue for a cashier is frustrating. The bots can be quicker. 

I realise that billionaires and their immediate serfs do not have the mundane problem of actually waiting for stuff, so they do things their way to generate "savings" and efficiency etc. mostly for shareholders benefit. So, now that we're stuck with this fine tech "solution", which supermercado checkout abomination is the best system? Be warned, I'm likely to wander in the sharing of my observations.

Aldi - Probably top: Quite cramped and small at the point of use but superfast due to Aldi's clear and very effective barcodes. Everything works 100% of the time, staff on hand and quick to check alcohol purchases etc. They just do simple ranges of stuff and I have a false sense of smooth operational efficiency going on behind the scenes that I can almost believe in, so I'm not overwhelmed or agitated in their shops. The machines don't speak, well not to me. 

Tesco - Mid/low-table finish I'd say, always busy and staff often distracted by chatting to each other, sorting out security tags on stuff or trying to fix or check those dumb scan as you shop systems - over complicated. As ever Tesco tries to do too much, a huge range and level of inventory so things seem very busy and hurried. Some of the devices talk, others remain silent. Why? Doors on fridges are a thing now, not just in Tesco to be fair, who's fucking dumb idea was that, opening doors as old folks with trolleys shuffle past? The blue chip token things are a joke by the way. Just sort out your own selections for helping the local community and while you're at it calm down with your screwy Clubcard prices.

Morrisons - Nothing to say really, bland but workable. Don't shop there very often. I like the look of their bakery and fresh stuff but seldom buy anything. Low score? I don't know.

Co-op - Weirdly designed system. No obvious scales or weight checks and noisy, random beeps for some reason, but it's quick and effective. Also speaks in a kind of "Still Game" forced Scottish accent which is wearing a bit thin when you hear it every other day. Trying hard.

Boots - Fucking dreadful. Staff always elsewhere. Try buying a giftcard sometime, not easy. Bottom.

M&S - Mid-table: Again a peculiar device design that at first seems quite baffling but I guess is effective enough. There's bit of a height thing where you have to lift items higher to scan them than in other shops. Ergonomic failure? No clear area for used shopping baskets either.

B&Q - Obviously not a supermarket but one those places where sometimes you do it yourself (DIY) and sometimes a cashier intervenes and puts your stuff through. Must be a DIY ethos thing that's not quite understood by anybody. Fine if you're not behind somebody who's building a house.

Lidl - See Aldi. A bit more grubby and even more off the wall than Aldi but has decent fresh baked goods to offer, which are quite easy to put through the robot till. Topish, sometimes stocks Smucker's Goober.

Asda - Generally OK, absolutely no frills (or thrills), usually a charity intervention at the end of scanning. No idea what an Asda card actually gets you either so I won't be bothering with that. Solid performer on the whole "meal deal" thing though, something Asda has made dead simple while Tesco's meal deal price structure is a completely incomprehensible mess of colour and codes that has resulted in near nervous breakdowns for me a few times. A higher than usual proportion of Asda customers look pretty peculiar - but that's more of a Fife thing I guess. Overall a pretty good performance. 

Waitrose - Only been once in recent times, good sourdough bread. Used a human operated till to pay.

I may have veered a little away from the core topic here from time to time but it's (mostly) my blog and that's just how it is.

Next Up: Which system is easiest to fiddle?

Wet Thursday

 

For some reason the cats did not find the prospect of a wet romp around the rain soaked garden very attractive yesterday. They are also unfamiliar with a wind from the north west so that seemed to pique them somewhat. They refused to leave the house and so did I, there's plenty of soup to slowly sup and some decent whisky inboard, so why bother? 

I'm assured by experts that the weather may be better (well warmer but more destructive) in 2026 as global warming turns this spinning platform of greed and stupidity into the basket of an air fryer that's set up to prepare chips to the red hot Scottish standard. It isn't easy knowing you're on a doomed planet that is running in a sort of slow motion loop, the circumference of which is slowly diminishing. 

Here's a parting shot of the WIP Punkicaster's finished headstock, it features a cat's paw (or some other random animal footprint) design.

