Concrete and clay

Who can not be moved and inspired by the simple and innocent pleasures possible in bashing a fence post into the ground?  Then once it's in place mixing up some nice and gooey concrete and spooning it in, around and down to set and secure the post. Lovely stuff. So today has been an epic DIY adventure, cupboards sorted, shelves up, pictures displayed, wood treated with wood stuff, bulbs placed in planters, shelves and all hanging things secured to walls and the thought of that concrete curing by chemical reaction out there in the evening rain. Tea was pork chops with fresh veggies and the spirit of Enid Blyton lives on in the jungle and the evergreens.

Swindon

If you were given an assignment at school to write an essay on "why Swindon isn't a shit hole" it would be tough. A town centre laid out in random streets with no obvious pattern or core, a selection of run down shops, bleak hotels and drunks and vagabonds wandering everywhere at 7.30 on a Monday evening. Who says first impressions don't count. But I want to love or at least feel some kind of low level of fondness for Swindon, home of XTC and the Great Western Railway and that towering (but tiny), cigar chomping Victorian mastermind IKB. 

The past screams silently. Great railway terraces dot the horizon, details and slated roofs fight for space under a gloomy sky, the faded glory of steam claws to survive amid shielded outlets, bland malls, badly wired traffic systems and so much concrete clutter that you wonder just what the planners were thinking. "Here's a nice little railway town, let's just obliterate it because clearly the Luftwaffe failed so now we can do our worst and nobody will care." I'm sure Karma will reward these people in due course, maybe it's happened already, just being there might be punishment enough. Meanwhile IKB slowly rotates in his grave and reflects on how he got the rail gauge size right whilst the rest of the world got it wrong. Top bloke.

Countess Minto

The last time

"Their real lives lie before them, teetering on the brink of adulthood …the time when we leave the ghetto like state of incompleteness known as childhood and attempt to make something of ourselves," (gleaned from the latest Knausgaard of course).

There on the carpet, misaligned and mismatched are the photographs that we try to lay together to form some kind of map and tapestry that may take us to a place in the past. A strange landscape viewed from the present day’s solidity from where we hope to understand how and why we came to be here. Then there is the absurd hope that maybe even in all those complex contradictions, appetites and disgusts that still swirl around in our souls and minds and unconsciously and so powerfully continue to govern us, that the light of understanding will shine.

I don’t know if it was Keith Richards or Brian Jones that played the guitar riff in the song “the Last Time”. I seems like it should’ve been Keith, perhaps that just makes it cooler. All I know is the puzzlement and excitement that I felt when I heard it, when I grappled with the strange, glistening sound and the rebellious rasp and edge in it’s tone. It didn’t quite fit with the rest of the BBC Light Programme’s output. Adults didn’t like it; it was like some kind of active poison to them. They recoiled as if a gun had gone off. No “Sparky the Magic Piano”, or the Springfield’s “Island of Dreams”, or the sweet sequined voices of Alma Cogan or Doris Day or  the comedy songs of Charlie Drake and the Goons. This was music from the future, like Telstar or Jonny B Goode. It’s probably the most significant audio moment in my life but I struggle to remember details to connect with and hold it. It’s buried in the debris of a thousand radio shows and flickering TV screens, wedding tunes and great cinema overtures, black vinyl spinning discs leading all the way to the abstract and indistinct sparks of sound we now lose in the deep darkness of file systems and cloud storage.

Back then music was like some living cartoon that danced across the growing, confusing head-space, you memorised it like a drug formula or an exam question. You sang yourself to sleep with the hummed melody as the frost formed on the inside glass of your bleak bedroom window. There, half asleep and half awake as the ambulance took your father away in the grey dawn where cigarette smoke hung and then descended on soft furnishings and tissue. Then up and dressed and out into the wild; you still trudged to school none the wiser of the night’s event, fortified with Frosties and a Melamine cup of sugary tea. As this NHS drama played out Keith’s guitar riff played in, like some bated fish hook bound to pull you away from a terrible ignorance and a fearful existence. Maybe you’d get the belt, wet yourself, get punched or, more likely just get ignored, just like the rest of the herd as you live out your orphan destiny. 

