This blackbird

This blackbird visits the feeding station on our window pretty much everyday. He's fond of meal worms, that's what we mainly feed him. There's no actual menu. I say "this" blackbird but I suppose there may be many and I'm simply seeing them one at a time and never the actual whole group. This assumes a certain expertise and strategy amongst blackbirds whereby they like to fool and confuse humans by only ever appearing one at a time in a number of feeding locations. 

Naturally I've been well and truly fooled by this clever ploy even though it may not be a real thing at all. I'm also not sure what the purpose of it might be. More likely it's just that blackbirds like to move and operate on their own and appreciate and value the joy of their own free time without suffering annoying interruptions from other passing blackbirds airing their own disagreeable opinions as they eat. Perhaps we can all learn something from observing those solitary blackbirds.

After the blackbird's third helping of meal worms he silently winked and watched me leave, en-route for the local showgrounds where an empty pavilion has been converted into a Covid vaccination centre. I parked up, wandered through the slush and into the building, then into to a pristine booth where I duly received a dose of Pfizer's best medicine from a young military nurse dressed in combats. Then a fifteen minute wait to ensure all is well  and finally joining in on an OAP shuffle parade, straight back to our vehicles and home. So far I've no side effects to report other than my own already well established ongoing internal conflicts. Phew ... safe at last  ... almost.

There's probably a word for it

 

I read today that Adam Curtis has a new film out. It's called "Can’t Get You Out of My Head: An Emotional History of the Modern World". It's in eight parts and will be on BBC iPlayer and it's estimated that it'll take you at least 100 years* to watch it and possibly longer to understand it. Of course you should be in possession of a full UK TV licence and a full UK TV in order to enjoy the full UK TV viewing experience. A condensed and abridged version may be available on Kindle. Viewers in Scotland will have their own edited program including a sub-titled version and the free use of their own choice of recreational drugs to enhance the overall experience. 

Imagine that, watching a film that was so long you spent your whole life just watching it. Then you died. That's it. A new alternative reality that doesn't belong to you but just passes by your eyeballs as you fail to retain any meaningful information gleaned from the incomprehensible parade. Perhaps that is what the future (that thing that happens some time after today but we're not really sure when) will look like. Eyes propped open, spoon fed snacks, sucking on straws as an alien and reconstructed life passes by with little or no interaction other than perhaps a blink or a pause for the toilet. There's probably a word for it.

*When I say 100 years I really mean I've no clear idea.

Four Bean Chilli

 

One, two, three, four bean chilli in a pot. What are the four types of beans represented here? No clear idea to be honest. 

--------------------------------------------

Tackle your inner critic by just doing something without worrying about the outcome or consequences. Four bean, semi hollow chilli inspired guitarscape. 

eBay Bingo

 

Per the previous post, I was idly indulging in some eBay browsing when I came upon this rather unloved and strangely painted Washburn HB 30. Advertised as being 30 years old, unloved and being "sold for a friend". Not a great looker but I fancied a hollow body guitar. There were a few low bids, all well under the value of the guitar so despite my inner voice's better judgement I bid £2 higher than the previous bit. The auction still had three days to go and I fully expected the guitar to sell for at least £150 more than my bid. Oddly enough there was no more activity and my bid won and I duly received the guitar last week. 

The guitar turned out to be decent enough, nice action, no major damage, things working and I was pleased with the purchase. The only problem was the horrid and badly painted gold stripe of the front and a load more gold paint on the back, (which was roughly trying to ape the Washburn head stock design). It all had to go. I stripped the guitar down, taped up all the delicate bits and using a combination of WD40, white spirit and paint remover I began to work on eradicating the gold paint. I had the idea of making an old credit card into a soft scraping tool and with a lot of elbow grease the gold eventually came away without too much damage done to the actual cherry body finish (as below).

Serial Killers

Back to guitar based noodles: It's DNA is out there somewhere. Born (or at least manufactured between 1991 and 1992 by Samick Music in Indonesia), some details are missing, as you might expect. To be honest the serial number arrangement doesn't look so robust but it is consistent with what the guide books say. Washburn guitars, an old and reputable make, have of course gone in all sorts of directions in the last 50 years but are still regarded as a decent builder despite all the out sourcing and global manufacturing. For various reasons Washburn serial numbers tail off about 2000ish, albeit I've probably only scratched the surface of the generational investigation. Strangely 1991/1992 doesn't seem that long ago but in the real world (as opposed to my imagination) it's all of 30 years. Doesn't time fly?
 

Burns like fire

 

Modern politics* remains an ongoing skip fire. These happily dancing flames are however not fanned by right wing extremists, woke activists or sundry Tweets from god knows who shouting aloud on the margins. These flames arise from the burning of eco-logs. Something that makes sense on paper and in advertisements but fails to live up to it's claims in reality. They emit a strange black goo that coats the interior of the stove with eco-treacle and they just don't live up to their low key hype. File under "disappointed". Unfortunately real Estonian logs in handy plastic bags are no longer available, as no haulier in their right mind will bring cargo back into rogue Britain these days. We'll be burning the furniture next.

