Whatever Boils Your Kettle - Strivers and Scroungers

"I know which one I'd rather do,"  I muttered as I thrust a "pamphlet" shrieking "ARE U A STRIVER OR A SCROUNGER?"  which some deranged nutter had rammed through our letterbox - or *hole* - on the fire, along with another screaming "DEATH TO SCROUNGERS"  and yet another yelling "GO AWAY ANYONE WHO'S NOT FROM ROUND HERE BEFORE WE KILL YOUSE ALL".
Yes, it's come to this.  Politix.  Politix has arrived, finally, on our draughty doorstep, via Mrs Tupfinder General's niece-by-marriage, Melaena Shovelbum-Steele.
Melaena is what we call an "incomer".
She's not "normal", like us.
She comes from "Overthere".
I don't think I need say more.
"I'm too old to strive," I said firmly, as she parked herself in Geoffrey's usual armchair,"And that seat's taken by the way.  Geoffrey's not here but I need it for putting my feet on."
"You're never to old to strive, Tuppy.  People - creatures like yourself, even - are living till ninety plus, thanks to the help of health boffins such as Drs Kwak and Wilson (see e-books, and paperbacks) and why on earth shouldn't you continue to contribute and do your bit for society, right up until your final breath? "He Strived Until He Dropped". Wouldn't you like to have that inscribed on your gravestone?"
"No.  Now sod off Melaena.  I've got a kettle to boil."
Melaena stood up, smoothing her Tupwatch Tartan trews over her well-toned thighs.  How did I know they were well-toned?  Because the Tupfinder General recently informed me with a heavy sigh that Melaena has installed a gym in the dungeon of Tupfinder Towers, complete with Stairmaster.
"I thought she was involved in the occult when she started banging on about The Stairmaster," he said, aghast," But no - it's worse.  She's a Parliamentary Candidate - and she's into body-pumping, and personal development - and what's worse still, she wants us ALL to do it...we've to have a fast day once a week and there's no smoking and no drinking and no bacon and no sausage rolls and we're not allowed to complain about anything because we've all to cultivate a positive mental attitude - Mrs T-G is NOT impressed...and my life is now officially HELL.  Hell Hell Hell.  And what's put the tin hat on it is, my home is a wreck - again (see e-books for details of previous debacle)"
Apparently, the gym was originally installed in the uppermost floor of the uppermost turret of Tupfinder Towers - just above the Secret Room, with the Vitrine (see e-books, and paperbacks) - however, due to the weight of the equipment, the entire room came loose from the ancient stone walls, and crashed holus bolus down through the turret and the banquet hall and the drawing-room and the kitchens and the pantry and the still-room, right into the bowels of the dungeon, where it rightly belongs.

Something Will Have To Be Done............................

Jeremy Brett Doing a Tablecloth Pull

As I thought - it's in the Six Napoleons.  You can see him doing a pretty good tablecloth pull from about 6.24.

The physics of a pulled tablecloth, seen in slow motion

The physics of a pulled tablecloth, seen in slow motion

I always like watching Jeremy Brett do this as Sherlock Holmes in (I think) The Six Napoleons.  I used to be able to do it as a child, with the tea table.  Haven't tried it in years...

Rolling Stones Stray Cat Blues

Vanished Paths

A link here from Scottish Islands Explorer: Abandoned Arderanish: If you are sailing in or out of Tarbert on the Uig crossing look to the south and you could see at least the whereabouts of a deserted ho...

Interesting - I think I'd like to know more about that family of long ago, and the abandoned footpath.  Footpaths are generally formed by the regular passage of feet - human or animal - over time.  It doesn't take long for them to appear, and even less time for them to vanish.
Reminds me of the path that meandered from a relative's cottage on Skye across a small heathery outcrop, over a fence and then across a grassy hill, to my aunt's - worn over fifty years, perhaps, by the relative's stout boots as he trekked the mile or two every day for his dinner, and summer visitors who ran along it towards the iron age fort, the shore, and fishing, and seal-watching, and all sorts of mischief. If you followed it, you would avoid the marshy bits and the hidden rabbit holes and tricky stones.
People still live around there, but they're different people, with different habits, and the path has gone.
Sometimes, if you stand near a place where a path has been, and half-close your eyes, it can almost reappear.  Or at least you can sense where it once was.  Similarly with deer tracks.

Camus Malag, Skye

Alan Watts - Re-examination of ''Common Sense''

I like Alan Watts' books - I've only recently started listening to Youtube clips.  Most, like this one, have music that I find really intrusive.  But he's worth a listen.