Daydreaming into a decade of insignificance, you could hardly matter less if you were microscopic. Here were the best and most obedient post-war working class job fodder, human confusion, sickly white and unable to grasp the concept of education never mind where it might, given patience and circumstance lead. It may have been the end of the age of the Empire but nothing big occurred inside the 425 line flatness of my being, just the reverberated ring-a-ding of that guitar sound. An elemental force that might change the world, still mostly red and expressed in Mercator Projection with frayed edges. It made me happy and was only really blocked out by getting struck in the face by an unexpected and wet football or a kicking from a big boy who preferred the Beatles.

Shadows

Junior shoots his shadow somewhere far away from a golf links.

Today: A week after the big vote I'd kind of stopped thinking about it, then a fellow fitting carpets in the house began a conversation...here we go again. I'm also puzzled about the furious and all encompassing enthusiasm for the Ryder Cup, a golf match of some sort. People seem to be going nuts and selling their souls, blocking up traffic and generally paying over the odds and it's the biggest thing etc. to arrive in the home of golf since golf. It is however only available to view if you've got a Sky Sports package. So I avoided all that and spent the afternoon pursuing red fluff around the house, cutting wood, glueing wood, drilling wood, destroying wood and then standing back and admiring wood. No wonder I'm worn out.

Playing the game

When you play their game and leave your happy little trails of habit and indulgence everywhere then you cant really complain when they come after you with their live bait. They are part of the fabric, they are part of our fabric and I have been chosen to receive a random but surely mechanised blessing from the great god of consumerism and appetite. Here it is tailored to meet all my most basic of needs, true, uncompromising and patronising. Even now at this hour (?) I feel strangely compelled to jump in the car and cash in this bounty. It may be that in this fragile mental state I'll succumb to the bright lights and colours of the carefree aisles and throw a few more items in the basket. I might even top up with petrol, DIY products or foreign currency on the way home. But then today is Thursday and tomorrow is an M&S shopping day, via the dental surgery of course. You guys at Tesco might need to try a bit harder to get that £250m back. 

Inevitable

As you might expect I'm drawn to these possibly dull and indulgent scratches and itchings formed from the remains of 1993 sessions. I've no idea why. They're just cashing in. It's a Marmite thing. Then the vinyl versions start to look attractive and that's without drinking copious amounts of wine or being in possession of any of the correct equipment. Things tend to come from nowhere, build up or inflate and turn into mild obsessions like they were oily fish, motorbikes or single coil guitar pickups. Now that I've passed the point of middle age and the painful crisis and bad behaviour that comes with that you'd think I'd know better. The fact that I'm typing this out as if it meant something perhaps proves that I do. All I need to do now is remain as far away as possible from Amazon.co.uk. for six or seven months. Easy.

Solitary Man

Dundee is not famous for it's burgers but it should be, (well apart from the Bob Servant cheese burger van mythology and the various consumer wars described). Anyway yesterday's tasty morsel was of the classic "Bambi" variety complete with a chili beef base and topped by a not too damp and not too dry circle of delightful black pudding. It was served up with triple fried chips (no idea how that is done) covered by a light blizzard of Parmesan Cheese and a green(ish) salad.  Who dares to say or even suggest that there's no such thing as sophisticated eating to be had on the bleak and windswept east coast of Scotland? On the way back to where ever I was going I also encountered a well dressed but quite static Elton John peering from a tenement window. Good to see you sir!

Eastern European filter use

Due to suffering from having a large throbbing and embarrassing red spot on the tip of my nose and almost coming to terms with coming to terms about the NO VOTE vote,  I took to hiding in plain sight in  shops and cafes and universities and the great seats of learning in the most populous city of this now murky nation of ours/mine/nobody's (delete as necessary) namely Glasgow. Here some snaps I took along the way conjuring up all the magic of those neo-post-industrial city-scapes and the faded grey films from the heroes of our splendid past...

Actually this is the sky over Aberdeen on another day.

Songs of despair, full of life

So for the time being we seem to be going through a mixed bag of shite as a nation (note small n), well Scotland's still a pretty beautiful place; best to concentrate on that for a few days.

Time for reflection

I stood with a reassuringly sweet cup of coffee watching the rain earlier today. The rain was light, gentle and warm, not the Scottish rain I'm used to. So I reflected on the big day and I thought about the vote I'd cast later  on. The reasons and arguments, the facts, fictions, deals and promises, all now damp in the rain and remote from me; now only looking inside. 

Then I thought about that rain and where it's been, caught up in distant  monochrome Scottish summers fighting occasional bursts of sunshine that lit up  the summertime galas of the early 60s. The typical Scottish day out. The working classes and school kids given a day to sit in the watery sun, march in a line, play games and eat sugary cakes and drink cheap orangeade. Then we'd go home early in a crowded bus.

