Bill Hicks BBC Interview

This is a good one. "Can I recommend some jugglers, that you might like?"
Sorely missed.

Collecting Thoughts in a Jar

That's what this is......
A freak show...
weird specimens...
butterflies struggling on pins.

Interesting recording re. RL Stevenson

Here's a link to the Robert Louis Stevenson website, and a recording of his step-daughter relating the circumstances of his death in Samoa, in 1894.

Bit morbid, but interesting all the same.

What a catalogue of work he produced. The one that lives especially vividly in my mind, is Treasure Island, which I read frequently as a child.
The Hispaniola, Squire Trelawney, Dr Livesey, Long John Silver, Ben Gunn.....Blind Pew, and the Black Spot...

I'm sure it's obvious to most people but I've only just thought that Golding's Lord of the Flies was Treasure Island gone mad really.

Quote of the day - from Coleridge's Frost at Midnight

...again...it is a lovely poem though.


"Or of the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in quiet icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet moon."

I Worn My Elbows by Ivor Cutler

Coleridge Binge, and the smell of second hand books

I tend to go through obsessive phases with writers and at the moment it's Coleridge.

I'm not new to Coleridge. I went through a Romantic Poet phase about twenty years ago, and read everything I could lay my hands on by Byron, Shelley, Keats, Coleridge, Wordsworth and outriders such as Charles Lamb and Leigh Hunt. It all felt very fresh and real, and easy to relate to. Sometimes linear time doesn't seem to matter at all.

At university I studied Mary Wollstonecraft. It was an extremely interesting time for women, but they were limited by their biology in a way that men obviously weren't. Crude methods of contraception at best. Dropping like flies due to ghastly puerperal complications. Wollstonecraft died soon after giving birth to her daughter, also called Mary, who of course grew up to write Frankenstein and have, I would say, a pretty grim time as Shelley's wife. Who knows what she might have achieved had she lived? She'd already visited Paris during the revolution, and written several books.

Frost at Midnight appeals to me especially, because I love the imagery of ice and frost and also because Coleridge set it at the fireside in his "cottage", which sounds not dissimilar to my own pretty draughty ramshackle and tiny mid-19thC. home.

Here is a link to Coleridge's cottage.

I really like my copy of Coleridge's poems. It's very small, circa 1900, published by Harrap, with a lovely illustration from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. You can stick it in your pocket quite easily. I bought it in a second hand bookshop years ago for three pounds. Where have all the second hand bookshops gone? Ruined by Ebay, that's where. It's not the same, shopping for old books online - you have to hold a book in your hands and SMELL IT to know if you want it or not.

Quote of the Day (2) Coleridge - a fragment from the life of dreams

'Call it a moment's work (and such it seems),
This tale's a fragment from the life of dreams;
But say, that years matured the silent strife,
And 'tis a record from the dream of life.'

S.T. Coleridge, Phantom or Fact (1830)

Petula Clark: La nuit n'en finit plus

'Pet' Clark is 79 years old today! Such a great voice.

An even better Scots wurd o' th' day

Still on page 143 and I've happened upon an even better wurd.

Drabloch, n. refuse, trash, applied to very small potatoes and bad butcher-meat.

Gosh!

When does one ever encounter bad butcher-meat in Scotland? I ask you.

Scots wurd(s) o' th' Day - "Dow'd fish"

Continuing the piscine theme, today's wurd(s) is DOW'D FISH.


Dow'd fish, n. fish that has been drying for a day or two.

Fancy!

From page 143 of Chambers's Scots Dictionary, 1959 reprint of the 1911 edition.

The Viviparous Blenny, or 'Dornicle'

Re. my earlier post featuring the Scots word 'dornicle'- I have now got round to Googling the definition given in Chambers's Scots Dictionary, viz. 'the viviparous blenny'.

It's a fish, basically, also known as the viviparous eelpout.
It is also the only fish which suckles its young. Who knew?

If you'd like to learn more, you can Google it yourself or look here.

Life is full of shadows and light

Life is full of shadows and light. The worst shadow I've encountered is child abuse. It is the ultimate evil.
I saw on the news that the Catholic church can now be held responsible for the abusive actions of some of its employees - priests, and care home workers for example. I'm glad, but at the same time it makes me feel sick because it brings back so much.
I heard many accounts of child abuse as a psychotherapist. All of them were soul-destroying. Some of them involved the church, but most didn't. Most involved 'grandad', 'stepdad', 'daddy', 'mummy's new friend', or 'mummy'.

Family photographs of Army dads in their smart uniforms, with bonny blonde daughters who look just like their proud, blind wives.

Young children climbing out of windows and running through the snow, barefoot in their pyjamas, to get away from 'grandad'.

Single parents, targeted by sickos who pretend to be interested in the adult, but who are really after the little 'uns.

A GP coming in to my room, white-faced after examining a five year old who had clearly been raped. "But couldn't she have said no?" Hardly.

Yes - this is what happens in our communities every day - every day! and I'm not exaggerating. What kind of species are we?

I don't believe in 'the family'. Certainly not the nuclear version. It covers too many shadows with its bright shiny surface.

"Oh no - grandad would never....you're making that up 'slap'."

Too often the truth doesn't come out till many years later. There are far too many horrible old bastards sipping pints in their local "oh aye, he's a great lad, salt of the earth", and pinnacles of the local community hiding sordid secrets who never get called to account.

Disgusting. Is there anything we can do to stop it? Not really. Some adults are born to abuse, or at least are so bent out of shape that it seems that way, and the 'family' will mask it all. I'm fed up trying to understand the whys of it. They know it's wrong, and they still do it anyway because they have the power to terrify their victim into silence.
This is what I meant in an earlier post "Are we innately good?"
I'm tempted to think not any more, but I'm not a defeatist so am hanging on in there.

Scots wurd o' th' day - Hecklepins

Today's Scots wurd is 'hecklepins'.

It's a word I use quite a lot. I used it yesterday and someone - a "blog reader" as it happens - asked me what it meant.
So, here's a helpful definition from Chambers's Scots Dictionary.

Heckle-pins, n. the teeth of a 'heckle'.

As in, "Ah'm oan hecklepins waiting fur mu results frae the doactur."

Or, "Ah'm oan hecklepins till ma gas bill arrives, ah'm fair puggled wi' it ye ken."

Hope that helps!

It might help to know the definition of 'heckle'.

Heckle, n. a sharp pin; a hackle, a comb with steel teeth for dressing flax and hemp; a thorn in one's side - v. to dress flax with a 'heckle'; to cross-question a candidate for parliamentary or municipal honours at a public meeting; to examine searchingly; to scold severely; to tease, provoke.

Find these on p. 256 of Chambers's Scots Dictionary, 1959 reprint of the 1911 edition.

As hecklepins is quite a well-known 'wurd', I'll give another couple, which I've certainly never heard of never mind used. And can I reiterate - I do NOT make these up.

Fisty, n. a left-handed person

Fissle-fisslin', n. a faint rustling sound.

Both can be found on p. 175, ibid.

