Euripides?
No, they justa fall aparta.

Being tagged is sweet and sour. On the one hand, you’re invited to the wedding, thanks Eryl http://thekitchenbitchponders.blogspot.com/,

on the other, it suggests you’re not grand enough to refuse. The blogging greats, the heads of our order, never reply to memes. Stuck up ratfinks. That’s right Hutton, it’s you I’m talking about.

My seven blog rules.

Rule 1. Poetry. Don’t try it. I am a poet in the Classical tradition and have often tried to elevate the dismal lives of my blogging friends via that medium. They hate it. It’s not worth it; they can set you back years; so fuck them.

Rule 2. Swearing I wish you’d been here two years ago when we all swore like Mexicans. We went straight for the ‘C’ word. It was very liberating at the time. Everything and everybody was a ‘C’. It’s tailed off, now we know that Matron isn’t going to come bursting through the door and send us all back to bed. The very best of people swear like thunder sometimes.

Rule 3. Rants. Ranting is only valid when the target is valid. For example; mentally shouting at ditzy young women with too many children in SUVs parking in supermarket carparks. That’s right dearie, OPPOSITE LOCK when reversing. Yes petal, there IS a reverse gear. REVERSE. NO NO NO you’re doing it all wrong. Don’t look at me like that, it’s your fault for having all that sex in first place. Did you actually pass a driving test? OK poppet, you’ve parked, you can open your eyes now…

Rule 4. Musings. “musings” is the most common word in the Blogosphere (after “Blogosphere” and “I” and “me”). It implies wisdom. What pearl has our sage thoughtfully abstracted for our delight? Turns out The Sage is “musing” on his latent alcoholism and the hyperbolic curves to be found on intermediate compressor blades. Big fat hairy yawn! Is that a musing or a random thought that fell into your empty head? Keep it tight, people.

Rule 5. Flaming: most bloggers hate flaming. It doesn’t bother me, I like the whole thing about blogging, I don’t want to analyse why, I just like it. I’ve always wanted a resident flamer, it sort of means you’ve arrived. That’s not an invite, it’s got to be spontaneous.

Rule 6. The Harry Hutton Double Bluff Impasse.
Beware.
Personally, I think warm-hearted sarcasm is the utter pinnacle of humour but virtually no one else shares this view. A lot is lost in translation and they can’t see the clever smirk on my face so they take it seriously and fire back their own witty sarcastic comment, but because I can’t see THEIR clever smirk and they are just plain rude and offensive I feel justified in escalating with a sharper wittier retort which they totally take the wrong way the petty bastards…

Rule 7. Mortals only. The BBC and other media groups now run blogs. This is totally counter to the whole idea. To them I say: You’ve already got an infinite outlet for your crap, leave us this bit for ourselves! Go on, piss off! You just don’t get it.

Killer Fact!

Top five countries by per capita beer drinking.

1. Czech Republic 278.2 pints
2. Ireland 265.4 pints
3. Germany 216.6 pints
4. Austria 188.1 pints
5. Luxemburg 177.6 pints


OK so Luxemburg’s what we maths nerds call an anomaly. Let me explain; you and three of your friends stop off in Luxemburg and have a small refreshment; before you know it you’ve totally skewed the results. That’s right numb nuts, skewed, without the ‘R’. But look at Ireland! Big respeck. In the week that Scotland tops all the BAD polls for ugliness and obesity and early death and black depression and suicidal thoughts and the low self esteem thing, Ireland’s back up there in a GOOD top five, second time in a row. See what independence does? Look and learn Scotland. I’m surprised Britain never made it. In the north of England beer is all they drink, especially at lunchtime. Remember Pie and a Pint? You can still get that in England but not up here; up here it’s Pie and a Pie. I’m ashamed to say that the lunchtime pint is no longer a Scottish institution; The roads are safer, mind.

Killer Fact!

Top five per capita baked bean consumption by country.

1. Ireland 5.6 kg
2. Britain 4.3 kg
3. New Zealand 2.3 kg
4. USA 2.0 kg
5. Australia 1.3 kg

What’s Ireland thinking about? I’ve been to Ireland once or twice and I can’t remember baked beans on the menu. In fact I can’t remember seeing an Irishman eating beans. It doesn’t ring true. Irish cuisine is that strange modern European mixture of the welcoming native traditional and the mean stateless nouvelle. It’s as if they leap frogged from the optimistic sixties to the cool dude nineties missing out the fish fingered seventies altogether. So I can’t believe they eat all these beans. There’s been a mistake. No pun. Maybe they feed them to the horses.

Then there’s us. 4.3 kg is about 10 tins. Now I like beans, always have. I’m common, I can’t help it, I do like a baked bean, but I don’t eat 10 tins a year. Maybe I do. It’s certainly worth thinking about.

New Zealand. Doesn’t surprise me. What else they got? Nothing to look forward to, poor little kiwis. Beans on toast is still a treat to them.

USA, well we all know their diet is the pits so I suppose the baked bean is the only proper nourishment they get, big fat lumps that they are. They think they invented them as well but we know better don’t we?

Australia, that’s a surprise, don’t know why, but you’d think they would avoid beans just on a matter of principle. They’ve got a terrible cussed nature when they’re given time to think about anything, your average Australian, but the weather’s good or so I’m told. Round the coasts. Not inland; inland it’s all flies and sand and those big long road trains driving across the desert looking for backpackers to murder. Or so I’m told.

Spanish brandy and Pepsi Max and daytime TV…

is the abyss.

I’ve had a touch of peritonitis this week, or was it impetigo, pleurisy, typhoid? Who cares I can’t remember. That’s the trouble with duvet days; sickies to you and me. You see, the working class suffer such a poverty of ambition when we phone in sick on Monday mornings that we usually blame ‘flu’ or ‘upset stomach’. What a crock. Any manager will see through that in two seconds flat. Worse is getting the wife to phone in for you. Don’t be a simp. Stand up man. Grasp the phone and tell them straight you’ve got nodular brain pus coming out your ear and you’ll be in by Wednesday afternoon once you’ve seen your doctor. Always tell them you are going to the doctor whether or not. Then, when you limp in at 2.00 pm, immediately start moaning to anyone who’ll listen about the foreignness of Britain’s GPs and how the waiting room was full of smelly addicts waiting for methadone. Remember to ask off early, “so you can get your prescription before Boots shuts.” All this adds verisimilitude to your barefaced lies; any lingering suspicions about your weekend proclivities will be expunged and your boss will reconsider his cynical nature.
It’s totally win win.

Blame Kim Ayres.

Interior: English newsagents circa 1982
Sound: background level “Blaydon Races”

Enter cheery faced paperboy shoplifting (as we all did) and getting caught by sourfaced newsagent.

Cue the Geordie accent.

Paperboy: Can ah have a coupla bagsa chew-dah oot me wages?

Surely the acme of British televisual advertising.

Up there with Cadbury Smash and putting a tiger in your tank and the man on the Hovis cobbled hill on the bike with no brakes. Actually I hated that one. As a child I really loved the polar bear on the Fox’s glacier mint and the polar bear in the Cresta adverts. I must have had a thing for polar bears, although now as an adult I’d shoot one without compunction. I’d shoot it twice. In the eye. And the cubs.

These days British adverts are totally, and I do mean utterly, CRAP. The only one I like was the recent campaign for MFI where ‘ordinary’ people are seen arguing at home, as we do, then it turns out they are in an MFI showroom. Oh how I smiled at that. To be fair it was done well. I liked the teenager coming home late and the older couple in bed, they both got a snicker out me. Still, I don’t need to buy a couch right now, so bit of a wasted effort there.

Note for Americans:

Chew-dah is Tudor, a defunct potato chip manufacturer which did odd flavours like hedgehog or mint sauce, you get the picture, it was when we were unsophisticated and less concerned with image; when we took ourselves less seriously; you know, way back then.
So,
Newspaper boy from the north east of England: May I have two bags of Tudor in advance of my remuneration?
Cadbury Smash was instant mashed potato. It was considered groovy.
Tiger in your tank was Esso gasoline. Bengal tigers were liquidised and mixed in with the fuel at the refinery.
Hovis is bread with sawdust in it that sticks in children’s throats and makes them choke.
Cresta was a soft drink that was frothy man and came in weird colors.
MFI is a discount furniture warehouse. No one knows what MFI stands for.