Every year for the parade we were allowed flags and streamers as a treat. The streamers were rubbish but the flag on a splintery stick was wonder, a golden and wild thing. A sword, a war horse, a weapon, a flying machine, a battering ram and when the time came a flag to wave towards mum or dad who might just be looking on as we passed by in our glorious and tattered army. We had two clear choices when it came to flags back then, the Union Jack or the Lion Rampant, each for a Shilling from some corner shop. Strangely there was no blue and white Saltire to buy, it's day was still to come. 

Every year I picked the same flag, the Lion Rampant, I don't know why but it just seemed the natural choice, back then.

Eve of Destruction

Whatever happens tomorrow in these graffiti ruins there will remain the wild spirits of unrest, poison and recrimination. The great blame culture will kick in and progressively kick an assorted set of undeserving victims. There are you see no victimless crimes. When we vote, whatever way it goes, all those dead and misty souls hidden inside will arise, to prise out an extra dose of guilt, to make up the full and bitter measure and allow us to swallow whole a thousand years of pain and four hundred years of Calvinist lies. That's all we deserve, the scum of the earth ruled by the scum of the political classes and whatever road we choose there is no happy ending or redemption. There's just us, the people, a disjointed force for good and mediocrity, a forever raggle-taggle nation of chalky faced doubters, dreamers, jokers, refugees and artists, rusting steel men and carved out hollow women, cats, dogs and concrete housing schemes housing concrete and crumbling money grabbing schemes. Here we go, here we go, here we are...

WTF

Why of course, I will certainly vote NO now that I've seen the true and mighty pledge made by these three fine gentlemen safely and securely posted on mock parchment on the front page of the ever so reliable and well balanced Daily Record. 

It can't happen here

Some kind of song for the referendum 

It can't happen here
It can't happen here
I'm telling you, my dear
That it can't happen here
Because I been checkin' it out, baby
I checked it out a couple a times, hmmmmmmmm

And I'm telling you
It can't happen here
Oh darling, it's important that you believe me
(bop bop bop bop)
That it can't happen here

Who could imagine that they would freak out somewhere in Scotland...

Frank Zappa (edited and amended).


Read more: Frank Zappa - It Can't Happen Here Lyrics | MetroLyrics

The meaning of words

So let's just get a few risk parameters sorted out before anybody, anywhere starts wading into the odd contents of the Black Box of Guilty Pleasures (No2).

Common-Occurs almost hourly   

Routine-Occurs almost daily    

Frequent-Frequently occurs during the year, possibly several times a month   

   

Probable-Likely to be observed several times a year, possibly monthly   

Occasional-Likely to be observed once every year  

Remote-Likely to be observed of the order of once every 10 years

      

Improbable-Likely to be observed of the order of once every Century or the risk of dying from cancer or heart disease

     

Unlikely-As likely as being killed in a road traffic accident or a high risk industry such as deep sea fishing or commercial diving     

Very Unlikely-As likely as being killed at work in an office environment 

    

Extremely Unlikely-As likely as being killed by a vehicle as a pedestrian or by a clinical mistake during medical care    

Incredible-As likely as being killed in an air crash  

   

Inconceivable-As likely as been killed by being struck by lightning  

Negligible-As likely as being killed by being hit by a crashing airliner  

Right here, right now

There seems like a thousand almost abstract and angry reasons why, year after year I've struggled to believe in and support the Labour Party. Well I just can't do it anymore. There's a huge and painful guilt that's built up in me as they spout nothing meaningful whilst my parents and grandparents surely roll in their graves over the hopeless, inadequate and feeble excuse for a party that Labour has become. I'll never support this generation of well educated but ignorant toadies with their inability to see the obvious and their abject failure to rise to the true challenges of opposition and come the day actual government. Anyway Irvine Welsh puts it so much better than I could in his piece in  Bella Caledonia (and I don't necessarily agree with all the spin and black magic that they spin either).

Tweet of the day

Chris Addison ‏@mrchrisaddison  21m

The Swedish cabinet yesterday. (Tweet of the day and it's only 08:59)pic.twitter.com/i34mz5DCjq

Masterpiece of the selfie

So Volume 3 arrived today courtesy of the various minimum wages slaves and elves that push out the output at the unscrupulous but strangely convenient Amazon online facility. I dislike giving these people money but I am fully aware that in logistical terms I am one with them in some distorted spirit fashion. That's the problem you get living and working in the real world, where boxes are kicked and shifted and blankets are stacked. If you don't understand by now then you never will. All I need now is some handy haven of peace in which to relax.

