The simple pleasures

.

The simple pleasure of getting a decent haircut.

The world remains further away when viewed through my failing glasses, now due an upgrade. All things are distant and in some cases pleasantly blurred replicating the effect of three good glasses of red wine but without the after taste. The big decision on whether to plump for a haircut or a visit to the opticians’ is not easy, a planned visit to the dentist also looms and there are other complications. The barber or hairdresser is the cheapest and easiest option and the one most likely to be taken, probably on Friday. For a fiver and a one pound tip my unruly and thinning barnet can be tidied up to an almost presentable point. All I have to do is grin and dimly endure the drab conversation and blank boredom generated by staring at myself as a shrouded floating head in a large mirror. The opticians is less straightforward, I have to book and then wear a number of devices, read and concentrate and then pick out a pair of frames from pre-arranged selection, most of which will look weird. All glasses and spectacles are weird, it’s just that we’ve become used to seeing them and using them. Anyway, the ones I like will be expensive and so I’ll settle for something cheaper and hopefully thinner and then not think of such things for another three years or so. The dentist is more of a routine, like a car MOT but with even less meaningful conversations and a bit more pain and discomfort. Radio Forth plays in a background in the surgery, this adds to the pain, in fact most of this audio assault is worse and more distracting than the dental pain. Perhaps the dentist is making some point here, there is the pain of the monthly £18.66 to consider also. (In the end I go to the barbers, there are five guys ahead of me in the queue and so I read a complimentary copy of the Sun then wait some more. My hair is then cut but not without a pointless conversation about holidays in Egypt and the many gay waiters there, apparently).

Neither commands respect, neither is fit to run what's left of the country.

Intelligent, capable, and seemingly competent MPs charged with running the country seem unable to run their own lives or account for their expenses. When caught out, having in some cases committed obvious fraud they simply say “I made a mistake and I’m sorry”. In any other walk of life or career that statement would quite simply get you fired, you’d lose all professional credibility and you’d possibly go to jail, but this is Britain where we accept politicians saying glib, patronising and stupid things (“we’re doing everything can” - just what is that?) and then when caught out some one sided investigation runs for two years at the taxpayers’ expense and ends up drawing no clear conclusions and it all blows over until the next whistle is blown. Nice work if you can get it.

Penelope Cruz at Cannes & Free Software

Or on reflection...

I do feel a bit sorry for the old chap who managed to reverse his Ford Mondeo over the pier edge at South Queensferry. A slip of the foot and you're immersed in Fife's finest sewage, a few wee-wee trickles from West Lothian and the diluted fish and chip vinegar and sauce from a thousand discarded half eaten and ill considered suppers. With the amount of Grocs that head down to the sea-front I'm surprised there aren't more accidents of this type. It's a prime spot for coffin dodgers, pension dodgers (my current grouping) and responsibility dodgers (you know them by their fast and stupid looking cars) many of who haven't the faintest idea why they are there or what on earth it is they should be doing. They gaze moon-faced over into the desolation that is a glinting Fife and point as the trains click-clack across the bridge whilst squinting through inappropriate designer (?) sunglasses - at least this one mature driver brightened up the afternoon with his unfortunate dunking.

Lost still has me intrigued and baffled, I now cannot imagine life without a weekly fix and am living in dread of the series end not meeting my ridiculous and unreasonable expectations. Then there will the vacuum that it leaves and the prospect of knowing that nothing is likely to fill it for the next ten years or so - complete TV desolation beckons. Odd moments in the evening are spent scouring the web for clues and plot spoilers and the reworking and summaries of episodes that may allow me to build up my understanding of this fiction. Oceanic Flight 518 has ruined a fair few lives now and mine is just another on the long list. Perhaps I should buy a Find 518 t-shirt to identify and warm my soul as I continue to drift and pension dodge.

Late nights find me down loading more free music mixing and mashing software. All of which works surprisingly well, distorting, clouding and occasionally enhancing the material I submit into it's wonderful mangle. The 21st Century is a strange and mesmerising place and the digital gods are truly smiling on us and you can get three large tins of Heinz beans in ASDA for £1.00.

Periodic Tables Tuesday (as ever)

Full Moon over the 'Ferry.

Five portions of fruit a day is the target, the score is a little less but heading in the right direction but I have a few questions: How many portions (or protons, much more interesting) are in a pineapple, a water melon and a chicken. Oh and what is the healthy status and relevant position of a Muller fruit corner?

Flight of the Conchords is funny and clever and in the space of a week I’ve watched all the episodes in the first series. Not normal behaviour but fun and useful.

Commonly misunderstood misunderstandings:

Van Gogh hacked his own ear off. True but only because Gauguin suggested that self harming was going to be the next big thing.
A hanged Munchkin can be seen in the Wizard of Oz. False but there is now a new theory that various members of Pink Floyd played the flying monkeys.
Mussolini got the trains running on time. False, he simply got the timetable rewritten to match the actual times the trains were running to.
The Great Wall of China can be seen from space. False, but it is true that space can be seen from the Great Wall of China.
Swallowed chewing gum stays in your system for seven years. False it says in for fourteen years, a bit like hot dogs or red meat.
Walt Disney’s body was frozen. True, of course it was. He was stone cold dead.
Bob Holness played saxophone on “Baker Street”. False he played saxophone on “Born to Run”.
A coin dropped from a skyscraper will kill a pedestrian. True, provided it’s a 50kg New Guinea stone penny (with a hole carved into the middle).
Lemmings deliberately commit suicide. False but one or two have done away with themselves when their novels or works of poetry failed to be selected for publication.

Not really impressed by the use of colour here but was it 1936 and it's all allegorical and only relevant to the turn of the century (1900) anyway, or the end of the world.

Ways to move soot: Part 2

Never easy to complete the domestic chores in the rain. The soot has now become a weather based routine and will therefore be absorbed into the existing regime. Why worry about small, flying pieces of carbon. What possible harm could that do unless the molecules decided to form themselves into some sort of footprint and then stamp all across the face of the planet.

