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.

Future Buildings

Just back from Birmingham, a bit tired but Bones is on TV as is Grey's Anatomy a little later, bedtime will be late and the progress of our mortal souls into the glorious after life that awaits may be slowed down as a result. As an antidote I must drink copious amounts of apple juice and avoid fatty foods. This is part of Ali's Fuzzy Religion thinking and I'm trusting in it.

The house in the picture is Pittencrieff House, the upper floors are closed thanks to DDA and probably a lack of local funding. I can't imagine the house designer thinking some 300 years ago that access would ever pose a problem. That made me think about today's current crop of modern buildings. I don't believe that many of today's buildings will be around in 300 years either, they'll be stumps, brown earth or at worst slums. If you imagine the future to be a cross between Blade Runner, Star Wars, the Jetsons and Woody Allen's "Sleeper" then our gift to the future will be a deadly mess and getting up and down stairs or into working lifts will be the least of the tomorrow people's problems. I guess that Edinburgh Castle, Holyrood Palace and the New Town will survive but the Parliament will have long rotted away along with vast swathes of housing schemes , IKEA/ASDA sheds and the plastic and concrete flats that have stalled on the Forth waterfront. My descendants will be wearing tin foil clothes, eating protein pills and hovering in their Chinese hover boots all along the remains of those hateful tram tracks that famously brought the city to it's knees and resulted in revolution, a mass exodus to Fife and the colonisation of the great northern wilderness. I also hope that the wolves will have established themselves by this time, picking off the town planning refugees one by one.

Elsewhere

Passing time in Dunfermline while the car undergoes a service which hopefully will be routine and inexpensive. The local Starbucks is my refuge for a few hours, a bright and polished canteen in a half vacant mall that belongs in some other town. Travel agents still full of offers call out to sell two weeks in Turkey or fly-drives in Florida. None of them are attractive or inspiring or busy. The shops open their mouths, hungry for customers who only want to sit this one out munching muffins and grasping cardboard latte cups while the holiday business holds it’s breath and prepares more handwritten discount cards to display in their windows. Meanwhile I need to form holiday plans for the summer.

Muffins aren’t all they are cracked up to be, they give too much on the first bite, no resistance, no fight back, then a sweet taste that turns to dry and then a further aftertaste that milky coffee cant seem to neutralise and all for £4.00, the rough price of a rough fish supper out in the colonies. I know all the prices but I don’t get the values these days. All freshly baked in some barn on an anonymous industrial estate and run over to a common loading dock with all the other supplies in mud spattered white trucks while we all sleep and dream of holidays.

The play park in the picture brought back some memories, I walked past it today on the way to the music shop (string buying). A number of years ago my access to my younger kids was severely restricted due to a marital dispute, not a happy season. When I did see them we often spent time in this playground, glossing over the background troubles and trying to play, chase, hide and seek and be normal for a few minutes in between the collection and the partings. Some lines have been drawn under all that now I’m glad to say but I still choked a little when passing by.

The Glen is full of plaques on trees and benches placed out in the weather in memory of dead relatives. It’s strange how you can envy the dead, considering the step ahead they’ve inadvertently but inevitably taken, no longer trying to fathom life or fighting to hang onto it. Now their place is to be some where but nowhere and the subject of a family conference about the price of a bench and how many appropriate words can be fitted along the top. Trying to make sense of life and find meaning is a life long and generally pointless practice, whilst it demonstrates and tests all the higher aspirations that most people would naturally applaud it also shows a certain lack of consideration for the hard facts and the laws of science and nature which whilst arguably flexible and developing are also, in most cases fixed and time critical. Make the most of the space between the forceps and the stone, don’t ask too many clever but unanswerable questions and don’t waste what you have.

The Scottish Organic pile that is Pittencrief House sits in the middle, a ground floor museum is all that occupies it, the swish and spacious upper floors are closed thanks to the DDA regulations and a stone spiral staircase, a marvellous piece of twisted legislation that helps some and hinders others in the name of equality and against all common sense. The ECC may fund some ugly lift or means of access in 2017 or thereabouts. Meanwhile the building is rendered pointless and a frustrating example of laws that are unworkable in the real world.

I did have a pleasant wander around the rest of the Glen and the Abbey, bright and glistening in the still March sunshine, noting one great and economical gravestone, “Thomson, Tailor, Two Rooms”. Life, occupation and occupancy in stone as some immortal memory and message in four Spartan words. Mine could read “Barclay, Bullshitter, No Room(s)”.

