“For the love of Christ! Are you still playing with that thing?”
I hate blasphemy, and it a Sunday too.
“What the f**k are you doing anyway?”
Sorry for the language Pat, I’m quoting you know who.
“I am sending out my e-greetings” I replied.
“For f**ks sake! There’s tons to be done. Wrap it up. Jesus!”
She’s got a mouth on her you wouldn’t believe.
Therefore, may I wish you all a wonderful New Year?
Good.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Friday, December 29, 2006
Is it an addiction? Or a failing? A want? A personality disorder? What?
I’ve been back in since Half three, I’ve completed all my allotted tasks, Christmas has gone really well, everything’s arranged for New Year, and here I am, online, checking everyone’s blogs. I’ve got a ‘free’ night and instead of writing that opera or repointing the brickwork round that dodgy chimney, I’m drinking and pen-pal-ing to everyone out there.
What’s more, I’m a bit sentimental about it.
Now that IS odd.
Perhaps we can say anything here, that’s what we crave, there’s no judgement.
It is addictive.
I’ve been back in since Half three, I’ve completed all my allotted tasks, Christmas has gone really well, everything’s arranged for New Year, and here I am, online, checking everyone’s blogs. I’ve got a ‘free’ night and instead of writing that opera or repointing the brickwork round that dodgy chimney, I’m drinking and pen-pal-ing to everyone out there.
What’s more, I’m a bit sentimental about it.
Now that IS odd.
Perhaps we can say anything here, that’s what we crave, there’s no judgement.
It is addictive.
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Thursday, December 21, 2006
“About those mice Pat, do you have to keep them in the kitchen?”
“They like the warmth.”
“One of them looked at me funny…”
But Pat was on her fairy cell phone and held up a hand.
“Gotta go.” she said, and in a trice had made the secret sign with her wand.
FRITTERZIP!
She was gone, leaving a sensation of glittering motes in the air.
“I hate it when she’s on call.” he muttered, and went to feed the mice some weetabix.
While he was fishing in the cupboard for the packet, Pat was arcing through the firmament to a thin girl called Mandy in Nuneaton.
“Here we are lads, make you strong,” he said, as he dropped the cereal into their box. They really were the strangest little creatures. He could swear they were listening to him, especially that one with the ear. He examined the box. There was something stencilled on the side.
H Hutton Life Sciences S.A.
Bogota.
Colombia.
FOOMPH!
She was back in the room.
“Young gels today, such a poverty of ambition.” Pat declared, slumping into an armchair, “Do they want the gilded coach drawn by six white chargers? Do they heck as like! They want a stretch limo like Puff Daddy. They want bling and belly rings and butterfly tattoos on their bare backsides, well not on my shift Dearie! I told her! Here, be a darling and pep this up, will you?” she paused, handing her kir to Her True Love.
“ ‘I wants, don’t get.’ I said,” she continued, warming up, “ I said, ‘it’s the tiara, the glass slippers and the coach or you stay in and do your A level revision.’ That sorted her out! ”
“So she’s doing her algebra tonight then?” he asked, handing back the kir, now fully pepped up.
“Oh no. She turned on the waterworks didn‘t she? Niagara. So of course I relented. Gave her the full Monty.”
“Butterfly tattoo?” he asked.
“Even that. I warned her, mind. ‘Be home by 4 am’ I said, ‘or that butterfly will fly off and your clothes will transform.’ ”
“Back to rags?”
“No, into a sensible tweed skirt and twin set. She looked terrified.”
* * *
Maroon, painfully aware that the day is no longer his, sighs himself, and putting his paper down, rises to answer the door.
It is his neighbour’s manservant, ‘Buttons’.
“They like the warmth.”
“One of them looked at me funny…”
But Pat was on her fairy cell phone and held up a hand.
“Gotta go.” she said, and in a trice had made the secret sign with her wand.
FRITTERZIP!
She was gone, leaving a sensation of glittering motes in the air.
“I hate it when she’s on call.” he muttered, and went to feed the mice some weetabix.
While he was fishing in the cupboard for the packet, Pat was arcing through the firmament to a thin girl called Mandy in Nuneaton.
“Here we are lads, make you strong,” he said, as he dropped the cereal into their box. They really were the strangest little creatures. He could swear they were listening to him, especially that one with the ear. He examined the box. There was something stencilled on the side.
H Hutton Life Sciences S.A.
Bogota.
Colombia.
FOOMPH!
She was back in the room.
