Who can resist...

...the opportunity to soar high up above a conveniently located stuffed giraffe and take a tiny photograph? Yes, such things are possible but only in museums and other types of educational establishments where there are collections of well preserved tall dead creatures.

In other unrelated animal/amphibian news Squawkie the frog may have been sighted once again, in or around the washing machine and in or around the toilet. N.B. wildlife sightings in washing machines and toilets are notoriously difficult to confirm.

(P.S. @ 1630 found a toad and released it back into the wild, not a frog, not Squawkie.)

Health and Food and Ingredient Warning: Sharwood's Sweet Chilli Sauce (SSCS) packs more of a chilli punch than you might imagine, you may wish to use it sparingly in your own DIY recipes. Also it is much less viscous than it's rival sauces and the jar top is too narrow, so narrow in fact that the easy entry of a humble tea spoon is denied and a long thin knife must be used to extricate dollops of the stubborn but tasty and potent sauce. In extermis an unused lolly stick, chop stick or a clean index finger would do. You read it here first.

Low flying angels

We visited Edinburgh's newly fixed up museum today, clambered up the stone steps and then down again; the old brass and wood doors were closed tight, redundant in the brave new museum model. The entrance is now via a vaulted basement, formerly hidden away under the old great hall. Inside familiar exhibits remain, moved around like victims of some domestic removal strategy, shiny bright on new plinths and displays to be ignored or pondered over by the drifting, shuffling and confused masses. Lots of good things to see still, my favourites being the aircraft and auto gyros, just a shame that few of the exhibits were already out of order and some of the snagging and finishing isn't quite right yet. The kids enjoyed it though, I'll return some rainy day and wander around alone, hands behind my back whistling to myself, I might even take my glasses with me.

Flower People

The guerilla flower children are stalking us, hiding out in the woods, scrambling across roofs and sneaking behind stone walls. Their wild music drifts across the hedgerows, sometimes tuneful, often tuneless, the sing and whistle along, random drumbeats follow. Slow and long. It's as if they thrive on the anarchy they produce, self perpetuating energy, running down time and chasing the fade. We've never really spoken, never made eye contact, never been close enough to see more than blurry detail. They are like foxes or badgers, in the night mostly, in the sun occasionally, drifting away into the landscape of changeable weather. Rainproof and unafraid of rampant mud. All they do is leave disturbing traces, messages, signs and sticks, piles of twigs, parcels of dung. Frog and elongated lizard conversations; misheard.

In chalk on a dry road I found a paragraph from their manifesto, I might have written it myself: “I'm no longer searching in the media for answers, for wisdom or for any collection of things that I might at one time have considered useful. I feel a barrier going up; the world is no place to live but is the only place to live. The news repeats itself with increasing regularity as do I. Nobody really knows what they are talking about and all power must be some form tyranny.”

When I say that I might have written it, that's true of many things. I might also have said that I made a cottage pie from local cottages and locally grown potatoes (all known by the name of Charlotte). There are many things I might have said and made. Meanwhile in a field not far away a man stands with a high powered rifle leaning against a small Japanese 4 x 4, part of me thinks he might be up to no good, part of me thinks otherwise.

At night, in the dark, as we sleep, mice scamper across the ceiling about our heads carrying the raw materials needed to make shoes for hedgehogs. Not many people know of that and the related endeavours.

Lettered up and distorted

Messing around with some photo app or other, it makes the trees grow which is useful, nice quirky font.

Squawkie

The wild places beyond the window.

Toilet trilogy, day two: today's toilet event began at about 7.30 this morning. I was relaxing (maybe not quite), in the downstairs loo in a somewhat exposed position when I observed a strange green object jumping about behind the cistern, then I heard a loud "awk!". I looked down to see a small frog jumping along the skirting board clearly somewhat upset at my presence in what I think he considered to be his private space. "Awk!" he cried, not hearing that properly I immediately named him Squawkie, it was more of a squawk than a croak or any other traditional frog sound. As I recovered from the shock of the discovery I tried to apprehend the little fellow with a toilet brush, but he was having none of that and darted around looking for an escape. He then hid in the drain pipe area, beyond the reach of me and the toilet brush.

Resigned to the unsatisfactory fate of not catching him I made a cup of coffee and quickly briefed all other potential toilet users that they were now not alone. I returned to the toilet area and he was still there, making less noise, presumably in some kind of sulk and beyond reach. Ten minutes later I returned to check on his progress but he had vamoosed, back into the wild, the drains or thereabouts. I miss him a lot, he seemed a stout and robust little beast but I've heard it said that time heals. His arrival marks the sighting of a new species, not a toad, a mouse, a vole, a mole or a badger but a proper shiny green frog, or maybe a fat and agile newt impersonating a frog. It's pretty hard to tell these days, one from 't other, and he did sound like a parrot.