It does my heart good to hear that our careful and diligent politicians have respectfully been using their precious allowances to boost the ailing economy with a series of wild and random purchases. This selfless action may well save SS Great Britain and the RBS from sinking under the present incessant onslaught from Chinese made torpedoes and fire crackers. It’s disappointing to see that the popular press has so far gotten the wrong end of the stick and corrupted the details of their measured spending sprees and generous philanthropism towards the small businesses of Britain. Meanwhile they’ve been free to invest the full weight of their salaries in Camen Island savings schemes and West African gun running cartels. Good for them, we need more politicians not less, let’s elect some more in June and send them of to Stuttgart or Belgium where they can rack up some more ridiculous claims.

A treatment for Toe Friction: As the weather warms and the non natural fibres in socks fight back so the incidences of toe friction increase. This happens when your toes vibrate very quickly and rub together creating the aforementioned toe friction. This generates heat which damages the delicate skin surface leading to a degree of redness and rawness appearing. This can hurt a bit unless corrective action is taken quickly. Remove all footwear and retire to a wild and lonely place where your feet can relax, free from their cramped and panic attack inducing location in dark socks and questionable shoes from the last century. They will then adsorb and adjust to the ambient temperature and stop looking like elongated bits of boiled beetroot. A modicum of Savlon squeezed out and applied to the areas with your index finger may also quicken this effect. I believe that the Scottish Government are planning to put a helpful pamphlet through every individual’s door (or perhaps every actual door in Scotland), as to whether or not this publication will be about Toe Friction I have no idea.

Martin Clunes was born to play Reginald Perrin as well as a number of other parts and also to do voiceovers for commercials and documentaries. So writes the drama and TV correspondent of the “Sunshine Desserts” newsletter in a blistering piece that also describes in some detail his courageous lifelong battle with toe friction.

Ways to move soot: Part 1

No she wont.

As we travelled across Germany last week we couldn't help but notice how clean their dirt was compared to ours. Scottish dirt (maybe this is UK wide, we've yet to check ) tends to be grubbier, dustier and less orderly than the European kind. Maybe this is why our governments never really agree or harmonise on things and the occasional war is sparked. They just see us as dirty, dust cloud covered, awkward little plebs, not unlike Linus was in Peanuts. Our dirty dirt hampering harmony and possibly making the more sensitive European types feel a bit itchy now and then when caught in our repulsive Celtic and Anglo Saxon presence. It's a theory anyway.

In soot management and combatting terms I've arranged the Times sports section into an elaborate Origami type construction that deflects the advancing soot in a way similar to the operation of a Formula 1 spoiler or damper. This highly engineered method seemed to be working until a stronger than expected down draft distorted it's finely tuned surfaces and rendered it less effective than I'd hoped. Back to the drawing board and the newsagents. Today's big regret is the consumption of a impulse bought steak bake - never a wise thing to do on a rainy Friday such as this.

George Best had a girlfriend

George & Mary

I came home tonight to find yet another pile of mystery soot to clean up. What did the common people do to amuse themselves before the invention of soot? Evenings must have dragged somewhat in those dark days. I'm sure that by the eighteenth century many large country houses had teams of soot cleaners armed with bellows and brushes and donkey carts fully employed on a 24 hour basis on the extraction and removal of their stately soot. It may of course just be our persistent use of tons of cheap Eastern European coal bought on the black market (of course).

Random use of the Wikipedia site keeps me level headed and peaceful these lunch times. Today I researched the R101 catastrophe, the Hindenburg crash and the SS Lusitania, so tragically lost some where south of the Irish coastline in 1915. Disasters make oddly compulsive reading, truth is stranger etc. I also browsed the ex-girlfriends of George Best and the ongoing weight problems experienced by one time Cheers bar-person Kirstie Alley (or was that another actress?).

Once the daily soot clean up was over it was straight out into the customary May hurricane and rain weather cocktail to cut the grass and render the garden a better shade of respectable. You never know when an irritated and impatient passing funeral party or some tiny private wedding group will crane their necks over the hedge and issue loud "tut tuts" and waggle their pointy fingers at our green constructions and ongoing landscape projects. After that I ate a whole pizza and am now regretting that I did.

Favourite soft drink

Everybody in this family likes a drop of sugar free Sprite.

10 years of painful, costly and irritating self (righteous) government have been inflicted upon us I hear. Makes you want to form some impromptu victim support group to deal with trauma dealt out to each of us from this hall of shame: McConnel, Macleish and Salmond to name but a few, what a sorry shower, all stuffed into a stupid building and drunk with a sense of power they don't even possess. Meanwhile the over excited Scottish media suck up to them like they'd just won the battle of Bannockburn when in real terms they're somewhere in the third political division slightly above a "toon cooncil".

Nice to see the Senior Service moving their subs all up to rainy Faslane (no need to ask Alex Salmond's permission), I feel sorry for the Janners mind you but they've a lot of other good things going for them down there, sun, sea and a ferry to Spain.

More mystery soot has appeared and then disappeared up the hoover followed by a stray pen. This was followed by hoover surgery to remove the foreign object and so restore normal service. Hoovers in my experience tend to effectively resist being taken apart or being probed surgically by wire coat hangers. Blood, sweat and tears follow and there are more chronicles of wasted time to log.

The folks from Dundee who make their own Star Trek home movies deserve an Oscar, a Bafta and transported to Fife - Live long and prosper on Tayside.

Ace of Bass

Ali and part of the cellar collection.

Strange black dust pours our of the chimney breast, no fire lit, no passage of air or draft. Space soot. Missie the cat sits squarely on top of the sky remote, trembling and purring, her eyes turned to sleeping slits. The football match on TV is over, I'm back home from Fife and Ali is breaking the tech barrier. At tea time the chilled pineapple worked rather well and lasted no time at all other than the ragged bits that remain in the teeth still releasing some vague memory of taste and the rain has stopped. I'm now recalling last seeing my driving licence somewhere in a rucksack pocket, in a small case in a large case buried at the back of the cupboard under the stair - I can't afford to forget this and must remove and declutter and I may find that old copy of Cubase in the process.