Careful with that axe Eugene


I
was wondering why we all had knives as boys. First off was the availability. Every newsagent sold them. They had them on cards hanging up beside the pipe cleaners and those red petrol capsules for lighters. There were always three types and they ranged from about four inches long down to about an inch and a half for the really small kids. They had tartan or pearl handles or they were flat and silver, though those ones were dearer. I always liked the 2 ½ inch tartan handled ones. The perfect little penknife for little hands and little pocketsies. Second, they were cheap. They only cost pennies so were easily replaced. Thirdly, people were always giving you them as small treats, like crème eggs or postal orders. I got scout knives with tin openers on them, souvenir penknives with thistles or “Bonny Scotland” written on the side and, when I was ten, a visiting American aunt gave me the first Swiss army knife anyone had ever seen. My friends and I had never heard of the Swiss army and were enthralled by the tweezers and toothpick. It was almost James Bondian. We thought the scissors were girly but admired totally the workmanship in the overall package.
There was hours of enjoyment to be had with a knife. There was knifey. Knifey is played like twister. The object is to make your opponent do the splits or fall over. We’d play knifey on any bit of grass. Also you could make a knife blade venomous by sticking it in the eye of a dead cat. We would dissect worms quite dispassionately; there was no malice in it. At the seaside we could shuck mussels for bait quick as any fishwife. If you found yourself near a tree or on a bench especially in one of those shelters where old people sit on the promenade, you would carve out your initials on it. You did it without thinking; the brave bit was inscribing “loves S.M.“ below. Mmm, Susan McMillan, my first true love. Then there was whittling. To a nine year old boy, making a pointed stick is the essence of pleasure. When just right, you took the finished stick along the shore looking for jelly fish.
I still carry a penknife. I’ve lost a couple at the airport, I keep forgetting. Talking about that, not long after 911 I was queuing up behind this old pensioner you know the type, he looked like Harry Lauder and when he emptied his pockets into the tray, he pulled out the biggest penknife I’d ever seen. It was ancient. Of course they took it off him, he was furious so they took his lighter as well, he was totally bereaved. Silly old bugger, what was he thinking?

Funny how I find myself
Alone with you


In Iceland they’ve got this outdoor swimming lake that’s heated by geo thermals. They make a big thing about it but it’s quite pongy and disappointing actually. It’s a rotten thing to say but there it is. Sorry Iceland, but it’s true isn’t it?
There used to be an outdoor pool in every British seaside town. Arbroath had a great one, a big lido affair in white art deco concrete with ice cream kiosks and changing booths with saloon doors so you could see the girls’ pants coming down past their ankles. I think the kiosks sold toffee apples and candy floss as well.
Back then a small bottle of strange pop with a straw and a packet of salt ‘n’ shake crisps kept me happy for ages.
If I got two straws, so much the better.
The Clyde resorts were sub tropical in comparison to east coast Arbroath and our crisps and pop of a higher standard. At lunch there was always water and you weren’t allowed to dip your bread in the soup. The soup was never heinz tomato although I lived in hope. After lunch I was totally unsupervised. All the kids were. You ran across the railway line to get to the beach, the piers were all working piers with no handrails or anything gay like that, the rocks were lethal so we’d fish off them, they would hire you a motor boat by the half hour, on your own at nine years old, it took all your pocket money but was totally worth it. We were always standing on broken glass or rusty nails sticking out of driftwood or getting fishhooks stuck in our arms. All boys carried knives back then. I had a sheath knife with a tartan handle that I wore scout style on my snake belt. It had Red Indians stamped into the leather sheath. I was only eight or nine but you would have to have killed me to stop me wearing it. During the day everyone had factor a half Ambre Solaire rubbed on them and at night it was calamine lotion.
At night in the hotel for dinner, you had to be on your best behaviour which meant smiling and using the cutlery properly and keeping your mouth closed and your elbows off the table and not playing with your food even if it tasted funny and not staring at any old residents. You could tell the residents because they had hp sauce on their table at breakfast. Then you might be released to the arcade for an hour and more often than not it was off to see Johnny Beatty or Jack Milroy in some variety show. We saw Andy Stewart once which was as big a deal as Led Zeppelin.
What’s all this about? I’ll just tell you. I’m having a look through the archive. I’m clearing all statistical registers. Emptying the RAM. It’s full of stuff and if I don’t have a rake through every now and then, I’ll get Alzheimer’s and I won’t have any room left for the important things like this new blade geometry which looks counter intuitive but could increase efficiency by a full percent.
Tundra! That’s the word I was looking for. Never mind why. Yeah, tundra.

As the population of the world increases, so must our individual significance diminish. Is this is a worry? In Britain we are all to be bar-coded soon. Our DNA will be databased and we will carry identity cards like in the war against the Germans and our cars are to be satellite tracked and our dogs chip and pinned and all our towns c.c.t.v.ed and our stealthy movements in the bushes monitored by heat sensitive cameras in helicopters. None of this is an imposition but it does feel like it. Most of us aren’t murderers but in a free society we’d like the option and we’d like a sporting chance.

Another worry is that it’s the wrong sort of people that are increasing. They might come here and take our jobs. They can’t have mine because foreigners aren’t clever enough but they might get jobs as functionaries of these new databases. Foreigners have no idea that the whole strength of the British administrative system is the pernicketiness of our officials. They are virtually incorruptible.
It’s not like America where you can bribe any official with a few bucks and a dolly bird (Sopranos series 2 & 4) or eastern Europe ditto or Africa don’t get me started or Spain or Italy or any hot catholic country when I think about it, or the grasping Chinese or crackpot Indians with all that karmic shit going on, or heaven forefend your Islamist Arabic hellholes where nothing works, no, in north western Europe it is our little jobsworths with the pencil moustaches and the clipboards that actually make the place worth living in.

Otherwise it’s like Brazil. Not the country but the film by Terry Gilliam, which was good but not nearly as good as Napoleon Dynamite which was the best film ever but by someone else.

Sweet.

Bonzo goes to Bitburg and has time for a cup of tea
as I watched it on TV
somehow it really bothered me


In the week that ex First Lady and fine actor Jane Wyman [see above], died, Thatcher our ex prime minister was invited to Downing Street for tea with the Browns. This kind of revisionist shit really kills me. Just so we don’t forget: Thatcher and Reagan were nut bars. A Labour leader talking to Thatcher sucks ass.

pick up the pieces…

Come on down to the river of sound

In about eight weeks or so, some time in November, we,
the cul de sac of the Maroon Diaspora, shall receive the
Fall Newsletter from our west coast American relatives.
We got the first of them in 1995. It was a shock. Not only
did the world not end at Kirkintilloch but we were exposed
as chronic under achievers.
Even the document itself drew astonished gasps. The production values were slick to say the least.
American flags, embedded photos, typefaces, it had it all.
It was the American Vogue of round robins.
Well, no.
Actually it wasn’t. When we read it, we scoffed.
We scoffed in our inverted snobbery. When we read of their success in school, on vacation, in real estate, did we feel pride however vicarious?
Uh-uh, being Scotch we ripped them to shreds.

‘ I’m surprised it doesn’t play “The Star Spangled Banner” when you open it.’ We smirked.
‘ Uncle Tommy passed a kidney stone - bit like reading this newsletter.’ We sniggered.
‘ It won’t win a Pulitzer.’ We sneered. We, who couldn’t string a note for the milkman.

Most uncomfortably for us guilty Scots, it had lots of brazen little catholic references to prayer and God and being blessed.
Our shame was exposed.
At the end of an uninterrupted line of Scottish Catholics with more than our share of rebel Irish mixed in, we, that is my sister brother and I, have been secret Taoists for years.
We’d never risk our souls with protestant Calvinism,
you have to draw a line somewhere, but we’ve turned our back on Mother Church.
I remember introducing Mrs Maroon to my parents, explaining that she prefered not to follow The One True Faith.
“Good for you!” they said in wonder, ” how terribly brave.“
Paradoxically, they think the sun shines out her ass which strengthens my belief that all Scottish are atheists.
We just pretend.
Not so our Americans. They have the evidence before them. Their faith works.

In the succeeding years we have grown to love the
Fall Newsletter as much as we always loved them,
our American branch, with their patriotism and their faith
AND all that real estate.
God bless them.

For Andraste.

In one of my levels of Hell, Andraste the Rabbit Girl comes through the door and she’s into the Bruins locker room and they’re all semi naked, horsing around, having a celebration with tons of Guinness and the Pogues are playing in the corner with the Dubliners or something…
BUT,
as she moves through her throng of heroes, she notices that all the players are the ones who failed her beloved Broons in some way, the bush league wannabes, the ones who miss the puck, swiping at thin air like twats, the ones who couldn’t hit a barn door, the injury prone, the druggies, the useless ones that can’t pass, block, fight, or just plain skate and should never have been permitted to put on a sacred Bruins shirt in the first place! And the good looking ones are gay and bitchy and the rest are weedy or fat and now that she’s looking, they are all like GI Joe ‘down there’, they got nothing, nada, and the Guinness is actually a fake concoction of root beer and coca cola and big mental Shane the Pogues front man has been soberised and he’s combed his hair and pressed his jeans and has perfect teeth and is singing about puppy dawgs and it’s not the actual Dubliners but a shit tribute band called the Dub-LAND-ers…

I can keep this up for weeks, Rabbit Girl.
Release my red hot chillis forthwith!