A few thoughts on Abjection and Last Tango in Paris

I went for a walk round a nearby loch this afternoon; it was cold and clear and the trees were beautiful after two nights of frost, so I was hoping to take some photos of the reflections in the still water.
But my camera wouldn't work. It's OK - it does that occasionally. Then I thought I might take a photo on my phone, but the battery was flat. Then I thought maybe it's just as well not to share. A beautiful afternoon goes deeper than memory - it goes into the soul and remains there as part of you even when you think you've forgotten all about it. A photograph can't begin to capture that.
Then, I saw two young hen pheasants at the roadside, dead. They'd been hit by a car, very recently. They hadn't been squashed, and there was no blood. The way they'd fallen, one had her head lying across the other's neck, in an attitude of complete abjection, eyes closed in submission to the inevitable. It reminded me of Holbein's Dead Christ. (see The Powers of Horror, by Julia Kristeva)
It cut me to the quick but it was easy to resist the crude impulse to shed a crass, bathetic tear. Those deaths were worth more than that.
I've been thinking about Julia Kristeva in another sense today. I was thinking about Maria Schneider, who starred in Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris. She died earlier this year, aged 58. She was 19 when she starred in that film, and from then on it defined her. If you Google her, "butter scene" is almost top of the list. She is quoted as saying (this isn't word for word) "Never take your clothes off for shiny-eyed middle aged men, especially if they say it's for Art". I've seen that film half a dozen times. I had an obsession with Marlon Brando when I was in my twenties, and saw everything he'd been in as often as I could. I haven't seen Last Tango for maybe fifteen years; I remember thinking Brando's performance was extraordinary. However, there was definitely something about the subtext which unnerved me, which I couldn't quite articulate at the time. I wanted to like Brando, I really did, and my sympathy was with him rather than Schneider's callow film-making boyfriend, but there was something horribly repellent about him.
I now think of the film as an unpleasant exercise in sadism, but I'd be interested to watch it again in case I'm wrong. Bertolucci made an effort to redeem it through intellectualising a basically tawdry premise; Maria Schneider as the centre of his stereotypical shiny-eyed middle-aged fantasy of no-strings no-holds-barred sex with an easily malleable and disposable stranger. Schneider as plastic doll, in other words. Brando, an only slightly less shiny eyed middleager, was playing both sides - only he was worse than Bertolucci because of his duplicity and because I am sure that he knew better but was too jaded to care very much.
What has this to do with Julia Kristeva? I haven't time to explain! She refused to accept the label of "feminist", which is precisely why I like her work so much, but her analysis of the male gaze surpasses anything else I've read. No polemic, no rigid position-taking, and that has to be good.
More *at some point*

Quote of the Day - WB Yeats

"Although I know when looks meet
I tremble to the bone
The more I leave the door unlatched
The sooner love is gone
For love is but a skein unbound
Between the dark and dawn..."

Verse one from Crazy Jane and the Journeyman, by WB Yeats (great title!)

Oban community fireworks fiasco

If you've never strolled along the Oban sea front of an evening, eating fish and chips while watching the gulls wheel high above the ferries and the fishing boats, and planning a trip to Mull, Iona and/or Staffa the next day - you've never really lived. South of France? You can keep it.

Scots Wurd o' th' Day - Dornicle

Haven't done Scots Wurd o' the' day for ages, as I mislaid my Chambers's Scots Dictionary. But now I've found it again.

Today's Scots wurd is "dornicle". It's a noun, apparently. The definition given is as follows: "the viviparous blenny".

I'll be honest - I'm none the wiser, and I can't be bothered Googling it at the moment. Might have a look later on.

Great Swears Of Our Time #7

Nothing like starting the day with a good old swearing session.

Bill Hicks - Little Miracles

A Map of the Rocky Outcrop

Here's a map I made of the geography of the entire blog, as it exists visually in my head. I found it in a drawer just now as was looking for something else. I must have drawn it at least two years ago. I might try and do another one in felt tip so it's a bit clearer - for the Kindle and that, ken.

It's got the cliffs, the infra-inn, the Rocky Outcrop itself, the time-space continuum anomaly (we've all got one of those), the Old Rectory, the old coastguard hut, Overthere, smuggling ships, the Hulks, and so forth.

The Chanting Hordes return for Hallowe'en

"It's All Hallow's Eve, Geoffrey, when the dead rise from the grave and walk the earth."

"Brilliant. When's it over?"

"Don't be negative. I think we should just go with the gloomy vibe, Geoffrey. Let's kill everyone."

"Right. How will we do that?"

"We'll dig a big huge pit, and put lots of sharp sticks in it, pointy end up. Then we'll lure them all in, to their deaths."

"We can't possibly do that. It's a terrible plan."

"Why?"

"Because I can't be arsed sharpening sticks for hours on end. Besides, Who's "them"? And how would we lure them in, precisely?"

"Put a plate of sausage rolls and a coconut sponge in the middle. They'd all run for that willy nilly and without so much as a by your leave. Result. To be honest I don't know who "they" are though. You've got a "point" there. Ha ha. Oh dear - what's that awful moaning, wailing, dragging sound?"

"I think we MIGHT be about to find out....the chanting, puffa jacket-wearing hordes are back (see previous posts)...and they're heading our way. You get sharpening and I'll start digging - we've not got a second to lose - HURRY!!!!"

New Flash Story just out on Shortbread Stories

My latest flash fiction piece, Set Meal for Two, has just gone live over on Shortbread Stories
It's about two nasty warring "thespians" out for a meal. You can, as usual, find it via that link or read it via the Shortbread widget on the right hand side of the blog.

Sailing - a peom from Geoffrey

Sailing - a peom.

I want to voyage westwards
Into the setting sun
I want to live on apples
And mushrooms on a bun.

I want my boat to sail and sail
And never spring a leak
I want to sail forever
And never have to speak.

Bloggered Off

I'm pretty busy writing other stuff, hence the lack of blog posts this week. Here's some of the stuff I'm working on at the moment.
Psychotweeter part three (part two is in the editing queue over on Shortbread Stories)
A short story which I hope to get done in time for a competition deadline.
A flash fiction piece which I hope to submit "somewhere".
And my Kindle. Hope to get my finger out and get that organised "soon". I must say the technology aspects are putting me off a lot, but I've had some excellent advice from others who've Kindled, and I'm sure I can manage it if I really knuckle down.
Therefore, I don't have much time to blog at the moment.

However, if anyone wishes to contact me to discuss using my finely-honed writing and blogging skills, fine. I'm delighted to consider anything, pretty much. Especially if I'm going to be paid. And if you aren't in a position to pay, then at least have the decency to be extremely grateful, don't take me for granted, and treat me with respect and appreciation. Oh and have plenty biscuits - the good kind. Otherwise, there is absolutely no way I'll want to be involved.
I will consider doing stuff for nothing, if it interests me sufficiently, but I'm well past the stage in life where I'm prepared to be a virtual "intern." It's just not worth it.

The Story of the Old, Empty Barn

It's not "we're all doomed!" but it's good.

Ego? forget it.

I'm interested in tidal patterns - neap, high springs, syzygy and so forth, and was doing a search. "Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels, caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon and the Sun, and the rotation of the Earth." (from wikipedia)

Oh - syzygy. Yes. Quite. Well, it will take your mind off the price of gas, mince, biscuits, apples - everything, really. For a while.

What price your tiny little ego? I mean, not just yours, mine as well...

Is Everything an Illusion, and do we have souls?

"Are we safe?"
"No, of course not. Nobody's ever safe. You know that as well as I do. The membrane between life and Death is as fine as the caul on a new-born babe."
"Here we are, sitting comfortably by the fire, just had our supper, everything secure..."
"That's all by the by. Security is an illusion. The material world, as we perceive it, is an illusion. We - and I use the term merely because I can't think of another at the moment - are a collection - a confluence -of energy particles in a condition of flux. In fact, the only permanence, the only security, is flux."
"Is everything random then? Or is there an overall pattern? Look at that piece of driftwood for example. You can see how it's been shaped by its journey through the world. Where did it come from? We can only wonder. It was part of a tree, obviously. But was it part of the trunk, or a branch that fell off during a storm? Was it uprooted by a landslide, swept down to an estuary by a flooded river, and borne far out to sea on a Spring tide?"
"And then washed ashore and left high and dry by the ebb, ready for us to gather for our fire."
"Is that random? is it coincidence, or was it meant to be? And it's riddled with termite holes. It supported life, even in Death - like the story of the lion in the Bible."
"It's still supporting life. It's keeping us warm."
"I don't want to burn it now! I've grown fond of it now that I know it better. It seems like more than just a piece of wood. It's got a soul. I don't want to see it burning up and turning into ashes before my very eyes."
"Happens to us all Geoffrey. Might as well bite the bullet and face it."
"Do you think trees have souls Tuppy? Do WE have souls, come to that?"
"Trees probably do have them. You've probably got one. If not your own one, then somebody else's. I've not got one - I swapped mine a while back, for some decent sausages, remember? I did a deal with Death. I was starving. Well, peckish."
"Do you regret it now, even just a little bit?"
"No, can't say I do Geoffrey. I didn't know I had it in the first place."

The Ladykillers "Such pretty windows."

Mrs Wilberforce aka Katie Johnson, and Alec Guinness resplendent in his wig and teeth. Marvellous.