*I know, same as it ever was.

Not giving a fig

 

Not giving one and not getting one either. Few knew that Lockdown (insert actual number here) plus a floppy Brexit plus seasonal market fluctuations would lead (amongst other things) to a full scale fig shortage. Sure there are dried ones in bags, ready to be punished, debagged and baked in the oven in some loaf or other (that may well be tasty) but there are no actual real, fresh, juicy, ripe figs in this small corner of the inhabited universe.

Mandatory food disclaimer: Three days on the trot I've written about foodstuff. Clearly the old brain is gumming up in some hungry and dietary fixated way. I apologize. Other slightly less food focused material but still with some foodstuff references and questionable content resides here.

West Lothian Sourdough

 

Kingdom of the Dough People: Bread goes back a long way in the history of mankind, one of the first processed (cooked or baked) foods, a staple of the human diet. Turns out that it's found it's way to West Lothian now, all the way from across the world in the Middle East's cradle of civilization to right here in the backwoods. Well Lidl's discount supermarket just down the road.  There are other baked goods too, allegedly created on the premises by bearded and tattooed artisan bakers and the like. I've had samples. Next, if ever Brexit fever cools, there will be actual Brie, figs and Parma ham and together we'll put together world beating toasted sandwiches, here, in sunny West Lothian, very soon. It's all true I tell you.

Call any vegetable

The humble vegetable: There once was a collection of humble vegetables who, for a brief time forgot themselves. They aspired to higher, non vegetable types of things. They had ideas beyond their station and their abilities. They had dreams and when they slept they would do just that. Sadly those dreams came to nothing much, mostly on account of them being vegetables. I'll name the likely vegetables for you: carrot, onion, parsnip, turnip and a rather large, invisible potato. Can you see it yet? Now they are all soup. They are happy now. It is a marriage made in heaven some say.

 

Weekend Briefing

 

"Right then Percival, your main tasks this weekend will be to source a suitable used auto tyre to turn into a Taiko drum, remove dusty and crusty materials from the damaged fireplace, adjust any slack electrical items you might come across and cook a reasonable and tasty breakfast/lunch for those in the household* who can be bothered with it. Otherwise count both the remains of Saturday and Sunday as 'free time' to be used for your own edification, but whatever you do don't fraternize with the locals and stay off the milk-bomb hooch. Oh, and in the evening you can watch WILTY on iPlayer but only because Bob Mortimer's on it this week. Understood?"

(*I also noticed that the cats seem determined to display their collection of cooked chicken breast cuts all across the kitchen floor in a haphazard manner. Simply put this wont do and it is not good enough that you tolerate it.)

Cat in the full flight of a longish purr after satisfactory chicken breast display event consumption.

Peanuts Kids Singing "Roundabout" by Yes

I like Yes and I have a sort of soft spot for Peanuts, which one has aged better? Hmm. "Roundabout" is a great song I could enjoy all day, the bass and guitar workings are epic, Peanuts not so effective, bit of a thumbs down there, it's dated badly. Overall this isn't quite as good as I'd hoped but in the school of lazy blogging you get 2 points for sharing a YouTube video and then making meaningful remarks about it. I suppose that see it as layers of google upon google so that we as the subjects of google continue to worship at the altar of google and so pledge our loyalty to our great and benevolent google god by means of simple usage and promotion. Meta on meta observations. You could of course substitute the word "google" for Amazon, Apple, Tesla or PayPal. The things that we subconsciously worship as they bring us life, of a kind. Modern religion is wonderful.

Stop the Game

 

Never knowingly actually keeping up with the news: Like most people I don't quite understand what's going on with Game Stop stocks, I'm not sure I really care. I do however like the inferences I've seen regarding karma for bankers and past sins being revisited and weird internet people doing the striking back. It's a simplistic view I know but it's all the view I can muster. 

At some point my attention span will move on, you see like most people all I can really remember from "Wolf of Wall Street" are the Margot Robbie scenes and that time he's out of his head and totals the Lambo. "The Big Short" made some sense too but again I've failed to grasp most of the salient points and retain them. 

The image and content below does however offer a reasonable and possibly accurate explanation. It is here simply as a historical reference. The truth is, in common with the common man, I'm conflicted when it comes to things to do with money and karma.

Two easy pieces

No.1 The Saxon Bull.

No.2 The Janet Jumbo.

All in a day's work as relative peace returns, snow melts and the bots double down to reflect on their times of burrowing and exploration. Of course they will return. Who ever heard of bots staying away, being quiet or hibernating? They will recharge, regroup and resume. They pursue disruption, the bedrock and chosen tactic of modern politics and communication. Arguably a bit more interesting than these rambles. 😉

Suilven in Sutherland

 

"The devil finds work for idle hands to do"; like posting about unlikely hill climbs in what, because of current travel restrictions, seem like far away places even if they are only a few hours drive from my home.  Having said that, now I'm older than I was yesterday, the mountains become bigger, steeper, more dangerous and further away. Also more attractive but scary in a madcap way. In my own head only.