As usual once I’m back in a shopping mall I realise I’ve forgotten all the useful things I need to make the trip worthwhile and useful, the watch that needs the strap and battery, the M&S vouchers that need spending, the phone that needs unblocked, the bent key that needs copied, the measurements for the fence timber - all elsewhere. Maybe that would be a better epitaph: “Barclay, Absent minded, Elsewhere.”

Where does my look come from you ask? How can I get it?
Jumper from Ali (Christmas), jeans from Primark (yes), shoes from New York, pants and socks from Tesco, Umbro T shirt from JJB, combat jacket from Next., HP bag from Amazon. Total cost? No earthly idea or interest.

Listening to:

Sam Stone - John Prine.
Kingdom of rust - the Doves.
Jeremy - Pearl Jam.
Solitude Standing - Susanne Vega.
Various unknown tracks - St Etienne.

Not the one in the blurb, this guy had 3 rooms.

Tesco daily washroom photo

A Dyson family dryer so tough that it takes the paint from the wall as it takes the water from your hands.

Rock not Grunge.

Not sure quite how many years it is but Pearl Jam's "Ten" is being reissued soon. Surely one of the most underrated albums ever and the real bridge between the heavy rock of the seventies and the insipid junk that much of today's stuff is. Quite why nobody successfully picked up the PJ model beats me, maybe it should've been me. "Jeremy" still makes the hair on the neck tingle and is truly scary, "Even Flow" would eat most of the current rock scene's show-gazing ting ting for breakfast and still have room for a double cheeseburger. Might need to make a rare attempt at a music purchase.

They're selling postcards of the hanging.

Choosing a lyric as a poem to help the kids homework was never going to be easy, first thoughts were mostly early Dylan based, "Desolation Row", "It's alright Ma" etc. then I relented. "What do you like at the moment?" Lyrics and poems are awkward subjects for 14 year olds, Chili Peppers, Gorillaz, Keane, Doves? We settled on U2's Beautiful Day, not bad when printed up and read out and even better sung in the car or dancing around the kitchen.

Tonight's tea was mostly a fish based affair but not for me, thanks to a glut of leftovers and freezer management initiatives over the weekend I am the recurring theme of food and drink certainly for the next few days or until I succumb to the hotel food option that will catch me sooner or later.

Another strange cat is crossing our boundaries and sniffing our flap, hmmm. Lights are blinking off and on and their are traces of disturbed food and disturbed adults (normal enough round here), it is only the beginning I believe.

Saxo Neds

Of course all generalisations are wrong so please forgive me for generalising over chav twats driving stupidly modified Saxos and then littering the roadway as if in some traditional and necessary bad-boy process. The junction by our local MacDonald's by the Forth Road Bridge seems to spawn convoys of these feral litter-bugs, twittering out of the drive-thru onto the main road discarding fast food debris in their wake. I followed once such dullard today and was considering ramming him, luckily my machine guns jammed just as he was in my sights, then he sped away for some other cerebral rendezvous in the nearby Burger King car park no doubt. Thankfully I was headed to Fife where I believe under certain ancient Kingdom laws you can still be birched for looking sideways at Saxos and have a much beloved finger removed for possession of a wide exhaust pipe.

Comic Relief was harrowing and not comic or funny. The clips are of course moving and provocative, the comedy and posturing that surrounds them is mostly banal, predictable and dull, proof that many of our revered comedy geniuses are simply not funny anymore. Shame, at least the cash was raised, what would they get if they were funny?

Yesterday's birthday party in the Play Planet in Dalgety Bay was good fun. My one year old grand daughter being the star of the show, resplendent in a Princess Leia outfit - see Facebook for a visual feast if you're a pal of mine.

Missie the cat gave me an unpleasant surprise this morning as she carried out a series of feline reprisal attacks for being (accidentally) locked in the spare bedroom for 12 hours. Of course I thought she was away catting or mousing or some such but no she was doing what cats do best on the bed and on the sheepskin rug. What joy when I opened the door this morning and she ran out and I surveyed the scene and the smell.

Hangover TV

I woke up this morning thinking of how I'd never seen a dog stealing sausages from a butcher's shop. Even when butcher's shops had sawdust on the floor and that big red meat slicer thing in the window it would have been impossible. What about sausages in brown paper bags? Will those days ever return?