Byron on Reviews

Anyone out there worried about reviews?
Here's Byron's take on them.
(It just occurs to me that I hate that expression "take on such and such").
OK. Here's Byron's OPINION/THOUGHTS/WHATEVER.  On them. Or of them.  I'm not quite sure.  Reviews, anyway. 
As expressed in a letter he wrote to Shelley in 1821, following the death of Keats (I'm nothing if not hip 'n' happening). I gather that Shelley must have informed him of the death, and that it had been perhaps hastened or even caused by distress about bad reviews. Keats died of consumption, and I suppose state of mind could certainly have affected his physical resilience, as of course it can with any illness.
Bear in mind that Byron himself had recently described Keats' poems as a kind of "mental masturbation" and a "Bedlam vision brought on by too much raw pork and opium". (see my post from a day or two back). Personally, I might take that as a compliment. But I'm not Keats, am I? He was aiming for the sublime.
And it occurs to me - how much raw pork is "too much", exactly? And why would you eat it, in any quantity? I've eaten underdone chops before, and felt a bit 'dicky' after, but it was entirely accidental and I wouldn't say they were 'raw', quite.  More on that later.
To continue.
Byron writes to Shelley, "I am very sorry to hear what you say of Keats - is it actually true? I did not think criticism had been so killing....I read the review of Endymion in The Quarterly. It was severe, - but surely not so severe as many reviews in that and other journals upon others.
I recollect the effect on me of the Edinburgh on my first poem; it was rage, and resistance, and redress - but not despondency nor despair. I grant that these are not amiable feelings; but in this world of bustle and broil, and especially in the career of writing, a man should calculate upon his powers of resistance before he goes into the arena.
"Expect not life from pain nor danger free,
Nor deem the doom of man reversed for thee."

Hmm... he's got a point - but he's being more than a tad harsh, I'd say. One of the critics had described Endymion as a work of imperturbable, drivelling idiocy. Someone else who sounded like a towering snob had advised the non-Eton/Harrow educated Keats to abandon poetry and go back to his work as an apothecary.

All very well for his Lordship, swimming up and down the Grand Canal with his menagerie and his club foot and all.

So if anyone derides my - or your - work, do remember that they were wrong about Keats.

The genius of Colette

My all-time favourite writer is Colette.

I love how she lived her life, and I love that her writing - and she was so prolific - reflects it.

I don't really like the Cherie/Colette Willy stage. I love her later work though, when she'd broken out of that first stifling marriage. I say stifling, but perhaps what came out of those years of writing servitude was the development of her own superb writing discipline.

I have a couple of favourite stories. One is The Kepi. I'm totally fixated on the ageing female at the moment (being one myself) and for me this encapsulates a certain stage in life that cannot be glossed over or denied. The thing I like best about Colette is that she doesn't flinch.

Another favourite is her novella The Cat. Colette writes superbly about cats and they feature in many of her tales. She doesn't anthropomorphise, but they are just as important as characters in her stories as humans. In The Cat, a woman becomes furiously jealous of her lover's cat. And to be honest, you can understand why. Can one be too "fond of animals"? Personally, I think not, but many people would disagree, and in this complex tale there is a distinct whiff of the unsavoury about their relationship. The cat is also a symbol of his lost childhood and independence and his uncertainties as he hovers on the brink of family life. The woman will never possess him until the cat goes. And the cat, Saha, has no intention of letting that happen - not while she knows she is still loved.

Here's a quote. "Alain looked up; nine stories up, in the middle of the almost round moon, the little horned shadow of a cat was leaning forward, waiting."

"A small shadowy blue shape, outlined like a cloud with a hem of silver, sitting on the dizzy edge of the night..."

"...at the age where he might have coveted a little car, a journey abroad....Alain nevertheless remained the-young-man-who-has-bought-a-little-cat."

"Saha's beautful yellow eyes, in which the great nocturnal pupil was slowly invading the iris, stared into space, picking out moving, floating, invisible points."

Rick Wakeman - Excerpts From The Six Wives Of Henry VIII

Aaarrgghh! I said I'd post more prog and for me this just screams PRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRO-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In a very loud voice.
Actually, it's not that bad when you listen to it (it gets unbearable after 3 mins. though - you have been warned). Well, not quite as bad as you'd reasonably expect given the size of his "equipment", the length and weird silkiness of his hair, and the *gulp* cape. I think Wakers now lives on the Isle of frigging Man and likes a game of golf FFS.
Rock ON!!!!!

Another quote of the day - Byron

Presently re-reading Byron - A Self-Portrait, edited by Peter Quennell.

It's a brilliant read. Really fresh and entertaining. It's a collection of letters and diaries, and is never, ever dull. You get accounts in his own words of the famous drinking out of a skull, the menagerie, the countless love affairs, Shelley's death, the lot.

Here's an interesting excerpt from a letter he wrote to legendary publisher John Murray.

"Mr Keats, whose poetry you enquire after, appears to me what I have already said: such writing is a sort of mental masturbation....neither poetry nor anything else but a Bedlam vision produced by raw pork and opium."

Raw pork??

And "I have been reading Grimm's correspondence. He repeats frequently, in speaking of a poet, or a man of genius in any department.......that he must have une ame qui se tourmante, un esprit violent. How far this may be true I know not; but if it were, I should be a poet "per excellenza"; for I have always had une ame, which not only tormented itself but everybody else in contact with it; and un esprit violent, which has almost left me without any esprit at all.

Great reading.

Quote of the day

"The word is not the thing, but a flash in whose light we perceive the thing." (Diderot)

Ramble On - Led Zeppelin

The ultimate autumn song. Leaves are falling all around, etc..
Far, far better band than the Beatles, in every respect.
Compare the present day Robert Plant to McCartney. I think I need say no more.

Shortbread Stories

I have another piece of flash fiction that's just gone live over on Shortbread Stories.

Click here to find it.

Monty Python - Nudge Nudge

I LOVE this sketch. Know wot I mean?

Cake of the Week - the fudge doughnut

This week's featured cake is the fudge doughnut. This one was purchased first thing this morning from the local bakery. It was wedged behind a metal support in the glass display case, and the shop assistant was unable to dislodge it with tongs - she had to fling them aside and resort to "bare hands". Age isn't a measure of codgerliness but this lady was well on in years - even older than me by quite a long way. I would happily nominate her for "codger of the week" - my next feature.

I seem to have survived with no ill eff-e-e-e-c-c-c-.....................

Geoffrey goes insane

"I want to paint with my own shit," raved Geoffrey. He was still in his "art" phase. "I want to be primal. No boundaries. No staid, dull old conventions..."



"No consideration for other people," I muttered tetchily, wondering vaguely if Tuppence had managed to loot a strait jacket this time. He was due back from his ram raid any minute. "Who do you think you are, Geoffrey? R.D. frigging Laing?"



"His theories about family and society have been completely discredited," said a smug voice from just outside the window, which was permanently stuck open two inches at the bottom due to an ill-fitting sash. "Pills are the answer nowadays."



"You and your pills can do one, Wilson," said Geoffrey loftily. "We're on a different level here. We're entering a whole new plane."



"Oh yes. Has your old one lost a wing or something? Holes along the fusillage perhaps? Or just metal fatigue? " sniggered Wilson. Yes - the Ghastly Doctor Wilson (who would win Gold every time if Boring People to Death with your Opinions was an Olympic sport) had arrived just as Geoffrey was going spectacularly bonkers (if going Bonkers was an Olympic sport...etc.)

"I'll just take your blood pressures while I'm here," bustled Wilson officiously. "Where's my sphyg?"

"Several inches up your rectum like it should be, I hope," I sneered. I don't like sneering, but sometimes I can't help myself.

"Found it! it was round my neck all the bleedin' time...did you see what I did there? James Robertson Justice. He's my role model."

"I'd say you were more of a Kilmore myself. With your best mate being the Grim Reaper and all. It's like having our very own Burke and Hare."

"I'll take that as a compliment. We're all doomed you know. Doomed!"

"John Laurie. Yes, we know. We're all speeding willy nilly down the steep steep hill to hell in a ricketty handcart. Might as well enjoy some simple pleasures before we hurtle face first into the fiery lake. I mean it Geoffrey - crack open another crate of meths. I could really use a stiff one with a decent head on it. And you could do with getting some colour in your cheeks and all matey."