Suilven (Scottish Gaelic: Sùilebheinn) is a (relatively small) mountain type of thing in Scotland, which is very far away. Lying in a remote area in the west of Sutherland, it rises from a wilderness landscape of moorland, bogs, and lochans known as Inverpolly National Nature Reserve no less. Suilven forms a steep-sided ridge some 2 km in length. The highest point, Caisteal Liath ("Grey Castle" in Scottish Gaelic), lies at the northwest end of this ridge. There are two other summits: Meall Meadhonach ("Middle Round Hill") at the central point of the ridge is 723 m high, whilst Meall Beag ("Little Round Hill") lies at the southeastern end. This mountain is neither a hill nor a Munro and awaits your eager if clumsy footsteps. Bring a decent sized packed lunch.

Obscure obituaries

 

In my opinion it is always worthwhile to read the obituaries of those you have never heard of or those of less "significant" people. The reason is simple. You will always learn something you did not know. They are dead now, their achievements are pretty much over and done, other than a dwindling influence of some sort. They are shadows and will disappear, quickly or slowly depending on the life they lived, but they lived and whatever they did may be understood from those short obituary paragraphs that explain something of their life and the influence they had. All our fates are merged in the obituary, those who read the words, those now gone and whom the words might try to describe. We all walk the same line; narrow, trivial, brilliant, meaningless or meaningful. In the end there are only descriptions, directions and the names of the survivors. History is forever complicated and incomplete.

Blue Ice

More of the same still coldness on an icy, blue Sunday. Shivering white statues, tiny but fully formed, clawing across stone and metal to pull together their one in a trillion frozen patterns, lasting hours or minutes or maybe even overnight. The sun seems like a powerless nuisance, unable to summon the power to warm anything so it floats quietly across the sky, a neutral disc in a blank sea of blue. So down below we remain locked in the grip of deep space's unconscious and uncaring freeze. We trust the forecasts; calm on the East side, stormy on the West side, some other thing in the South covered by a meaningless amber warning. As for the North, it always belongs to those people we somehow cannot know, Scandinavian and remote. It's way too far away and probably experiencing a far more effective freeze than our own feeble, temporary and pocket sized ice-age. 

Meanwhile, down by the river later in the day, cold and still but golden bright all across the bridges. Frozen tyres used as buffers on the pontoons, beached for cleaning or scrapping, or just plain abandoned for the time being. Who knows?

A Bitterly Cold Revolution

Some say that it was as cold as -10, some say -11, some say "nothing on the kind, ignore the numbers, global warming is as myth and lie designed to cause unrest and instability, just carry on as you are and let the markets sort it all out for you, it'll be fine in the long run". They like to believe that they are our elders and our betters. Then again I'm an elder, probably not much better but definitely no worse. I don't trust the markets either, they tend to operate without scruples or conscience. Anyway it was - 4.

But things are changing, the world is a restless, dynamic place, people are stirring and despite pandemics, power shifts and smear campaigns, the truth may well emerge on the top. In Russia they are throwing snowballs at the police, people are taking to the streets, Putin is worried, his Trump puppet has been removed. Winter is proceeding as it must, as it always will. Revolution isn't just something imagined it is real, in the UK it's a silent, whispering cabal of cancerous ideals. In Russia it vents across streets and city scapes. When things change it's always quickly and unexpected but part of an ongoing cycle.

Anxiety in the 21st Century

It's all true, too much coffee makes you more anxious, not enough also makes you more anxious*. There may be some safe, middle ground here but I certainly can't seem to find it. Just be careful out there when exploring the world of hot drinks and beverages (presently only available in take away form). 

*The information contained in this website is not intended to recommend the self management of health problems or wellness. It is not intended to endorse or recommend any particular type of medical treatment. Should any reader have any health care related questions, promptly call or consult your physician or healthcare provider. No information contained in this website should be used by any reader to disregard medical and/or health related advice or provide a basis to delay consultation with a physician or a qualified healthcare provider. You should not use any information contained in this website to initiate use of dietary supplements, vitamins, herbal and nutritional products or homeopathic medicine, and other described products prior to consulting first with a physician or healthcare provider. Impossible Songs and their extensive series of contacts disclaims any liability based on information provided in this website (so there!).

Victims of Physics

"Been studying physics for a few months now, pretty much through lock-down and beyond into Tiers Three and Four. Mostly one to one mentoring via screen work and some light reading. Believing I'm starting the break through now on a few of the more difficult theories and principles. It's sinking in, slowly but surely. All chalky fingers and brain waves. When you know you really know. Yeah. Changed my world view. Hoping to kick start my career as things open up again, late 2021. Academic. Might just rustle up some pancakes too, the egg and banana kind, feeling pretty scientific right now."

We are all, and always will be, the simple victims of simple physics. It's that simple.

Staying comfortable

The life styles of cats: staying warm, comfortable, well fed, doing whatever they please and sleeping twenty two out of twenty four hours. Quite a good number and worthy of making a high entry on the reincarnation options chart, if you believe in that sort of thing. Also as it's a snow day and humans are in lockdown, then we're doubling down on working from home and staying indoors. The cats, will however venture out to pee and poo - a possible reincarnation downside.