Her Majesty

Dear Impossibles,

Just a note to say that in these long July evenings I like nothing better than kicking back and listening to a few of your tunes along with a good measure of brandy and ginger and a 99p box of Maltesers.  At the moment this song is one of my favourites. It did make me wonder if you knew that Analog Mann is in fact the German spelling for Analogue Man? A mistake perhaps? I don't suppose you did know that as you're both uneducated commoners and of course nobody really cares about the finer points of language these days. 

Anyway, best regards.

Elizabeth.

P.S. No M.B.Es for either of you this year and you can't have Cambridge either as I gave it to one of my grandsons.

Silence

This track was recorded in Germany in October 2002 on a sunny Sunday morning, pretty much live with only a second guitar overdub added later. It was recorded onto Sony mini-disk, not the usual CuBase we'd used on the other tracks. This was mainly because we had some extra time left to record and the actual computer system had crashed completely so the Sony system was used. I still like the live, punchy sound and the simple drum track. The cover art shown here wasn't really used other than for a handful of copies and the actual CD was never put out for sale.

Easy

Just for a change and to remain topical but not controversial, this blog may actually share and promote small segments of our music, past, present and furtive. (Imagine if you will an awful, irritating, sycophantic, mid 70s, Radio 1, put on, mid-Atlantic DJ type drawl), "This one's EASY!"

Into The God Head

Unrelated to weather: For technical reasons this blogsite is temporarily closed to unworthy visitors and bots for internal rewiring, exterior lighting alterations and minor switching modifications. The duration of the downtime is presently unknown and whilst we hope that it will not be too long, time is not predictable unless a reliable clock is installed and we don't believe such a device exists other than in some virtual sense. Here's some music you can use to alter states, shape shift or simply modify your basic metabolism - should you wish to. If you can see this then we can see you. Treble Clefs all around. 🎼

Air Kisses

Starting the week right now as I've woken up into a Monday morning. A steaming cup of milky Cooncelatte before me and some seven halved and pipped strawberries behind me. Outside the usual rain prevails. Here's an old tune we recorded earlier in the century and remastered for the umpteenth time in June.

Greeny '59

Peter Green's 59 Les Paul. Simply wonderful.

This is a pretty good, first hand piece on the life and music of Peter Green.

Villains and Villains

Johnsone, Putin, Xi Jinping, Trump.

There's a lot of traffic on here that appears to be centered around Russian, then the USA, then various random countries. I can't really make much sense of it other than to conclude that it's primarily bot driven and just at a very low level combing the net for intelligent life based on references. They won't find much actual information or deep criticism here, this is really just a temporal personal playground. I do wonder at the effort expended to infiltrate it however, the point of it all, which is I suppose to make the point that it can all be done, easily. As if we didn't know that. 

All governments share degrees of corruption and the desire to manipulate, it's a planet of humans we live on so what else would you expect? The joke is that the unspoken truth (by them) can be clearly seen despite the clinical and cynical masks the media and their grinning spin tries to provide. The puzzle is untangling it, an exhausting and possibly futile process for those hoping to get to the truth. I'm tired of that. I see the dark side of governments as weeds, you expose or destroy or restrain a clump in one corner of the garden but just as they've been dealt with up pop more in another corner and so on. The weeds tend to prevail. Politics is a career toilet and there are mostly villains and then more villains.

Fishing Cat

A day at the Zoo: No, just No. This cannot be a thing nor an actual product of so called Mother Nature.

Putin Test: So I place the name "Putin" randomly in the blog and check the daily hits and traffic location counters later. Hmm.

A walk in the park

Finally the rain gave up about two o'clock, by which time we were drookit, shoes muddy, clothes wet, hair dripping, not feeling too good. Returned home and dumped everything into the washer. Then, risking more rain,  back out into the afternoon again and behold, the parting of the clouds, the removal of the moisture, the clearing of the heavy air and some late July sun at last. Now enjoying a relaxing walk in the glowing blue green world of underbelly of the park.