Once we had thrown some boiling fat over Wilson's clammy, sphyg-clutching fingers as they groped their evil way towards our upper arms, we sat down in our usual armchairs and sipped our meths as the screams died away and he slipped into unconsciousness.

"Nice with a slice of lemon and an olive, isn't it Tuppy."

"No. I hate froot. It makes me vom like a bastard. You aren't really going to paint with your own shit, are you Geoffrey? It smells pretty bad in here as it is."

"Nah. Changed my mind. I'm going to be a performance artist instead. Going to enact a murder - a real one mind - and film it in black and white "slo-mo". It'll look dead classy."

"Sounds like a plan Geoffrey. I like a snuff movie myself but it HAS to be in full technicolour. I wish you all the best with it. Who's the victim going to be, by the way? AAAaarrgghhh!!!!!!!!"

Geoffrey goes insane

"I want to paint with my own shit," raved Geoffrey. He was still in his "art" phase. "I want to be primal. No boundaries. No staid, dull old conventions..."



"No consideration for other people," I muttered tetchily, wondering vaguely if Tuppence had managed to loot a strait jacket this time. He was due back from his ram raid any minute. "Who do you think you are, Geoffrey? R.D. frigging Laing?"



"His theories about family and society have been completely discredited," said a smug voice from just outside the window, which was permanently stuck open two inches at the bottom due to an ill-fitting sash. "Pills are the answer nowadays."



"You and your pills can do one, Wilson," said Geoffrey loftily. "We're on a different level here. We're entering a whole new plane."



"Oh yes. Has your old one lost a wing or something? Holes along the fusillage perhaps? Or just metal fatigue? " sniggered Wilson. Yes - the Ghastly Doctor Wilson (who would win Gold every time if Boring People to Death with your Opinions was an Olympic sport) had arrived just as Geoffrey was going spectacularly bonkers (if going Bonkers was an Olympic sport...etc.)

"I'll just take your blood pressures while I'm here," bustled Wilson officiously. "Where's my sphyg?"

"Several inches up your rectum like it should be, I hope," I sneered. I don't like sneering, but sometimes I can't help myself.

"Found it! it was round my neck all the bleedin' time...did you see what I did there? James Robertson Justice. He's my role model."

"I'd say you were more of a Kilmore myself. With your best mate being the Grim Reaper and all. It's like having our very own Burke and Hare."

"I'll take that as a compliment. We're all doomed you know. Doomed!"

"John Laurie. Yes, we know. We're all speeding willy nilly down the steep steep hill to hell in a ricketty handcart. Might as well enjoy some simple pleasures before we hurtle face first into the fiery lake. I mean it Geoffrey - crack open another crate of meths. I could really use a stiff one with a decent head on it. And you could do with getting some colour in your cheeks and all matey."

Once we had thrown some boiling fat over Wilson's clammy, sphyg-clutching fingers as they groped their evil way towards our upper arms, we sat down in our usual armchairs and sipped our meths as the screams died away and he slipped into unconsciousness.

"Nice with a slice of lemon and an olive, isn't it Tuppy."

"No. I hate froot. It makes me vom like a bastard. You aren't really going to paint with your own shit, are you Geoffrey? It smells pretty bad in here as it is."

"Nah. Changed my mind. I'm going to be a performance artist instead. Going to enact a murder - a real one mind - and film it in black and white "slo-mo". It'll look dead classy."

"Sounds like a plan Geoffrey. I like a snuff movie myself but it HAS to be in full technicolour. I wish you all the best with it. Who's the victim going to be, by the way? AAAaarrgghhh!!!!!!!!"

Gravy of the week - Bisto beef.

This week's featured gravy is Bisto (beef flavour).

It's extremely tasty.

Why sweat over a pan? That's never a pleasant thing to do under any circumstances.

Simply Boil a kettle and make Bisto! Then pour it over your spuds or chips or sausages or all three - and if there's any left in the jug just drink it for afters.

Then get one of these blood pressure-o-meters and marvel as the needle zooms to undreamt of heights.

Not that I'm saying that there is a connection between Bisto, salt levels, and high blood pressure - no. Not at all. Bisto is a tasty beverage-cum-condiment and an asset to any gourmet's kitchen.

Some more jokes from Les Dawson.

I often browse through Les Dawson's Secret Notebooks. Here are a couple of lines that made me smile - like a crack in a septic tank as Les would say.

"Did you ever see the size of his verucca?" "No, I didn't know him that well."

"I'll have you know I'm only twelve stone and some pounds." "How many pounds?" "Sixty two."

"...[Bert]...hasn't performed since Dunkirk. He says it makes the shrapnel move."

re.holidays..."Did you have the shish kebabs?" "From the moment we arrived. Bert blamed it on the way they cooked the chips."

My parents were determined that I should carry on the family tradition of music. For seven years I sweated away on the piano stool. Then things improved - my dad bought me a piano.

My great aunt Margaret, just before she died at the ripe old age of ninety eight, called me to her bedside and whispered, nephew, if you ever fail to get a laugh as a comedian I shall turn over in my grave. That was ten years ago. Yesterday I attended a seance in Birmingham. The medium went into a deep trance and said, 'I don't know for whom this concerns, but I'm getting a very strange message through from someone called Spinning Maggie.'

All from Les Dawson's Secret Notebooks, selected and introduced by Tracy Dawson. £9.99 from JR Books Ltd.

Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac - "Oh Well", Live@ Music Mash 1969

Love Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac. Sheer class.

The Meaning of Existence (oh why not just say life) captured in a sentence #2

I don't love you any more - I haven't for years - but I'll assist you to the toilet because I won't be able to cope with the guilt if I don't.

The Meaning of Existence, captured in a sentence #1

I still love you even if you're old and you can't manage the toilet.

Name this tune in one

#Err...#......got it yet?

Here's a clue. It's nothing out of the "hit parade". Hit parades for the last twenty nine years actually. There you go.

Here's a two and a three. #Err...err....errrrr........#

Prize is, as ever, a year's supply of pork scratchings made from real pig, but this time instead of all the bristles being removed by my own gnarled arthritic fingers, the pigs were waxed. Much simpler.

Pinky favoured the vajazzle so mind your fillings.

Is Life Worth Living?

"Geoffrey?"

"Yes?"

"Pour us a snifter and chuck us the baccy will you? It's gone ten."

"OK. Wait till I get off the bog first."

"JUST HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!!!" interrupted a familiar voice. None other than the Ghastly Dr. Wilson. Covered in seaweed and stinking of sewage as usual. (why is this? I cannot be arsed explaining, but it's All There in previous posts....) Sticking his head in the window without so much as would you mind or a by your leave.

"Oh for -"

"What the Kentucky Fried Chicken are YOU doing here o Ghastly one? Lovely to see you and all that," lied Geoffrey, as he carefully replaced the lav seat and forced a smile.

"I'm here to save you two utter wastes of space from yourselves. Don't have that drink. Put that baccy down. Pop the kettle on and make some hot water instead. Don't have that bacon and egg sandwich. Rather, have a plate of cracked bulgar wheat with a splash of miso, raw garlic and a steamed macadamia nut. If you stick with that regime through the week you can treat yourselves to some Barleycup and an organic sultana each on weekends. Maybe a carob bar. Mind and go for all these cancer tests as well. And don't forget your five a day. Or your compulsory forty five minutes of aerobic exercise."

"Will we live to a ripe old age then Doctor - if we do all that you say?"

"Well you'll avoid the sanctions."

"Sanctions?"

"If you don't adhere to current medical thinking, we'll shoot you. Simple as. You've no right to be alive and taking up space on the planet if you can't take a few simple steps to protect your own health."

"What about pleasure? Cutting loose? Letting go occasionally?"

"Some might take issue but personally I see nothing wrong with having a prune instead of a sultana at Christmas. Surely you can't complain about that! Look at me! I'm a picture of health. Okay, I'm bald, I've got a bad leg, a paunch, piles, hammer toes, gout, halitosis, gingivitis, and chronic flatulence but otherwise I'm the best specimen you're likely to see round here."

