The Narks are furious about the rude suggestions left nailed to the door of their yurt.  
"We're only trying to bring the place up to standard and attract people in from outside," raged Dave.  "You're all living in the early to mid 20th century, and we want to improve things by bringing you a smart yet rustic post office-cum-shop, with a cash machine, a freezer, and a chill cabinet.  We're only going to sell Val's flapjacks and home-grown herbs and plants and stuff, and we want to provide an outlet for local craft-workers and artists to sell their wares to tourists as well. We'd charge commission at 95% but as we're the only outlet Hereabouts I don't think there's anything wrong with that. What on earth's wrong with you people?  We're doing you a favour here."
They're clearly unaware of our more sophisticated resources,  such as time travelling devices, mind-control, self-produced electricity and so forth (see e-books for details).  I don't think they realise that we're more than a match for so-called modern technology and fancy ways.  We've never needed munny, or "cash machines", and we're not going to start now.  And we definitely don't want to attract people in from "outside".
Oh dear.  A flyer has just been thrust through our letterbox.
"Read it out to me Geoffrey.  Read the ghastliness.  My specs are needing a clean.  And make sure the kettle's on the boil so we can have a strong cup of tea immediately after."
"Very well.  I'll fetch the laudanum also.  Allow me a moment to brace myself."
Geoffrey took a deep breath and began to read in a halting voice.  "Join us for our - what's that big word?  I can't read it.  It's the one starting with the big letter with the scary pointy bits at the bottom."
"That'll be a W.  Carry on."
"W - i - l - d - ...oh dear Tuppy...."
"Oh give it here.  Go and make the tea for pity's sake."
To cut a long story short - they've got a boat - a motor launch called the Flying Ghost - and they're doing Sea-life tours of the Bay at fifty pounds a pop, which includes a vegan panini, a fun-size flapjack, and a bottle of spring water.
We can't have this.  And happily,  I suspect we won't.   Any outings in the Flying Ghost are likely to be Very Brief.
They're clearly unaware of the existence of the psychotic killer whale that inhabits those waters (see e-books for details).....
....or of the ingenuity of locals such as my nephew,  Tuppence.....................

more later.

'Soddum and Gomorrah'

'The Damp Stamp'

'Peruvian Hats 'r' Us'

'Y Do Ur Flapjacks Smell of Fish'

'Ferk off'

'The Shit-hole'

These are some of the suggestions written on the 'Choose a Name for your Local Shop and Win a Year's Supply of Val's Home-made Goji Berry and Raw Oat Flapjacks' stupidly kindly nailed to the door of the Yurt-cum-shop-cum-post-office.

The whole community is riven with this carry-on.  It's pitting brother against brother, father against son,  mother against second cousin three times removed,  neighbour against the odd bespectacled fella five doors down who never cuts his grass.  Grandfather against the fat lady who's been doing the cleaning up in the Big House for the last fifteen years and who slips a piece of silverware into her bag every day to sell on Ebay. Some are violently in favour of the new development, some are violently against.  Where will it all end?

Me?  I couldn't care less, as long as nothing they do affects me directly.

The unsettling juxtapositioning of the mundane and the ghastly.

Discuss.  Because I haven't the energy just now.

Rubha nan Gall

Do take advantage of my current free download - Sea Penguin Part Two, available till tomorrow.  Here is the link.

Eigg from Ardnamurchan

Consideration of the day - more of Hegel's thoughts on art

Same source as before. But we move to 709.

'The artist,  then, learns in his work that he did not produce a being like himself.  From it,  it is true,  there comes back to him a consciousness in the sense that an admiring crowd reveres it as the Spirit which is their own essence.  But this inspiration,  since it returns to him his self-consciousness only as admiration, is rather a confession to the artist that the inspired work is not on the same level as himself.  Since his work comes back to him simply as joyfulness, he does not find therein the painful labour of making himself into an artist,  and of creation,  nor the strain and effort of his work.  Furthermore,  the crowd may judge the work or bring it offerings, endue it with their own consciousness in whatever way it may be:  if they with their knowledge set themselves above it, he knows how much more his act is than what they understand and say;  if they put themselves below it and recognize in it the essence which dominates them,  he knows himself as the master of this being.'

This makes some sense to me.  No it does, honestly.  No, really it does.

Scots Recipe of the Day - Black Pudding Mousse with Wee Willie Winkie Sausages

One of my Good Plates

...or "Mousse au Boudin Noir avec Wee Willie Winkie Saucissons".