At least Swine flu isn't making headlines tonight, the hype is hopefully dying down, the ignorant and stupid media coverage may now die the death from the virus of public indifference and boredom. Meanwhile proper medical advice, balanced reporting and media credibility is undermined in the process.

What is more?

Martin and Hieke's apple tree - last weekend.

Our May day holiday began with a coffee on the couch and the bewildering viewing that is BBC early morning news. First there was one of my least favourite politicians, Harriet Harman saying that though she was ambitious she was satisfied to be GB's deputy and the top job wasn't for her. Unbelievable. This was followed by the highly likable Sister Beckett, the art critic/historian nun who described the viewing of Christian Icons as "leading us beyond the known", which I thought was rather good if a little optimistic. "They show us more" she added, then in some strange rhetorical way asked herself the question "what is more?" Neither her or the interviewers bothered to answer - and the question hung in the mind and mid air as it quite rightly should. Next up was a puzzled looking Ian Broudie back with a Lightning Seeds album after ten years. Not something I'm excited about nor was Ian really, come backs are tricky and for some best avoided.

Last night we all sat riveted, welded and with jumpy legs as the 100th episode of Lost was aired. It was a bottle of red wine and three double Baillie's' session with the plot centering on Faraday's time travelling injuries and the dilemmas generated by trying to engineer the future from the past, the usual stuff, fun, irritating and compelling. Only two left in this series.

Swift return

In Ravensburg, by a toy shop, a teddy attempts to impersonate Mr Swift while Ali looks on.

Our old friends from Portugal, Mr & Mrs Swift have returned to their nesting spot in the coal cellar roof. The cats have of course clocked them and a few frustrating months of waiting and pouncing now begin. Otherwise most of this weekend has been laundry and gardening with a smattering of football and catching up on life in general. One of the best bits was playing hide and seek in Dobbies with various children and grandchildren, much more fun than shopping and fine if you don't get caught. We didn't.

The whine of various airports

Bought at Pret at Stanstead, a classic rhubarb blend with a daft name that I had to try and buy. This was the second of four airports visited in a week of wandering, recording, drinking, meeting old friends and avoiding rain and crashing in the same car.

Lindau is damp but pretty, cobbled and a good stop for coffee, soup and views of the Swiss Alps (almost).

Mobil rock out in a fun pub on a warm Saturday night and I'm about to do a guest spot on Willie and the Hand Jive - I almost avoid any classic pop gaffes in the process.

Drives like a handbag

It's been a good week (or so) for freeloading. a few days ago we got a five star lodge at Cameron House instead of a room and a goody bag full of cosmetics. Today in sunny Birmingham it was at Hertz's expense and it was a Mini Cooper S. Funky inside and fast outside but I rather felt like I was driving a large blue and white handbag albeit one that moved like dark material from a steel shovel.

Back to airports: I've finally realised what we need, no malls, no coffee shops, no supercar raffles and shoeshines, it's just a simple chute that carries you from check in to the door of your aircraft, a bit like the launch sequences in Thunderbirds. I'd pay Ryanair an extra fiver for this and Flybe at least a tenner.

I think it's aliens who drive white vans, how else can you explain their uncanny speed, bumper to bumper accuracy and an ability to appear in your mirror from nowhere and when the need arises, park unseen on the hard shoulder for hours

Green Growth

A strange green growth causes concern as a twiggy tree is revealed.

Greedy burger recipe: 1 tomato, 4 bits of bacon, 2 eggs, 2 slices cheese, 2 rolls.
Method: Cook/fry everything apart from the rolls. As they are four days old they must be toasted. Eat at the end of a long day at work and then sit on the couch watching the Apprentice but not really paying attention to it.

"We sell things on the basis of a way of response".

More brandy

She said "on a good week I blog every day, on a bad week I can't quite stay away, when the wind blows I am cold and unclear, when the frost bites it's just brandy and beer". Somebody save me.

Glencoe daily photo

I can confirm it, the rumour is true: "She's a waterfall".

Wednesday already when it's really Tuesday and a cold mist has descended into my nostrils and the raw salad palette at the back of my throat. If it was Monday I'd be fine but the money wont be in the bank until Thursday and on Friday I have to catch the cats. What a week to lose touch with the concept of time, the annoying length of my fingers and the angry, pointless rant that would usually follow. Next week at this time it will be my Christmas birthday, all my dreams may come true and a foreign country will seem like home for a few short (59 minute) hours.

I did visit Glencoe and it only cost me £15 to get out of there. It was bleak but enjoyable, a bit like Pittenweem. Next time I'll take a jacket and full membership of the National Truss for Alba before asking for political asylum. Meanwhile I regarded the waterfall, encountered many a slip and found it all rather pleasing. Some day soon I'll be seen blethering to myself on the fast lane of the M5.

I did have a hangover once

That may have been Saturday morning, what a feeling.

A blank v a blur

Chasing down the remnants of memory strands, not easy for me, the persistence of it all and the ragged edge of what I can't remember, in this case what I did with the cat's vaccination records, easy for some, tough for me.

Another hectic weekend over, much of it spent at the now (by us) highly regarded Dakota Hotel where everything ran as close to plan as any plan ever does. It was manic, frantic, relaxed and fun and a celebration to remember plus they do really good chips. Who'd have thought it?

For the last two days it's been the new salad, fruit and the marinated anchovy diet, I think that's less than four ingredients as per the latest Australian instructions. There was also a pint of Guinness on a sunny afternoon under the railway bridge just to add some pleasant toxins to the mix.

Back from the West Country

Alexandria car wash - detail.

