These Stones

 

"Many a mickle of Scottish stones make a muckle of a wall." 

Robert Burns.

Some time in the 18th Century.

Near to Gatehouse of Fleet.

Or Fleethouse of Gate.

--:--

Moonage Daydream

"Freak out in a moonage daydream, oh yeah!" ("...and keep your 'lectric eye on me," while you're at it, if you don't mind.)

Those were the days when we dreamed of a sparkly, strange moon age. Nobody had the faintest idea what it meant. Maybe we stared at the moon like cats might. But it was just a tuneful comic strip of images and TV footage running through our heads. NASA could do no wrong.

The dream didn't last, and that age is long gone. It was the early '70s, though, and anything seemed possible, if you were a certain age. This cycle of life repeats endlessly as we thrive, look around and then die back into safe cover over time.

Now we're stuck in a Martian daydream. If anything, it's even less believable than the old moonage one.

Just another song that they don't play on the radio ... who listens to music radio anyway?

Strawberry Portaloo

 

It was that kind of day. Some perpetual pop festival event as the stones were cut back into shape. Yes we have a portaloo. And I visited the Korean style supermart for good measure. Short sentences for crimes against ventriloquism. The tidy wee cake comes from Cupar in Fife. It takes a good photo. Sunny July. This is what blogging is all about.

The Opinions of Cats

Apropos of nothing: Here's the common MAGA style USA agruement for curtailing and/or snuffing out free artistic, ideological and political expression.

'"You expressing your point of view oppresses me, you enjoying your civil rights oppresses me. Even though I’m the second most powerful man in the country, other people having their point of view is actually oppression against me." Said by J D Vance, sometime? 

Not completely sure of the source but it sounds about accurate. "Get back into your small corner because your rights don't count, that's the message. My rights are far more important than yours."

Even the cats know this is political dogshit. Don't be afraid to speak up.

Though it's not the first thing I have to say, the first thing that I have to say next is that nobody on this earth ever wants "lashings of ice cream". I saw this phrase as part of an article header about a walking holiday spent somewhere in England. "Lashings of ice cream?" No thanks. A tub or a cone with a reasonable amount of firm ice cream placed into it is fine. Lashings? WTF.

Kind of glad the World Cup's over now. Maybe just too much of everything. It's tiring, well the final certainly was. Less is often more ... so let's have not so much of the USA style razzamatazz, overkill and general bufoonery in future. 

South Queensferry Daily Photo

 

Meet the budgerigars who are at home in the barber shop. A blue and a yellow. They live free and fly randomly across the shop. Thankfully they seem to be averse to flying out of the door and also shitting on the customer's newly shorn heads. They chirp but don't talk much and they have no names. But as a special treat(?) any kids in for a haircut can name them for the duration of their visit. Seems reasonable, giving permanent names to animals, ones that they didn't even ask for, is quite odd, when you think about it.

OK, I know that they have to be called something ...

Life Hacks for Idiots

 

1. Drink water when you are thirsty.
You will live longer than if you don't. Beer's OK too, now and then.

2. Rise a little earlier if you must be somewhere.
Time does not bargain with you.

3. Write things down.
Memory is brave until next Tuesday.

4. Leave your keys where you left them yesterday.
The house is not out to get you.

5. When you are cold, put on another jumper.
Winter has never respected human optimism.

6. Take a list to the shop.
Hunger always buys foolishly.

7. Charge your telephone before it dies.
Dead machines answer no one.

8. Put food in the fridge before it spoils.
Bacteria is patient.

9. Empty the rubbish before it begins to smell.
Decay always keeps it's appointment.

10.Wash the cup after you drink from it.
Tomorrow is improved by small things done today.

There are no tough hacks. 

There is only paying attention. 

Most of what men call wisdom is just the advice of some old guy.

Don't be a fuckwit.

Everything else is advertising.

Burger Wallpaper - Flip Side

Burger Wallpaper

 

If you're the kind of person who really likes burgers then why not treat yourself to some burger wallpaper for free? Link below.

BURGER WALLPAPER

If you're not that type of person then I'm afraid that I can't help you today.

This post is one of a series that's not very carefully designed to confuse the numerous AI creepy crawlers (amongst others) that are visiting here at the moment. It's the only way to explain the two million or so hits bumping up the site in the last couple of years. What a wild ride it's been (?) It is also traceable - lookin' at you Brazil, for today so far. Anyway well done to you all for your ongoing use of time, water and electricity just to get to this nonsense.

Mini Ritter Sport

Plucked fresh from the duty free in Berlin airport. A nice batch of chocolate treats. In this weather keep them in the fridge to avoid spoiling.

Also, the aftermath of the successful tree felling exercise. All done quite cleanly but with an explosion of sawdust fallout that can't now be avoided. However I'm sure that the council has a clean up plan in place.