Unknown events

Who knows anything about the unfortunate circumstances leading up to this poor fellow meeting a watery end in our downstairs toilet? Not me.

Spot the super car

An idle hour at the airport can tip a person into insanity. It may be gadget shopping, eating overpriced sushi, drinking at ungodly hours or (in my case) entering stupid super car raffles. Of course I 've always look disdainfully on as tourists and travelling business victims hang around at these dream counters, gazing at the ridiculous cars and emptying their wallets in a futile bid to own one, egged on of course by the nubile Asian girl or the tall male student. Both of whom are decked out in Steve Jobs' black and appear to be in the pay of the devil himself. It's an attractive, magnetic and absorbing little scene that I struggled to ignore.

At least I only paid a tenner for this brief flirtation but apart from a nice line in chat from the Asian girl (and the promise of a date if it won (?)) all I got was a computer screen version of spot the ball and guaranteed email junk for the rest of my life. My soul, once again well and truly sold, oh to be a little less feeble minded and starry eyed. Just think I could have had a memory stick from Dixon's, an expensive paperback from WH Smiths or three pints of this month's real ale from Weatherspoons. All I'm left with is a possible crack at an Audi TT and that (unlikely) date - all will be revealed on the 31st when I get that personal phone call from the founder and CEO of the company; fair enough then, a tenner well spent.

Fungus in a little more detail.

Daily cartoon

Popular fungus

No #17 in the series, here is the local "Battle of Abercorn" fungus seen in it's natural element which is as you might imagine outside, sucking up to an old, rotting piece of wood. A high quality and nicely composed piece of fungus. Stay tuned for more next week as the growth season continues and the tension heightens.

The Great British Bake Off on BBC2 is entertaining tosh. Contestants and eccentric judges get wildly enthusiastic about cakes mostly (and of course good luck to the winner). You can't help but worry about the kind of undocumented havoc this kind of TV show creates in kitchens and households across the country as enthusiasts have a go. Hours of shopping, mixing and pushing around uncompromising ingredients wasted as ordinary people try to emulate these bizarre but attractive creations - and then the dismal failure, gluttony and family arguments that must follow. All in a good cause I suppose.

Post apocalyptic microwave.

Trugfulls of recycling

Every so often somewhere in the western world a potato explodes in a microwave. Today it was our turn. Starch is a persistent and stubborn enemy that finds it's way into even the smallest and furthest away places, I'm sure there are valuable lessons here for terrorists and demolition men, one day I'll share them. On the positive side the chicken pie survived almost intact and may even have been edible.

The trugs of junk were taken on a long and rainy journey to Dalgety Bay, from there they will travel by diesel barge and parachute to Korea where they'll be turned into the kind of useful household objects you find on sale, upstairs in TK Max at the very back of the shop in a dump bin for 99p. It feels great to be looking after Mother Earth in this way, I would hug her if I could just get my arms around her.

October Festering

Potato harvest

Apples in a sack

Now that it's MoT is about to expire I wondering whether or not now would be a good time to somehow convert the Cougar for time travel or failing that the possible use of a light speed upgrade in order to undertake some interstellar exploration. At 134k it's already been round the world 5 times and needs to broaden it's horizons a bit, motoring can put you in a rut at times. In truth I'm not sure the old girl/boy is up to and my back a little gippy thanks to digging up potatoes and plundering apples, the vibrations may be just too much. It is Oktoberfest so the harvest must come home and I should spare my failing strength for that.

Growing potatoes is quite a rewarding experience, first you buy a bag of potatoes and carefully plant them in the ground, you can also add various fine dung combinations, chemicals and salt and pepper to taste. During the summer months when the temperature is high and the air dry and pretty girls are everywhere you need to hose them down a bit, the rest of the time they can be ignored apart from a little unobtrusive weeding and gentle whispering (my particular forte) Then six months later you dig them all up and you have a lovely bag of potatoes.

Unexpected item in the bagging Area 51

Panic at the Tesco: Buy one get one free on strawberries and other soft fruits - the mixed fruit and vegetable aisle is a weird place where little makes sense. Everything is set out looking nice, in shiny boxes but I remain confused, the packaging sizes change all the time, the fruit is from different places, nothing is clear other than that blueberries are way too expensive these days. A squishy victim of foodie propaganda and daft TV shows. There is something sinister going on, a plot is hatching: the Innocent Smoothies are now in smaller cartons, the Muller corners are two packs for £5.50 (?), green bananas are called "eat later", the stuff you want is never on offer and the rules on multiples of alcohol purchases changed a day ago (and of course retailers will stick to the spirit of the regulations say the SNP) so wine is err... still available. Food is not in short supply here but if we only buy what they give us, what choice to we really have? Out here in wherever we are there are no easily accessible markets other than the self proclaiming super ones. I'm bored with this routine of foraging for meal deals for a tenner, pizza v pasta, club card points and that bloody unexpected item is still in the bagging area - how can it be unexpected when the whole science of shopping has become so predictable? Maybe we need to move out to the great green spaces of Morningside or Stockbridge so we can support the fictional, virtual and struggling vintners, fishmongers and greengrocers of yore, anyway I've had my tea.