Back from touring the West Highlands for three days, sleeping in a mixture of wigwams and five star resorts and getting the latest postings from the many bi-lingual road signs now set up north of Tyndrum. What a complete waste of money that is, twice the ugly signage and sod all for the actual roadway. My recurring thought however, based on a chance encounter at the Duck Bay Marina is "do Native American women get large tattoos of Weegie men done on their backs?" If so then the world is in perfect balance and intervention in the form of some pre-emptive nuclear strike is totally unnecessary. I certainly hope so and say let the good taste prevail whatever the outcome.

As a seasoned pothole ranter the road from Tarbert to Fort William left me wavering, shuddering and speechless. It rewards the dumb tourist with a totally awful surface and a driving experience that would rattle the pants from anyone in anything from an Ascona to a Zafira. Pity help any Homecoming 2009 victims who attempt to traverse this road disaster, a homecoming in an ambulance with a shattered spine is the likely reward. Where does the road tax money actually go and why are they filling up the holes with surplus porridge instead of something more substantial?

The West Lothian cow question has been settled, temporarily. Numerous sightings of the disappearing cows have been made by a selection of reputable people including me. I even saw some dressed up in black and white.

Cow rapture

One of the most frustrating things about living in West Lothian is the tendency that the cattle seem to have to play hide and seek on a regular basis. Casually (to the outsider) but with some grim determination (to the locals), they move from field to field as if in some grand, golden bovine ballet. I'm slowly getting used to this.

One school of thought suggests that a cattle "rapture" is underway, the great beasts caught up and transported to wherever their final destination lies. I can neither confirm or deny this as the evidence is patchy or anecdotal or based on unreliable testimony smattered with the poison that is cheap alcohol. West Lothian is a tortured landscape of many mysteries that require urgent attention and fuller investigations, don't mention rustlers either.

Good Man Friday

I made these myself from real bunny parts.

There is clearly too much chocolate around the house today and not enough protein. Despite my best efforts the brown addictive sweet treat is in every corner and going down well with coffee and sometimes just on it's own. It's nothing to do with religion or belief, it's the power of the supermarkets and media pushing us to exercise our pin numbers to add to those squiggly lines on bits of paper that curtail all of our finances at some point. It seems I've surrendered to the power of the state and to the weakness of a sweet tooth that costs £18.99 a month to maintain on Dentalplan (Group B).

Pathetic as it seems exhuming six stone slabs from the garden this afternoon came pleasantly close to killing me. Extreme gardening can verge into some almost "snuff" related territory as your body says "stop" but your inflated vision of the finished gardening masterpiece says, "a bit more and ignore the pain and the black fingernails". Soon enough rain stops play.

South Queensferry, the bustling hub on a Spring evening.

Spent a fun night in the SQ Stag yesterday inventing subversive alternatives to Twitter - "Stutter" being my favourite. The trick is to get your message in b-b-b-b-b-before you use up all your allotted character spaces.

more thin things

New Ted Rodgers 321 Tribute Act - from the Daily Reckless.

Searching for the paths of the thin moon is not a regular pastime round these parts where, despite the lack of light pollution we seldom stare at the heavens the way good Pagans should. The fascination for the stars does not burn brightly here at present but that may be as much to do with weather patterns (thin) at present. Actually I'm not a Pagan, nor a Vegan nor a Presbyterian or a Vulcan, thankfully I do not feel I belong within any such category. Our lazy lack of astronomical endeavour has inspired a short sound scape I've just recorded, it may never be heard but it's called "Search for the thin moon".

Easter eggs are becoming increasingly bland, strangely cheap and unattractive. The ubiquitous golden/silver bunnies are tasty but now breeding like all good bunnies should, on supermarket shelves. Nice as they are they remain no match for a fish finger sandwich, a snack I'm sure Jesus would have approved of (five loaves, three fish fingers?). Is it ever too late to start new traditions?

thin day

Dawn of the thin atmospheric paths from the trails of the replicants that scrape the horizon.

More than anything else today has been a thin day. That's not thin in the body image or mass stakes but thin in the general lack of substance that has hung over. Thin weather, neither one type or the other, thin air, thin conversation and exchanges covering up the possibility that I am slowly becoming a ghost. A thin ghost. Perhaps it's to do with the confusing seasons of the spirit that collide in what for some is Holy Week and for others a reason to buy chocolate bunnies and spring themed cards. That devout and dimwitted thinness will have stretched to it's limit by Monday as the holiday expires and the next thin theme rotates into place.

I'm all for socks being sold in clumps of three rather than pairs of two, it's been suggested but it needs doing. On reflection is that just the same as buying three pairs and stuffing them all in the drawer in the haphazard and disrespectful way that socks are usually treated.

Missie the new cat has finally decided that I'm not an immediate threat to her health and well being. She can now stay in the same room as me for short periods and doesn't run and hide should I invade her generally generous sense of space. She's also learned how to plunge through the cat portal known as the cat flap and make a feeble "mew" sound when requiring to be fed. All very civilised and pleasant and happening now.

Views from thin windows and the typical artistic fog.

6 days upon the road

Not 6 days but 6 hours on the M6/74 and then another 6 to get back home. In a desperate bid to avoid the brain death of airports I arrived at the other brain death of motorway travel. Not sure which is worse but the car offers a controlled and (relatively) hassle free, sterile environment filled with my own choice of music played at a suitably high volume far away from the rest of the general public and easily accessible fruit juice - better in some ways anyway.

Going south was good, sunlight, breakfast and the open road, the journey home was wet and wild and dark and a bit scary - I've done this loads of times but not learned any more lessons it seems. I did have a nice rest break in Lancaster and a huge burger and coffee and I thought a lot.

Ever dreamt about a problem at work but have it turn into some allegorical chicken pie contest in which you have to make and bake the best pie? I woke up struggling with these metaphorical and imaginary pies and the real problems of getting the pastry right. Only the right texture of pastry would win the contest and so solve that tricky work related conundrum. I do believe I just had one of my rare nightmare experiences, possibly triggered by a 16 hours day, the guilt of a large burger, loud music and serial tiredness coupled with a career high of rich and fruitful anxiety. That'll be it then, job done.
I'm going to see this dumb film because already I like the animation and the bright colours and we've not been to movies since Batboy and Joker Jim slugged it out in NYC to the delight of a whooping and cheering local audience.

