Grumpy old men

A night at the museum. Well somehow we won the Rip It Up pop quiz in Edinburgh last night. We actually beat 59 other teams and collected a golden trophy and a goodie bag each. I contributed very little in the way of substantial answers but it was fun being in the team and I enjoyed the exercise of wracking my brain and testing my limp memory. So our highly knowledgeable captain James deservedly picked up the trophy for us from Phil Jupitus at the end of the evening, much of which is now a blur.  Tommy's "Fall" anthology also got some major advertising as we waved it around for the cameras. Now back to normal life...

Jesus's autograph

Following an unexpected sequence of events that would rival an Indiana Jones plot I've come to possess an actual autograph penned by Jesus Christ himself. It's not even in Hebrew or Aramaic either but in English. I didn't know he could write (at all) far less use a Sharpie. Pretty sure it's not a fake and I've not heard of fakes circulating around these parts. I reckon that it's a bit of a collector's item. Might get a good price on eBay although I am tempted (?) to try to set up a deal with the Catholic Church. They do like relics and tat of that sort. Decisions decisions. 

World's greatest coffee and dangerous books

This coffee may or may not be worth £100 in bonus money to the barista who mixed it and poured it. There's clearly {?} a hidden world behind the froth and steam of coffee making establishments. Will this be a prize winner in the staff room and across the counter? We'll never really know.

Dangerous books in safe places No1. This book is on sale in the V&A Dundee and it might be considered dangerous by some readers and those of a nervous disposition. It's full of drawings, scribbles and swearing and promotes ideas (of a kind). I'm assuming the V&A is a safe place in as much as it's a new building and therefore must have passed various fire, health and safety tests or it would not be open to the general public i.e. you and me.

Poetry night

We attended a poetry reading evening last night, it lasted for about 65 minutes. There were three readers/poets/players. There was a full house albeit the house was small but that's better than no house at all. So after a slow bus journey home and a cheese and fruit bread supper I wrote a poem about it. It seemed like the right/write thing to do.

(I actually composed a few other versions in my head, in bed, but they're now  forgotten and so will remain unsaid):

The Poetry Evening.

When poets get together, gathered in their upper rooms, shielded from the damp world and caustic criticism, they operate, safe for now and untarnished.

Not always easy to understand quite what they're talking about, the sound is almost ...  varnished.

There's wine and civility, chatter and no rush for seats, expectation too. 

Words out loud that are used differently, cut up and misplaced.

Quotes and dropped names, a low level of fame, in the quite circles.

This is not the common speech.

 This is difficult to reach.

So. 

Is it some snobby club, some sect or private thing?

Nobody outside of the imagined circle crashes the night and everybody is polite and we all conform to useful stereotypes. 

It seems.

I'm some lone outside listener.

A temporary visitor.

In poet's land.

Valuable and Attractive

For a time in my life (in the 1970s) I worked for the Royal Navy Supply and Transport Service (the RNSTS). In those days V&A meant only one thing "Valuable and Attractive". This term applied to all the stores items that were likely to be pilfered so they required special care regimes and security. Watches, clocks, precious metals etc. V&A now means something different to me (Victoria and Albert) but the eclectic stockpiles and the inventory values may be similarly labeled. So we have a load of mostly old Scottish stuff laid out in a purpose built new museum on the banks of the murky River Tay.

It's OK. Dundee's new V&A building is impressive, it's big on the outside, seems big on the inside but once explored isn't really so big at all - but it remains impressive for other reasons. Perched on the river bank, challenging and fun to walk through and giving up impressive river views and vistas form unexpected angles, it's a unique space. It's a strange mix of striking form but fuzzy function and there's an obvious conflict between the two. The great halls of older museums with long and winding displays, galleries like mazes and rows of cabinets stuffed with exhaustive examples of inventoried history are not in here. It's all very tight. This is a modern puzzle that questions how we observe and how much we might actually retain. In that it's honest, most people don't study very much nor care either. We pass through. So it's a big box full of Polaroid snaps of the past, quick sound bites and snippets, stuff that the good people can quickly browse over and then forget with an over priced coffee and a wander around the gift shop. There's room for the past but not much, not as much as you think and as for the future, it's here but trapped and hidden in the quirky design. 