Unreliable Window Cleaner

Thumb Twiddling: So we waited all day for for the window cleaner but he never did appear. The cats were of course primed and ready for his visit, they'd a cunning plan to scoot away and hide somewhere/anywhere while he hosed and brushed down our fine collection of windows. Window cleaning is yet another thing that cats don't really understand. Alas he was a no show and as yet we don't know why. I hope he's OK. 

In a fit of not having a fit I created a pot of soup. The recently burgled Co-op over by was the source of the main ingredients. It's fair to say my soup making skills are pretty basic. I've no desire to get clever with soup. Lentil or Scottish Veg are my regular creations and only in the soup season (Nov - Feb).

Since reading one of Bob Mortimer's books I've been haunted by his insistence that his mum's advice should be a key part in soup prepartion: "boil the soup, spoil the soup" she told him*. Everytime I get set up to make soup that phrase comes back to me. Before I knew better (?) I let the soup boil for a bit followed by a time of lengthy simmering. Now I can't allow a decent soup boil to take place for fear of spoiling the soup. It's become all about maintaining a carefully controlled simmer and remaining vigilant throughout. 

The thing is, before Bob's advice, when I was ignorantly over boiling the soup it mostly turned out fine, or so I thought. This is the kind of inner conflict I can do without and it illustrates perfectly the problems you get when you read books ... 😏

*I may well have mentioned this before.

Punkicaster

The Punkicaster is nearly finished but still undergoing sea trials to hopefully uncover and fix a few minor (?) problems. The final higher frets, 18 to 21 need filed down. The previous owner managed to bugger up the (adopted Chinese but mildly interesting 😉) neck by using overly long screws that have distorted the fingerboard's surface and put tiny bends into a couple of frets. Will the careful application of a small blunt file and a spurt of super glue yet again be the corrrect solution? Purists please avert your eyes. 

Now that I've got the wiring soldered and sorted that P90 sounds great. It lives and thrives on the gain pot of the Orange Tiny Terror in an exhilarating way. The obviously non-Fender Les Paul Junior pickguard is of course a tribute to the ear splitting legacy of all those battle weary Les Paul Juniors out there. It also covers up the Leslie West ash tray - if you know, you know.

So far I'm only about £50 into this "project" thanks to my old parts bin: £30 for the guitar and £20 for the pickguard, varnish and a wiring loom and I've still got the free Gator case to repair - it'll be fine after applying a £5 roll of gaffer tape from Wickes to it. The old humbucker that came with the guitar might even make a tenner on eBay some day when I can be bothered.

Mocked Up

 

Knocked up and mocked up project update: After a bit of time sorting out the body work and the neck bolts, this somewhat damaged Telecaster shaped Punkicaster is starting to take shape. I'm going with a single P90 pickup, hard tail bridge and simple as toasted cheese electrics. I've tried complicated set ups before, Gilmour switches, treble bleed mods and coil taps etc. and nice as these things are I really can't be arsed. So it's back to basics. Just letting the second coat of varnish dry and onto the next set of problems. The neck and frets might take a bit of time to get anything remotely close to being correct. Strangely the intonation was/is bang on.

Here's the "simple as toasted cheese" wiring diagram and there's no doubt, it's very simple. However I know it'll end up in a trial and error mess of soldering and trying to figure why there's only silence or why there's only crackle before I finally get to the bit where some sort of audible guitar sound is produced. At that wonderful point in the proceedings I'll be surprised but also strangely satisfied. This is mostly how I live my life.

Röntgen's Theory

 

Had a good weekend mostly, not thinking too deeply about anything, then without any warning along came the spectre of science. That's "SS" to the uninitiated (but not like the other WW2 SS). It just entered the sanctum of the inner chat, kicked the door shut behind it, poured a coffee from the jug, grabbed a Kit-Kat, sat down and completely took over and hi-jacked the silent conversation. Another one of those unpredictable, wondering mind things.

When Mrs Röntgen first saw an X-Ray of her own hand she exclaimed, "I have seen my own death!" How apt but also quite odd. This isn't a photo of her hand either (it was taken a few days later) but I imagine her hand was similar.

X-Rays are a bit like human flight or harnessing electricity. Things that might seem somehow impossible, almost unearthly - but they're not, just science. They just need some intervention to create a mix of the right things to be put together in the correct circumstances to allow them to function in whatever way they can to be made useful. It's all wonderful at the time but we quickly take tech advances for granted once they operate within our daily lives, quickly becoming normal and unseen. Shadows and light ...