* * *

I just read “this book will save your life” by a.m.homes; a disjointed yet pleasing Los Angeles adventure.
But,

have a look at this little extract.


‘I’m still not sure you’re not that asshole,’ the guy says to him.
‘What can I say to convince you?’
‘Very little. Do I look bad?
‘You look…rough,’ Richard says.
‘I go in phases; right now I’m in a fight with my body. Do I smell?’
‘Not from here.’
‘I’m on a deadline.’ He dips his fingers into a bag of lettuce and puts some in his mouth. ‘Greens, very good for you.’ He eats them as though he craves them, as though greens are the new candy, the new Swedish Fish. ‘Where have you been?’ he asks.


Dearest comrades, didya spot it? Didya?
For many this side of The Pond, the reference to Swedish Fish would have gone right over their heads, but not us, eh gang? And why not? Because our good friend SafeTinspector introduced them to us a year ago, that’s why not.
Truly, our corner of the Blogosphere is without peer. We are the new depository, the new Alexandria, the light of our collected knowledge shall blind the troglodytes!
When I saw the words “Swedish Fish”, my face was a picture. Talk about smug. SafeT. I salute you.

LATE UPDATE: If yer wonderin' why I ain't replyin' to all yer witty comments an' suchlike, I keeps losing Haloscan. I don't know if it's a general problem or peculiar to this machine. I've even lost the comments shortcut off the main page now.

Typhoon

Midnight on the Pacific and skimming through surf and flying fish, two dolphins are on their way home from a school reunion that turned into an anchovy hunt. Although the evening has gone superbly, something is evidently weighing on the mind of the female dolphin as they glide along. Something she must get off her chest:

‘I thought you said we’d leave when the moon came up?’
‘It would have been rude, we couldn’t just leave.’
‘Well you certainly couldn’t.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘You should see yourself sometimes.’
‘Oh here we go. I wondered how long it’d take.’
‘That school are my friends, you’d think for once you’d…’
‘They’re my friends too.’
‘Not any more they aren’t.’

Her lifelong mate, a dashing bull despite his age, vents in exasperation and is about to sulk when he spots an escape. He points with his nose.

‘Look, the flying fish are changing course.’
‘That’s right, change the subject.’
‘They’re heading south, I wonder if Ian and Denise are still up.’
‘Well if they are, we’re not staying all night.’
‘Race you.’
‘No, OK-1-2-3-Go!’
‘Cheat! I wasn’t ready! Come back! Start again!’

Some flexing of their eager flanks and they leave the surf, heading off over unbroken sea. And as we watch them go, our view widens and we see that the surf the dolphins were riding is the bow wave of the largest moving object on the surface of the planet.

In one of those cataclysmic events that happen in every age; events that bring misery untold to countless generations; Pat had booked some musicians to provide entertainment in her tavern. They were the first folk band in recorded history. The bosun, a great hairy armed brute of a man called Bananas had inveigled his way into the band. With his unopposed thumbs none was better on the concertina. The ensemble was murdering “Brennan on the moor” as the captain slipped in the door.

Hennessy took in the layout as he made his way through the gloom towards the bar. As swashbuckling custom demanded, the inn was lit by rings of dripping candles set on dangerously heavy cart wheels. These had been hoisted into the rafters on ropes secured Flemish style with cleats on the wall. His shrewd eyes settled on a half dozen rough sailor types playing pinochle under just such a perilous hazard. He allowed his cruel lips to part in an enigmatic smile revealing his perfect teeth.

Setting the standard for the next 210 years, ‘The Claymores’ were taking great care not to smile or move any part of their bodies as they played. Being folk purists they understood the difference between music and pleasure, so before each song the earnest bandleader would also try and explain its significance. He was keen for the drinkers to know what had inspired every composition that they might appreciate it more, but setting their own standard for the next 210 years, the audience ignored him and continued to talk and laugh among themselves.

‘No, no, Mr Burns, I’m not that sort of girl’ squealed Ayres in the corner.
‘Call me Rabbie!’ cried the poet, making a grab for Ayres’ cabbages.
‘Naughty!’ replied the botanist, hitting the poet square in the face with her tankard.
‘I love spirit in a lassie’ was the inevitable reply as The Bard redoubled his efforts.

Aren’t hotels shit?

There are no good hotels in Scotland. There is always something that totally ruins your stay – the staff. There is a morbid slapstick to the service in a Scottish hotel that makes you want to kill yourself. As a nation we should admit right now that we can’t do it and shut all our hotels with immediate effect. They are all crap.
For me, hotels that are not untrammelled luxury are a penance. The only hotels I like to stay in now are posh foreign ones like the Frankfurter Hof. It is fabulously expensive but they accomplish that effortless comfort so elusive elsewhere. And they do it with such bland efficiency. The thought, forever unspoken, pops inevitably into one’s head, “is this how they managed their genocidal mania?” But then they treat you in such an adult way that you’d forgive them anything. You begin to wonder about fascism. You start to think; these people aren’t all bad. It creeps up on you. I loved it; every godamn Nazi minute.
Then there’s the Savoy. Talk about anal. Of course it’s my class insecurity talking, but for two grand you’d think they could put me at my ease. Everything they do for you is a fucking chore, or else it’s revealed to you in a patronising flourish. Oh look darling, running water! Even the cut flowers are shit. The arrangements are all amateurish funeral parlour floribunda disasters. And the tipping! At least have the decency to put a smile on your smarmy faces you cheap smelly bastards. The staff smells of old carpets at the Savoy.







Ayres, man of letters and ship’s botanist had been sent ahead disguised as a woman of easy virtue. As always, half the crew had advised on his wardrobe.

More rouge!
Bigger bust!

Now there weren’t no breadfruit nor guava to be ‘ad onboard, so Ayres improvised wi’ a brace o’ cabbages. An’, as is the tack in these ‘ere yarns, on his entrance to the aforementioned Clatty Pat’s Tavern, he come under the rovin’ eye of a romantic poet who were a-sittin’, scribin’ his poems, in the corner…

If I don’t, get some shelter,
Lord, I’m gonna fade away…

Perhaps you may be interested to hear how I fell in love with a beautiful lesbian. It was on Monday night past. Of course back then I didn’t know she was a beautiful lesbian. That came later. I knew from the moment I saw her she was beautiful. I’m not blind. I was back in Croydon. Here’s the rub, she was pretty fat. As to her lesbianism, I hadn’t yet put all the facts together. She WAS wearing sensible shoes but so did Mrs M at her age. Five of us sent to Surrey for two days. She was positively elfin back then AND she loved sex; she had a one track mind. Mrs Maroon that is, not the beautiful lesbian, I’m getting to HER in a minute. I can’t remember the name of the joint but it’s right across the street from Croydon town hall. Big round tables, nineties wine bar. The beautiful lesbian was sitting side on talking to her girlfriend when I saw her first. What love is love if not at first sight? From then on it was over for me. You’ve seen the sort of thing, of course you have; four men out drinking in their office clothes acting the bigshots like the Sopranos or something. Christ, let me forget. Did I mention we lost one? That’s right; one of our number didn’t come out to play. He was from Warrington in Cheshire. That left four. Four men standing at the bar [which I hate] scanning the place like twenty year olds. What were we thinking? I had put my wedding ring ON before we left Gatwick and was feeling a bit conspicuous. I should explain: Me and Mrs Maroon aren’t married but years ago we bought wedding rings one weekend. It was fun at the time. Mine cost £35.00. We sometimes like to wear them together, I don’t really know why, we just like to. So I’m even less proud to tell you. In this sort of situation, ie out drinking in a strange town, I’ve been known to put mine on as a repellent and as bait. I know it’s a pretty crummy trick but I figure either way you’re covered. Think about it. Yeah? I told you it was crummy. I was deliberately drinking with my left hand. Everyone in the bar must have seen that ring. They would have seen it in Mordor. By this time I’d had a couple of subtle eye contacts with the beautiful lesbian. Each time it was like a wave of adrenaline. A band of Vikings from Technical Development we were. So I had just turned to the bar for more drinks when the beautiful lesbian decides to press in behind me for a bottle of wine. I’m not some masher but I could feel them on my shoulder blades. So I turned around facing her, to give her some room and they sort of rubbed my arm as I did so, sort of one after the other but she never noticed and she said cheers or something when I stood back to let her in. I didn’t tell you about them before because I didn’t want to give you the wrong idea. It wasn’t just about them. They were only part of the picture. Her name was Florence. Yeah I know, you’re thinking and she had a friend called Zebedee, look it’s after 3 o’clock, I’m going to have to continue this later.