"But you're only 27."

"And your point is?"

Geoffrey and I exchanged glances, then nodded.

"Do you have the gun on you now? for doing the shooting part."

"Oh no! a-hahaha! I have other people to do that - nurses, for example. They get £28 a head plus an hour's annual leave. No - I'm a doctor - my role is to cure, never to kill."


No gun, eh? We were safe enough. It was time to unleash the Wheechie Net.

"Press the lever please Geoffrey."

WHEEEEEEEEEEEECCCCCCHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Suddenly the Ghastly Wilson was bundled into a sturdy net and wheeched or "drawn" upwards and sidie-ways by hi-powered rope attachments towards the handy catapult which we have installed beside the house for just such eventualities.

"PEEEEEEEEEEEEEEyoinnnnnnnnGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!" catapult twangs.

"SPLAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" The Ghastly Wilson is launched bay-wards, where the ever-hungry, snapping jaws of the orca await.

"Nom nom nom.................."

"Heh heh heh. Bye bye Wilson! What were you saying about cracked bulgar wheat?"

Treble brandies all round.

Taken on Midsummer's Day, 2011

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah?

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..........................

Yes - Starship Trooper

Prog!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The first Yes album is their only listenable one - in my opinion. Chuck another log on the fire and let's have some more nettle beer. We're not 65 yet!

Scots wurd o' th' day

"Bumfuck" - v., to cough loudly and suddenly in front of a horse. As in, "I got such a fright when you started bumfucking that I dropped my bananas. Can't you gargle or something?"

Scots wurd o' th' day. Bumfuck.

I'm lying of course.

It's "chitterie-chatterie", n., a piece of bread eaten immediately after bathing. As in, "I'm starving after that hip-bath - throw another lump of coal on the fire Isa and pass us ma chitterie-chatterie. Bung some crowdie on it if there's any ben the hoose."

That one IS genuine - from page 83 of Chambers's Scots Dictionary, 1959 edition.

Or

"Dorty-pouch", n., a saucy person. As in, "We dinnae hae nae dorty pouches in this hoose, ken."
From page 141, ibid. as they say.

Benny Hill remake of The Wicker Man

Posted this one before but worth another look. HAPPY SOLSTICE!!!

The Doors 02 Who Do You Love Absolutely Live

Y'see?

re. previous posts - THIS is what spews forth when one has what is commonly called a "hangover".

Death, Biscuits and Baccy

Is there anything else worth thinking about?

Vic and Bob - Mulligan and O'Hare

Still has me in hysterics.

King of Comedy - Pupkin Chats with Liza & Jerry

I'm very tempted to say this is my favourite movie clip. Just, you know, says a lot about the ...oh I can't be bothered.
The final line from the scene is clipped - it's a shame as it's the best "Good luck in Rio".

Kind of a metaphor for life. Good luck in Rio. As if.

Scots wurd o' the nicht - "buck"

Does anyone ever use this word? The only place I've encountered it is in Midlothian. It was used as a substitute for the eff word.

Buck off. Not buckin' likely. I'm buckin' freezin'. And so forth.

Buckin' broncos never came into it. Unfortunately.

The Jesus & Mary Chain - Blues From A Gun live Oslo 2007

Processed meat of the week

Chopped pork, from the local butcher's, via Spar.

I know, I know.

It's packed full of salt, chemicals, preservatives, and saturated fat. That's why it tastes brilliant.

On a sandwich with a bit of tomato as sop to the bowels. Sprinkling of pepper. Eh??

Oooh I think I've a wee touch of indigestion...pain under the ribcage, centre of chest, radiating up into the jaw and down the left A-A-A-A-R-R-R-MMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!

Sound horn

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm......no, I won't.

Ben Y Vrackie from the old A9 recently. Just south of Bruar.

Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris - A Song for You

Second all-time favourite song.

Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris - A Song for You

Second all-time favourite song.

Biscuit of the week - the Coco-nut Ring

I'm repeating myself again. I knew I shouldn't have eaten that second slice of black pudding this morning.

No. I have featured the Co-operative Coco-nut Ring as biscuit of the week before.

I'm sorry to be doing it again, really I am, but I have a very limited biscuit range. I only really eat Toffee Dodgers, jam sandwich creams (Fox's, preferably) and these. And that's probably quite enough. I'm not really interested in further biscuit exploration. I don't care for a chocolate biscuit as a rule, but if I do I would probably opt for a KitKat. Although I quite like those really chunky chocolate chip cookies. I dislike the word "cookie".

Anyway - the coconut ring is a plain biscuit, light and shortbready in texture with a very good coconut flavour - so good that it might well be artificial but I can't be bothered checking the list of ingredients to find out. There are loads in the packet and they're only 87p so a pretty good buy I reckon.

Highly recommended.

Biscuit of the week. The Co-operative Coco-nut Ring.

Scots wurd(s) o' th' day - fuckin' radge

We're abandoning Chambers's Scots Dictionary for the moment and coming bang up to date (well...1970s/80s) with our Scots wurds o' th' day.

Fuckin' radge. Or, fuckin' radgepot. Common parlance in the Edinburgh I remember so well from my youth.

Fuckin' adj. (NOT Scots, of course. It's merely a frequently employed prefix)

Radge(pot) n.

As in, "Ye're a fuckin' radgepot, ya bam."

I've just consulted Chambers's Scots dictionary (1959 edition) and I find the word "radgie". Interesting. I wonder if this is the same word? The dictionary has it as an adjective.

Radgie, adj. horse, &c.: becoming excited and plunging wildly.

It sounds plausible anyway.

Rousseau's Third Walk

I sometimes dip into Rousseau's Reveries of the Solitary Walker. It's an embittered rant - much of it - written at a time when he felt rejected, angry, resentful, and pretty much at the end of his rope.

That's why I like it. You can find some pithy truths in amongst the ranting. When you're in a desperate state of mind it's hard to lie to yourself any more.

What leaps out at me more than anything is his whacking great ego - but I'm prepared to set that aside. Ego's not as straightforward as some like to make out., anyway, and not much would be achieved without it.

I'm going to quote a bit that really appeals to me and you can make of it what you will.

'I have met many men who were more learned in their philosophising, but their philosophy remained as it were external to them. Wishing to know more than other people, they studied the workings of the universe, as they might have studied some machine they had come across, out of sheer curiosity. They studied human nature in order to speak knowledgeably about it, not in order to know themselves; their efforts were directed to the instruction of others and not to their own inner enlightenment. Several of them merely wanted to write a book, any book so long as it was successful. Once it was written and published, its contents no longer interested them in the least..........I have always thought that before instructing others one should begin by knowing enough for one's own needs..........'

Only problem is, how do you know when you know enough? can you ever know enough?


And...

'We enter the race when we are born and we leave it when we die. Why learn to drive your chariot better when you are close to the finishing post?'

'No doubt adversity is a great teacher, but its lessons are dearly bought, and often the profit we gain from them is not worth the price it cost us. What is more, these lessons come so late in the day, that by the time we master them they are of no use to us.'

Reveries of the Solitary Walker - a cheery read to take on your hols.

Well if you're going to Carnoustie....

My Five on a Friday

Here's the link to Starry Blue Sky blog where I'm this week's Five on a Friday person.

Thanks Rhiannon. Lovely blog.

Gaelic psalms at Back Free Church, Isle Of Lewis- 20/21/oct/2003

Dick Gaughan - Tom Paine's Bones

Dick Gaughan - Tom Paine's Bones

The Rolling Stones - Jig-Saw Puzzle

Exile on Main Street/thoughts on the Rolling Stones

I've been listening to Exile on Main Street this afternoon. I used to love late sixties/early seventies Rolling Stones, but I went off them a bit once I got into Gram Parsons a couple of years back. It's well-known that Gram was very much involved with them, especially Keith, and there were some dark tales of drug use and so forth which were pretty depressing and distasteful. But I can't deny that they put out some terrific music at the time. Exile on Main Street, in my opinion, was the last great Stones album.