“Young gels today, such a poverty of ambition.” Pat declared, slumping into an armchair, “Do they want the gilded coach drawn by six white chargers? Do they heck as like! They want a stretch limo like Puff Daddy. They want bling and belly rings and butterfly tattoos on their bare backsides, well not on my shift Dearie! I told her! Here, be a darling and pep this up, will you?” she paused, handing her kir to Her True Love.
“ ‘I wants, don’t get.’ I said,” she continued, warming up, “ I said, ‘it’s the tiara, the glass slippers and the coach or you stay in and do your A level revision.’ That sorted her out! ”
“So she’s doing her algebra tonight then?” he asked, handing back the kir, now fully pepped up.
“Oh no. She turned on the waterworks didn‘t she? Niagara. So of course I relented. Gave her the full Monty.”
“Butterfly tattoo?” he asked.
“Even that. I warned her, mind. ‘Be home by 4 am’ I said, ‘or that butterfly will fly off and your clothes will transform.’ ”
“Back to rags?”
“No, into a sensible tweed skirt and twin set. She looked terrified.”
* * *
Maroon, painfully aware that the day is no longer his, sighs himself, and putting his paper down, rises to answer the door.
It is his neighbour’s manservant, ‘Buttons’.
Monday, December 18, 2006
Deep and crisp and eeeeeven…
It’s Sunday morning and we find Maroon in his favourite seat beside the stove in the kitchen. Still dressed in his childish tartan pyjamas, he’s on his second kir and has decided to ‘slob out’ this fine Perthshire day. In his little number-crammed brain, he has mapped out a day of wasteful pleasures for himself. The very thought gives him anticipatory butterflies of self-gratification. In celebration, he takes another sip.
Out on the periphery of his senses, way out on the lower boundary, past his self absorption, by the broken fence, where the ground never drains properly, there is a sigh and a metallic ‘clank’.
He continues reading his Sunday paper all about a couple who sold their modest home in Holland Park and bought the Romanian State Railways with the proceeds.
Sigh, CLANK.
There it is again. A fingernail being dragged across the blackboard of his dreams.
He puts down his Observer to focus on the source of this outrageous disturbance.
Not three feet away, his daughter Sarah is polishing the stove with much sighing and clanking. She is wearing an old apron and her arms are streaked with soot to the elbows. With care, she has applied some to her nose and cheeks as well. The effect is pleasing to the eye.
Maroon wonders where she got the soot.
“I thought you were going into town with your mother…” he begins.
“Stepmother..” she interrupts.
“Stepmother and sisters…” he continues.
“Stepsisters…” she corrects.
“Stepsisters then, to get something nice-to-wear-for-the-Christmas-do-up-at-the-big-house.” he finishes in a rush.
Sarah sighs.
“Oh I’d love to, but there is so much cleaning and mending and drudging and scrimping to be done…”
“Scrimping? Are we still on that? I thought scrimping was last month.”
“You don’t understand,” sighs Sarah and with another sigh continues, “nobody does.”
Before Maroon can answer, the kitchen door is flung wide to admit his two beautiful stepdaughters Footsie and Kimski. I say beautiful, for their beauty is there for all to see. An inner beauty. An unkind misanthrope may remark on the robust strength of their wrists, or their breadth of shoulder but clean country air and lots of hockey will do that to two hearty girls.
* * *
Far, far away, in the cold land of the English, a semi retired fairy godmother is dusting her welsh dresser with her magic wand with the star on the end in preparation to putting her feet up. She too is having a kir.
“Alakazoo and fizzy fizzou and hippity hoppity bop…” she sings as she works.
Her True Love stomps into the room
“You’ll never believe it!” says he in consternation.
“Whatever is the matter?” asks Pat (for it is she).
“My prize pumpkins!” he exclaims, “Three of them. Stolen out the greenhouse right under our noses while we slept abed.”
“Oh my. Oh dear.” says Pat, her singing now on hold.
Pat’s True Love eyes her with dawning suspicion.
“Pat you didn’t! You promised! Anyway, I thought you‘d retired.” He says.
“I’m locum this year,” says Pat, deciding to come clean, “and nobody has pumpkins these days. I had to raid an animal testing lab for the white mice, goodness knows, I hope they’re not infectious…”
It’s Sunday morning and we find Maroon in his favourite seat beside the stove in the kitchen. Still dressed in his childish tartan pyjamas, he’s on his second kir and has decided to ‘slob out’ this fine Perthshire day. In his little number-crammed brain, he has mapped out a day of wasteful pleasures for himself. The very thought gives him anticipatory butterflies of self-gratification. In celebration, he takes another sip.