Are all donkeys vegetarians?

Donkey conked out.

When driving along the road who could resist a hand painted roadside sign offering "free donkey manure". Of course it could simply be some splinter group campaigning to get some donkey manure freed from being held as a political prisoner somewhere but that's unlikely, I'll take on face value and pop in for some, one fine day. Anyway we are now in the midst of our new growing season and the little onions, asparagus, leeks and potatoes are crying out for more nourishment and we don't want to use the lion manure that Dobbies offers (oh no!). On thinking a bit more it seems wrong and risky to grow vegetables using a meat based manure, that could surely lead to mutant vegetables rising from the soil apart from other ethical issues that I can't be bothered tackling and what about the laws of physics? I think we need that cludgie of organic manure to kick start the growth and avoid another West Lothian potato famine. I'll wait with my B&Q bucket for the next horse fair nearby.

Goalpost Erection.

Another cold morning, up early and out to the blasted heath, avoiding the witches and the wolves and setting up the goal posts and nets. Then watch the game while the sun fails to offer any warmth o the living and then take them all down again. Home eventually and Ali has made a nice brunch of bacon, scrambled eggs and rolls and slow recovery sets in. Then we do more gardening (progress), then my new laptop dies in a cloud of invisible smoke and nothing else in particular - a whimper in fact, how pants is that?

The power of the blues

Never did get that ES335.

Inedible Journey

Maybe it wasn’t The Incredible journey but there was a movie with a dog voiced by some old Hollywood actor, a stupid dog voiced by Bruce Willis (always sniffing things) and a scraggy cat voiced by Debbie Reynolds. For some reason I thought there was a duck or maybe a goose that accompanied them. Not sure how that would work in practice, any bird would beat a cat or dog and inevitably make the journey across the Rocky Mountains less incredible. I also thought it was Robin Williams who provided the voice for the bird, may have been a chicken. Conversations in a car on a rainy day.

Blues saves my life

Nice couch daydream featuring me playing a three chorus solo in some mystical, smoky blues band. The first passage was surprisingly fluid and ran between the 8th and 12th fret and was a full four finger job. Then I pulled down to the 7th fret and ran up to a lick based around an A chord with a twist, I concluded by returning to the 12th and between that and the 15th let it scream a bit with a few long bends. The turnarounds were all based on “Sitting on top of the world” and when I had to vamp for the other guitarist It was back to “Crossroads” followed by “Killing Floor”. It was probably at this point that the audience walked out for a beer or a toilet break, I enjoyed it anyway and experienced the imaginary healing power of the blues.

Over use of the colon

Finding Faith on the Internet:

I’m still exploring the teaching of the Flying Spaghetti Monster as a viable means of gaining eternal life, some time after the three score and ten expire here. Failing success with that it’s looking like the offer of “Eternal salvation or triple your money back (at least $90 on a $30 subscription)” from the good but disturbing people at SubGenius is hard one to beat. There is so much out there but so little time to take it all in, absorb it and generally reject it. If I choose this then it’s grappling with the dilemma of what to wear on St Bill Hicks Day on the 13Th of April. If that fails then it’s back to Discordianism once again.

Age and wisdom:

These chase one another around your body and mind like Tom and Jerry did in the inspired cartoons of the 1940s, the ones no longer shown on TV as they are not quite PC enough. Age brings pains, slower timing for blood to clot, memory loss and a strange pain that seems based on tension that arrives in the small of your back. The world of wisdom is shaped by an increase in cynicism, successive déjà vu experiences that pass themselves of as reality, mentally completing the sentences of others in conversation, fear of books and a shortened attention span. The physical will occasionally overcome the mental and visa versa, concerns rage between the two in an incessant civil war that steals sleep and pollutes daydreams. Peace breaks out after the administration of a curry, red wine in the right glass, the smile of a child or the touch of a lover. You may also start to appreciate the world of cats, a world you can never share.

Red house over yonder:

The house of Jimi Hendrix has reached the end of it‘s life. Somewhere in Seattle they want to tear down his house, a house never painted red, probably. Of course it should be torn down and the developers should win the day but all the timbers should be salvaged, sorted and sent to the great guitar builders of the world and remodelled into sunburst Stratocaster shapes and then played and displayed in a perfect guitar shaped universe.

A banana a day:

Simple as it may seem I find it difficult to reach a certain personal goal everyday - eating a banana. Based on fear, the need for potassium (why?) and as an alternative to chocolate nobody can say bananas are bad but they are dull and if you’re stuck with supermarket ones they often appear to be a number of years old and a bit tasteless. I’m now experimenting with adding them to porridge (another neutral food) thus creating the equation dull + neutral over microwave divided by a bowl too hot to handle to the power of 650 to 800 watts allowing for the text being difficult to read in daylight. It tastes ok and Gordon Brown may well breakfast on it and add the occasional waffle but I’m still struggling.

Driving an automatic car whilst wearing an itchy jumper:

It’s not an official sport but perhaps it should be though scoring might be complex. Imagine Lewis Hamilton spinning around Monza at 200mph encased in a wiry woolly jumper, struggling with a redundant left foot and worrying about what to tell the stewards once the race is over. My position isn’t quite so tricky but the business of trying to multi task when wearing distracting clothing remains a challenge and tests the metal of any ordinary person to the limit, in my scratchy view. That horrible moment when you forget you’re in an automatic and hit the brake with your left foot when you thought you’d stabbed the clutch, you crash to a halt and the jumper collides with the back of your exposed neck as you shoot forward in the seat and are throttled by the seat belt. Shocking, itchy and irritating.