Sweet song of youth

It's hard to believe that 1974 is now forty years ago, even harder to believe that my summer 2014 soundtrack has been the newly released CSNY 1974 40 track live tour bonanza. The truth is even by 1974 and at nineteen years of age I was bored with CSNY and the great explosion of West Coast cheesy soundalikes they spawned. I drifted away from that music and cut my hair and avoided these guys for quite a few years albeit Neil Young remained a curious guilty pleasure for shock factor and short term listening. No commitment required just keep up with the payments and you'll be fine. Now I'm back again, full circle, not much hair and it's 1970 or something like it. 

This album, like most live recordings is a challenge, truly awful in places, truly...memorable in others. The politics and issues remain hot, strangely relevant but the rough edged protests and howls of derision have achieved ... well not much really. The streets of the USA are no safer, the world is no kinder, there are too many guns and CSNY just become more swollen, unhealthier and grumpy. Where did it all go wrong and why are so many "good" things, well meant things, proven by time and the relentless recordings of history to be utterly futile? We don't really learn from our mistakes. So lets take it a name at a time:

Crosby - he comes out fighting on this, a better singer and performer than I thought but buried by the twin guitar peaks and background hollerings of Stills and Young.

Stills - the good looking poster boy could really play then, his singing however is a madcap set of growls, swoops and relentless repeated nonsense words but he silences Young with his thoughtful and busy guitar work (not high enough in the mix for some reason). A real talent but not much staying power as it turned out.

Nash - always irritating with that nasal Northern whine, the weakest contributor and someone who seems a thoroughly boring but nice guy  in real life. How did he ever get off with Joni Mitchell?

Young - Already in 1974 the old head of the band , steady, confident  and full of tricks. He must've hated Stills for showing up his haphazard guitar work but he played a long game and came away as the ultimate survivor.

Best live tracks -  Love the one you're with, Wooden ships, Black Queen, Long may you run, Old Man, Deja Vu and Ohio. 

That's it, summer's over.

I wish

I wish that I'd have been part of this fabulously patronising "No" campaign mailshot. Surely the most over egged and puerile example of the school of "we know best and do what yer feckin' telt." Best left there then. Of course another excuse for a rant are those pesky, sunny afternoon, pleasure sucking wasps that live nowhere and inhabit everywhere. I've reached the point when I can no longer see them as grumpy bees with other Tshirts on or with a hangover. Now they just seem like the Devil's spawn sent hot and angry over the border to destabilise the otherwise peaceful and relaxed parts of Scotland. A cold beer in peace is a thing of the past/pest. Pest infestation promoted by the good and anxious people of Better Together.

Thought for the minute

'Good men and bad men alike are capable of weakness. The difference is simply that a bad man will be proud all his life of one good deed - while an honest man is hardly aware of his good acts, but remembers a single sin for years on end. '

New breeks

The politicians we get are not the politicians we deserve. Paul Simon was right; “a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest...lah lah lah”. From that I take the scores and the opinions as being pretty meaningless over the so called Salmond and Darling “debating” effort last night, it wasn’t impressive, in fact it was embarrassing, cringe worthy even. Really they should just have had a punch up or a good scuffle, now that might generate proper interest, even put some passion into the fray – there is a great swathe of dopey indifference out there despite whatever high levels of  “engagement” Wee Eck might like to prattle on about. It all proves once again that being Scottish is, as was famously said in Trainspotting “shite” and the full, unfunny, unlovable televised circus isn’t a good advertisement for Scotland.

Meanwhile on the sidelines the Twitter frenzy was as bad, the punch drunk critics cheering on whatever bully boy seemed to be on top of the mire for a few lucid seconds. Nukes, oil, money, NHS, big bad business and toffs made headlines like failing soap stars out on the sauce with no proper answers ever appearing in the land of the outraged sound bite. Meanwhile on TV the two champions stuttered on as if in some  woolly pub argument without the alcohol, the humour, the wit or the swearing, chasing each other around the snug. No clever one-liners just relentless wagging fingers, crowing, cackling, shrill laughing and courtship displays of awkward body language and posturing. It confirmed what I already knew, neither of these guys have it nor have they any of the answers despite their experience and lofty status. You wouldn’t really want them coming round for the evening unless strong drink was involved. It really is just all sound and fury (of a kind) that doesn’t add up to much and signifies even less. I felt sorry for the poor BBC guy; a useless playground referee, no red cards or warnings, no positive intervention and no goals scored.