Reader kweschunnare no. seven

Here we have reader kweschunnare number seven - this one's from my good friend Axle (real name Aloysius St. John von ...well you know the rest). Because he's one of my closest friends I've allowed him the liberty of getting the kweschuns in the rong order, AND "going on at extreme length". Also, he was good enough to provide a number of his own good photographs of St Kilda which I've blogged a couple of times (click on "St Kilda link" under this post), and, I forgot his birthday this week.......deep shame. Axle also knows more about Coronation Street than anyone I've ever encountered. "Insanely comprehensive knowledge" and "obsessive fan" spring to mind. Pat Phoenix is his all-time favourite, I think.

Anyways, heeeeeeere we go again. As usual, all comments in italics are my own.

1. Fave time of day? No specific time but any day that ends in "off" or starts with "holi"! but I do love watching a beautiful sunset or rise.

2. Fave smell? Definitely NOT Pseudomonas Pyogenes! (yeah - I didn't ask what WASN'T - oh never mind!!) Hope I've remembered the term correctly!! when I was a student nurse (oh my god...) an old woman had a large gangrenous bedsore which was basically a hole, which had become infected by the aforementioned. The smell is something I'll never forget! absolutely horrendous! (thanks for sharing Axle) Smells that I really like are tobacco and pipes, coffee (even though I have never smoked and rarely drink coffee), bread in the oven, autumn bonfires, and not sure if I love the smell but "have to" smell the pages of new magazines and books (not every single one of them!!!) The smell of Shield soap and another one with an appley fragrance - can't remember what it was called or if they are still manufactured remind me of when I stayed in a nurses' home in the summer of 1980.

3. Fave film and or film star. I don't actually watch a lot of films but pretty much enjoy anything with Bette Davis or Katharine Hepburn in. Others are Schindler's List, Sound of Music, Shawshank Redemption, Shirley Valentine and The Deerhunter. Also love the British kitchen sink dramas of the 1960s, such as the likes of A Taste of Honey, Saturday Night Sunday Morning, A Kind of Loving, Spring and Port Wine etc.. Very much like films about historical events, especially within last 150 years. Having said that, I'm not a fan of most WW2 films or Westerns.

4. Fave footwear IN LESS THAN TEN WORDS. Not sure about this one; I mostly wear trainers and have a pair of walking boots (16 words so far...) that I really like. When I was about thirteen, I had a pair of platform boots that I thought were "great" - black "wetlook" with purple "platforms - it was the seventies and purple and plum seemed to be very much "in"! Totally forgot this was supposed to be under ten words!! (....................)

5. Fave music? I have a very wide taste in music - it depends on the mood. Not a huge modern jazz, heavy metal or reggae fan, although I like a lot of the classics of these styles. Some acts/singers I really like: Abba, Annie Lennox, Aretha Franklin, Adele, Alicia Keys, Andy Williams, Anita Baker, Antony and the Johnsons - so anything beginning with "A" then!! Will that include AEM (sorry - REM??!!!) I like a lot of songs purely for nostalgic reasons even if not particularly great songs, or they might just be good to dance to (very fond of disco) and I have to add that I'm PROUD to admit no DECLARE my love for Eurovision!!

6. Fave food? Some (Kate!!) might expect this to be fishfingers as this is the highest extent of my culinary skills, but I do love a good meal even if it sadly has to be cooked by someone else. On the menu at my work I think my favourite is Chicken Chasseur. I love a roast dinner and puddings such as rice, semolina, tapioca and custard (I never knew this??? I feel a bit sick...) Really like fish or chicken and chips. Also really like parsnips and Pink Lady Apples.

7. Fave book/writer I don't read much fiction or have a favourite author but I enjoy biographies and books on social history. As a child I loved Enid Blyton, especially one called Shadow the Sheepdog.

8. Have all of the above ever converged? Doubt it but probably a lovely thought till the briefest waft of Psuedomonas ruins everything!

9. What kweschun would you like to ask yourself? Why have I forgone Question Time to do this, and why do I keep in such close and regular contact with Kate?

10. Bowels in, or bowels out? Not partial to a prolapse thank you very much! though "contents" always "out"!!

Phew!! thanks Axle - very enlightening. I knew most of that lot, but not all. Thanks very much for doing it - and for being a really great friend over thirty years - and so sorry for forgetting your birthday. I must be losing the plot. My own answers will appear over the weekend sometime.

Reader Kweschunnare

Axle Snailbotom, as I explained earlier, is terribly slow. So instead we have Maz, who is a shopkeeper from the West Midlands. I knew that she would provide some interesting answers and I wasn't disappointed.

Kweschun one. What is your fave smell? The smell of the ground after rain has fallen wants me to get on all fours and lick it - sorry if you're underage and reading this but you gotta learn some day!

Kweschun two. What is your fave music? Anything I can sing to...if it's too hard to learn it's normally rubbish anyway.

Kweschun three. What is your fave film and or film star? PS I Love You Gerrard Butler. That man wants ME! It's sad, soppy and definitely crap but I like it purely because it's shit! Can I just add that Mr Bean is an idiot so I like him too.

Kweshchun four. Describe your fave item of footwear in less than ten words. I have no shoes - I'm Indian!

Kweschun five. What is your fave time of day? I have a crush on a certain somebody who buys a morning paper - when he/she/him/her/they/all/everyone come in at 7am I go all weird and pathetic but I look forward to 7am when I'm guaranteed to have some kind of weird fungus growing on my nose or in it growing out

Kweschun six. What is your fave food? Burger and chips...I don't know why I'm fat...it's a bitter world this is

Kweschun seven. Have all of the above ever converged? I'm sure I dreamt once that I was eating burger and chips off Gerrard Butler's face on all fours at 7am with.. no stop I can't go on!!

Kweschun eight. What kweschun would you like to ask yourself? Do you enjoy behaving like you're at the end of your life? (loads of swear words in the middle)

Kweschun ten. Bowels in, or bowels out? Oh I don't know -is this a trick question? So that's Maz from the West Midlands - thanks Maz! cracking answers - thanks very much for your time.

Biscuit of the week - the Toffee Dodger

I can't recommend this biscuit highly enough.

I bought it as it was on special in the Co-op - sorry, I can't remember exactly how much they were, but they won't have been dear as I don't care for the Jammie Dodger, and only cheapness would have lured me into buying anything similar.

The problem with Jammie Dodgers is that the jam is just too hard. They're far too chewy. The Toffee Dodger on the other hand is like a round Twix without the chocolate, except the biscuit has a nicer texture. Some might see no chocolate as being a drawback - I don't. Sometimes you just don't want a chocolate biscuit - it's too much for you. You just want a bit of sweetness that isn't too cloying.

There's also a heart-shaped hole in the centre, where you can see the toffee. What more could you want from a biscuit?

Kind review in Northwords Now

"Kate Smart's blog could never be described as 'run of the mill'." Nobody could have given me a nicer compliment. "Kate clearly demonstrates how blogging can be used to great effect." Bask!

Many thanks to Tony Ross for this really kind review in the current edition of Northwords Now.
I'm absolutely delighted to have been given a mention, never mind anything else.

Tony's clearly read the blog, and "gets it" - which is brilliant. Yes, most of it could be described as "flash fiction", but I haven't thought of it that way myself. I'm just pleased that posts such as "Desperate Dan's Testicles" , the "Heartache Removal Service" - which is an on-going concern by the way - and the "Mind Muck Removal Device" have been read and appreciated.

To find out more - just click on the links below this post - or, find 'em on the list of links down the right hand side of the page.

This is encouraging me to put more of my work out there - somewhere...I'm rubbish at sending stuff away. Anyone thinks I can write anything specific for them and wants me to do it - give me a shout. (lazy...)

I'm well aware that this blog isn't everyone's cup of tea - or bottle of gin, even. So, I'll say, once again, how much I appreciate the readers who have kept me going with this over the past three years. Without your generous support, I would not have continued.

Edgar Winter Group - Frankenstein

I must admit I've not watched this all the way through (heard one minute of this, you've heard it all basically - and be warned - there IS a drum solo), but I couldn't resist posting it as it is a classic of its kind.
The blurb underneath sez it all - feel Rock's majesty.
Good grief.
This is the kind of thing that gave me a terrible pre-hangover headache in the 1970s - can feel one coming on now actually...and check out the clothes! blimey...