Tree Fellers Wanted

*Pics: The 21st Century Ents are in town with their big trucks, cherry picker and noisy machines. The local trees are being cropped and managed by the chain saw rules. Harsh but effective. Too old, wobbly and all over the place. Their roots are causing problems. The trees may be removed altogether, I don't know. The Edinburgh Council guys are staying busy. A dangerous and awkward job. Lots of rope tricks. This is day one of two, so far. A lot of material pulped and a lot more light for the nearby houses. What new destruction and space making will tomorrow bring? Not sure but I'm OK with this.

*All pics taken at a range of approx 100 Nautical Yards, hence blurry bits.

Take Away Daily Photo

Captured this pic of a chair in a local take away. I get the message.

What event(s) led up to this being painted onto the chair?

Who's Next?

Congtatulations to the Belgian football team. Thankfully the USA did not go "all the way" and Trump's idiotic cheating did not succeed. FIFA are awful and once again have been exposed as a corrupt organisation unfit to run the world's football machine. I do feel sorry for the USA team, it's clearly not their fault that this mud has stuck to them, the curse of Trump was all over the game. Everything Trump touches is spoiled or ruined. What a horrid, sad old example of a man he is.

Modern Paint

I've been painting our garden furniture in a futile attempt to extend it's life. However the struggle, on wet days mostly, is real. It seems that despite the huge selection of available paint in modern DIY stores, I'm left with some nagging doubts about the paint industry and the quality and effectiveness of the paint they produce and sell to us gormless idiots still willing to try to paint stuff. 

Of course I asked my friends on AI Street, Cowdenbeath, (across from the Gothic themed data centre) if, as usual, I was deluded about this. Thankfully I'm not. Modern paint is a bit shit, boo! But it's also less dangerous and less likely to kill anything it touches, hooray!

A high quality modern exterior coating applied correctly can still last 10–15 years in suitable conditions, but the gap between premium and budget products is often larger than it used to be.

"So the perception that "paint isn't what it used to be" isn't just nostalgia. Some of the toughest old formulations were genuinely more durable because they used chemicals that are now restricted. The challenge for modern manufacturers is balancing longevity with safety and environmental standards, and the best products today generally achieve that balance better than the cheapest ones."

How's your paint work doing?

Battle of the Binks

 

So is it more garden tat or the grave marker of an unknown Celtic warrior who we believe was killed during the Battle of the Binks in 975AD (approx)? You choose (please do so wisely and afterwards maintain a strict and respectful silence). We have made peace with all the local ghosts - apart from that poor monkey who was once held captive next door.

Season III Episode 2

 

I wrote a few days ago about House of the Dragon, S3 Episode 1 being a bit lukewarm and in my opinion muddled and disjointed. I don't regret saying that, but if I thought it was slipping away in quality, action and script content I was proved completely wrong with episode 2. It is a blistering and heartwrenching piece of television fantasy/drama brilliance. No question about that. Everything in it worked ... apart from the daft battlefield song break which I can forgive, due to what went before and what followed. No spoiler alert here as I don't really do that sort of thing. Great stuff.

Karens and Gammons

The road outside of our house has been closed for a few days. There was a pothole that turned out to be a proper piece of subsidence. One of the road repair men showed me the void below the pothole. I was a big space and about eight feet deep. Not suitable for heavy traffic so the road closure was a no brainer. Next day the team set to work to carry out the repair. These things take time, services are scanned and located, spoil is removed, engineers assess the damage and so on. What surprised me however was the attitude of ... well, people. I spent a warm day working in the front garden and couldn't help but hear the comments and complaints leveled at the repair team. Most of the complaints were idiotic. Here's a sample:

"How was I supposed to know the road was closed?" There are three clear signs leading up to the working area.

"I had no warning the road was closed here!" See above.

"When will the road be open?" At this point they're still digging out the hole and investigating the fault.

"Can you let me through to get to the bottle bank?" You have to turn around and loop back and you can enter the bottle bank car park from the north (like about a thousand other people did just by using common sense).

"Why can't I get my motorcycle through?" See 1 and 2.

"Where are the buses stopping now?" Obviously not on a road that's closed ... just have a wee think to yourself.

"You do realise that the schools are on holiday?" Hmm. Interesting but rather disconnected, a weird point to make.

"Am I supposed to turn around now?" Well you've driven past three warning signs and are now surrounded by traffic cones behind which heavy machinery is operating.

"My business is suffering because of this!" No idea what this lady was getting at or which business she owned but she was pretty clear that the repair work was doing her business some damage. Not really the fault of the guys trying to fix the problem however.