Pedalpushin’

I’m up on the eleventh floor
and I’m watchin’ the cruisers below…


Watched the Tour of Ireland go through Limerick and Westport and all the other picturesque bits and I for one was mulling it over. I bet none of you remember Sean Kelly. The great Irish Champion? Thought not.
For a shallow man, I run pretty deep sometimes. It was obviously A Sign.
Time to get riding!

I’ve got an official Benesto jersey and padded cycling pants which are most flattering. I should post a picture. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve stopped at the other pub to the admiration of their womenfolk. Sluts so they are. They ALWAYS make some comment and come over to look at the bike. It’s the saddle. They can’t keep their mitts off it. It’s a gel-filled masterpiece of the erotic saddler’s art. I always feel funny watching them handle it, pinching the gel through the neoprene with their firm competent hands and long fingernails…

Anyway, I couldn’t stop on Sunday night because I was red and wheezing like a set of old bagpipes. I was Humpty Dumpty, in fact his fat ugly brother. The lycra was squeezing my stomach to death. And anyway I wasn’t sure I could get my feet free of the cleats (oh yes friends, I ride with cleated shoes) without falling over because my legs had gone all that jelly way and my bottom was very hot and slippy. Too much information? I agree.
Stick to the facts.
15 miles (24 km) dead flat, no wind, perfect evening, 49 minutes.
That’s 18.36 mph or 29.38 kmph in new money.


Oh God, I could do better than that.
You betcha!

Late sports update: see below

Aleksandr Pushkin! Yury Gagarin! Doctor Zhivago! Boris Godunov! Mikhail Lermontov! Ivan Denisovitch! MAGGIE THATCHER!
Can you hear me?
Can you HEAR me?
Your boys took a hell of a beating here tonight.
A HELL OF A BEATING!


(trad.)
oh it’s a grand old team to play for,
oh it’s a grand old team to seeeee,
and IF
you know
The History
well it’s enough to make your heart go “oh oh oh OH…”
we don’t care what the ******* say
WHAT the hell do we care?
for we only know
that there’s gonna be a show
and the Glaaas-gow CELTIC will be there…


cue the tinkling piano…(Rodgers and Hammerstein)
When you walk…
through the storm…
hold your head…
up high…

What a night.

Footnote: Last weekend The Bhoys utterly and totally thrashed the Edinburgh club, Hearts (Rangers Lite) 5-0. What did the witty scamp of a DJ play over the tannoy at Paradise? Why, the theme tune to Hawaii Five-O of course. Oh how the Hearts team laughed. Actually they didn’t. They’re all poor Lithuanians and have never seen a TV let alone Steve McGarrett. God bless them.

******* insert pejorative name for city rivals here.

It’s Thursday !

Aren’t Thursdays tops? While they are nowhere NEAR the full blown Gregory Peck of Fridays, there is nonetheless a buttery pleasure about them. They are the Natalie Wood of the week. They have, to my mind, totally supplanted the Jack Lemmoness of Wednesdays; you know, that midweek celebration you give yourself for surviving Brad Pitt Tuesdays.
That just leaves Mondays. Harumph.
See now I’ve annoyed myself by re-living the Joan Crawford of Mondays past while worrying about the Dame Judi Dench of those yet to come, when instead I should be planning the nineteen year old Lauren Bacall of a weekend.

Hmmmmm, Lauren, of course I know how to whistle heh heh heh oh you are naughty Lauren…

Feisty philosopher triumphs in bruising battle with beastly bureaucrats!


Last night there was an item on the Scottish news about how the Crichton Campus of the University [Via Veritas Vitae] had been saved.
Why did that ring bells with me? I’ll just tell you.
A contributor to these pages, the well known philosopher and acolyte of Antonio Gramsci, namely Eryl Shields the kitchen bitch herself, had been campaigning for just such an outcome.
I’m sure I speak for us all when I wish her our hearty congratulations.

As Gramsci himself might have said while fading in gaol,

“…pre-history ends and history begins.”


Anyway, it’s still 1798 and our brave ship Shannon is lying off the Ayrshire coast at Ballantrae. In a spirit of open friendship the guns have been run out to cover the quayside and the custom house in an arc of genial fire should the need arise.
Onshore, swashbuckling captain Barney (Barnacle) Hennessy with three of his most trusted crew, have tracked down the objects of their pursuit to a cavernous alehouse called “Clatty Pat’s”…


Call it morning driving through the sound
In and out the valley

So far this week, I have been mainly listening to Yes.

transference /’trans(t)s-/fer-ən(t)s, 1 : the redirection of feelings and desires to a new object. 2 : symptom of being a total arse.

I am a long-time sufferer of this debilitating condition and now that the Tour de France is ended, my transference is raging, like, all over the place.
For example, I extol Ayres to get on HIS bike because I have a bike that I never ride. You see how it works? I keep it in the shed. The bike. It’s totally made out of plastic and exotic metals. Ayres has an excuse; he doesn’t know that after 4 or 5 days on a bike, it becomes addictive, that you end up thinking of any excuse just to ride the thing. I have no such defence. I’ve seen the Promised Land. I’ve looked down from the hilltop at the sleeping plains spread below, ready for plunder.
That bike is put together like a lever watch, it really is. If I sat on it, it would break. It is utterly silent. I don’t mean in the shed, I mean when I ride it. It doesn’t squeak or click or clank, the brakes come on with a whisper. When I bought it in 2003, I put it on my visa and I’m still paying it off.
Sitting here, facing the facts like this has been good, although my chest has tightened with embarrassment and my face is totally scarlet. In the Scottish idiom, I’ve “taken a pure beamer”.
Confession always drains me emotionally. Must have a cuppa. Tomorrow we’ll discuss procrastination.

procrastinate \p(r)ə-‘kras-tə-,nāt \ prō vt~ to put off intentionally and habitually, vi~ to put off intentionally and reprehensibly, the doing of something that should be done…

‘Give me a break! I’m DOING IT!’

Dear reader, how often have we shouted those words up the stair to our loved ones, when we had no intention of doing whatever it was we said we were doing? Perhaps you’ve just found another number in your sodoku, or maybe that beer is particularly hopsome, or maybe you’re just plain lazy and too scared to begin.

‘The longest journey starts with the shortest step.’

Wouldn’t it be great to hang the man who first came up with that? Or make a pyre of cheesy greetings cards and sling the bastard on.

‘procrastination is the thief of time’
Fred, you’re right! Here, hold this can of petrol.
‘never do today what you can put off till tomorrow’
Fred, that’s the wrong way round.
‘tomorrow never comes’
How true, got a light?
‘strike while the iron’s hot’
I shall Fred, could you stand on that straw bale?
‘make hay while the sun shines’
Time to shut up, Fred.
‘car...’
Don’t say it Fred.
‘carp…’
Don’t Fred, I won’t be responsible
‘CARPE DIEM!’
You just had to, didn’t you? WHOOSHHHHHHH


Deedle-deedle-deedle-dee…Layla! You got me on my knees…

You may be interested to know we were at a lock-in the other night. Remember them?
Free jukebox and the Devil take the hindmost.
All the old crowd have turned out and your mind and body returns, way…way back to the days when everyone had summer suntans and we could dance and we weren’t afraid to show it and the sex we had was better than the rubbish that young people put up with these days and you had a black futon and a big black couch to go with it and black wooden shelving units that you were dead proud of and a pioneer stereo and tons of scratched LPs and while you were waiting to go out you’d have a can of lager and a weak doobie and your girlfriend would be taking ages to get ready and she’d take a couple of puffs and a couple of slugs out your beer and give you a snog for about an hour and it was hot and passionate and cool and innocent at the same time and you thought you were the only man who ever had the luck to feel that good.
Christ, it was only a lock-in. GERROVERITT!
Sunday night, Mr Parker called, said; listen son you’re wasting time, there’s a future for you in the fire escape trade…

Foot Eater 1 AHK Maroon 0

Humble pie must be eaten quickly. It now seems the man fighting for his life with 90% burns is an engineer. What a bummer. Worse, he was a PhD student at Cambridge. You couldn’t make this stuff up. Please God, tell me it wasn’t Trinity.
I don’t know what bothers me more; Foot Eater being right or my upcoming medical. My previous plans are kaput.

‘Right Maroon, spread ‘em, I want to see those two veg. Christ, you’re fatter than ever and still drinking I see. No excuses Maroon, my patience is pretty thin with engineers right now, especially hoity toity Cambridge ones. Bend over, this is going to hurt…’

On the upside, the Tour de France has started and wasn’t the Garden of England looking just perfect for it? I bet Ayres threw his TV out the window.

It’s true what they say about ill winds. My medical’s coming up and for the first time in years I’m really confident. The boot’s on the other foot Dr Mustapha!