Hangover TV is best defined as being Soccer AM on Sky 1 on a Saturday morning. Brainless, trivial and worse than reading the Sun but OK with a coffee and a sausage sandwich.

At the Academey of Speling Mistackes

No 69 in the series "Pointless Vehicles parked on grass".

Crow conflict

I'm puzzled by the apparent current popularity of crows amongst the rich and famous. It seems Imelda May had a pet crow that she raised from a chick, but couldn't look after so she gave it to Jeff Beck. Eh? What did he do with it, put it in his hair? I feel my old crow paranoia returning following on from the last skirmish in the legendary "Crow Wars of Parkhead". Then again perhaps I should be out looking for rejected crowlings and offering them sanctuary as some kind of Karmic gesture. It's all possible.

Pointless lists of non-vehicles

More confessions: I've watched Citizen Kane at least four times but I just cannot like it, the plot, the corny backdrops, the dialogue or anything. I still prefer Viva Maria or Easy Rider but I've still happily argued that CK was the best film ever for many years whether drunk or sober.

I've never seen "Love Story", "Mama Mia" or "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre".

Over the years I've listened to and owned four Bob Dylan albums and I liked them all but that was quite enough thank you. I do like his theme time radio.

When my dad said that Jimi Hendrix was an "ugly, noisy, long-haired idiot" when he first appeared in 1967 I agreed with him. About a week before Jimi died I changed my mind and bought Electric Ladyland for £1.00 (my mum collected it for me from a record shop in Dunfermline).

I didn't bother watching Neil Armstrong stepping onto the moon. I was at Army Cadet camp and thought the space race thing was all a bit dull. I lay on a bunk smoking a fag and reading a dirty paperback instead.

Trumpton riots revisited

Song of the day: HMHB Trumpton Riots.

Do you ever think of how difficult it is to keep up with films and books and music? How can you stay in touch with what's out there? The easy answer is not to really care and avoid all the pressure or even more easily lie about what you've read/heard/seen and form an opinion based on nothing in particular or a quick gander into Wikipedia.

Of course every so often you feel the need to tell the truth about what your views and actual experiences really are, ahem:

I've never listened to a single Leonard Cohen album in my life.
I've never listened to the Beatles "White Album" but I can't stand it.
I've only ever heard about 20% of Neil Young's work but would consider myself a fan.
I've not seen Trainspotting.
I've read half of a Jack Kerouac book and no William Burroughs.
I've not seen Slumdog Millionaire and don't fancy it much.
I've only listened to "The Rising" by Bruce Springsteen and none of his other stuff.
I've never purchased a Beatles or Rolling Stones record in my life.
I only started listening to the Grateful Dead about two years ago.
I've read one Shakespeare play and about two lines of Burns.
I avoid Coldplay whenever I can.

Now I feel a bit better.

Power Walkers

What's up with these people? They walk around at nights in odd shaped groups, over dressed in sports apparel and acting like walking was some special treat, how do they get about normally from A to B? Walking is a normal, everyday activity: couch to TV, TV to fridge, fridge to couch, couch to garage, garage to garden and so on. You don't need a special costume or a set of pals, just move freely in a chosen direction using your feet and legs.

Power walkers staring at a passing toy helicopter.

Cameranious

This is about something that is taking place somewhere else and it involves many things but mostly lost words. I am an expert.

Thank you all for the snowdrop medley of reminders, threats and other random feedback, particularly via Facebook and the odd burning envelope shoved through the letter box. Tricky to read and have you no sense of common decency? If I go silent for a short while it's only because I'm thinking about the length of time it can take to boil pasta or I'm recollecting the whereabouts of the many potholes and bits of broken road surface that have annoyed me today.

Fell asleep on the couch last night not watching Elizabethtown whilst somebody else was. I thought those days were over, nice that they're not.

My Snowdrop friend

Snowdrops dropping in actual snow: 08/03/09.

I'm grateful to our correspondents at the Daily Reckless for some updates on the current local values being speculated upon for this season's snowdrops, the top pic's crop would probably be worth about £100. I'd say that these bottom beauties would get at least a grand on the open market, maybe more from an ice cream van offering them to eager schemies and the upwardly mobile. As they are residing on our property (as far as you can ever have property or ownership) I'm now feeling the unfamiliar light headedness and intoxication that comes with a sudden unearned increase in wealth. If you are in the Mafia and reading this then please put the suitcase full of money somewhere in the snow by a fence post near to Fargo. I'll find it eventually come the spring and your consignment of snowdrops will be in the trunk of the black Lincoln Town Car in space 37.