I do wonder quite what happens in the brains of politicians, how they must check themselves constantly as if their flies were open to the world, nervous and worried about any slip or double meaning, any unintended compliment or just sliding too far on some point or stance and so headed fatally off message and into the frequently mis-quoted world of shocking media headlines. If this is democracy in action then…there must be something else out there that works better. My simple take on this; do I want my life and my country to be ruled by either of these two unfortunates (and their obnoxious cronies)? Not really, count me out. (YES!).

Dawn of the moleskin trousers: In other news I’ve discovered the world’s best trousers - M&S Moleskins. I feel sad that so many moles had to die but comfort always does come at a price.

Grass cut at last

The famous local robin (possibly some reincarnated friend or family member) visits the garden and sets up an observation post on top of the time lapse camera. 

The paw marks of various known and unknown cats set in concrete on the back door steps, a nice finishing touch.  Meanwhile we got the grass cut, the roses pruned and popped out to see the mighty Graeme Mearns at the Jazz Bar. A good day.

Over the high side

I first heard this expression in 1971 (OTHS), today it came back to me as if from the lips of some grievous angel via the breath of the Devil himself. It's a place I've never visited but I understand that many others have.

Cat food omelette

I seem to have gone on for most of July and much of August, the long summer months in some sort of denial of writing or producing or creating anything other than those bad, half formed early morning ideas you get (or the drunken ones you get and quickly forget). Yes that is how it has been, unforgivable and reprehensible...but fun, followed by those three pretentious and hopefully meaningful full stops. You see I've been away, in France, in England, here and there. I've been lazy too and too lazy, obstinate, preoccupied and busy with things that are counter productive. The stats have all of course gone haywire, history has repeated and I've slept away the rain, fog and misty days in a haze of, well just about nothing. Excuse me please.

Anchovies and cheese

The assumption that is made (in my imagination) that eating and appearing to enjoy certain types of food makes you look sophisticated or assume the mantle of being  knowledgeable and cultured dogs me like some badly behaved and sociable dog that I’ve encouraged with pats, praise and tit-bits. I can’t shake it off, it has adopted me. Top of the list is the anchovy and/or white bait eating experience. Scoffing the whole, strong salty fish with it's oily texture and mouth stinging pickled flavours is more of a trial of strength than any kind of measure of social mobility and worldly wisdom, it’s pain. The culinary equivalent of swimming with jelly fish whilst urinating. Perversely it’s a pain I’ve come to enjoy. The challenge that lies beyond the bland, the easy or dare I say it the pleasant. The strange experimental pact that you may from time to time (when bored with modern life) make with yourself just to test your limits (and when you are of a certain age it’s not about American motorcycles, parachutes or bungee chords), it’s just about consumption, pain and pushing against some stubborn physical tolerance. It’s taking a risk, often a stupid one. I know where I am in this now in this universe of botulism and I am comfortable peering over the event horizon and into the black hole, even if the trip is powered by a tasty but fatal dose of scallops rather than a pristine bit of Cheddar.

It’s the same as voting yes in the referendum. A yes vote equals a revolutionary outlook; a no vote equals a reactionary view. The issues on both sides are totally irrelevant; there is no proper debate, no meaningful information, nothing found in those exhausting sound bites or repetitive tweets matters. There is no credible evidence for a certain future outcome either way. It’s just risky v risk averse; and there is nothing wrong with that. All people want is some validation for their cherished views and, when the majority look they always find what they want to find nothing changes the dark/sepia human heart easily, not even sea-food dislikes. Had both sides realised that a while ago they could’ve done away with the flyers, films and trumped up publicity and donated the money to worthwhile charities and noble causes and just left us all to vote from the heart. This is exactly what we will all do on the 18th, albeit most folks will completely deny it if asked. Put it to the test, think of the Yes and No people you now know – how do they measure up? Anchovies or cheese?

Water everywhere

A handy and informative sign discovered in a Shell Station portaloo.

The Lake District contains a lot of water, most of not in the lakes but in that awkward space between the sky and the earth, where people often walk. Wet for 24 hours is an interesting experience only made pleasant by food, large amounts of alcohol and good company - so I survived. I did wonder about life and common sense and things in general when I saw some gentleman swimming naked, in the rain in Lake Windermere early in the morning. I think it was the swimming in the cold rain part that puzzled me, it seemed crazy. Then I thought about all the water, everywhere, descending on us. It still seemed crazy. Naked? That's pretty crazy too.