Ramshackle Rockers

Last night was spent at Jim Igoe's Secret CDs night in town. Top of the bill were the incredibly tight and loud Graeme Mearns Band, ramshackle rockers and excellent musicians, cheeky, dangerous and impressive in a cartoon Bohemian style. Get the CD at the link. We got the chance to perform briefly thanks to a call off - a few notable others also played: Furious, Fi, Nyk, Broken Tooth and the ever tuneful Angel Conversations, all happening as the Scotland match raged on upstairs in the congested and noisy public bar.

Bacon and eggs can be perfect sometimes, on song and lightly fried with a slice of toast and not too much brown sauce. Egg yolks running with just the right amount of viscosity, over easy and soft with a wee bit of fat on the meat and a few well chosen burned bits to add colour and depth.

A dead horse standing up

A bricked up room, a wooden bed and a wooden pillow, a pile of clothes, a horse's head split in two, dust and crumbs the mice refused to eat, the dry warm air of a hundred years - what's next?

Over the edge

It’s always good to know that you can rely upon politicians to bicker, cheat and exploit their positions just when you need them most. Industry is collapsing, property is cracking, every bank and building society is under unbearable stress and we’re fighting two wars and Spandua Ballet are reforming. Nightmare. So Gordon Brown chews more “doing everything possible” cud every time he talks, exercising that curious facial tick of his, Jackie Smith does a great job keeping law and order whilst her cuckolded husband downloads porn in the publicly paid for “family home” and Harriet Harman talks Hampstead Heath bollocks relentlessly. These guys entered office promising an end to sleaze, they are lucky, if there was a bit more Mediterranean blood flowing in British veins they be hanging from lampposts by now and whatever you may think none of them have the style, swagger or bullish colour of Mussolini.

Synchronicity, funnily enough I was walking down the road to Mandalay heading for Mumbai (Bombay) when along came a travelling circus. My pocket radio was switched on and what tune was playing? Jump by Van Halen.

“To Bombay a travelling circus came they brought an intelligent elephant and Nellie was her name One dark night she slipped her iron chain and off she ran to Hindustan and was never seen again”. This of course is the 1957 version as heard on Children’Hour not some cod pop version.

I think that it may be only a matter of time before I start to listen to and love the Decembrists, there is some inevitability about this. I also now know where the name Zooey comes from but I remain a little confused.

Zen and the art of driving backwards

The next time I go south I intend to register a strong protest against airport fortresses, clunky homeland security, plastic bags full of toothpaste, pish shopping malls, seats designed by and for the robot in I Robot and delayed, long lamented Flybe flights. My localised urban protest will take the form of driving instead of flying. A simple calculation done on the front of a yellow sticky (ever written on the back of one?) reveals that by avoiding brain dead airport time, queues, extensive thumb twiddling, waiting on things, rip-off car parking charges, waiting on bloody Hertz finding a car in a lot full of cars and various other random irritations I may be a little quicker and save time. Even better than that I'll be in complete contravention of all my own self made restrictive rules about travel, economy and common sense. Marvellous, I feel so free I might just break out into whistling Radar Love and some windmill guitar playing.

Once I've recovered from this euphoric state I'm drawing up the plans for an ironic eco-house made from the old tyres from wrecked gas guzzlers, body panels from Range Rovers, walnut trim from Jaguars and Granadas and the electric motors from their powered seats to operate the retro wind farm as back up in case of a still and calm day.

Today we ate two kinds of sausage, middle sized and small but presented artfully in a sea of baked beans and HP sauce - classy but nae spuds. Meanwhile I'm dreaming of planting potatoes and learning the ancient and hidden language needed to coax them up from the ground come the solstice. Until yesterday's illuminating session at the Chic Murray Garden Centre I didn't realise that potato whispering was still big in West Lothian, I think there may be an evening class running in Broxburn in the Lidl car park at dusk on Tuesdays.

You in your small corner

Another game another corner another goal and no the pitch in this photo is not maintained by Fife Council, you can tell because a) it has grass b) it is flat and c) the flag stays in place.

We had a nice meal with CBQ and Ann last night, Ali cooked and I got in the way. After a few wines and slurps I moaned a lot (as did some others) about modern life, airports, TV programmes and all the things that irritate folks of a certain age. For a few hours it was as if this blog and CBQ's (on the right) had come to life in some strange dimension where the 70s never ended and everybody was "fair and reasonable" - Utopia you might think, but for a brief time we all lived there until somebody switched off the lights due to some bill or other not getting paid.

Today the sun shone in spurts so after the customary Sunday AM football (almost thwarted by the need to alter time pieces the world over) it was out into the garden for some "green gymnastics". This involves thrusting a spade into the ground and then lifting out great clods of worms and muck and then putting them back in roughly the same place but upside down, not unlike trying to sort out your sock drawer I guess. Ali assures me that after a few weeks of this healthy exercise and some ritualistic bending over, we will encourage certain vegetables to grow and ultimately we will eat them or share them with friends. This theory flies in the face of a lifetime's experience spent obtaining vegetables (but not on a regular basis) from shops whilst buying useful things like wine, Kit Kats, super glue and newspapers. I'm sceptical but my curiosity has been aroused so on with the experiment and the growing as the new age of gardening and possible self sufficiency dawns.

Fantasy Formula 1 has started well following a brief panic yesterday, the threat of lost points and stalled text messages could have inflicted a critical blow on my campaign but they were cured by a late brunch and use of predictive text. Today I'm 4th, Ali is 1st and my blind faith in Brawn GP has been fully justified.

New Economic Model Army

New Les Paul, needs a little work but plays well enough.

Economics for the economic.

Buying things in batches is working nicely these days and, thanks to my recent PhD in economics is allowing me to develop a new purchasing strategy that I intend to use for the rest of my life or at least until the end of the month. Successful batches so far:

Meal for £10 from M&S - Wine, chips, sponge pud and cheesy meatballs.