I’ve got some duty free carrier bags from Glasgow airport and a very smart Icelandair bomber [sic] jacket that I never wear. I shall arrive at the examination a little out of breath with some empty bottles clinking in the duty free bags.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ I’ll say, ‘but I was held up at the airport, there were a lot of extra checks for some reason. What’s been happening?’

While he’s stumblin’ and mumblin’, I’ll slip in my confession about all the alcohol units and ciggies and suet puddings.
There’s no way he’ll be able to pull me up about anything.

‘Just tick all the boxes Doctor Chandra and we’ll say no more about it, there’s a good chap. I don’t think you need to see Bertie this time, do you? Thought not, splendid fellow.’

1776 and all that.


A long, long time ago, four fathers with white collars and blunderbusses arrived on American shores. They preferred to be dull and never sang or played cards. They were puritanical. They had come on three ships; the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Barbara and were seeking religious persecution in Boston. At the time they were very hungry so the Indians fed them soft cheese called Philadelphia. They were so happy they made a huge bell.
Back in England the king was angry and spiteful so he sent forth his redcoats to make taxes upon the white settlers. The Americans responded by declaring the War of Independence and crossing the Delaware. The Americans won the war because they were fitter having been brought up in fresh air. The English had scurvy because of the limes.
After the war they had a president not a king and everyone signed the constitution except John Hancock who was a traitor. Benjamin Franklyn invented electric lightning, while Benedict Arnold discovered a new way to cook eggs. In England the king went mad.

From Frontline Scotland:

Day 5

We had an aunt who was a bit of a nut bar and she always said “Never trust anyone from Paisley”. We used to laugh at that but I wish she could see me today, because I’ve learned a bitter lesson.
At this point I should probably come right out with it. I don’t like them.
I don’t mean people from Paisley, although to be honest, there’s no love lost there.
No, I mean the other lot.
THEM.
You know who I’m talking about.
That’s right; I mean doctors. All of them. Those who Joe Public calls real doctors. I know it’s prejudiced and it’s not ‘p.c.’ but I think recent events have proved me correct. We give them social status, reserved parking bays, even our sick and ill to play with, and how are we repaid?
It’s official; doctors are a shower of shite. I feel vindicated.
They walk around in funny clothes talking their funny language among themselves. What’s wrong with good honest Scotch? Too much to ask? And the beliefs they hold, they act like Lord God Almighty some of them. And what about the way they treat women? Arrogant bastards, ask any Jewish mother. Even today in the 21st century, women doctors or “surgeons” are expected to remain covered head to foot, with only their eyes showing. Pathetic.
I say round them up and force them to work for a living. The lazy bastards want to try life at the sharp end for a change, improving Britain’s balance of payments instead of swanning about in hospitals “Hey, look at me, I’m a real doctor. I’m George Clooney…”
May God forgive me, I truly hate them.


To reflect the upgraded security level, our landlord is now searching us on the way in and out of the bar. His “Stop ’n’ Search” policy will seriously delay my efforts to complete that set of wine glasses. Just another way in which the men of death are trying to upset normal life in Scotland.
And that is the problem. In their eyes, and I mean the evil harbingers in their fancy-Dan Jeep Cherokees, all they are doing is blowing up an airport or nightclub and no offence intended. Yeah well, fine; what they don’t realise is that their selfish actions bugger up life far removed from the initial planned outrage. It’s like ripples in a pond spreading watery fingers into every cleft and crevice of Scottish society. A bit more consideration next time Mr Terrorist thank you very much.


A top notch July 4 to all our American chums and for everyone else let’s keep our heads down.

Lots of love,


Ack. xxx

Picture if you will, the scene;

You’re queuing up at check in.
That pre-flight lager seems an eternity away.
You’re counting the kids and the luggage [not necessarily in that order].
You are making sure that your trolley rubs the heels of the people in front, while scowling at that ratfink behind you who is going to get a fat lip so help you God if he keeps bumping your ankles.
You have delegated ticket and passport duties to the lady of the house who shows no outward sign of taking her responsibilities seriously.
If she carries on like that you will be robbed by Romanian pickpockets, it was on the TV…

Man: I mean why not just wave all the…the…[searches for word] the fucking valuables, in the air and shout “here it is !”?
Woman: Valuables? Who do you think we are, Lord and Lady Muck? What valuables for God’s sake?
Man: You know what I mean, - the passports and stuff.
Woman: Wait! [clutches throat] My pearls! They re missing! [clutches head] so is my tiara !
Man: That s right, make a fucking joke about it. We’ll see who’s laughing when that bag gets snatched
Woman: For the love of Christ, Ack will you calm down? You’ll get a drink shortly.
Man: I’m only sayin’…

At last!
You’re nearly there.
You’re next.
Once that ghastly family in front load up their house flitting onto the scales, it’ll be you.
Then you can have that drink and spend all your money here in Glasgow Airport on silk ties and shortbread and perfume and watches and cigars and spirits and burgers and coffee and cufflinks and Jägermeister and all the crap you never normally buy.
When suddenly;
Two young lads drive a burning jeep into one of the doors and all flights are suspended.
NOOOOOOO, you have got to be kidding me!



Transcript of pub debate concerning Scotland’s war on terror.

Jimmy: This has put us on the map!

Gerry: On a par with New York, so we are.

Voice of reason: In what way?

Jimmy: It shows we’re just as important as other countries.

Gerry: Every country worth their salt has terrorists.

Voice of reason: Jesus!

Jimmy: Mind you, they chose the wrong airport to tangle with.

Gerry: They took a hell of a risk.

Voice of reason: They were suicide bombers!

Jimmy: Christ, they’d have to be, down in Glasgow.

Gerry: They’re terrible rough in Glasgow, no offence Professor.

Voice of reason: None taken I’m sure.

Jimmy: And another thing, they’re meant to be disaffected Muslim youth but they drive Mercs and Jeeps, I don’t get it.

Gerry: 15 miles to the gallon and the insurance is sky high!

Voice of reason: Yeah but that’s…

Jimmy: My brother-in-law insured his jeep with Admiral.

Gerry: What mileage is he getting?

Voice of reason: Argggghhhhh!

Every day I promenade the Island, checking the horizon for Japanese patrol boats and suchlike. I’ve been here a while and I like to keep a weather eye for any trouble. Don’t worry; it’s not all typhoons and tidal waves, in fact most of the time I sit around waiting for something to wash up. I can guess what you’re thinking; you’re thinking the only thing washed up around here is…yeah well, I do the quips, such as they are, thank you very much. Fancy a reviver? Why didn’t you say? Come on, we’ll stroll up to the house; it’ll give me a chance to show you round. I think you’ll like what I’ve done with the old place.

See? I told you. Isn’t it great? As you can see it’s the typical Old World fantasy (nice off-white pillared façade with portico, in the colonial style). Those jungle creepers give an air of neglected opulence I think. Too tropical for you? They took an age to cultivate but the market demands it. That diastolic thumping you can hear is the antique generator out back. It powers all this. It might run on for ever or it might stop tonight. I hope it’s not tonight because it’s steak and kidney pudding tonight, with new potatoes. Let’s go inside. No, please, after you.

Well? Whatdya think o’ the fittin’s? Not bad eh?. “Eclectic” is the preferred term these days. I call it “romantic scotch revival with gothic overtones”. It’s no exaggeration to say it’s taken a lifetime. I’ll agree it’s not to everyone’s taste and that it’s heavy on the sarcastic baronial (soft furnishings are not my forte) anyway I think it’s balanced by the open aspect and the wonderful outward views. Hell, you are totally right, I shall scrap the tartan carpet in the lobby – make it more welcoming.

You’re probably wondering how all this got here to the Island, I wonder myself sometimes; well there’s no mystery there. It just fetched up, over the wide oceans of the world drifting with the Trades. Come on, I’ll show you, bring your glass, we can drink on the way. No, look, change of plan. We’ll avoid the windward shore for today, it’s high tide anyway. When it turns, we may find a 42” flat screen home cinema, on the other hand, a dozen half-dead seabirds covered in oil, so for now, I’ve a better idea. There’s this little cove where I like to sit when the sea’s combing in. When it’s running high I avoid the beach and the breakers and come here instead, to sit and have a kir and watch the dolphins.

The Lost Island Of Doctor Maroon

Father’s Day

I was just seven years old when I was struck by the realisation that my father was up the creek. He was turning into a woman and the stress was killing him. To let you know, me and Mum were in some room and the doctor had come in to give us the bulletin on Dad. I was pretty confident. This was the Western Infirmary after all, which was the best hospital in the world, ask anyone.
The doctor was tall. He had funny eyes and a stethoscope and pens in his pocket. I didn’t like that stethoscope one bit. It was black and rubber and threatening. I felt distinctly threatened. My knees were shaking.