I'm imagining the newly deposited bus loads of tourists and pensioners exploring the site are all thinking something along the lines of "is that all there is?" That's not because the building is a disappointment it's more because it's main but understated theme is gathering in people rather than displaying things. I'm judging this based on the comparative space given to people over artifacts. Visitors have more free space than things do. I was struck by how many people were just standing about on the common stairways, cafes and spaces looking at...other people doing the same thing. We are the museum pieces in this modern hall.

The main display (a pay as you go one) is based around ocean liners, I'm not sure what his has to do with Dundee, seems an odd opening exhibition choice. The main (free) display gallery looks at Scottish design. It's a hotch potch of Oor Wullie, Alexander McQueen, the Forth Bridges, CRM and so on. A quick canter and scatter-gun of types with no real insights given. A bit like the curator's are mumbling  "this is what we in Scotland all got up to on our weekend design course when nobody else was looking, sorry to bother you, nothing much to see here".

Once the opening "busy spell" is over a further visit may be beneficial, just to see it less crowded and in a more measured way, with less expectation. I do like it but it's very much a marvelous jaggy jigsaw with a few bits missing.

Perception test

On the left I can clearly see a dog, on the right a cat. That's it.

Bowling shoes in blue

I'm a target man for blue bowling shoes, the follow me around on social media. Clearly I'm understood to be an eager bowler, one who likes blue and would play better in these wonderful blue shoes. I'm tempted. The internet knows me so well, it's always been my secret dream to excel at some sport and why not bowling? Maybe it's my age, my liking of the Big Lebowski, random Americana,  my lack of interest in pool or darts, my frame and my physique, things I click on or follow. I'm always out there searching desperately for a good deal on bowling shoes, it's my greatest dream. Of course to realise it what I really need is a cheap loan, some bowling pals, a local alley that I can frequent, some snazzy bowling clothes other than shoes, spare time on weekends and in the evening when I can compete and practice and of course the will of iron and the training regime needed to succeed at bowling. Google and the rest of the internet, I look to you to make my dream come true. Thank you.

Cat expressions

Here is the face of a cat that is eager to receive some choice pieces of asda finely cooked chicken for a late lunch. I gave in eventually.

Here is the full blown and highly expressive body language of a cat that has just scoffed a recently deceased mouse and is now "sleeping it off".

Mint tea

Mint tea is quite the drink, quite the statement, quite the thing. I've never really tried it, it's not even tea (or made with actual tea leaves), it's something else but I can't bring myself to try it. A quiet infusion, a sophisticated calming cooler, a steadier and a relaxant. People who like mint tea often like other things, I'm not sure what they might be but it's a reasonable theory. The theory of "likes", a term despoiled by Facebook and rendered meaningless in that bleak format of shameless product placement advertisement but still available for honest use in real life. Also nobody ever said "one mint tea and he/she is anybody's", never. So on that basis it's far better than gin or other fashionable drinking products. 

Photos by Ali

Last week at this time.

This week at last time.

Absurdist

Good evening, absurdist and unfunny comedy tweeting is my new thing, for a short while anyway. It's designed to irritate, slightly but not to the point of actual irritation. Subtle. Like most things I'll eventually get over it and it'll all just drift away somewhere and be buried under the next bad idea. 

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2. John Barclay‏ @Johnbarclay1 6h6 hours ago

   Retweet if you got up this morning and discovered a naughty pigeon roosting in your wardrobe.

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3. John Barclay‏ @Johnbarclay1 Sep 24

   Retweet if you've ever considered borrowing an #omnibus without the owner's permission.

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4. John Barclay‏ @Johnbarclay1 Sep 24

   Retweet if your office cleaner accidently removed your toupee with a #dyson

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That time again

As the sun and her procession slips backwards or downwards over the Tropic of Cancer, the prices of Scotch Eggs in petrol station shops fall and the major political parties get together to disagree on their many differences, the great garden's apples are ready to pick. Some are so ready they pick themselves by falling into inaccessible places where they are eaten by grey worms no one has ever seen. Some, the slow and the fearful, are eventually caught and placed in plastic trugs awaiting processing as a punishment for their stubbornness. The birds eat a few too. There will be decisions made, a bit of a mess on the floor, energy expended and a lot more gooey mush in the compost heap before it's all over. Then it will be over, officially and all product will be ritually frozen in plastic bags tagged with Sharpie information settling old scores as the trees and their fruit compete for I'm not quite sure what; harvest I suppose.