Another Guitar Project

"For your project" is such an annoying description to use. I don't quite know why but it just sounds pretentious. To be clear this project isn't a project, it's a rescue. The battered and broken hulk in the pic is either my latest mistake or just another wonky bit of divine inspiration. Bought for buttons in an eBay Friday evening's mind warped moment and it came with a free fully repairable Gator case that's probably worth more than the guitar. 

All of the above are signs of baseless optimism and time wasting, some might unkindly think or say. I still have a (limited and deluded) vision of how nice it will turn out*. Note the early application of super glue and cotton wool in order to fill and resize badly placed holes - once the mixture is dry you can actually drill right into them, it's as tough as Russian steel I tell you. The ultra reliable Dremel must not, will not fail.

*You may never see or hear of this again. 😑

Can't Stand The Guardian

 

But it's better than the gaslit BBC news output (wonder what's on CNN, ITV and Sky?): When I say that I can't stand the Guardian what I really mean is that I can't stand the Guardian because while I mostly agree with the editorial stances it takes on news and issues etc. I'm also exhausted. What I see and read is somehow drowned out by the memory of similar articles I've read in the past and forever nodded along with ... but now I seem unable to take anymore stuff in. Nobody pays attention to reasoned bits of opinion or advice and that's nobody's fault but everyone's.

I've decided that my head is full up and nothing anyone says or does or writes in the Guardian, however accurate or eloquent, ever fixes anything. Apart from the usually terrible news, the recipes, reviews, opinions and reader's lettuce* only form up as salads of buzzy words that I can no longer chew upon. It all washes over me like a warmish and bland, feeble kind of mayo. I do like about 50% of the cartoons though and the odd celeb fave tunes list. These odd lists are of no real use to anyone but they can mask the bleakness of the headlines and reported life outside. Life can be a terrible thing and of course all power is tyranny. In my lighter moments I mostly stare into space and suck frozen Kit-Kats.

*a green vegetable.

Velvet Revolvers

Revisionist theories: As a teenager my musical taste was formed around the Beatles and Stones records that I'd grown up with - much like most 60s teens. Top of the Pops and Ready Steady Go. Noisy guitar bands were my thing. At about age fifteen I discovered the album and so did everyone else, there was a shift in our listening world. Singles were so old hat, we needed more headroom. Cream, Led Zep, CSNY, Hendrix, Yes and Pink Floyd ruled my somewhat narrow taste in the airwaves. Then one day a friend passed me a copy of the Velvet Underground & Nico. It didn't quite fit with me, no love, no peace, strange spikey tunes and dark lyrics but I didn't give up on them. Slowly I decided I liked it and listened to more of their stuff. 

By 1975 however I was over all that, the Bowie, Roxy and Lou Reed catalogue was too arty and just wasn't relaxing enough and I was no early adopter of punk either. I listened to Little Feat, Zappa, Poco, Steely Dan and eventually drifted into full dad rock proper because I was actually a dad and late night radio, long joint-fueled listening parties, gigs and festivals were things of the past. What fun. By '78ish the Fisher-Price years had arrived. I had a cottage to renovate, a dodgy car to keep on the road and hungry mouths to feed, all on my shipyard wages.

So now 50+ years later I'm hearing and playing (Capital Models to thank for this) more Lou Reed and Velvet's tunes and I'm kinda liking them. Sweet Jane has resurfaced (see a previous post) and that riff is probably one of the best four chord guitar bashers ever. Rock and Roll is a proper gem of a song despite the weird lyrics, Perfect Day is just about the perfect ballad to reflect on down at heel reality and personal despair and Satellite of Love is just a strange, abstract, meaningless but wonderful bit of rock fluff. Nice to catch up with the past.

A Bridge Too Far

Rainy day today: The one piece bridge and tail-piece design on Les Paul and SG Jnr guitars is troublesome. It's clunky, hard to intonate and set, difficult to replace the strings because of the top wrap/winding, almost impossible to adjust the action and just another thing to have to bother with, which nobody needs. This guitar came with a Wilkinson one-piece that actually is made up of about a dozen bits including screws and hex bolts. Very fiddley too.