Notwithstanding any of those arrangements I'd be happy to broker a deal with any ex-bankers or lottery winners who may have some spare cash they'd like to convert into something more organic, stable and with real growth potential over the next few years.

The Mars Bar sweet mentioned previously was an unexpected if exhausting treat. I ate it all and slept like a bloated chocolate log.

Work, rest and played out

It does look a tad more peely-wally than I recall.

OK they are not what they used to be, the recipe has changed, the food police have neutered them by removing their sugar balls and great thrusting, pulsing chocolate veins but they remain an iconic snack and have conditioned a generation into believing in the work, rest and play ethic. I love them still, particularly straight from the fridge or microwave. Confused by the sizes though.

Why not try this gravity defying trick at home?

Ali sees them as sinful but necessary, Castro said they were decadent, Marianne Faithful never did do what they said she did with them, Bowie wrote"Life on Mars" about them, Johnston fired them frozen at the Vietcong, they were given the freedom of Slough (no-more), they are deep-fried in religious ceremonies in Fife, they've been to the top of Mt Everest and the moon, Obama keeps one under his pillow and one in his jacket pocket but Gordon Brown hasn't tried one yet.

Tonight we're melting them with cream and floating Maltesers in the resultant sweet and sticky soup. I canna wait!

My work on Earth is done...

...or so I thought, like the mythical Gort because in a small way I have brought peace, prosperity and some quaint wisdom to an area of West Lothian the size of an Argentinian postage stamp. Having thought about it though, I now realise that I've still to make the path in the back garden a bit more "wiggly", there's a spot of ironing to do and those cats won't feed themselves. Ho Hum.

I'm very sorry to hear that a number of innocent diners have been poisoned at Mr Heston Blumethal's restaurant, more victims are coming forward every day it seems. I consider myself lucky, I've never eaten his actual food but I have also felt a little unwell when seeing it shown on TV or even hearing people describe it. Whatever the overall toxic effect I hope he survives to concoct more surreal foods, as long as they are not eaten by anyone young, feeble-minded or hungry. The world needs cooks, that much is obvious but it needs good pies a little more.

We're catering for guests this weekend so I adjourned to the shops (avoiding the petrol stations) for supplies. Once inside our big blue shed I was overcome by a strange compulsion to buy things that were labelled £1, whether or not they were worth it. I also wondered about "stocking up" on things we don't actually need or in some cases use, I managed to resist. Must be age related.

The blues is on the radio tonight - incessantly hammering in my ears; bends, wails and hollers, misery and failure and turnaround phrases, trills and excessive use of the word "baby". It's all Gary Moore's fault apparently.

We've a complicated regime in place just now to control the cats when in the house. It involves a) knowing where cats are and b) not opening doors thoughtlessly. So as one door closes another opens and a cat escapes, so my work on Earth continues.

I've no idea what's going on in this picture, I just quite liked it. The man is Justin Timberwolfmother and the girl is too thin and tall for anybody but she has a small dancer on her head.

A short history of ready meals

What old people should eat to remain well preserved like me.

In the news today, which frankly you either read out of boredom or the need to leer at the misfortune of others: Old people are living on ready meals these days it seems, sorry don't see the problem. Well some people would dream of living on ready meals, particularly if they were the £10 specials from M&S. In fact I'm already forming a retirement plan centred around eating, drinking and doing Christmas shopping from local petrol stations where bright multi-coloured ready meals dominate the shelves along with rugged torches and obscure DVDs. Great value, great selections and no need to endure public transport and tedious journey's into part bombed city centres resembling Prussian battlefields and tram graveyards.

I also heard that a school in the garden city of Falkirk has abandoned the subject formerly known as history. Normally this would anger me and I would rant in some unstructured way without making any clear point. Now, clothed, washed and in my right mind I see some fine irony in history in effect being history itself. A perfect day spent listening to Neil Young, MGMT and the Groundhogs whilst eating a ready meal that was more surprised than ready.

History no more, education no more, sense of belonging no more, understanding the complexities behind the Italian civil wars of the nineteenth century - no more.