Life, love and the end of social networking

Molly the lovable dog from the big hoose always looks like she needs a good wash, which indeed she does. Today I decided against letting her and her mucky paws into our house as we'd just spent most of the morning Octoberfestingly cleaning things. Then the BT repairman arrived and order was restored.

Facebook's desire to morph into an even more irritating version of itself has caused me to reflect on the future of social networking, I think we've passed the peak and we're finally bouldering down the other side and into something possibly more straightforward and effective - just meeting people normally. This week we'd a pub meeting with friends, a music night and a meal in a local Indian restaurant with friends, all much more enjoyable than posting one liners and random status messages.

Every so often a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, here's one that fell earlier and presumably nobody caught the audio crunch - I certainly didn't, I was most likely engrossed in Newsnight, the Borgias or perhaps the Tom Morton Show. Bit of a shame really. This fallen tree is halfway down Badger Street, just up from Deer Lane if you'd like to come along and inspect it or respect it.

Post from the cloud

Due to numerous technical problems and an irritated phone and router I'm connected to things via the McCloud. A lot faster than at home, sometimes the wrong kind of progress is good. I'll be here the next time I'm uploading any music or feel the need to be hacking into a double cheeser. However I might choose a more comfy seat a little further away from the door.

Thanks to CBQ for the bizarre and distorted bar panorama from Wednesday, what a creative he is. He made a trick photo out of a gig that was not a gig without a venue and everybody went home happy, reminisced (?) and fulfilled as far as you ever can be. Can you spot the cultural and artistic luminaries in the pic? No, neither can I, but I've got the wrong specs on.

What they all say

I'd like to be able to stick with this but frankly it just doesn't work or to be precise it only works for the few. That's those with a) lots of talent and b) those with less talent but a good agent or manager.

I'm finding the latest batch of home brewed lentil soup hard work but highly sustaining. It just seems to expand in the stomach like a pulse filled balloon. One bowl and you're not hungry for days, everyday is like Christmas in fact.

Today I considered putting my foot down in Norway but then changed my mind, now it's someplace in the background.

Some signs of the times

What can you really believe on the web or afford to take seriously? I'm easily confused and duped but thankfully usually take a moment to consider my actions - so I've managed to avoid this nonsense for at least 18 months; I presume everybody else knew. That feeling of being behind, dumb and in the dark isn't so good but having now managed to get used to it at least I can understand it.

Deer in the headlights

Spotted these two wandering Bambis on the way home from the Blue Blazer last night, both just about to dodge back into a field and then into the wide open woodland between here and the Bo'ness backyards. As they are clearly on the left side of the deer park wall I doubt that they have come from the domestic herd. These chaps are wild and free and probably covered in ticks and nasties.

Meanwhile back at the pub we both enjoyed the Wright Brothers last gig; "Portobello Slam" impressed as did "Arty French Film" and a nicely remembered version the Kinks "Tired of Waiting". Some fine mandolin swapping and guitar tickling efforts were on display. Also present and all very polished and entertaining were Fi & John F, Nyk and the ever resolute Mr J Whyte who did an unexpectedly soulful version of "Guitar Man" by David Gates, somebody I'd not heard of in a long while. Sunday nights at the BB are of course known as "The Listening Room" and feature a wide variety of singer-songwriters relaxing and playing their tunes unplugged. The music and few squibs of whisky caused me to temporarily forget the mannish flu bug that appeared from nowhere and planked me between the eyes in the afternoon.

Time traveling advice for the bemused drinker on the hand drier in the Blue Blazer bog.

Lost in Glenrothes

Gilvenbank Park in Glenrothes is hard to find. Shielded by mature trees and shrubs, surrounded by houses and other types of piles of bricks, it's green spaces and copious amounts of dog poo finally yielded a couple of secret football pitches. Of course the Sat-Nav was right all along, why would I ever doubt such a device? In the end we got a result, coming from 2 down to win 2 - 3, more than the Pars could manage yesterday against the Currant Buns. The sun (?), the early morning and the relentless driving of the weekend did produce a fine headache in me, it lingers on even at 1900 today. Classic.