“…so it’s really just his Jemima and we’ll keep a close eye on that…”

The affairs of adults were never discussed in front of me so I was making myself as small and quiet as possible but I must have gasped or something because my dear mamma looked over and sent me out so I tore down the corridor to Dad to tell him the bad news. He’d looked fine five minutes ago. Perhaps the strain of motor factoring and light engineering caused his Willy to fall off, but would that leave a Jemima? Would he grow bosoms? I was certain he’d had a Willy. I had seen it at swimmies, only for a second mind but there could be no mistake. It’s not the sort of thing you can misinterpret.

When I got back to his bed I saw I was too late. He looked different. Cybermen had put plastic tubes in his ears to suck out his brains and his handsome face was all twisted. He winked and waved me over.

‘Here.’ he said, sticking the hissing pipes in my ears.

It was Round the Horne, a radio programme that gave him more joy than all his beloved family put together.

“…hello, I’m Julian and this is my friend Sandy…”

This was too bad. This was whistling while Rome burned. I took command.

“Now look here Pater, Mater and I have had a chat with that medical Johnny next door and the upshot is you better pull your socks up. He’s not at all happy with your progress, and frankly I don’t blame him. It’s time to beat your ploughshares into swords and fight the fight. Gird up your loins and face the coming storm. Via veritas vitae!”

In reality I said;
‘Dad, are you turning into a lady?’
‘What? No. Don’t be silly.’
‘The doctor said you’ve got a Jemima.’
Dad was probably drugged because he just stared at me.
‘Go and get Mum.’ he said thoughtfully.

He was home the next day and the whole thing was never mentioned again.

To my mind, the “Aviation” is the best of cocktails.

I’m a convert and believe me there is nothing in this wide world that is worse than a convert. As a general rule, don’t drink this one after dark unless a long night of dancing is in store.

You mix it thusly:-
Wait. Remember, Maraschino is a clear dryish liqueur not that weird syrup you get in jars of cocktail cherries.
Right, let’s go.

1½ ounces gin,
½ ounce maraschino liqueur
¾ ounce lemon juice

Give it all a shake with hundreds of ice, strain into a chilled glass and top it off with a cherry. A link with aeroplanes however tenuous, really helps the enjoyment. .
Doors to automatic !
Tomorrow I’ll tell you about a down to earth mix that still packs a punch like Joe Louis. I call it the Buckfast Bronco.

Down the hatch!



Talking of hatches who left the hatch open?
Must have been the ground staff
Yeah but there’s a warning light, right?
Yeah but it’s on your side
But it’s on your list
I called it and you said “check”
Didn’t
Did
So we’re all the way to Sausalito with it flapping like that?
If it lasts that long
Listen to it
What a racket
You better tell them
You tell them, you’re captain
Exactly, and I’m telling you to tell them
Only if I do the landing
It’s your turn anyway
Sweet…

I looked at my watch,
It was 12 hours into Monday,
So I thought;
I better go and see the Man.
He said; Hi, you got the package?
I said no.
He smiled and he said; I understand…


Apart from pushing things to their elastic limit, I have been mainly concerned with my total lack of progress. A scan of the paperbacks in the supermarket yesterday showed a lot of unimaginative thieving swine have stolen my ideas but rather than faff about, fantasising about the South Bank Show, they have got off their hynies and got themselves printed and onto the shelves.
It was encouraging in a way. I went straight to the liquor section and asked where the absinthe was.
Young lad, weekend job for pocket money, searched all the Bacardi Breezers and Smirnoff WKDs for me. (My cruelty knows no bounds.)
Ok skip it, I said, any calvados?
The little rat found a bottle.
I haven’t opened it and nor shall I. I don’t like the look of it. It looks like medicine.

Turning left.
You know how sometimes your fat pointy nose gets all scabby with sunburn and your big baw face puffs up with the drink and your eyes are like piss-holes in the snow and you think you might have type 2 diabetes because your body shape has gone all feminine and you might have some inner ear issues because you’re bumping off the walls like a knotless thread and there’s an invisible Martian brain slug drawing out your life force like a poultice while you sleep?
No?
Me neither.
Suck it up, is what I say.
We’ll have no moaning Minnies here. Life’s too short.
If a big hearty double knit outward bound type comes near me today and says how great life is, I shall bang his head off the fake maple desking solutions.

I wish it was summer.
That’s a crock.
I wish I was eighteen.

I couldn’t sleep all night; a fog-horn was groaning incessantly on the Sound, and I tossed half-sick between grotesque reality and savage, frightening dreams.

So much for San Antonio.

Amigos!

¿cuándo volverás?; you ask

Thanks to people like me, the world’s a small place these days.
I suppose the only problem is when our circadian rhythm tries to catch up with the uh, the solarisation thing and the uh, apparent rotation of fretful vitamin D tins zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Whoah there Achilles, wake up!
I’m fine.
Couple of ales; I’ll be right as rain.
Texan women are really good looking. Absolument. There’s a limber healthiness to them.
Wouldn’t mind, I really wouldn’t.
I’m only saying. What am I; a monk? I’m only talking about a couple a drinks and a few laughs. Sheesh.
There is an e in the whiskey in whisky and soda in America, not that I give a damn. I stuck to American drinks like beer and wine and martinis and aviations and mint juleps and Tom Collinses. Here’s a thing, some Americans CAN drink, as in fish.
Back on Wednesday?
Allegedly.
So it’s Wednesday then?
We’ll see.
Yeah we will.
I agree
Yeah, just see that you do
I agree! Back on Wednesday
That’s what you said.
All things being equal
Now what the fuck does that mean?
I’ll be back Wednesday
You better
I will
Yeah I know you will
I’m just sayin
Well don’t
Right I won’t
Good.

I’ve got lots to tell you and I took hundreds of snaps, really great ones too. They wouldn’t let me photograph the secret blade coating machine though. Americans are funny. What did they think? I was going to rush back and reverse engineer some complicated thermal process in the garden shed? I just thought it was neat, that’s all. Some people collect train numbers, I like to photograph strategic technology at the manufacturing stage. What’s the problem?

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.
It was something about money or maybe it was women.
When you first go to New York which is The Best Town In The World you spend the first couple of days waiting to be mugged then you remember that you’re from Glasgow so you relax and after that it’s brilliant. The Bronx is up and the Battery down. The best part is when real New Yorkers stop you in the street for directions. Three times already. There is no better feeling. I’ve been all over the world except Asia and South America and no-one, like ever, has mistaken me for a native but in Manhattan it has happened enough now to make me feel superior and smug. Oh and Greenland and Australia: not been there either although I’ve been to Iceland.
I mention all this because Dick and I may have to go to Dallas.
I’m technical so they will show us technical things and Dick who is not technical will say ‘wow, that spark erosion technique is really fascinating’, and I’ll be like, ‘yeah, cosmic. Say Tex, where d’ya get them denims? Do you own a gun? Can I see it? Can I shoot it? Is there a ranch nearby? Can we go? Can we? Can we? Can we buy genuine Wrangler jeans there? Can we? Can we ride horses?
I will probably not be mistaken for a Texan but you never know.
I think he’s already trying to back me out the deal. Cowboy!

And in a single bound, Jack was free.

Je adorer le weekend. At the weekend, we slough off our worries and get on down with the brew that is true.
Climate change and the smoking ban have transformed the town pub and its environs. There are aluminium tables and parasols, it’s great! A poor man’s Boulevard St Germaine - rive gauche in the rough. And the warmer it gets, the less clothes we all wear. It’s very liberating. Europe calls us “the shirtless ones”.
Stuffy uptight continentals.
Drinking beer in direct sunlight is hazardous but it feels so good. As the day wears on we may have double egg and chips and last weekend there was the evocative scent of Ambre Solaire just like the Costa Brava. Yeah! Classic. We are really motoring.
I know it may be gilding the lily, but I wonder if they couldn’t move the big screen to the window and put a speaker outside so we could hear the commentary. It’s just a thought. Maybe send someone out now and then to clear the tables and take an order.
I know I know, I want jam on it, me.

Tradecraft.