Burgh Surveyor

The old windows on the local council offices hearken back to more simpler times when local services,  building works and sanitation were carried out "in office" and not contracted out to some multi-faceted conglomerate with shareholders in Russia, China and the Middle East. My first ever job was a trainee sanitary inspector. I wasn't a star performer and only lasted about five weeks before moving onto a progress chaser post in a factory making potentiometers. Anyway the standard council joke back in the day went along the lines of "she was only the Town Clerk's daughter but she let the Burgh Surveyor" and so on. Those in the offices loved telling this to any newbies, it was all part of some tame initiation into a long lost world of clipboards, dark wooden desks and box files. Seeing these window's faded lettering brought it back, briefly.

Putin's little helpers

"Nothing to see here, nothing bad or unethical has happened, everything is fine, we're in complete control, we're getting things done, sorting out Brexit, curing the current virus, world beating tracking and tracing, getting "it" done  and of course we're all working very hard all the time on the resolving these and the other important  issues that matter to you. So can I be really clear and remind you that we always have your best interests at heart and we will never compromise our standards, integrity or long standing principles, we are the Conservative UK Government and we know what's best for you. You can trust us 100%." 

P.S. And all you stupid, surly and ungrateful Jocks can just fuck right off back to your wasted glens and pathetic crofts, thank you (we'll be dealing with you later).

My P.P.S. from @coldwarsteve.

The Wearing of Masks

Some folks say that it's a patriotic duty, you must be a good citizen and don a mask when required. Saltire designs and Joker smiles, football teams and floral patterns. So I'm slowing growing used to, perhaps even becoming almost fond of mask wearing. A new part time ritual. I only wear a mask in shops where there is the threat of humans and I'm not in shops very often, maybe a few times a week and only for a few minutes but the mask is fine. It brings a strange kind of anonymity that's enjoyable, maybe I wont be recognized, maybe if I committed a crime I'd somehow get away with. Maybe I can frown or mouth swear words and nobody sees. Most likely I wont behave like that  but I might try. 

But if it did, "The masked man did it!" They'd shout as I ran out of the shop with a wad of cash and all the other masked men would be suspects and would break into a run also as people everywhere panicked. In the comedic chaos and confusion I'd make my get away. Then, in some safe place I'd stop to think and wonder why it is that panicked has a k in it. It would help me de-stress after the robbery. After a short period of reflection I'd find a discrete way to return the money (unless it was from a shop I didn't really like or it was a business supporting Brexit or donating funds to the Conservative Party) or give it to some noble cause. 

So that's a new genre of fiction, a mask triggering over confidence, insanity and uncharacteristic behaviour in the person wearing it which leads on to some kind of epiphany and redemption all the time avoiding the spread of the infection. Maybe that's already been done.😊

Four Riders

Rider One: PAIN.

Rider Two: SUFFERING IN PEACE.

Rider Three: A MORBID OBSESSION WITH SOME KIND OF WEIRD SPAGHETTI AND MUSHROOM BASED BODY PASTE.

Rider Four: THE POSSIBLE TACTICAL INDIFFERENCE ENCOUNTERED WHEN FIRING A ROCKET DIRECTLY INTO THE SUN.

A local interpretation of the The Four Horsemen of the Apostrophe rendered in broken glass, dumped carpet and lawn shavings. It's been a long running and exhausting project. Exclusively photographed and rendered in some digital form and inspired by materials found beside the South Queensferry recycling centre due east of the Scotmid. If you don't believe any of this then simply visit the site and see for yourself. Strict parking restrictions and troublesome terms and conditions nearly always apply and please be mindful of social distancing requirements. Undue noise after dusk will not be tolerated and may result in prosecution. This includes throaty laughter and all statements made using overstated regional accents and verbiage.

Sunday Morning Cats

Cats enjoying the Sunday morning sunshine, safely indoors.

Sunday afternoon washing machine (detail).

Panoramic Pictures

Dundee Panorama. The question that nobody ever asks is: "If you put a panoramic picture on your blog what is the best way to make it a reasonable size without allowing it to bleed over the edges and into other areas and still be fully visible to all viewers?" I'm not sure that what we have here is the actual solution or just something else. Unfortunately there is no practical application for this knowledge.

Dundee Daily Photo

I know why the caged bird sings.

Our mast, our communications, our conversations, our data, our weakness. Somebody else's profit.

Let Dundee flourish, a few weeds here and there don't matter.

A city profile dominated by waterfront oil engineering.

The Tay Railway bridge takes quite a bend as it leaves the city, some say that it's headed for Fife.