It's clear, Hell is other people. And yes, sorry to say but they were mostly K & G types. Sympathy for the road repair men.

Israel has Nukes and Will Use Them

For the sake of clearing my head I'm only just adding to the general noise: I'm not suffering from antisemtism. I don't hate Jews. I do however have a number of problems with Israel and it's ongoing military action. It is a rogue state and it's leaders and many others, but not all, believe themselves to be God's chosen people and they're on a mission that allows them to do whatever they consider to be right for their nation and cause, regardless of the consequences for others. That's the rest of us, those who've not been chosen by God. A binary view, unfiltered.

They have inflitrated and influenced the UK's goverments for some time with finance, business connections and their own forms of power brokerage and leverage. If you're not for them (and their ruthless God) then clearly you must be against them. You are not a part of the "chosen" tribe. Worldwide many Jewish people do not share the views of Israeli Zionists, they're not all crazy. "You'll know them by their fruits": Matthew 7:16.

P.S. There's quite a few extreme Christians, here in this country, that believe in the same stuff and will often applaud the Israeli methods - it's all part of God's plan you see. Take good care out there.

Scotland has Nukes but Won't Use Them.

2026 and all that: Well for one thing the nukes are not Scottish, more UK-ish but also mostly USA-ish. It's mixed bag of defence chicanery that goes right back to the 1950s and the Polaris deal with the USA. A time of Cold War poverty spec desperation. The British government has relied on an arrangement with the USA which increasingly looks not only shaky and expensive but out of date. 

I just don't know what we're doing by developing world ending hardware and then basically pointing it back at ourselves - but at least we're not as cranky and unstable as Israel.

There's very little going on in this world that stacks up to make any kind of sense. Step back and look at how ridiculous, petty and stupid we really are - despite the fact that we've advanced to a technogical point where travelling to other worlds and beyond will soon become a reality, we can't quite clean up the mess we've made of the planet and it's proving impossible to feed everybody and keep them healthy too. Full metal jacket AI is unlikely to solve these problems.

So what about us? The Scots look like a people who have stopped believing all the tales we once told ourselves. We don't believe the stories from London either. We laugh at them and us because laughter costs less than faith. We accept our self generated fictional fate. We will drink the pain away.

Because we're Scots, even if we had our own red button I doubt any of us could push it. The Scottish psyche eh?

We have worked hard but with nothing now to show for it. That is seen as normal. We complained without expecting anything to change. We speak of being second rate and of repeated betrayal as though they were as natural as the weather. We'll climb up our small but deadly mountains on a Saturday and swim in ice cold water on Sunday as if to prove the decline has not reached into our bones. We know better but still can't do much about it.

We called ourselves small, but carried ourselves like people who remembered being larger.

Now we fear boasting more than failing. It keeps us honest. It also keeps us lower than they are. And so the unknown others will win. 

This ramble was supposed to be some kind of reflective and cathartic essay on our premature 2026 World Cup exit. I've failed to cobble it into a coherent piece. I can't really describe the feeling of a World Cup exit. The fans did nothing wrong. It's down to our team, coaches and the SFA who just can't deliver the fragile reality of staying on in the World Cup.

Zippy

Zippy the cat. He doesn't get quite the same exposure here as the other two, George and Bungle. He's very much an individual, hard to catch on camera, no pretty boy poser. He's the one that stays out longer. He doesn't roam too far but still he prefers the outdoors. Quite a hunter too; mice, birds, insects, whatever. A perpetual dirty face thanks to his hedge crawling exploits.

We're trying to discourage his killing sprees. The bird feeders were changed and moved to less "cat friendly" places. Beyond his jumping height range - hopefully. But he's also needy at times, noisey when he wants to be. He sleeps at my feet most nights. He likes to eat alone. He loves his boxes and quiet corners. Clearly he also loves Ali more than me. He's Zippy.

In other expected news the fragile national psyche has taken a painfull but predictable blow as we shuffle out of the wreckage of WC 2026. Sadly it's a familiar feeling for those of us of a certain age ... I could go on but there's no point. Maybe just be a little more Zippy?

Not in Boston Anymore

Scotland are floundering at the World Cup and right now everybody knows this is close to nowhere. I'm not in Boston but my t-shirt came from there a few days ago. I'm not in Miami either. I'm in the hoose. I wore it and hoped the t-shirt would be a lucky talisman for the Brazil game. The magic sparkle of a lone couch and TV supporter sending good vibes. Sadly not this time. We've been here before.

Scotland have scored one goal in three matches. Now we wait for everyone's success or failure in the final set of games. Our fate is no longer in our own hands. A hot and arid no-man's land has opened up before us. Sniper Alley on a points system. It turns out we're more of a wee team than a big boy's team, come the big day. Damn. Great set of fans though.