The restless...

Tricks of the light and weather dominate the days, uncharacteristic measures and relying upon toasted segments of dried bread to sustain the softening machine. It was chilly in the backwoods but the floors looked marvelous. I remain your faithful, confused correspondent.

Fixing mobile phones is never easy. I'd suggest going to a professional every time and, once you've understood the Polish accent and the low volume of the speech, secure your in-house repair. A new screen was duly added with much snappy plastic sounds and clinky noises and switching off and on repeatedly. Now it works and I am £35 the poorer but family communications are restored so we can relax again.
The snow froze like concrete snow this morning despite not registering as being below freezing - odd, and so late in the winter and early in the spring. The little birds and rodents compose their letters of complaint and post them for onward transit on a ladybird's back to Mother Nature and her board of eager helpers.

Any given Tuesdayish

Impossibles early incarnation on a beach by Lake Constance and I am not really that shape. It's a trick of the lens.

Today was a rubbish day at work so I'm glad to be home and at 2030 starting to relax and thinking about the work we need to do for our next trip to Germany to record to succeed. There's a fair bit to do and time is running away with work, rest and play getting all confused - nicely.

The design of airports leaves me puzzled. Instead of getting you quickly onto the plane and on with your journey they want you to spend more and more time shopping , strolling in Betjeman's canteens and not travelling. That's not what we want, we want airports to be like bus stops, you step up, step on and go. All this in built delay and dead time needs to be tackled and killed not exploited and stretched out. Once the airports are fixed can we please start on cut in bus stops on busy roads? This tedious rant was inspired by two trips to Edinburgh airport and a queue of traffic on the A8.

Food today was a divine combination of Limekilns pie based business lunch and toasted cheese avec salami and mango chutney once I had returned home to the couch along with Ali, our laptops now interconnected in a lavish and mysterious wireless connection that that makes all other forms of coupling seem clumsy and primitive.

On TV the baffling and pointless Mistresses, where a series of actors feign shock and surprise with painted on expressions, mockney good looks and suburban animal indifference. Not sure I see the point but then I've been hooked by Lost and no TV seems the same anymore.

Aberdeen Daily photo

The local authorities' financial crisis has had a devastating effect on civic amenities in Aberdeen.

A bright and warm day in Aberdeen, but not for me today. Back home to discuss the always engaging and entertaining topic of mobile phones with cracked screens in the good company of the staff in Carphone Warehouse. Oh how they laughed, oh how we thought, bollocks, what can we get on Amazon that's a cheaper solution?

Funny how things like DVD players and CD players get cheaper whilst the stuff you really need/want/lack doesn't. Of course it's down to the triple curses of product life cycle, recouping R&D costs and economies of scale in the Eastern markets except for...

We can now print without wires, an Ali solution to the tangled wire problems that have plagued us and tripped us up for ages. You can print whilst stirring the beans on the hob, toasting your toes by the fire or struggling to escape the clutches of a warm duvet and all for £69 from Pee Wee World. What was I saying about things not being cheap enough? This is a ridiculous bargain and every home should have one, Peter Mandleson are you listening?

Laughter from a passing car

Whilst I struggled to carry an enormous bag of coal on the streets of Aberdour (not sure of the bag's exact contents mind you), the two shadowy figures in this car had a good laugh at my expense. I allowed myself a small chortle at their reverse parking thereafter.

Busy weekend mostly spent falling backwards into mud in an Aberdeen park, driving in rain, grandchild sitting (ancient Scottish sport and pastime), watching football in Inverkeithing, cat calming, Alfred Hitchcock musing and putting up shelves and pictures in the hail-stone hit Fife resort of Aberdour.

I am back to normal now and sitting at the news desk appalled by the cheap and ludicrous rhetoric employed by Harriet H. If there's anything worse than greedy bankers it's ignorant and arrogant politicians who have failed to grasp the basic concepts of democracy. Of course this isn't really a democracy, once the votes are cast and counted the manifestos are burned, and then policy is made up as we go along to suit a whole other set of agendas.

Domino's Pizza should be good for the price but isn't. Could it be some of the taste is diluted and bases shrink as a result of that long truck journey up from Penrith?

Quote of the weekend from an Aberdeen pub: "A bottle of Magners, and four glasses please". I kid you not.