Malcolm Tucker - A Tribute to Brilliant Swearing

This one's got "fuckitty bye" and "leaky fucking mingebox" on it....oh! don't watch if you're offended by foul language...
The thing that makes Malcolm Tucker so funny, rather than boringly offensive, is the build up and the context - you don't get build up or much context here - but anyone who's watched In the Loop or The Thick of It will know anyway.
Peter Capaldi - I love him but where does he find all that rage? and how the FUCK does he manage to keep a straight fuckin' face by the way?

Scots wurd o' th' day

Back to Alexander Warrack's Chambers's Scots Dictionary again.

Amazing book - or "tome". Today, it's fallen open at page 252, where there are any number of words worth a ponder, and most of which I've never heard before in my life. Think I'll choose -

Haukum-plaukum (adj.) - every way equal. Not quite sure how you'd use that one. Would it be as in, he's haukum plaukum to the task, or maybe the twins' mince 'n' tatties were haukum plaukum? If anyone knows, please tell me.

Another one. Hauselock, Hausslock, n., The wool on a sheep's neck. That's easy. Thon sheep should be ashamed o' itsel' - its hauselock's desperate oan a trim.

I'm now getting curious about the roots of words. The dictionary has a pretty good introduction - which I'm only now glancing through. First thing which catches the eye is "Up until the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Scots called their language 'Inglis', which is the northern form of the primitive 'Angelisc'." And "Gawin Douglas (c. 1475 - 1522) is the first writer of any importance to use 'Scottis' as a term for his 'tongue materne'." (tongue materne! get him!)

H'anyway......one must get on.

More later.............

Spike Milligan lines

Read the first ever Goon Show script last night. Now I know I said that I don't like the Goons, at all, but there ARE some funny lines in it.

For example.

"...worry turned me grey...which gave me a peculiar appearance as I was bald at the time..."

"I paid the fine with trembling fingers but...they wanted money!" (my favourite I think)

"...now tell me the first race you ever won? / The Old Crocks Race in 1892. /But that was before you were born! /Do you imagine it was easy for me?"

(to a car mechanic) "Have you put the bonnet on? / Yorst, and I don't arf look stupid in it."

"My name is Porridge, Sir Harold Porridge. For months my team had been digging for the lost tomb of the greatest of the Pharoahs, King Tutankhamen......For two years we dug every inch of ground - then finally we received a cable from the Egyptian government. It said simply - "Stop digging Hackney Marshes - try Egypt!"

All written by Spike Milligan.

Leonard Nimoy - Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town

Just jaw-droppingly unexpected...

Spike Milligan

Still browsing through The Essential Spike Milligan, compiled by Alexander Games (4th estate). Mixed feelings about Spike. For me, 25% of the time (maybe more...) he was prolonged-belly-laugh funny. The rest of the time - well.
Was eager to see the TV programme last night called "I told you I was ill" recorded in 2002, I think. Tributes are usually not my cup of tea, and this one was particulary awful - so bad I switched it off.
I don't really like the Goons - possibly put off by that awful footage of Prince "grovelling bastard (according to Spike)" Charles doing his cringey Bluebottle voice.
There are also large swathes of material in the book which to me seem incredibly racist. You're not supposed to say that about Spike Milligan, but there it is.
It's not Spike's fault Prince Charles was a fan. But still.
There are however several pieces in the book which are just stand-back-in-awe brilliant - The Flasher (II) being one, and The Singing Foot being another.
He also writes brilliantly about the war, about life around and after the war, and about his mental breakdown.
He writes with an uncomfortable honesty and a humour born of despair, which is often too raw to laugh at. I can't simply dismiss him as racist. I need to find a context - an excuse maybe...if there can be an excuse...
The thing that gets me, is when he writes about being battle-fatigued "...this was a time in my life when I was very demoralised. I was not really me any more."

more later

Tuppence eats kippers and reads Foucault

"Uncle Tuppy uncle Tuppy!"

"WHAT???"  I tried and failed to rip open a boil-in-the-bag kipper without burning my fingers and sploshing kipper juice all down myself.

"What paths have brought us to the point where we are "at fault" with respect to our own sex? And how have we come to be a civilisation so peculiar as to tell itself that, through an abuse of power which has not ended, it has long sinned against sex?"

"I'm sure I don't know Tuppence. I'll put the kettle on and have a wee think about that for a minute." Hell's teeth, I thought. If this is what teaching someone to read aged thirty five does you can keep it. I'd assumed he'd stick to Swallows and Amazons till he was at least forty.

"This is brilliant uncle Tuppy! I'm expanding my brain by eating kippers and reading Foucault's "The History of Sexuality" and you know what the best part is?"

"No..."

"I'm only half way through volume one! there's another two to go!"

CS Lewis

Nobody can say I'm not eclectic.

"You're not eclectic"

"Oh shut up..."


Interesting article by CS Lewis here - mean to read it more carefully over the weekend and will comment also. Thanks to Christine for sending it.

Howl - on the road in a bath chair, sticking it to the death drive

More thoughts on the film 'Howl', which I saw yesterday.

Like most people I read the beat poets, William Burroughs and so forth when I was young. Along with Sartre and other stuff I didn't understand.

I think what mattered to me then was authenticity - it matters now too, only as I age I understand a lot more about the compromises that everyone makes.

Ginsberg talks about "the fear trap". Of being afraid of being alone and old and vulnerable.

That's realistic. And as you get older, it stares you in the face.

I sometimes say I want to live in a cave but I don't mean it. A metaphorical cave, at best - and even then I don't mean it.

I'd rather be warm, fed, and comfortable.

When you're young you can take lots of chances - any chances I took, I don't regret, even if things went pear-shaped and worse. It's good to live - and to really live. But as you get older - well. Even more so if you have children.

It might not be on to get out there on the road once you're knocking on a bit, but you can still aim for a type of authenticity. In fact, peace and quiet are conducive to lengthy spells of reflection. Perhaps being on the road is another form of self-avoidance. It's a way of sticking two fingers up at the death drive I suppose.

Don't get me wrong - I think it's a good thing if that's what you're drawn to do. Or even if it's what you drift into without thinking about it. It's a collection of experiences. I loved it when I was young, and I'm sure I would again, only I'm not in a position to do that...hmmm....

Someone gave me a good quote some years ago when I was contemplating travel. It was from the dhammapada - I must try to find it. Something along the lines of - there is no need to travel, as everything is contained in this fathoms long body of ours. But expressed much more succinctly and beautifully, of course.

Anyway - the beat poets and Ginsberg. I have a lot of time for them because they were attempting to express what it is to be alive, in the moment, without being constrained by ideas of form and convention. I don't especially enjoy reading them, but I'm very glad they got published and that their stuff is "out there" and available.

I found the film interesting mainly, personally, because of Ginsberg's ideas about writing and self expression. Easy to sneer - I don't want to.

It seemed almost like two separate films - one, about Ginsberg's ideas, which are in themselves worth a film of their own, and the second, about the obscenity trial and issues of freedom of speech. Both are inter-linked, obviously - but the film couldn't quite do justice to both.

Liked it though - thought-provoking, and far better than much of the dreck that's about.

Drone...snore....eh?? what???

The cultural marathon that is my current week continues.

Today I staggered in to Dundee and saw Howl, the film about Allen Ginsberg's poem, at Dundee Contemporary Arts. Also tottered through the Manfred Pernice exhibition/installation, and liked it thoroughly.

I say staggered and tottered as I was working last night, and got only the barest minimum of sleep which only just enabled me to find the strength to travel twenty miles...

Will give a more considered opinion tomorrow. When I've slept. Hopefully....

Fancy new-fangled music

Previous post - Dundee band The Creeping Ivies. Primitive garage rock - great stuff.

I'm hoping that Tuppence will listen to it and perhaps "move on" from his ghastly prog rock phase.

He's rebuilt the moog, you know. It crashed over the cliffs after the last debacle at his gig at the Puff Inn, if you remember (probably not, and I can't say I blame you...). But there were some tin cans left over after he constructed the CHeaSe-Buster, and so he decided to weld them together and make another Moog. Sigh.

I think he's on for the Puff Inn again this weekend. Oh dear.