Les Paul from Boffer, £40- Guitar, bag, electronic tuner, two sets of strings, lead, strap,plectrums and misc. booklets and cds. (guitar is a Gibson (?) has bolted maple neck, rosewood, humbucks and (after an hours worth of fiddling) easy action.)

Emergency bulb set from Halfords £16 - Loads of auto bulbs, set contained the bulb I needed which was £17.99 on it's own!

Laptop bag and funky mouse from Amazon £18 - HP bag and mouse that changes colour in a trippy way.

So bundles and batches are the way ahead and I think it could signal the end of the crunch if applied across a range of applications and situations.

The fantasy and the reality.

At last the FF1 has got going. A certain amount of parallel processing gave us team combination issues but that seems to have been sorted if a little after the deadline. I may well be deducted points for failing to pass on key text messages about changes and the fact that this was in the middle of the night is no excuse. The prize pot is £120, could get a nice Scaletrix bundle for that.

Escaping the world of solutions

Chasing the fading bulbs.

They burn brightly, they light the darkness and show you the way. You switch them off and on and they burn and glow, they push the darkness in on itself and make you feel safe. You squeeze the switch and fall asleep, peace and a dark blanket overcomes you and smothers all around you in a warm void of dream and recovery. Then the day comes when they are burned out, dead and useless and replacement needed. You either stay in the dark or seek out a new one. It screws or clips or snaps into place and you are connected to the world of light once more. Light is good, bulbs show us the way but seeing all or thinking you see all isn’t everything, the ways of the dark carry hidden rewards and favours. Senses tingles as you step out, squeeze the switch to off, hear the click and explore these same surroundings for the first time.

Escaping the world of solutions.

For sport and world financial gain I need to attempt to write a long and twisting screenplay set in some future post apocalyptic society, all in a blasted landscape about a lost child who arrives as if from nowhere and is destined to bring peace and progress to the battered and struggling population. This can only happen once he/she has performed a series of elaborate trials that are to be revealed to him/her as he/she journeys across the remains of the surface of the world. Along the way encountering mutants, UFOs, villains, heroes and freaks, extreme weather, aliens, earthquakes and crossword puzzles but learning and overcoming in each trial until the final revelation is given in the form of a whispered phrase passed on by the tiny five toed frog (Bob) who lives at the foot of the Himalayas.

Once Bob has passed the secret on he rolls over and dies in the arms of his frog lover Bobette. She carries his body into a the warm waters of a deep pool , the ripples caused by her tongue touching the water carry him away and he floats into a fine mist and his body disappears. The child is distraught at this loss and cries uncontrollably, unable to reconcile the gift of the knowledge and the loss of a small frog. Time passes and the child recovers, grows and retains the revelation by writing it onto the inside of a small matchbox hidden in a deep pocket in a magic cloak that once belonged to an actual magician.

Now that the revelation has been given out, the information on the matchbox is then passed onto Abraham one frosty night in the foothills following a drunken game of arm wrestling and a spicy meal. Abraham is the lost monk of the East who has accompanied the child throughout the journey and shared in the hardship of the travel all the time carrying an old stick. Consumed in a fit of unusual jealousy Abraham then kills the child, steals the matchbox and armed with the new knowledge heads to the Middle East where, after gathering the remains of the three main races of man together he founds three new religions, one of which he bequests to each of the races, all whilst sitting under a golden palm tree drinking the holy milk of a coconut.

The three races start their religions well enough and separate but after ten years become exasperated by their differences (all of which are trivial though to them significant) and go to war against one another. Diplomatic solutions fail and Abraham is called in from the desert to help to resolve the conflict. Abraham tries to broker a fresh peace deal based around compromises in public transport, musical policies and the amount of “proper” chapters in their holy books but it all fails and the conflict continues. He retires to the desert to experiment on cosmetics and treacle whilst the religious wars rage on. Eventually the three races destroy each other thanks to their newly acquired weapons of mass destruction, mostly made from treacle and cosmetics. Into this post-post apocalyptic world a lost child arrives as if from nowhere, one destined to bring peace…

Listening to:

The Bees, the Byrds and the Honeycombs. Miles Davis, Camera Obscura and Sparks.

Eating:

Variations on the theme of yoghurt and leftover pasta.
Small and disappointing muffins that were BOGOF, (always a mistake).
Gatorade still holding it’s own against stiff competition from tap water, ordinary Coke and blueberry Ribena.

Shaving (the face): The eternal conflict remains, do it in the shower, save time and water but risk cuts and missed bits or in the wash basin through a steamy mirror whilst dripping in the cold bathroom air.

Wreckage

It's no secret that I like history and I like geography. Not sure which one would win in a straight fight, history would have depth and experience, geography would have space and natural resource. It would be a good and gory punch up. So I spent time today checking on the locations of ship wrecks in the Forth Estuary, there are a few, some nearby and some way out there where the sea blue and sky blue connect and blur.

Wreckage is interesting even when it can't be seen, just knowing it's buried or sunken under your feet or deep in far away water protected by the mist of it's elusiveness. Lost and unobtainable after all the effort expended to build, launch and travel only to end abruptly and tragically when least expected. So now I know that the first surface ship ever torpedoed by a submarine (in 1914) was sunk in the Forth and the last ship sunk in WW2 also went down in the Forth, in 1945. Secrets and hidden depth, all around and inside.

Some brains and a little...

...Brawn.

Will my gamble work? The Fantasy F1 League (link on right) is almost ready to run and my winning strategy is now ready to be revealed. First get the two top drivers and then get the cheapest but fastest car, if you can believe the hype. As for drivers it's the best or biggest cheats : Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa, what could possibly go wrong? The team name, ethos and make-up is still forming but likely to be "The New Caledonian F1 Church of the Kamikaze League of Flying Cougars", or something perhaps a little less serious and a little longer.

Would you buy a used car from this bear?