A money tree (detail), found near one of the very many houses by Windermere where William Wordsworth apparently slept. I've come to the conclusion that he was either a burglar or that he had a thing for farmer's wives, apart from all the poem writing business that made him so famous.

Handful of time

only a handful of time

here today

here in mind

with our secret thoughts and whispers

running low across the dawn

maybe I saw you there

perhaps you were just moving on

or you were already gone

my hands are open

palms empty and up

pushing hard on the sky

my eyes see the horizon

passing by

my time in handfuls

drains all ways

these wasted hours

fill up my days

Turns to toffee

They warned us that it would happen but we ignored them, what did they know? We carried on, we just piled the stuff in. All the junk, the selfies, the comments, the butt shots, the music uploads, pathetic games, the streams, dreams and things better unseen. News, views, screws and nothing to really lose. Now it's full, the Internet is full, like some cupboard under the stairs or those problem bedroom drawers or the garage. It's happening tonight, look around, all your things have just turned into slowly setting, congealing toffee. Yum. The world has finally stopped.

The spiral path

Following on from yesterday's despairing but low key rant I remain convinced that mankind is not progressing up some mystical spiral path to Valhalla and enlightenment but is in fact headed to Hell on a rotten and rusty handcart. We just do not learn from history or experience. Our Government commemorates 100 years since the War to end all Wars but by it's actions (or lack) proves we've learned nothing by either supporting, condoning or more likely being indifferent towards conflicts in Syria, Gaza, Iraq, Ukraine and god knows where else. We stand by and shake our heads but...

Having said that I still can't figure what direction (on said spiral path) a Yes or No vote will take us here in the bosom of supposed civilisation. Pity help the poor media dazzled person caught in the crossfire of confusing rhetoric...then I heard someone say "what other country in the world would not vote for Independence if given the opportunity? The rest of the world must think we're all daft." Hmm.

The redistribution of wealth

What with holidays in France, rubbish pay rises, wine goggles and the collapse of modern politics I've been giving this subject (wealth and it's various forms, norms and problems) some deep and penetrating thought. It seems to me that the idealistic redistribution of wealth, as called for by various socialist and revolutionary voices cannot be made to work. All that happens is that the state tax the wealthy thereby destroying the aspirational model and so bankrupting the free market. This leads to further exploitation of the masses and various shit dinners and shortages. The poor stay poor (but are rewarded in the Christian Heaven eventually). Then the state, fat on tax it lacks the vision to spend wisely, squanders it all on vanity projects and ill considered public spending. Everything ends up in another black/brown hole like this one that opened up in Nairn today. I really need more of a cheese intake so I can dream better, more positive dreams and so save the NHS and the transport infrastructure.

Chinese Crackers

Big score of International Karma points coming our way: Arriving back in Scotland late last night into a desolate and deconstructed Edinburgh Airport (no Festival Ticket pickup points or any signs of life open after 2200 it appears) we trudged up to Level 42 of the car park to start the final leg of the journey home. We were hailed by a bewildered young Chinese couple with a dead Audi A4. We tried a jump start but not only was the battery flat, the starter motor was also jammed and the disc brakes were seized - four weeks of sitting in a multi-storey does bad things to a car . A call to the AA was then made, costly but hopefully helpful after some frantic English/Chinese translation; I'd like to think they got back to Glasgow one way or another. Our reward for a futile jump start session and calling the AA for advice - a pack of Chinese Crackers handed over by the girl, "they're from China!" she said. That was sweet. I also felt my stubborn A4 envy slip away quite nicely, what they say just isn't true.

Some time in Paris

Here's some relentless photo-blogging from the city of Paris, France (as an American might say). A city full of glamour, rats running free, people sleeping rough, crazy cyclists and roller blade folks, thunder and rain, pavement cracks, good food, wine and graffiti. Funnily I missed most of the towers, arcs, artworks and palaces that normally are associated with the place; next time maybe.

Let the soil decide

Lessons in life: when lost in the vineyards of Burgundy, at a crossroads in life or unsure about anything in general then you plant something and see how it grows...so the earth decides for you. Whatever does grow you use, it may not be to your taste of course but I might just suit somebody else. I'm ok with this as one kind of way ahead.