Free Sky and new Billys

After running about spending £s getting football tickets I discover that we've got free Sky Sports for the weekend - they never warn you these freebies are coming up; Murdoch's revenge I guess. At least there was double Modern Family last night, that may have rebalanced things between me and my Sky user anxiety and guilt.

Right now I'm waiting on the arrival of a mattress and in an unrelated move a consignment of IKEA Billys. The Billy manufacture and transfer plan is now up and running: Build a Billy, empty a Billy, sort a Billy, hoover behind a Billy, fill a Billy, recycle (or even sell) a Billy x 3 at least. A Billy progress report will be published in due course.

Oh well

It all makes perfect sense.

Can-opener angst

Living in a branch of the sticky part of the sticks our broadband is water and wind powered. This means the uploading of .wavs is tedious but I am persevering. I wouldn't want the good folks of Japan, the further out colonies, the North & South Poles and the many distant islands to be denied the opportunity to download our tunes and so swell the many swellings that make up our great pile of music related cash. So my struggle goes on.

Facebook continues to irrigate or even agitate us by morphing again into some other irritating monster version of what it was last week. Don't these people in California realise that some of us are dumb, clumsy and can't reality be arsed to relearn what button we have to push? Don't they understand that we struggle with railway ticket machines, electric can openers, Sky Plus and MS Office 11 on a regular basis and are soundly and roundly defeated by them all? Probably not.

Creating in the kitchen

Of course I would rather be cooking up an actual robot or even an android (before the name was stolen by stupid phone companies, androids were chemically based robots that regularly appeared in some of the better DC or SciFi books and comics. Mostly they were stirred up in some steaming broth mix which I guess cooled and, though the mould process was never revealed the android version of whatever the real person was would be released in order to play havoc with the comic's plot. Then Blade Runner came along with replicants, which were of course androids but a bit more confused over their own actual identities and things moved on a notch), anyway I made some tomato soup from scratch. It may even have been a success, all soups need time to settle. Look for reviews tomorrow.

Anyway as it's cold out and the soup season is prematurely upon us here's the top TV tips for folks who like to stay indoors and sup:

Modern Family - brilliant show, reruns on now, new series on Friday this week, can they maintain the standard?

The Borgias - a clattering and less sensual version of the Tudors but full of maniacs and bad acting. The spectacle and CGI does work even if the cannons are unbelievable. Good diverting stuff.

Shooting Stars - the format is exhausted and it's quite unfunny and laboured at times to the point of being embarrassing, then along comes some completely daft and wonderful joke or sequence. Hard work but worth it. How come I can only think of three TVs shows?

Sideshow Bobcat

Today (yesterday by now) we ventured out into the garden and cut up the badly behaved mutant plum tree, we healed the broken branches with a session of drastic outdoor surgery, we cut into the wood with a gentle saw, ignored the feasting wasps, the rain and the wind and did the dirty deed. Now we have a smaller tree, fewer plums, a pile of damp fuel in the fire pit but it’s all now neater and possibly healthier. All in all our policy around here is to accept the mutant trees, encourage them, mentor them and scoff any decent fruit the mutant trees might produce, in that process we may well change the world and make it a better place. So that’s the plums sorted for a kick off. The apple tree remains a challenge, knotty and cantankerous in broods in the corner, spitting out pre-bruised fruit and holding it as high in it’s gnarled branches as possible, I’ve no idea how to fix this. The cherry tree is stunted and a little infertile, pale pink hard cherries are all we get. I suspect we may need to bring out the donkey manure. The other two younger apple trees are in their own wee world and need counselling, I think they’ve lost their tree identities somewhere but sadly I don’t speak the language nor do I whisper it. They remain close but mysteriously out of reach. There are other trees but we don’t feel the need to talk to them just yet.

Dunfermline V Hibs was always a game to look forward to and yesterday the great day dawned. Hibs are rubbish with a tactically naive manager and a baffled set of players and under achievers. We should have cuffed them 4 - 2 on the day but we struggled to pull a draw out of the black and white bunnet, next time it‘ll be different.

I like steak but I wouldn’t /couldn’t eat it every day, unless I was working on an Australian cattle station and you got a fried egg on top of each one.(I did once stay in digs in Alloa for three months and had a local version of that for tea each night but that was then). So I was really pleased when Ali cooked up a lovely steak dinner with all the hedge trimmings on Saturday. I felt spoiled and full up. We followed last night’s beefy binge with a breakfast at F&Bs. Still feel full.

Nice to see that some bunch of anonymous toadies are passing out best mortgage broker awards to RBS and to Nat West according to their stupid peak time advertisements. Do they really think that the public are so gullible that they’ll believe this tosh? The caring, sharing, here for you image they try to perpetuate with airbrushed and artificial assistants and perfect smiles makes me cringe. Banks, just do what you’re supposed to do, look after the feckin’ money and stop pretending, do that simple thing and we might just forgive you your recent over indulgence and actually begin to respect and believe you.