Ban the bland

Proud to live in a land where abject and spectacular failure is rewarded with a generous pension. It's still worth fighting for.

Fags will soon be banned from display in shops, hidden under the counter like proper drugs or the British Rubber Co.'s contraceptives were in the 70s. Shop assistants will develop back trouble due to excessive bending but no more hacking coughs, they might have talk a little more as addicts try to describe their chosen pack of the poison paper and weed. Meanwhile in the brave new world of high banking finance and low forecasting skills rugby balls and racing cars may lose the dreaded RBS logo along with the colourful cigarette sponsors they no longer have. In this ciggy crunching, crooked time everybody benefits in some (very) small way.

The sailor on the pack fascinated me as a child, for one thing he looked like my dad (in a wartime navy photo) and my dad smoked this brand and my dad was a bit of a mystery to me. I liked the two ships in the background, they reminded me on Navy Days in Rosyth, my one big day out during the year other than the (always scary) Dunfermline Schools Gala. Tobacco always had a grown up and homely smell that still stirs me and haunts me and is strangely evocative of my early childhood, like frost on the inside of windows, cold floorboards, coal fires, Bob Hope movies and boiled eggs with toast.

I'm not sorry cigarettes are going, they belong in the dim and unhealthy past, like carrying LPs to school for a swop, loon pants, Bazooka Joe comics, bikes with no brakes and hose pipe inner tubes, the tawse and the Black and White Minstrels. Time is time is time for your time and I do think that Coldplay's lyrics make even less sense than Yes's. God bless Jon Anderson.

The very essence

Damn, a finger mark!

Split by the Groundhogs - and stuff.

Getting stuff is generally better than not getting stuff but stuff and it's resultant baggage adds complexity to life and unexpected pressure, but better to have than not. So I have decided to enjoy my stuff even though and this is main problem, I never seem to maximise it's use and take full advantage of what I have. This results in piles of not completely used or appreciated stuff in corners, on tables and on shelves. It's like a small corner of Japan round here in many ways.

Bank Bashing

What is the point in bashing banks, bankers or anything to do with RBS or HBOS? I hate to be mean spirited but they are sorry for what went wrong and not for what they did or the plight of their staff and customers. I do like this little vignette from RP however:

"We had chapter and verse on the(RBS) plane: its make (a Falcon 900 EX with a list price of £17.4m); its registration number (G-RBSG); and its flight log. But for several days before we published, RBS denied to us that it owned the plane and, finally, it only conceded its existence when I pointed out to a senior executive that the bank was in danger of looking a bit silly if we published everything we knew about the jet alongside RBS's on-the-record statement that the thing was a mirage (no pun intended).I was reminded of the incident a couple of days ago, when I learned that the plane which didn't exist is now up for sale, by a new management team at RBS that wants to prove its penny-pinching credentials (there are rather a lot of used private jets on the market right now, so it's moot whether RBS will get a decent price)."

Nice new former private sector office complex but now a public asset up for sale, a replacement for the St James? Serious offers only please.

Casting your fate to the wind as you do

These good guys deserve a little more exposure.

Today's been one of those empty days when not much has happened, time is loose and untied and despite it also being pancake day I've no inclination to produce, procure or eat any pancakes.

I came home to find a message on the phone to say that Parcel Line or Parcel Magic or the Magic Parcel Company couldn't find our house. Fortunately they could find a phone and left me a kind and polite message to call them back on some 0800 number so that I can tell them where I am and in the same conversation where the house is. I sense a certain complicated situation about to arise where once again my skills in communication will be put to the test and it'll all end in tears and a trip to their depot on Shetland so that I can collect my jiffy bag of blank CDs or whatever crap I've ordered whilst drunk in charge of a computer and a non-shredded credit card. It seems some these commercial chaps might be interested in biding for our dear PO with it's sweet red vans, chatty postmen and 10:00 delivery. I'm not happy with this, at least the current public sector version manages to recognise and find prominent houses, most days anyway. Don't do it Gordy!

It's never fun, big or clever to poke fun at minority groups like motorists or MTV TV programme makers. Shouldn't it say Amish Edition?

Irish prison breakfast

Missie leaves the safety of couch-land to check out the fire bucket.