The Creeping Ivies - Shake It Up

More thoughts on Chic Murray

The thing that puts me off Chic Murray is the tartan connection. By and large, I don't much like Scottish comedians. (that sounds like the beginning of a Chic Murray joke...) and I can't stand tartan kitsch unless it's completely ironic and having the total guts ripped out of it.
Scottish comedians of a certain type and generation, that is. Loathe Hector Nicol, Jimmy Logan, Duncan Macrae - all the White Heather Club and Hogmanay stuff.
I've been looking at some Youtube footage of Chic. What puts me off is the audience. My parents' generation. Reminds me of horrible Hogmanays with leering drunken men and everybody stinking of whisky and three sheets to the wind. Usually some Andy Stewart or Calum Kennedy blaring away in the background. Oh what fun. Not. I hate it for its hypocrisy and its misogyny.
So in a way, I prefer to read Chic's stuff.
I don't think he was that keen on the tartan crap himself, but hard to escape it at that time really. Personally I'd like to have seen him with no canned laughter and no tartan AT ALL - just the jokes.

More thoughts on Chic Murray

The thing that puts me off Chic Murray is the tartan connection. By and large, I don't much like Scottish comedians. (that sounds like the beginnings of a Chic Murray joke...) and I can't stand tartan kitsch unless it's completely ironic and having the total guts ripped out of it.
Scottish comedians of a certain type and generation, that is. Loathe Hector Nicol, Jimmy Logan, Duncan Macrae - all the White Heather Club and Hogmanay stuff.
I've been looking at some Youtube footage of Chic. What puts me off is the audience. My parents' generation. Reminds me of horrible Hogmanays with leering drunken men and everybody stinking of whisky and three sheets to the wind. Usually some Andy Stewart or Calum Kennedy blaring away in the background. Oh what fun. Not. I hate it for its hypocrisy and its misogyny.
So in a way, I prefer to read Chic's stuff.
I don't think he was that keen on the tartan crap himself, but hard to escape it at that time really. Personally I'd like to have seen him with no canned laughter and no tartan AT ALL - just the jokes.

Some Chic Murray quotes

All from Robbie Grigor's book about Chic Murray, "Just Daft" published by Birlinn books.

'Unfortunately, at the AGM of the Unspeakably Shy Society (Rutherglen branch) nobody was able to attend.' (possibly my favourite, as I can identify...)

'I don't care if he was the head of the Light Brigade. There will be no charging here!'

'If something's neither here nor there, where the hell is it?'

'In the Olympic village, a man wearing trainers and carrying a long stick, was asked by a stranger, ' Are you a pole vaulter?' 'Nein. I am German. But how did you know my name is Walter?'

'I was making tea in my pyjamas. I must remember to buy a teapot.'

'Ah! but what have I got up my sleeve? A broken arm if you're not careful.'

'She wasn't all there. But I thought there was enough to make it interesting.'

'I got on a bus and went upstairs. The conductor asked for my fare. 'A single to the west End please,' I said. 'We don't go to the West End,' he said. I said, 'But you've got West End on the front of the bus.' He said, 'We've got Persil on the back of the bus but we don't take in washing.'

'That boy needed a good hiding. So I took him away and hid him where they'll never find him.'

'I walked into the bedroom. The curtains were drawn but the furniture was real.'

Loads more. Like I said before, the monologue The Nose is the funniest thing I've ever read.

Best £14.99 I've spent in a long while.

Some Chic Murray quotes

All from Robbie Grigor's book about Chic Murray, "Just Daft" published by Birlinn books.

'Unfortunately, at the AGM of the Unspeakably Shy Society (Rutherglen branch) nobody was able to attend.' (possibly my favourite, as I can identify...)

'I don't care if he was the head of the Light Brigade. There will be no charging here!'

'If something's neither here nor there, where the hell is it?'

'In the Olympic village, a man wearing trainers and carrying a long stick, was asked by a stranger, ' Are you a pole vaulter?' 'Nein. I am German. But how did you know my name is Walter?'

'I was making tea in my pyjamas. I must remember to buy a teapot.'

'Ah! but what have I got up my sleeve? A broken arm if you're not careful.'

'She wasn't all there. But I thought there was enough to make it interesting.'

'I got on a bus and went upstairs. The conductor asked for my fare. 'A single to the west End please,' I said. 'We don't go to the West End,' he said. I said, 'But you've got West End on the front of the bus.' He said, 'We've got Persil on the back of the bus but we don't take in washing.'

'That boy needed a good hiding. So I took him away and hid him where they'll never find him.'

'I walked into the bedroom. The curtains were drawn but the furniture was real.'

Loads more. Like I said before, the monologue The Nose is the funniest thing I've ever read.

Best £14.99 I've spent in a long while.

More from the Mull ferry

More Loch Tay reflections

Reflections in Loch Tay

...on the way over to Oban....

Thought for the day...

Be all you can be!

That was a really crap slogan from a few years back - one of these regular "get Scotland 'ealthy" campaigns, if I remember rightly.

As if.

I'm going to spend the rest of today wallowing in the tepid, bacteria-infested waters of my own neurosis.

I might decide to be a man tomorrow - again!

Cake of the week - Walker's Sultana and Cherry

I like cake, and this is not bad. I bought it in a Spar, and it was quite clearly a remnant of their unused Christmas stock, sitting as it was next to unsold tins of petticoat tails, Black *retch* Bun, and so forth.

It has a good flavour, but it is a little on the dry side.

Overall - I think I'll manage to force it down as long as I have plenty tea along with.

Salty snack of the week

Salt 'n' potato based snack of the week - Pringles Xtreme Smokin' Ribs.

They are disgusting. I should know - I ate quite a lot of them, before I decided....

Belch.

Salty snack of the week

Salt 'n' potato based snack of the week - Pringles Xtreme Smokin' Ribs.

They are disgusting. I should know - I ate quite a lot of them, before I decided....

Belch.

Two more Scots wurds o' the day

These are the two I originally thought of - but then I got distracted. Chambers's Scots Dictionary is riveting. Really...

"Stramash" - this is interesting. Stramash is a well-known word, not obscure at all. Most frequently used as a noun. An uproar; a tumult; a disturbance, fuss; smash, crash; wreck and ruin. However, it can also be used as a verb. I was unaware of that. To break in pieces, wreck. Hmm...

"Stushie; stushy" - an uproar or commotion. Another very well-known wurd.

I can be doing without any further stramashes or stushies for the foreseeable, thank you very much.

Scots wurd o' the day

Well there are three ackshully.

First off - "Shallmillens" n. meaning fragments. "I seem to have sat on a packet of Hobnobs and now I'm afraid they're in shallmillens. Gutted. Serve me right for keeping them in my back pocket."

(Blimey I'm a bit tense today - post just dropped through the letterbox and I about jumped out of my skin.)

Secondly - "Strang-pig" - n. a vessel for preserving urine as a lye. "I'm off down to Ikea to get another Strang-pig - thon one's no' hauf sprung a leak."

Thirdly - everyone knows this one but I'm putting it in as it's one of my favourites - "Stravaig" v. to saunter, stroll; to go about aimlessly and idly. "I've spent my whole life stravaiging about and whit's wrang wi' that? You got a problem wi' me?" *nut*

Scots wurd o' the day

Well there are three ackshully.

First off - "Shallmillens" n. meaning fragments. "I seem to have sat on a packet of Hobnobs and now I'm afraid they're in shallmillens. Gutted. Serve me right for keeping them in my back pocket."

(Blimey I'm a bit tense today - post just dropped through the letterbox and I about jumped out of my skin.)

Secondly - "Strang-pig" - n. a vessel for preserving urine as a lye. "I'm off down to Ikea to get another Strang-pig - thon one's no' hauf sprung a leak."

Thirdly - everyone knows this one but I'm putting it in as it's one of my favourites - "Stravaig" v. to saunter, stroll; to go about aimlessly and idly. "I've spent my whole life stravaiging about and whit's wrang wi' that? You got a problem wi' me?" *nut*

Face in a tree

Seen earlier today....

Talisker Bay, Isle of Skye

Digressing for a minute - I took these years ago - found them and scanned them into the computer hence quality's not brilliant. Talisker Bay - wonderful place.