No idea

Sometimes you just have no idea what to do next. That doesn't mean that there are not things to do, it just means nothing really.

impossible songs

1955

As a time traveling tourist I've recently had the opportunity to visit 1955, the year of my earthly birth. One thing I'd say is that time travel is not for the faint hearted or those of a nervous disposition and despite whatever you may have come to believe from too many Dr Who and Star Trek episodes, fashion choices and hair styles do manner. Anyway I'm glad to say I fitted in perfectly and not a soul suspected where I was really from, my cultured Fifeshire accent paved the way into many interesting conversational encounters with the somewhat dimwitted locals. I did have to cut the visit short and get back to what you might call the present (time travelers call it the Coalition Dark Ages or CoDA) in order to eat. I've made a solemn vow and a kind of cute little pact with the Devil not to eat any food whilst indulging in the time manoeuvres so imagine my surprise when I returned, hot, sweaty and time-lagged to find these bad boys were on offer at a minor burger emporium around these parts. Come to think of I've not made any Satanic pacts with anybody about not taking the odd piece of food backwards in time with me. I sense an interesting experiment coming on.

I left the office

Today: I left the office when I saw that the wind on the Forth Road bridge had been measured at 59 mph. At 70 mph they think very seriously about closing it when it hits it, at 80 you're going nowhere. With a mere 11 mph between me and a windy, traffic queueing and gridlocked disaster I made my escape only to find that few thousand other tortured souls were trying the same trick. Ho hum, but soon the virtual and spiritual border between the hostile Fife weather systems and the evil Lothians weather system was duly crossed - all a bit of a fuss about nothing really, apart from the relentless passage of blown about soot. It's time for back to winter measures and anti-soot routines to be established.

A home due to a complex technical error the heating appeared to be on, the cats were behaving as if they had been desiccated Turkish style and then spun out to dry, some were lazily sporting sunglasses, dipped to expose their in-coma eye effects. I wasted no time in doling out healthy rations of over-age chicken cutlets and sympathy before calling the RSPCA and spraying them with perfumed water. Then it was a tea of fishy leftovers, Nutella & Greek yogurt and random curry explorations, oh I stuffed more stuff onto bandcamp, hoping to have an oldie and a newie done by close of play today - the music business is a hard taskmaster.

A dogs life...

...is probably pretty good if set within a modern, balanced family environment. Here's Indy, now almost 5 months old and thriving and growing her new adult teeth in her mouth in Aberdeen. Shame about the perpetual damp weather but some say dogs get the maximum sensory smell experience when the air is moist, so they must be happy a lot of the time in Scotland. We can't have our own way in everything.

The music world has been rocked by us getting a five star review and some air play on Spanish Radio (?), particularly when a fictitious album that I simply made up last week is at the centre of it. The music is real enough (as are the stars) and this odd event adds another line to the mysterious history and legacy that is impossible songs. We actually have a real (new) album, more an EP I suppose, it's out now, it's here somewhere. The spit and polish part will follow.

Album of the weekend

Song for the day - Maybe I missed the point:

I know somebody whose life is tough.

I help a little, but it isn't enough

Cuz I go an' spend money on stupid stuff

When I know he's strugglin' to stay above.

An' I have so many chances to be

The hero I believe's inside of me

But I get busy and I get distracted

And I do nothin' when I could've acted

I laid low when I could've stood high.

I said nothin' when I should've asked why.

I saw somethin' that I might've done and I didn't,

A chance to speak my truth and I hid it

Inside, I'd like to believe I'm cool,

Easy to love and hard to fool,

But I know there's more I could've enjoyed.

Sometimes I find myself thinkin'

Maybe I missed the point.

So many times I turned down love,

Stayed in the dark when I could've lit it up,

But every time I did take a chance

Makes me happy when I'm lookin' back

I'm not sayin' my whole life feels like a joke

But I've been a master of mirrors and smoke

And I don't wanna live

No mo' without you.

Deaf cats like noise

Deaf cats like noise so we leave the TV on, the deaf cat can then relax in front of World Championship Athletics. Deaf cats like Channel 4, I wonder if their programmers know about this. It's a great opportunity for someone.

Hurrah! Tomorrow is Friday and an impulsive M&S food shop is predicted, a selection of quality products will be selected and the with a little forward planning the pesky red light on the oven can be overlooked or ignored. My intake of friendly and useful bacteria is set to increase.

At the Voodoo Rooms last night another Jim Igoe planned extravaganza; as expected Sam Barber and Outcasts (action photo above / obscured by PA) did not disappoint nor did quirky headliners Lost Telegrams. Nice to get out and see the good people of Edinburgh and drink a little Guinness.