The Dark Thing in my Bag

"I need you to unleash the Twirly Wirly thing, and I need you to do it now T-G." I had managed to scramble up the ivy, after glimpsing the Dark Thing in my bag and remembering, despite the lingering haze of mutant wasp venom, why I was there, three hundred feet up a wall, in the first frigging place.
"Yes get a move on Uncle Tuppy.  Do stop making like a woolly spider and get into the secret room before we all die of boredom."
I could scarcely believe it!  My nephew Tuppence was already there, leaning out of the mullioned window alongside the Tupfinder General!
I decided to leave the whys and what fors till I was safely off the ivy with both hands free and a clear head;  I had a distinct feeling that I might need to have my wits about me.  I grabbed hold of the end of the shepherd's crook which the Tupfinder was helpfully pointing in my direction, and heaved myself up and over the window ledge.
Unfortunately my hoof caught on a strand of ivy, and as I kicked it free, I knocked out one of the leaded panes of glass in the T-G's mullioned windows.
"Ooops!  Sorry T-G," I gasped, as the shards tinkled and clattered to the ground.
"Tuppy!  Have a care, for pity's sake!  That glass is original 12th century Venetian, lifted from the Doge's Palace by my ancestor Mad Finlay.  Besides, it's draughty enough in here.  Mrs T-G will have a fit - especially when she finds out it's you that did it.  She's still fuming about the French Diary episode (see previous posts)"
"Sorry T-G.  I can plug the hole with my old hanky.  That'll stop the draught at any rate."  As I stuffed my large pocket handkerchief (embroidered with the letter "T") into the broken pane, I glanced downwards and saw the ghastly Kiltie Twins staring up at me and pointing.  Another figure, bulky, and wearing a rough Harris tweed two-piece, was heading towards them,  carrying what looked like a shotgun slung across her ample shoulders, and a  tray of black sausage rolls.
It was Mrs T-G.

more later

From last summer's trip to Skye.  Hoping for another good one this year.

Quote of the Day - from Camus' The Fall

'Then it was that the thought of death burst into my daily life.  I would measure the years separating me from my end. I would look for examples of men my age who were already dead.  And I was tormented by the thought that I might not have time to accomplish my task.  What task?  I had no idea.......No one, ever again, would know the truth on this point since the only one to know it was precisely the dead man sleeping on his secret.  That absolute murder of a truth used to make me dizzy.  Today, by the way, it would cause me instead subtle joys.  The idea, for instance, that I am the only one to know what everyone is looking for and that I have at home an object which has kept the police of three countries on the run to no avail is a sheer delight.  But let's not go into that.  At the time I had not yet found the recipe and I was fretting.'
From my copy of Albert Camus' The Fall, Penguin 1980 edition, page 66.
One of these books that I'd forgotten I had.  My favourite Camus used to be A Happy Death.  Pretty grim and intense stuff, but with an unrelenting honesty to it that meant a lot to me as a youngster as I tried to find a place for myself in a world that seemed terribly fake. 
(Of course I never did find a place for myself, but hey.)
I'm sure that reading volumes like this, even if like me it's so long ago that you forget that you have, affects the workings of your brain, permanently.  Affects the Actual Brain Chemistry.  Like seeing something strikingly amazing as a child,  or like meeting somebody with whom there is that unexpected warmth of like-minded recognition, so that it doesn't really matter what occurs after or that you might not meet again, because that moment has made you remember that you are not alone in the universe; or like a comforting hand upon the shoulder at a difficult moment, it always stays with you even if you can't consciously remember.  Like an imprint on the spirit, or on the soul, if you believe in souls. 

I've updated my Amazon pages.  Here is the link to the U.S. one, since most readers seem to be from there. The U.S. page also shows blog posts, which the U.K. one doesn't, so it's better. 
I intend doing pages for France and Germany as well, since I've had interest from there.  I'm not sure if I might write them in my own pretty brutal Franglais and pidgin German, just for a laugh. 
It's inconvenient/a right pain to have to do separate pages for each country.   You'd think Amazon would be able to fix that. 
Probably something to do with tax, I imagine.

THE TROGGS TAPES FULL EXTENDED 11 MIN VERSION WARNING! VERY STRONG LANGU...

"YOU'RE DOING IT FUCKING WRONG!!" Marvellous.  The Troggs were great, despite the execrable Love is all Around.  Glad Reg Presley made some money out of that, however, because I gather that they didn't make much in the 60s.

Fairport Convention The Hanging Song

One of my favourite songs from one of my favourite bands.  Love Dave Swarbrick's voice.
From their album Babbacombe Lee.