‘Have you noticed Achilles, whenever I seem to be getting close to the identity of Gerald the mole, how often the subject of my failed marriage comes up?’
Smiley had taken off his glasses and was polishing them absent-mindedly with the fat end of his tie.
‘George…’ I said uselessly.
‘Oh I don’t mind,’ he beamed through the big lenses, ‘I’m not going to buckle at the knees, on the contrary, it means we’re on the right track.’
‘Karla attempts to discredit your investigation,’ I agreed, ‘just like the Scottish Question.’
‘How so the Scottish Question?’ asked Smiley, studying the photo in the folder before him.
‘Well, whenever that subject is mentioned, some tame wrangler from the LSE is rolled out to tell us it will cost a fortune…’
‘So what if it did?’ interjected Toby Esterhase. ‘What price self determination?’ The dapper little Hungarian liked to affect the experience of a life lived under a foreign yoke.
‘Well I wonder sometimes if it isn’t some Establishment red herring.’ I said, turning to Smiley in supplication.
‘Well George?’ prompted Esterhase.
Smiley closed the file on Operation Testify before looking up.
‘Lacon and the minister say independence would cost the Scots 12 billion, or roughly the same as the London Olympics. Frankly, I don’t agree. I think the Olympics will cost more.’ he said impishly.
‘And if the Scots stay in the union, there are all those English subsidies to sweeten the pill?’ I asked.
‘Danegeld.’ said Smiley.
‘I don’t buy it.’ said Esterhase, tilting his little hand this way and that. ‘If the Scots are that expensive, why keep them? Why not turn off the tap and teach them a lesson? Why not…divorce them?’
Smiley either didn’t notice or more likely chose not to show that he had heard Esterhase’s Freudian slip.
‘Perhaps we should thank our lucky stars that England is still throwing bundles of twenties at us.’ I suggested facetiously, more than anything to lighten the mood in the room.
Esterhase was having none of it. He pointed an accusing finger at me, saying:
‘You are a beggar nation with your hand forever out to London. Face it, what have you ever done for us? You are like the banks, when it rains you take back the umbrellas. You cheered Costa Rica in the world cup which is a total failure of the Tebbit Test. Total! So we stole a few horses together, good times but that was then. Now you hate us yet we keep working our fingers to the bones and give you all the money. Why? Why would we do that?’
‘For auld lang syne!’ I shouted, unable to hide my shameful Scottish tears.
‘Achilles,’ called Smiley softly, ‘Achilles, come down. Finish your sherry and calm down.’ He took up the Testify file, ‘We were talking about Kirov, Alexei Alexandrovitch…’

For Yasgur’s farm.

I couldn’t resist a quick tramp through the bracken with the 410 so I was a bit late getting into work yesterday. I got a couple of fine doe hares and three brace of pigeons, right plump ones too.

I split the kill with Dick when I got in:

‘There you go and don’t say I’m not good to you. That’d cost you a few quid in the shops.’
‘These ladies are from Icelandair,’ he said, a bit frosty. ‘They’ve been waiting since 11 o’clock to discuss the maintenance contract. Remember?’

There was blood and feathers on my jerkin and my moleskins were covered in briars, but I hid it well.

‘Yes of course I remember. Inga and Sandra! How are you both? Good flight I hope.’

I reached out a hearty hand. Sometimes I hate my big practical hands.*

Cooking tip.

A raised pie uses hot-water crust pastry. That works the best.

Make the stock with the leg bones of the hare and the carcases of the pigeons after you’ve removed the breasts.

For the pie, you’ll need the breasts of 4 pigeons and the boned hare sliced into strips. Mix with 10 oz of pork sausage meat, a quarter pound of cooked ham chopped, 6 oz of chopped mushrooms, a chopped optional hardboiled egg, ½ cup red wine or vermouth and season with salt pepper and grated lemon rind.

Remove the hot-water crust pastry from the pie mould. Check the resultant pie case for holes and repair. Fill the pie case with the mixture. Dampen the rim, cover and seal, - crimping to make a decorative edge. Cut a 2” vent in the top. Brush with a beaten egg and bake in the hot oven for an hour.

Remove from the oven, make a cigarette out of greaseproof paper and force it into the vent to keep it open. Brush the top and sides with more beaten egg and replace in the hot oven but on a lower shelf, for another hour.

Remove the pie from the oven. Let it cool a bit then pour 1¾ cups of the stock through a funnel into the vent of the still warm pie. If the pie has leaked in the oven, wait until it’s cold before pouring in the stock. You can use any remaining stock to make a rich game sauce by reducing it with some sherry wine and unsalted butter and one of the blood bags out the hare. Lovely.

Let it chill for 5 hours before cutting.

*You can’t get the gloves.

I could tell you about my life and keep you amused I’m sure. Look, never mind all that, listen.
Today, as always around this time [14.05] I am submerging. For a quarter hour I slide down this mad helter-skelter into the rotten core of my weak human heart.
I don’t fight it. I dive deeper. The sooner it’s over, the sooner it’s over.
Lately it’s been getting worse. These days, my mind turns quite naturally to novel ways of inflicting pain at its most exquisite. I’m surprising myself. We’re in terra nova folks; we sure as hell ain’t in fucking Kansas Toto.
The objects of my malevolence?
David and Ruth Archer.
I want them to die. I want them to suffer pain in some painful combine harvester crash...no wait…I want them fed, feet first, into some kind of industrial meat grinding machine… in slow motion…yes in slow motion…it mustn’t be quick…not for those bastasrds!
I said I was surprising myself. I don’t say I’m a good man, oh but I would be, if I could.

St. George and the Budley Salterton Bypass.

A happy St George’s Day to Pat and all the other English bloggers like Ayres and Foot Eater and Neil and Dick and the rest of them. God bless you all.

Only the top notch countries have a patron saint and they don’t come more pukka than St George. He kills the dragon and gets a virgin! Result!

The English flag is in fact just the flag of St. George.
They liked it so much, that they made it their own.
‘We like the whole St George story so much,’ they said, ‘that we’ll make your flag, our flag.’ and that was that. St George’s flag was now England’s flag as well.
Hmmm, a little bit naughty when you think about it. Didn’t really ask, did they? Little bit previous if you ask me. Didn’t wait to be offered. Just stretched out and took it, like the last bun on the plate.
Anyway, all a long time ago and I’m sure we wish them well, on this, their day of days.
Was a bit rude though. Manners don’t cost anything. ‘Ooh that looks nice, I’m having that…’
Yeah, just like India.

A Maserati passed me at Stirling. It so like evoked Fatmammycat in her shiny leather catsuit. That’s right. In my mind that’s what she always wears.
I know what you’re thinking : it must chafe and squeak. Well she’s worth it.
As I drove on, I pictured us both in my luxury jet, flying off to somewhere tropical, you know? Somewhere like so long haul.
It was great. We had in-flight Cobb salads and afterwards she had a bloody mary while I drove over the rumble strip onto the hard shoulder. Whoops.
Those rumble strips are a triumph of British ingenuity. They stop you drifting right enough. After that I toned down my fantasy considerably.

By the way SheBah, if you’re reading this, I am six one with smooth golden skin, long sensitive fingers and the darkest liquid eyes. I love painting, especially WW2 fighters and bombers. I can play trad on the piano and smoke on the water on the guitar. I’ve got a fuzz box.

let’s get back to those toned-down fantasies;

• for the Friday booze run to Tesco, I now dress her in boots, britches, cravat and give her a riding crop. Yoiks! Halloo!
• for the bar supper down at Wetherspoon’s, it’s Emma Peel’s jumpsuit from the Avengers. Two mixed grill sizzlers please!
• for clubbing at the Ice Factory, I’m thinking Dallas Cowboys cheerleader with like, cowboy boots and silver cap guns. TOUCHDOWN!
• and for watching Celtic on Setanta in the front bar, a simple and elegant French maid’s outfit with feather duster. Deux kir? Oui s’il vous plait!

It’s not the same without the duster. Everyone knows that.
Some nights I dream of finding solutions to mathematical functions but not so much recently.

And when the dam breaks, many years from now…

Anglophilia and the Scottish Elections.

I believe that the Scots and Irish are anglophiles.

I don’t mean the mindless sycophancy of Ulster and West of Scotland Unionists; which is a buttock clenching horror upon the earth; I mean our deep hidden admiration of the English and their English ways.
Many times I’ve heard ‘bloody English!’[and worse] in the cosy Front Bar of an evening.
I always challenge this because that’s just the kinda guy I am.
A frank exchange of views then takes place where the thrust of reason and rational counter argument take the floor and cant and sophistry slink off to their cheerless hovels...
not.
And it’s not all roses in the English garden either. There is the royal family for instance. Surely in 2007 even the idea of a royal family is an embarrassing anachronism. Hereditary privilege? And worse, a constitutional function? Based on genes? What are we thinking about? Are we mad?
There we are, preaching parliamentary democracy to the poor and ignorant of the world, (3,000,000,000 on a dollar a day or less) while we pamper our royals to the point of obscenity.
But of course to disestablish the monarchy would mean taking a hard look at all our upper classes and they wouldn’t like that so they will never let us. A pity really because it lessens us, whoever ‘us’ is, and that’s another thing, there never was an ethnic British identity, let alone one that should be protected.
No matter what any Nationalist will tell you.
Nationalists. They are another anachronism.
The idea that people are simply better because of the bit of ground they were born on.
Give me strength.
Sean Connery? What, for the love of Christ, is that all about? He’s Spanish for God’s sake, in his kilt or no’.
The only good thing to be said for independence is that it might make us less anally retentive, because by God, THAT is the national disorder of the Scots. That and a parochialism that would astound. To the Nationalists, I heartily say:
“Hamish! The world’s speeding up!. Jump on! Leave Brig o' Doon and come with us to Rio and Noo Yoik and Barthelona and LA and high-ceilinged Paris.”