Capa-Choo-Cho

Home built Capa-Choo-Choo complete with stirring spoon (CCC built from a kit that is).

I'm not riding on a train, not rushing to get to a meeting, hoping for a taxi, not got lots of thoughts and business plans swirling around in my head, not travelling or waiting, not anxious about that call or email that I hoped would arrive, not chatting on the phone or WhatsApp, not really stressed or searching for a new idea ... anywhere, haven't skipped lunch or left my laptop somewhere, not lost the papers or spilled coffee on them, no nasty stain on my tie or scuffs on my shoes, no change jangling in my pockets, not arguing about cuts or staff or changes, not worried about expenses, no deadlines, no pressure then. It's July 2020. In some ways it always was.

Two cats fighting

Feline's fighting in School Lane, Auchtermuchty, Fife, Scotland. Oil painting (Completed 1909) by Verne Delorean from Dundee School of Art. Sold at auction in 2011 for £8K. If you'd like to purchase it by all means comment below. I'll see what I can do.

It was a day of drama today. By that I mean I was sitting in the car watching two street cats fight. One black and mean, one grey brown and slightly dumb looking. Like kids in a playground they snarled and posed, pounced on each other and strutted back and forwards across the road. Fur began to fly on the July breeze in the bloodless battle. They seemed to communicate via tail flicks; interesting but pointless, I thought. Then in a nearby garden a bonfire suddenly was out of control, flickering flames and dense smoke floated across the hedges and two fire appliances arrived on the scene, all in a few seconds. There's a back story here but it's either stupid or trivial I imagine.

The cats however ignored the blue light stramash and continued their fight (which was by now hotting up). At one point two fire fighters stopped to watch the cats, I suppose they were revising their priorities for a moment, saving life and property v breaking up a cat battle. As the road was blocked by fire engines I just sat tight and looked on, clearly no person or cat was in any real danger. The fire was quickly put out, it wasn't serious and the cats, now somewhat bored with each other like pole dancers at the end of the night (I imagine) walked off together, exit stage left and into a hedge. Performance over.

John's Nihilistic Breakfast

For a very short period of time I dabbled in a breakfast based nihilism but in the end it seemed as pointless as anything else. I spent some dreary times listening to "Obscured by Clouds" and "Desertshore". I also looked at busy clumps of black ink letters forming unfamiliar words placed together along invisible lines in papery books hoping they might tell me something; I found that to be a tedious and laborious line of programming to try decode. It was clearly not a serious intellectual exercise but then I was searching for something, mostly an easy, lazy life doing next to nothing. 

The harsh reality being that I never did eat anything for breakfast, just cigarettes and coffee. Eventually I realized I'd have to earn money doing something in order to sustain myself in this made up, comedic world of misunderstood and ineffective nihilism. So I resigned myself to my fate. In the blinking of an eye many years passed. Thankfully I'm much better now. I'm back in with the Shreddies and the Cheerios and those curious eggs that simply cannot be unscrambled no matter how hard you might try.

It was all a dream

I bought a copy of After Bathing at Baxters in the unlikely environs of a high street Electrical shop in Fife (a shop selling light bulbs and appliances) back in 1971, it was 7/6d. That's seven shillings and six pence or about 35p. They only had a few records for sale and this one was clearly "left on the shelf" amongst faded James Last and Val Doonican records. It was an odd ball bargain, I felt sorry for it. I decided it had potential because of the cover art, so I hoped that it would be interesting. I took it home and listened to it a lot, I only had about three other LPs so any new record was a big deal. Jefferson Airplane were a good band, I decided. It was a kind of early concept album, there was a story, somewhat badly formed as it turned out but that didn't matter. Nobody else had a copy either.

As my collection grew it was slowly relegated to the dark void that was the lonely place in the cupboard where older, worn out records stayed. It was buried by new material from Pink Floyd, CSNY, Bob Dylan, Soft Machine and the like. Eventually, along with pretty much all my remaining records it was sold, thrown out or borrowed and never returned as my life grew more grown up and even more crazy. Possessions mattered less, or so I thought. I now have close to zero original vinyl and only fleeting memories of my old long lost noisy collection of ill gotten gains and guilty pleasures. It was all a dream, a fuzzy, noisy dream.