Space Monkeys

For some alien reason mostly likely based around space junk, space dust or space monkeys, the web is moving very slowly in this part of the world. Frustrating. I may well venture out and visit the Voodoo Rooms to sample the various delights set up to delight, err tonight. Sam Outcast and the Barbers being a significant draw likely to bring together musical chums of all backgrounds and preferences. As I have a personal taxi standing by I could partake of at least two if not three large beers if finances, weather and those pesky space monkeys allow. They are watching, not sure if they are listening though.

In other space related news: Today I saw a photo of the moon showing the Apollo tracks and debris, I never doubted for a minute, I knew those brave young men had made it. In fact the whole moon generation experience came flooding back, I was so young and innocent and in the Army Cadets.

Upload

Uploading: The things that go through your head, waiting to upload. Artistic temperament is a strange beast, throwing out random phrases, ideas, strange phases, unpredictable, sometimes barren, sometimes busy, crazy, boring. This is none of this or that. It's more like buying three T shirts that don't fit and wearing them inside out, as a protest against the price of petrol. I forgot to stay that they are Shell T shirts, I wish they were BP though, that would mean more and be more effective, more relevant, more edgy.  Daft to protest but we still think we have freedom of speech.

There are many more ways to protest, more things to to be said about more injustice, more noble causes to champion, not just over  a stupid petrol based economy. In twenty years we'll think nothing of it, there will be no petrol stations, there will be no forecourts, no pumps and pump prices to bother about. There will be other things to protest about however. Hydrogen, electricity and Mr Fusion. I'll be 75 going on 76, ready to be uploaded.

Lazy repetition

Still busy doing nothing other than holding things together in the cut and thrust world of the Scottish music business. At least we've got a little more product delivered into the market place and we're only awaiting approval from the EEC mandarins and the Sentinels of the Golden Pacific Coast and Guardians of Californian values - we need to pay them a visit soon. Once we've done that it's uphill all the way and our fortunes are assured. I'm also written a spotty and snotty letter to Soptify which should clear out the whole rancid sewers of blank artist's profiles and peculiar revenue streams and will that person who keeps playing "I miss that boy" 10 times a day just find a copy to down load and have done with it (or send us a stamped addressed envelope; AKA an SAE).

Back in the soup kitchen Ali made a load of seasonal chutney, I made a video and a pot of tomato soup. It looks like a vintage year ahead for the ever versatile and sticky chutney - the cupboards are fit and ready to bulge. Once we've tested it on the cats (now that they don't need the steroids or the cat mint) we'll start including it in all our recipes, though I draw the line at scrambled eggs and New York Cheesecake.  That line is particularly fine.

Books: Mostly about Francis Vincent Zappa, Marianne Faithful and Shakey (old) Bernard Young. The Keef phase seems to have died with the eternal promise of a sunny summer even if "Exile on Main Street" remains stubbornly stuck in the car stereo. Is there a special tool anywhere that can be had to extricate it and why is it that Radio Scotland fills it's barren schedules with repeated long passages of accordion music? This is not what the people want and yes, Karl Marx was right about quite a few things.

Great album covers of our time

Busy for a period of time today on various music related undertakings. First task was to upload more music onto the Pan-European monster of pop-rock that is Jamendo. It seems that their servers are powered by Swiss cheese or some other sullen and belligerent agricultural power source. Two hours to upload ten tracks and that's after converting each one back to a wav. format. The upload percentage bar is really some kind of modern torture device. What a grindingly slow procedure and still ten more to do. Then in a sudden outburst of enthusiasm I had a go at scanning in and so revisiting some old pieces of art work, our album covers, lovingly created in various formats but now at least (almost) captured for posterity. Wild West Lothian (above) is the latest unpublished masterthingy and remains a bit of a work in progress but is as near to completion as anything we've completed so far. A few more turns of the screw and it'll be ready push out into the ether and to sell in millions like it's predecessors.

 Scapes - 2003 or thereabouts

Heartburst - 2004 exactly

I love these guys

Notes from a man of a certain age and stature: When you are trying to lose or simply manage your weight suddenly food that didn't matter suddenly matters. Worse than that you begin to obsess, just a little but enough to make a mark on your psyche. Food should be somewhere in the greater needs hierarchy but not at the top, not for me in this day and age. I suppose it's not as acute as I'm making it out to be but it sits, square and irritating, stubbornly taking up valuable space in my conscious mind. This space should used for love, family, creativity, working(?), playing and looking at ancient monuments whilst reading well thumbed paperbacks. My space has been invaded. Oily fish, strawberries, chocolate, dark beer, stir fry chicken, yogurt, chips. Thank you for taking up my attention but I must insist on taking it back.