Last night's tea was really the remains of Saturday's tea - redux, a cosmopolitan mix of leftovers with an emphasis on fish based products and potatoes. A passing wag with a jaunty quiff (we get a lot of them here in the Bohemian sticks) described it as an "Irish Prison Breakfast". No it wasn't the classic fish-finger sandwich or two fried eggs on a roll either, much more sophisticated, in fact you could have eaten it with a fork. The cats ignored it anyway and we slept away the rest of the evening right up until the start of Lost.

In a flurry of multi-coloured daydreams I came up with the hair brained idea of taking Mr Cougar (and various family members) on an expedition to the Arctic Circle, mostly via the North Sea and Norway. Two snags reared up to bite right away: the first being information given on the Big Mac Index for Norway and the second being a maximum speed limit of 59 mph all across the country, they are both a hard burden to live with and something of a hindrance to a 2000 mile road trip. Time to think again but not about elk collisions, lager, heavy metal and ice hotels, perhaps Canada would be a better place to avoid the curse of the Krone and Euro, I must research the possibilities and then decide between France again or a West Highland wigwam.

The cats are settling in mainly by accidentally avoiding one another, that will work well.

Clint remains alert, aloof and a little alone wondering if that new cat could be a relative of some kind.

Tesco weekly photo

The light that glows brightly in the unfathomable darkness belongs to Tesco.

Following from last week's shock news that Tesco had redeveloped valuable car parking space for some so-called "environmental" works I give you the new recycling centre after dark. It looks even more strange by night, lo! a glow in the West (or East depending where you park) that guides you to a place where old clothes, bottles of various colours and cardboard boxes that once held new flat screen TVs can be dumped painlessly. Go to the neon garbage god and deposit your offerings for the recycling fairy to deal with and then feel that warm, guilt free touch you get when, against all the odds you do the right thing but possibly in the wrong hopper.

I nearly put my back out taking this pic.

This is Missie in her new home, sandwiched between the couch, the wall, the floor and the radiator. This place suits her fine at the moment though we have offered her the full use of the house and it's extensive grounds, roughly ranging from Galashiels beach to the far end of the Kinross mountain range. The radiator spot is however winning hands down at the moment for undisclosed reasons. Cats are strange, solitary, deep, marvelous and oddly beautiful creatures and when I die, if I get the chance to come back in some other living form (not sure about any of this) I hope it's as a senior member of the Cuban Communist Party and not a cat.

Welcome to our room(s)

Thanks to CS for this image, apparently from Surgeon's Hall.

Cat related

There's a new cat in town, we welcomed home a rather reluctant Missie, cajoled and basketed over from Fife as an adoption and kind of replacement for the departed Smudge. Missie is of course Smudge's mum (and Clint's) so there are lots of eerie resemblances and little nuances we are picking up. Cats generally are not wholly easy in accepting one another so there was a bit of spitting and growling this morning, that was followed by some hiding and sniffing around but thankfully no territorial urination ceremonies. Anyway enough of Ali's and my behaviour (ching!), the process of cat acclimatization will run on for a few days, doors closed, movements controlled, food intake observed; then we can let them get on with the more meaningful business of culling the spring crop of mice, hiding in the bushes and waiting to invade.

Leaves

In a vain attempt to make a vain attempt at gardening I spent a couple of hours raking leaves between passing showers and low clouds. I ended up with a binful of highly compressed dead leaves and bits of moss and stick but the garden hardly looks a lot better. In the brain dead and automatic state of raking I wondered if any creative or revolutionary thoughts would enter my head - none did, not even a chink of watered down day light. The brain seems to switch off at a higher level and only concentrates on not picking up worms, dog shit or those little thorny things (thorns) that hurt like hell when they prick your fingertips. Back to nature.

Listening to (Fraser's compilation):

Gil Scott Heron - The revolution will not be televised.
Grateful Dead - Ripple.
John Cooper Clark - Hire Car.
Sigur Ros - Various.

Edinburgh Daily Photo

Daily detail of the soft, dark underbelly of the city formerly known as Edinburgh.

My City in ruins

Last night I had the pleasure of driving across Edinburgh after dark. It is at this time that the cones come out, the flashing lights flash and organised confusion reigns in a blitzkrieg of roadworks, barriers and uneven and hostile surfaces. Motorists and pedestrians alike are corralled or herded across great swathes of construction sites all for the greater good of a mass transit system known as the tram. I may regret saying this but at the moment it all seems like a complete mess heading for a full-on collision with a bad idea.