I replaced it with another model with adjustable string settings but found it to be awkward and more clunky than the original Wilkinson. So it ended up being taken off. There are other solutions out there but the best come in at around £50, imported from the States and perhaps not quite worth the punt. I then decided to try to fit a separate bridge and tail-piece. 

Looking on line there are loads of options (Les Paul and SG standard configurations) but the dimensions available don't fit with the Jnr. style bridge drill holes and I didn't want mess up that part of the guitar. So I found a basic "SG" style tail-piece on eBay for £4.50 and stuck with the old bridge and cut out the need to top wrap - as in the pics. The old set up had a huge strain on it when the strings were tight and I could see it lean into the neck direction when tuned up. 

This new, cheap and cheerful arrangement removes the strain and makes the bridge a bit easier to adjust (not much but I'm going to fine tune as I go). Of course nothing looks straight or lines up because of the odd  angles the intonation requires. So overall it's better, not perfect but better. Perhaps I've spoiled the cleaner looks but I think my solution isn't too bad. There are some howler examples on line, one guy resolved the problem by adapting a bottle opener as a tail-piece. I'm forever saying that the struggle is real but ...

In other news, unfortunately this is probably a snapshot of the real struggle:

Machine Heads

Necks please: The bonfire of the guitar related projects slowly grumbles on. That's how older men approach their hand crafted challenges and visionary successes, with a shrug and a grumble (and a deeper understanding of the limits of their imagination, skills and patience). Any old dream will do and yes but no it will never be "quite right". Life's activities are filled with many moving parts, most of which are determined not to move in the ways that you'd want them to. But I've learned to operate in peace and harmony within a mostly chaotic universe. Also you should never begin a sentence with the word "but".

P.S. After less than a week of ownership and solid blocks of use, the Amazon (Basics) mouse is still performing far better than any random small rodent scooped out of the bottom of a garden hedge would if thrust into a similar role.

And There You Have It

spellingmistakescostlives (they're on some of those social media sites you know - and they shared this recently): 

"The Zionist myth that Israeli settlers "made the desert bloom" is as inaccurate and racist as the myth that Israel was a "land without a people for a people without a land".⁠
⁠
As we can see in Gaza and the West Bank, the process of stripping the land of its people, and reducing cultivated land to slashed and burned wasteland, requires extensive, brutal violence. Olive groves that have been propagated for centuries are torn down by Israeli settlers, water sources are filled with concrete, and farmers are driven from their homes.⁠
⁠
In the 1948 Nakba, at least half of the Arab population of Palestine, (700,000 people,) were driven from their homes, and forbidden from returning. Villages were razed, and archaeological sites destroyed. There has been a deliberate attempt by the Israeli state to make its claim of a "land without a people" a retrospective reality. As they will attempt to do with Gaza, after this Second Nakba.⁠
⁠
According to Decolonizing Palestine: "The vast majority of cultivated agricultural land in Israel today was already being cultivated by Palestinians before their ethnic cleansing... On the eve of the 1948 war, around 739,750 acres of land were being cultivated by Palestinians. These cultivated lands were so vast, that they were “greater than the physical area which was under cultivation in Israel almost thirty years later.” The agricultural core of the Israeli state consists of cultivated farmland that was stolen from Palestinian refugees after their ethnic cleansing."⁠
⁠
Colonial ideology has always needed to believe that conquered peoples were idle, ignorant and backwards, unable to manage their own resources, and always requiring Western intervention to improve and utilize the land beneath their feet. The more we learn about the civilisations that European colonialism has destroyed, the more we see that we were simply importing our own ignorance into these nations, alongside our violence and disease. The people who lived there before we arrived knew all too well how to live in their own land.⁠"

Halloween

31st October: The wreckage of a Tim Horton's breakfast. Fast food wrappings. It seemed to cost £1.69 though there was a little more to the pricing structure - a free breakfast with a hot drink. But wait, this not a food review and I've no complaints about TH, it is what it is. Ignore the various food themed pictures that appear on other pages too. Those ready meals and stir fry chicken compositions are of no significance. They simply exist to mask dark secrets. There you have it. However I am not at liberty to reveal anything due to a long standing and reasonably lucrative contract I once made with the Devil (himself). None of that makes me all that bothered about Halloween either, that's just for the dull muggles and the deluded. You're being played. Enjoy your evening. We're not really watching you so calm down.