Rock Star Biographies

They are out there, on Amazon, in every bookshop (those that have survived the cull that is), in charity shops and on Play.com. Rubbish biographies of rubbish rock stars, beware innocent and naive reader, you get less than what you pay for. Anyway these hairy, gaudily shirted chaps look OK and no doubt they have a decent tale to tell. I believe that they were all rather good at playing their instruments too, happy days.

Tea tonight: Cheesy pasta and football with a cheeky rocket and tomato selection on the side. Yum.

Halfords visit: Not one but two headlight bulbs blown today - £15.99 and a brace of screwdrivers.

Oh for summer

Wearing winter clothes in August, plumbing the temperature depths, no European football, getting used to petrol prices being £1.32 a litre, mud, another day at work in Scotland, the best little drab country in the world. Write a song about it then.

Building character

It's assumed that real men do not eat it but neither do imaginary men either. Those of us marooned in the inconvenient space between those two diametrically opposed compass points, conflicted, bemused, deluded and just a little bit hungry would certainly consider it at a pinch. So it seems I've come to that point in my life where I can tolerate and even enjoy this form of food. So I ate some whilst my youngest grand daughter pasted herself and the surrounding area with the remains. In the end I feel that the overall experience has in some hard to fathom way built me up inside, something I'm sure many commentators would say is badly needed.

I don't quite know why I take some perverted pleasure in the Edinburgh Tram smash or the crisis in Scottish football's status and self confidence. I suppose it's a benchmarking thing, you know your gut feeling is right and that your opinion is sound. Then it's as if events stack up and prove to you that the awful truth you feared (but questioned your own judgement over) is indeed the truth. So what's wrong in these two completely separate areas?

Trams: a bad idea from the start, the railway system should have been used to create an airport station with a light railway from there connecting to the terminal - saving £500m at least. Bloody obvious. To make that happen a few councillors and politicians would need to admit that they got it wrong - not likely in my lifetime.

Football: At the roots the 11 a-side youth teams are often run by competitive dads who field a) their own kids first and/or b) tall kids who can punt a ball but lack skill c) pitches and facilities are poor and the weather kills enthusiasm stone dead. Skill is not developed because it's win at any cost, kid's are disillusioned and the risk of hypothermia haunts the touchline of every fixture - a lot of still born talent is the result. The fix, refresh structures, encourage skills, bring in trained and unbiased coaches and be prepared to wait ten years for results to show. The actual professional clubs need to reduce prices, allow standing and encourage families. Tricky.

Anstruther daily photo

Following the week's football fever to Bankie Park in Anstruther, a home from home of grassy untidiness. I'd a few minutes to check out the harbour, tranquil, quiet and all early evening weekday within minimum tourists present. The grey clouds and summer chill hanging over as expected. The clouds were soon to turn into two hours of relentless rain, built in hell on the hills and set to accompany the football. Meanwhile, all over Anstruther a flick of the nostril and all you smell are chips cooking in the distance and corn oil vapour hanging like smog as the two main chip emporiums battle over who is the greatest in the western world, kind of pointless really. I can remember there being at least eight chip shops in Anstruther at one time, the best ones have actually gone now, lost in a flurry of chrome counters, polystyrene cartons and food hygiene regulations. Shame.

My mum used to tell me a princess lived in the town once upon a time but I didn't really believe it, clearly I was wrong. She probably didn't come for the climate, the witty Fife banter or the culture. Must have been the chips, quite understandable really.

Mystery

A cat is locked in a pen made of fine wire mesh. Inside the cat is asleep, (the cat has been in the pen all day) beside the cat on the floor of the pen there is a dead mouse. How did that happen?

Soul Breakfast & misunderstandings

An extract from “Doing the right thing at the right time and other random thoughts” by Kay Debenham:

Soul Breakfast

Today's attempt at a Soul Breakfast consisted of a lonely white coffee, a bottle of Tropicana orange juice with bits and a cherry Elevenses bar by McVities. To my mind this isn't a soul breakfast, this is an unsatisfactory, disappointing, makeshift, solitary, at your desk at work kind of breakfast conspicuously lacking a soul of any kind. The term “soul breakfast” needs to be defined and described in more accurate and creative terms. Firstly I generally don’t do breakfast, when I wake up I'm not really hungry normally, I'm happy to shower and go, start the day on the hoof and catch up later, maybe at eleven or so and generally speaking ignore the soul and breakfast thing altogether – but something tells me that they are both equally important and need to be catered for.