Art

Once the late night shopping traffic had been negotiated we headed for the R&A or A&R or A&E (a big, curious building anyway) to view an art exhibition. The overall effect of the show was "underwhelming" though some good pieces were on display and one or two were quite provocative. I find that at these public events the people attending are often more interesting than the exhibits:

The nervous young artists, talking loudly to friends and not quite sure how or where they should be standing, they shuffle and shift their weight. Glad to be there but a little embarrassed by the setting and the amount of older people looking at their stuff as if it was a discovered stash of their hidden porn.

The old hands, the teachers in big cardigans with unkempt hair, strange glasses frames and battered loafing shoes, chewing and mulling over and wondering where it went wrong for them, hoping for a free moment to dive out for a quick cigarette.

The patrons and helpers anxious to spread the wine of hospitality and good spirit and hoping for the best for sales and attendance, higher profiles and footfall. They hold out glossy pamphlets and flyers and smile at everyone, because every one is important after all.

The cynics and hacks who've seen it all before and have lost the eye to see fresh talent but are stuck with going through the motions though they don't know why. They focus in on a few key pieces, standing guard and allowing the exhibit to crown them with wisdom by association and osmosis.

Proud parents who wanted a doctor or a lawyer in the family who now have an artist who'll swallow their assets like a hungry pac-man and squander their right to a peaceful old age with the highs of critical success and the depths of no-sales despair. Their child's art now invades their dreams of restful cruises and caravan weekends. They now feel the impact of some twisted revenge knowing their concrete-willed offspring will feel too strongly about nebulous and unresolvable social and moral issues to ever produce the grandchild they wish for.

So what did I like best? See below:

A veritable vertical tableaux of family wedding china, famous throughout Fife and the North East. An un-buried treasure and true piece of Scottish working class history expressed as a fragile city of porcelain and bone, telling of the desperation to have and display some meaningful possessions, irrespective of anything else .

Age before beauty

Me as seen by my children, locked in mortal combat with another old-timer.

"I'm traveling in some vehicle, I'm sitting in some cafe, a defector from the petty wars..."

Everything should be as good as I can be, that is my first rule of the New Universe. The journey to this place, this state, this Nirvana if you like may not be straightforward but it should be (yes) as good as it can be, so why is it so tough and disappointing getting through bits of normal life? I'm not going to even bother answering, I'm getting on with establishing the New Universe, featuring the New Universal(s) and exploring the wide boundaries of New Universal thinking. After that I'll probably have small nap because I'll be rather tired. Being a creator and a finisher can be tough though always rewarding.

Currys web site

Why sell your stuff on a web site and show photographs of things, like laptops, that have no resemblance to the ones they are selling in the bloody shop. What's the point of having three photos of a fecking laptop that you can rotate and zoom into when they are not that actual model. ARRGH!!!

Then when you go into the shop and ask for help some goofy 20 year old with an unbroken voice tells you, "those pictures are only there as a guide, they don't represent the actual product".

I suppose it's no worse than the Spanish Tourist Board using beach footage from the Caribbean to advertise the Costa Brava - buyer, member of the public, mug or punter - beware, nothing out there matters to big brother.

Refuge of the rose

Grown in Kenya I suppose, for our pleasure here.

Driving across Fife yesterday (well being driven by Ali) and over to Glasgow today (mostly by myself though the car was an automatic) I realised I was in the process of viewing exhibits in a long, linear collection of road signs and street furniture. Each piece is (almost) unique as it counts down the miles, points to places mostly unknown, shows brown signs to named attractions and the miscellany that are cones and lights and the gathering trash that surrounds them. How kind of the Highways Agency and the various local authorities to put this show together for free, apart from the small cost of road tax or a bus ticket or something. Travel is all the more a Zen experience now thanks to this illumination but on the whole still fairly dull. I do quite like the signs that tease, those part hidden by overhanging branches or foliage or simply faded and covered in road film. These dirty signs hide their true message like Burlesque dancers or comedians joking in some dark partly shielded code. They provoke the innocent driver into the danger of a wrong turning or failing to reduce speed, sometimes anyway.

Glasgow was almost fun, a business presentation and a meeting and for lunch the interesting marriage of salami and scrambled egg in a baguette. A combination I'd not experienced before but one that worked, I may experiment with a toasted version at some point if I ever get round to eating actual warmed up food again.