You will need:

One large or two medium black puddings, or boudins noirs - cooked.
One pack Wee Willie Winkie sausages, chopped neatly into half inch pieces and fried quickly in their own fat.
Three large free range eggs - whites only.  Reserve yolks for....something else.   Making tempera-style paint maybe? or perhaps a nourishing face-mask.
Fifteen sachets industrial strength gelatine.
250 mls water.  Tap will do.
One mould.
Parsley and crispy bacon to garnish - optional.

Method.

Remove skins/plastic from puddings.  Chop finely, then mash firmly with a fork (not plastic).  Add the sausages.
Whisk eggs to "soft peak" stage.  While whisking, dissolve gelatine in water.
Mix gelatine into pudding mixture, then fold in the egg whites.  Pour into a lightly-oiled mould.
Leave in fridge to set.  You'll know it's set when it's firm to the touch - or when you can bounce it off a hard surface without any bits falling off.
Once firm to the touch, upturn on to one of your good plates and set a sprig of parsley on top with bacon arranged neatly around the base.

DISCLAIMER - *I HAVE NOT TESTED THIS RECIPE AND NEITHER SHOULD ANYONE ELSE.  I WROTE IT AS A JOKE*  I don't want folk wasting food at the best of times, never mind in this economic climate - BUT - GELATINE QUANTITIES ASIDE  - I THINK IT MIGHT ACTUALLY WORK....hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm........

Barry Nicol, who does the paintings for the blog, has a painting at this exhibition here - opens on 20th June.

My free ebook promotion has now started.  It's running today and tomorrow - Sea Penguin Part Two.  Here is the link to the Amazon page.

Please note that you can download the Kindle app to any PC, phone, or whatever, for free as well.

Nasal Spray

The Narks.  The Narks the Narks the Narks.

What more can I say about the Narks that you haven't already worked out for yourselves? Nothing.  I can say that with confidence, even though I've no idea what kind of capacity you have for working things out for yourselves.  I can only imagine that you have the minimum level of brain function required to Draw Your Own Conclusions.

Of course, that requires a certain level of interest, not to mention motivation, and should either of those be lacking I doubt you'd have read this far down the page.

Anyway.

All I can offer is The Latest.

They're  - the Narks, that is - attempting to open a Shop-cum-Post Office.  As readers will know, we've never had a Shop Hereabouts - never mind a Shop-cum-Post Office.  We've always got our Stuff from the smugglers' tunnels and maybe the occasional trip Overthere to the Speedispend Hypermarket and Compulsory Health Screening Centre.  With the odd bit of begging and nicking to fill in as and when.

We're wondering what they're going to call this "Shop".

Narks 'r' Us?  The Narkorium? Narks and Spencers?

"You won't know yourselves when we open our shop," they declared.  "It'll bring the community to life.  Give it a centre.  We'll sell everything from nasal spray to gourmet organically reared sausages to rubber bands to fishing nets to Duchy Original biscuits to hand-knitted llama hair jumpers.  We'll even sell your shit for you - for a percentage."

Knowing ourselves?  Bringing the community to life?  Selling our shit for a percentage?  Nasal spray?  As if we don't already have enough reason to blank out reality and lapse into semi-consciousness after our teas this evening.

"What are we having for tea, anyway, Geoffrey?  I want something substantial."

"Black pudding mousse.   With chips."



more later.........................................................

Consideration of the Day - Hegel's Thoughts on Art

From the Phenomenology of Spirit:  Religion in the Form of Art. a) The abstract work of art 705.

'...............................It is neither the crystal, the form characteristic of the Understanding, which houses the dead or is illumined by a soul outside of it,  nor is it that blending of the forms of Nature and of thought which first emerged from the plant,  thought's activity in this being still an imitation.  On the contrary,  the Notion strips off the traces of root,  branches,  and leaves still adhering to the forms and purifies the latter into shapes in which the crystal's straight lines and flat surfaces are raised into commensurable ratios,  so that the ensoulment of the organic is taken up into the abstract form of the Understanding and, at the same time, its essential nature - incommensurability - is preserved for the Understanding.'

Discuss.


No really.  Discuss.  (Preferably after the ingestion of an hallucinogen.)

Free download tomorrow

One of my e-books,  Sea Penguin Part Two,  will be available as a free download from 10th to 11th June.  Here is the link to the Amazon page.

Cows at Kilchoan,  Ardnamurchan

Loch Sunart

Sea Thrift

Tobermory Bay

Sanna Bay

Kilchoan to Tobermory ferry