Of course the problem is that therm soul has been hijacked by charlatans, religions, quarks and other unscrupulous groups becoming a debased airy-fairy way to describe the indescribable ghost that allegedly lurks in the centre of our skulls and eventually passes on either to heaven or hell or moves on in reincarnation or some other altered state. It also describes an intense musical culture and performances filled with heart and emotion that cross over at times into a clearly religious territory of some sort. Then there is actual soul food: Cajun cooking, catfish, red beans and rice, chicken, corn bread, garlic, eggs, bacon and various herbs and spices. Good as this food is it's not what I want from a soul breakfast, I want something else. Something that will nourish me and those I share it with, in a complete, holistic if you will, way. No religion or belief systems, prayer, meditation, Tamala Motown or fried chicken then please.

So what should a soul breakfast have?

1. Sunshine – that's important, hard to come by round here but a basic part of the set up. At a pinch daylight might have to do.

2. Company – you can't soul breakfast alone, loved ones, guests, friends are necessary.

3. Set up table – comfortable, pleasant but uncluttered.

4. Oven – on and whirring in the background, keeping the food warm so time can stretch.

5. Conversation – easy, tough, doesn't really matter, it should ebb and flow and rise and fall.

6. Smile – if you can, better to start the day that way. Laughter good if possible.

7. Dress code – isn't one.

8. Music – again keep it light, let it gather in the background.

9. Chef – somebody has to take this on, it can be shared which may be better, lend a hand if you can.

10. Food – whatever you like, whatever is available, simple as that. It's good to eat but it's better to get together.

    
    

Misunderstood lyrics: I heard an earnest sounding Christian lady on a religious radio programme pick Bob Marley's Redemption Song as a favourite. I don't think she could get beyond the title, that's always a problem with songs, taking the first available message and misunderstanding it without bothering to check. Of course Redemption Song isn't about any Christian redemption or “payback”. It's about singing songs of freedom instead of singing the old missionary redemption songs. Redemption Songs was in fact the title of the deep red songbook passed out by Christian missionaries containing the old hymns and standards that formed the basis of the strict European worship passed to and imposed on confused children and “converts” across the Great British Empire for over a hundred years. Some publisher must have made millions from it as it was handed out as a foundation and anchor for church services across the globe. I guess Bob Marley and his generation must have come to hate it and see it as a piece of the relentless propaganda trotted out by generations of oppressors, teachers and overlords to indoctrinate the masses and keep them occupied on a Sunday.

“Wont you help me sing, these songs of freedom? 'Cause all I ever have: Redemption Songs, Redemption Songs, Redemption Songs.”

The bigger hope clouded by the years of frustration, despair and disappointment is clear in the lyric and in the delivery, this isn't about Christian redemption but about the opposite albeit Bob M get's the Almighty in there for a quick mention, but on his own terms. It's his defiance that still resonates, even after all these years and as we all know defiance, regardless of the cause, always strikes a chord. People sing, hum along and buy into all sorts of things set in lyrics sometimes quite unwittingly. You've all heard the church choir having a poke at Lennon's “Imagine'. I suppose that once it gets out there, you have to let it go.

Traveling backwards in time

I'm quite enjoying the time travel experience. I've just arrived and it's 1971, various things are happening - so thank you for the days but they are moving across my field of vision very quickly. That's time for you, here today, gone tomorrow.

Diary of silence.

When I'm on my own, or omo as it's known, I hardly make any noise. I creep and slink and pad around the house and behave as if noise, either generated by me or in the background is to be avoided at all costs. To make noise sometimes feels like smashing a mirror or attacking a piano with a sledgehammer, crazy and unacceptable behaviour. Occasionally the radio might be on or some music may be played but always set to the low end of the sonic spectrum. Changed days from rocking out and constant noise pollution, screaming guitars and vocals, pounding drums and out of tune singalongs. When did the golden silence start, when did it first descend? I guess it goes back to the early days of “baby in the house”, now some 30 odd years ago. At that point all my learned and adopted behaviours began to change and as the little tikes exerted their right to sleep the volume control came down like a slow turning guillotine of parental, self induced pressure. In turn they are given licence to bawl, shout and play games and watch TV at whatever level, parents rights erode into the vapour. Now there is truly only the occasional need for me to be quiet but despite that quiet remains the default. I listen on head phones, I strum the guitar gently, the amplifiers languish in a cupboard and cats sleep on top of them unaware of their potential as unexploded bombs. So I'm here, trapped and oddly guilty, stuck behind a wall of habitual silence that cloaks and chokes. This isn't the way I planned things but it is the way things are. A science fiction reality, breathing through tubes in noiseless cocoons avoiding ASBOs and not allowing the outside world to eavesdrop on my life, shutting in and shutting out. Paradoxically it's the opposite in the car, a noisy speeding coffin filled with spewing speakers and karaoke banter and ranting. Baffling really.