If we were to become a republic and be in the EU with euros and everything and not be dragged into disgraceful wars all over the place and we had a Chinese woman from Dundee or Garnethill or even Kirkaldy as the first president, then I’d probably vote for Them. The Nationalists I mean,- not the Chinese; they’ll be here soon enough.


I’m doing ‘Ameriphilia’ next.

Mater has come. She’s been here four days now but it seems longer. She’s a total townie. Unfenced grass upsets her, it makes her nervous, she hates it. Even the fair city of Perth, gateway to the highlands, heart of Scotland, holds no joy for her beyond the pleasure of sniffing at the place. She should have been a duchess. Our house backs onto the park where the village fete is held. Once, some years ago now, she was up and as we walked over, we were met by some smiling villagers and it soon became clear that they had mistaken her for Lady Somebody Else who had been booked to cut the ribbon. Made her day of course. I remember it fine. There was a racehorse, a Grand National winner and at the bottle stall I won a bottle of Mateus Rose and one of Head and Shoulders shampoo. Mrs Maroon has taken a lot of extra shifts. The money will come in handy.
Still no sign of NTL.

Diet of worms.

‘I want Fatmammycat.’
‘Tell us something we don’t know.’ he sneered, dragging the red pencil around Japing Ape.
‘Hey, fuck off Ayres!’ I protested, ‘Bananas must remain a joint protectorate forever.’
‘Fuck you Maroon!’ he replied, stroking his chin, ‘this beard needs the lebensraum.’
‘Why not take your access to the sea through Fishwhacker Swindle?’ I challenged.
‘Poor infrastructure,’ he objected, ‘and who the fuck died and left you SheBah?’ he demanded, suddenly standing up and pointing at the map.

The landlord came over.

‘I wonder if you’d mind keeping it down, gents? Only we’ve got a lot in for lunches today.’ he pleaded.
‘Oh Yeah?’ scoffed Ayres, belligerently sipping his raspberry and vanilla infusion.
‘Leave it Kim, he’s a civilian.’ I soothed…


Once again, Ayres and his beard and I were in neutral Clackmannanshire deciding the future map of the Blogosphere. It was Yalta all over again…


‘What about Hutton?’ Ayres continued.
‘Have it and welcome.’ I offered.
‘I don’t want it.’ he shrugged.
‘Me neither.’ I assured.
‘What about Past Imperfect then?’ he wheedled slyly.
‘Piss off! Just because it’s non-aligned you think you can walk in and make yourself at home.’ I expostulated.
‘Fine, I’ll take Kitchenbitch then.’ he smirked.
‘Oh no you don’t, you slimy fucker. They smash crockery there, -that’s a Maroon trait, -there’s a definite cultural connection speaking geopolitically!’ I raged, spilling my Appletiser into the bargain.
‘Philosophically speaking, that blog is in MY sphere of influence.’ Ayres bellowed, thumping the table with his shoe and upsetting the sugar tongs.

The landlord reappeared:

‘If you keep using words like that, I’m going to ask you to leave.’
‘What, “slimy fucker” ?’ I enquired in amazement.
‘Geopolitical.’ avowed the landlord, before adding darkly; ‘you’ve been warned.’
‘Ooh, hark at her,’ mocked Ayres, ‘…right, what about Problemchildbride?...

Juxtaposition. I’m from a place where the use of that word earns you a punch in the mouth, from your own family even.
Nevertheless…
Tossed and turned all night I did, but the day had arrived. What would the big man in the beard say? What insight would fall from his lips? Which path would he illuminate for me? Would I measure up?

I wasn’t let down. He always delivers. He managed to juxtapose genetic Frankenstein heart valves and mankind’s black heart and the sacred heart of Christ on the cross! Well, it is Good Friday and he is the Archbishop of Canterbury.He always get “thought for the day” during Easter. Fides defens etc. It was a triumph.

As for Ayres, who the hell knows what he has to say for himself?

Never heard about Oscar Wilde and Brendan Behan, Sean O’ Casey, George Bernard Shaw, (can’t think about) Samuel Beckett, Eugene O’ Neil, Edna O’ Brien and Laurence Stern…

This week, I have mainly been listening to Dexy’s Midnight Runners.

And Alice Cooper.

I wear lace and I wear black leather.

I’m using up a day of leave to see Ayres tomorrow. If I don’t, he’ll sulk for months and contrive to throw it in my face in a hundred ways. I’ve told him straight that personal contact is the death of blogging. Does he listen?

Skip to the end.

The point is this: If you have any questions you want to ask the great philosopher, now’s your chance. Get them in and I’ll ask him point-blank.

Post them in the comments, or if you are shy, email docmaroon@hotmail.co.uk and I’ll post the answers.

Personally I wouldn’t ask him anything. His answers are usually flimflam out of some textbook he says he’s read but I think you should have the option. I hope he doesn’t bring his mandolin again. That troubadour look is sooo last century.

I 'm a bit liverish so let's just sit here quiet and listen to the screams of the robots and the people making the fan blades and stuff not twenty feet away.
Noisy ain't it?
Well no, it isn't.
They're like a gang of Trappists.
That would be weird. A bunch of hooded men working in an engineering workshop in silence. Their cassocks would get caught in the milling machines.
Actually, we haven't got any milling machines.
We had to get rid of them because of the cassocks.

11.47. just another lifetime to go.

11.48

The wind is in from Africa,
Last night, I couldn’t sleep…

Looks like I’ve got the house to myself tonight. I hope I don’t get drunk and play all my old records too loud and start crying again. Mind you, that’s better than getting drunk and playing all my old records too loud and phoning people up at three in the morning. And that is better than getting drunk and playing all my old records too loud and fighting with the neighbours. Saps.

There may be trouble ahead,
But while there’s moonlight and music and love and romance…

They don’t like it up ‘em.
In the China Sea in the eighties when the navy were still boarding ships to have a nose around, it didn’t matter how many guns they carried, the crew of the vessel being searched were always a bit uncooperative, even to the point of rudeness. The boarding parties discovered however, that if they took along some naval pattern cutlasses to wave about, it changed things. Suddenly it was all:

“Yes sir, no sir and this way to the cigarettes and heroin sir.”

Well they pensioned off the naval cutlass just before the 1990 Gulf War because it didn’t fit in with smart bombs and cruise missiles, but imagine if those sailors [under American command] had had them when the Iranians turned up in their rubber dinghies.
For a kick off, your Arab respects a man with a sword. They know you can give any mug an AK47, but it takes cojones to handle a blade. Second, they could have slashed and sunk the Arabs’ boats making them look pretty foolish and Arabs hate to be mocked. Third: if things still looked a bit prickly, then swish, they could have taken an ear or a hand and that always concentrates the mind of the native. They don’t like it.

As it turned out, all their body armour and i-pods and machine guns were useless.
The Iranians simply said, “ Effendis, would you mind awfully coming with us?”
and the senior service replied, “ Why certainly, Abdul.”
Tony Blair says if they don’t hand them back then he’ll let down their tyres and steal their bicycle pumps. Give us back our sailors you rotters !

The sun came out yesterday and looks like doing it again today. You continentals may wonder what all the fuss is but sunshine is a big deal over here.
If I had money I would live somewhere hot and damn the consequences.

On Saturdays I would wear flannels and a blue shirt and pretend to be middle class and sit among the fishermen with a poetry book and I’d be a bit sozzled by 3pm so I’d have a siesta and a wash and brush up and then a sundowner and a bite to eat in the village square.
Through the week I would give lectures at the local university and be held in high regard. There would be faculty evenings with drinks and finger buffet and the staff and students would love me. Grateful fathers would shake my hand in the street for getting their sons to understand non linear differential equations.
I would have a housekeeper who spoiled me rotten and some days I would cycle home through the acacia trees and announce that there would be six for dinner and she’d say no problem and rustle up something terrific and there’d be oil lamps lighting up the wine glasses and all the faces and the vice chancellor’s wife would repeatedly try and get off with me…

See, sunshine is big deal over here.

Update: Pat of Pi fame has been teasing me in the most cruel way. (as only women can) The line she quoted: 'When one wets the bed at first it is warm then it gets cold.' is by none other than my total hero J. Joyce Esq. It's from 'portrait of the artist etc etc' I googled it. I knew it was one of the Waughs.