Funny how brushing up ashes and soot from the fireplace (there are many scattered around this house) leads me to think about the little puppet that is Sooty himself. I did think about the Soot Spiders in Spirited Away and coal miners, cleaning the chimney and air shafts and fossil fuels first but then it was Sooty. I never really liked him, imagine, as a child Sooty visiting your house, he'd be like some awful cousin or nephew with a dumb Tourette's Syndrome, out of control, whispering obscenities and playing stupid pranks. He'd break up your best Airfix kits, knock down your Lego village and then squirt you with a red plastic water pistol while throwing custard. He'd make a mess with jelly and ice cream at the tea table, tear up comics and photos and then your parents would blame you for the mess. Then there's the problem of his magic wand and "Izzy Wizzy let's get busy" all running wildly out of control. I can't recall much about his actual powers, not really Harry Potter standard either more like some drunken seaside conjurer pulling hankies and feather dusters out of hats and pockets. So I'm glad he's gone (not sure where) though he's still lurking somewhere on the edge of my consciousness like a golden, furry and muted Stephen King villain.

For people like me who fiddle around taking photographs of trees, dandelions, litter blowing in the wind and bus stops this kind of advert is a little disturbing. We all know that there are extremists and criminals out there and they are active no doubt but...

We seed the green planet

It was just a normal day, one like any other, when a space ship crash landed in the back garden spilling out it's precious cargo of seeds and young plants, each ready to burst and grow and recolonise the planet. Did I say space ship? No it was the postman, easy to mix them up. From another planet? Well not really but they looked kind of far out and "engineered" in their shiny vacuum packs and if left to grow and spread who knows where they will end. Things like to grow and spread, think of thistles, litter, dandelions, the BNP, Islam and nationalism. Then there's optimism, mass consciousness, vacuous fashion addictions and shopping, R&B and bad behaviour in the streets after midnight.

We shall spread this growth as if the world depended on it, as it might. The rain forest failed us in 2004 or there abouts when it accidentally produced more Co2 than it took in, a bit like Grangemouth. A few more years of this and we'll all be wearing face masks, anti-bee sting hats and our eyes will be gritty. In the mean time I refuse to support the various groups of professional and career anarchists that threaten to disrupt the city next week. Why don't they just get jobs in the city and bring the whole thing down from the inside or has that already been tried?

Wild Bean Cafe no more

I'm intrigued and impressed by Neil Young and his mission to rid the world of roadside refueling. That is a wild and radical concept that as a petrol head disturbs me but as an almost sane person makes a pickup truck full of sense. Just imagine no more glossy overpriced forecourt shops, grumpy assistants (BP South Queensferry you suck!) and queues to fill up at the mere hint of a tanker strike. Instead just plop a kettle of water in the tank and charge your fuel cell over night on the kitchen worktop. I'm loving this already though I probably wont see it in my life time unless I can summon up a healthy dose of doubt and a flux capacitor for Mr Cougar's innards.

While he's at it I'd like Neil to take similar stance over airports (not air travel), shut the shopping mall aspect down, make the flights run on time and stop charging 65p for a Whispa and £2.99 for a medium latte that would be a small latte anywhere else. Sell bits of BAA? You bet, sell it to MacDonald's or IKEA please and get some proper throughput and economies organised, then nationalize it.

Cat of the day: Clint for scratching this laptop.
Corner of the day: Joe's leading to a 2 - 1 victory.
Soup of the day: Veg and tomato by Ali.
Song of the day: "Like a hurricane" by Neil Young.
Alarm of the day: 7.25 to get up and set up the goal posts.
Firelighter of the day: Zip.
News story of the day : UFOs over Pitlochry.
Chicken of the day : Sainsbury's herb and garlic.
Building Society of the day: Dunfermline, in the shit like the rest of them.

doubt

I'm convinced that doubt is better than certainty, of that I have no doubt. Not to be sure, to have vague ideas or hunches coupled with a mind as open as a mind can be is the best way to lead a balanced life. Certainty breeds extremism based on a belief in the certain possibility of certainty. That's too dangerous and the more you think about it unworkable but people plainly try to make it work. Naw!

The sun led us out into the garden from early this morning. Old Sparky the lawn mower burst into life after a fair bit of blood and sweat and the gardening year began. Ali pruned and trimmed hedges and trees and bushes and anything else that showed any desire to grow. I cut grass and built a bonfire from clippings and branches. Lunch was outside, salami rolls and salad and the greatest drink in the world (some doubt here?) Gatorade. After all the trimming and some forking new seed beds, paths were cut, an arch erected and puzzled over (where should it go?) and then we were suddenly tired and hungry again. We left the garden to it's own devices and retired indoors, more work to do there but less likely to induce back ache

An arch window, but not like the one in our garden.

Soft top

The secret life of traffic.

A large part of the afternoon was spent sitting in a traffic jam on the A90 heading home from a vibrant few hours shopping in Craigleith's sunny environs. A fairly serious looking shunt had occurred where the A90 meets the M9 and the usual grumpy queues formed up behind. What struck me was that there were many convertibles in the line with their tops down all carrying large items in the back, things that would never fit in with the top up. Do convertible owners wait until the sun shines and in this uncertain climate rush out to buy the huge flat screen TVs, bikes, plants and wooden front doors (in a Saab) that I saw today? I guess they must, I salute their bravery, their deference to the weather the rest of the year and their courage in withstanding the aerodynamic stresses that these ungainly loads must place on their cars and their foreheads.

Things that are not true:

Dogs can sniff out cancer - though many seem well practiced enough in checking for the testicular variety.

The angle at which a car driver's seat sits at does not correspond to his/her IQ.

Maggots are a useful way to cure a festering wound.

A bargain is a bargain at any price.

Things that are good for you are not what you fancy eating.

Obama can speak without an autocue but not quite so eloquently.

I'm going to win the Trumper/Barclay Fantasy Formula 1 tournament for 2009/2010.

New drink in town.

Why not try M&S's wild strawberry and clotted cream milk drink? It kept me alive and almost sane during the above mentioned jam, caught the attention of three young ladies in an Audi, was nearly stolen by a passing motorcyclist and there is no number four.