Out on the periphery of his senses, way out on the lower boundary, past his self absorption, by the broken fence, where the ground never drains properly, there is a sigh and a metallic ‘clank’.
He continues reading his Sunday paper all about a couple who sold their modest home in Holland Park and bought the Romanian State Railways with the proceeds.
Sigh, CLANK.
There it is again. A fingernail being dragged across the blackboard of his dreams.
He puts down his Observer to focus on the source of this outrageous disturbance.
Not three feet away, his daughter Sarah is polishing the stove with much sighing and clanking. She is wearing an old apron and her arms are streaked with soot to the elbows. With care, she has applied some to her nose and cheeks as well. The effect is pleasing to the eye.
Maroon wonders where she got the soot.
“I thought you were going into town with your mother…” he begins.
“Stepmother..” she interrupts.
“Stepmother and sisters…” he continues.
“Stepsisters…” she corrects.
“Stepsisters then, to get something nice-to-wear-for-the-Christmas-do-up-at-the-big-house.” he finishes in a rush.
Sarah sighs.
“Oh I’d love to, but there is so much cleaning and mending and drudging and scrimping to be done…”
“Scrimping? Are we still on that? I thought scrimping was last month.”
“You don’t understand,” sighs Sarah and with another sigh continues, “nobody does.”
Before Maroon can answer, the kitchen door is flung wide to admit his two beautiful stepdaughters Footsie and Kimski. I say beautiful, for their beauty is there for all to see. An inner beauty. An unkind misanthrope may remark on the robust strength of their wrists, or their breadth of shoulder but clean country air and lots of hockey will do that to two hearty girls.
* * *
Far, far away, in the cold land of the English, a semi retired fairy godmother is dusting her welsh dresser with her magic wand with the star on the end in preparation to putting her feet up. She too is having a kir.
“Alakazoo and fizzy fizzou and hippity hoppity bop…” she sings as she works.
Her True Love stomps into the room
“You’ll never believe it!” says he in consternation.
“Whatever is the matter?” asks Pat (for it is she).
“My prize pumpkins!” he exclaims, “Three of them. Stolen out the greenhouse right under our noses while we slept abed.”
“Oh my. Oh dear.” says Pat, her singing now on hold.
Pat’s True Love eyes her with dawning suspicion.
“Pat you didn’t! You promised! Anyway, I thought you‘d retired.” He says.
“I’m locum this year,” says Pat, deciding to come clean, “and nobody has pumpkins these days. I had to raid an animal testing lab for the white mice, goodness knows, I hope they’re not infectious…”
Friday, December 08, 2006
My natural joi de vivre is alive and kicking.
I’ve just the tiniest, hardly worth mentioning, head cold.
It’s definitely NOT flu.
How?
I’ll just tell you.
Because cabin air is totally crap, that‘s how, no matter what the brochures tell you.
Cabin air’s been through seven people and four compressor stages by the time YOU breath it in.
“Oh but our air-con systems are second to none. The filters are small enough to catch microbes and radio isotopes and everything…”
When were they last changed?
That’s all I’m asking.
These marvels of air purity, who looked at them last?
Yeah, I thought so.
There’s a picture of Pat on a boat that will bring cheer to anyone who dosen't have flu, like what I haven't got.
It's over at her bit,( http://patspastimperfect.blogspot.com/ ). Very reviving. It‘s so rare to see such quality.
The workmanship on that mahogany taffrail, sublime! And the deck planking, Magnifique!
Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,
With a cargo of ivory,
And apes and peacocks,
Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.
I’ve just the tiniest, hardly worth mentioning, head cold.
It’s definitely NOT flu.
How?
I’ll just tell you.
Because cabin air is totally crap, that‘s how, no matter what the brochures tell you.
Cabin air’s been through seven people and four compressor stages by the time YOU breath it in.
“Oh but our air-con systems are second to none. The filters are small enough to catch microbes and radio isotopes and everything…”
When were they last changed?
That’s all I’m asking.
These marvels of air purity, who looked at them last?
Yeah, I thought so.
There’s a picture of Pat on a boat that will bring cheer to anyone who dosen't have flu, like what I haven't got.
It's over at her bit,( http://patspastimperfect.blogspot.com/ ). Very reviving. It‘s so rare to see such quality.
The workmanship on that mahogany taffrail, sublime! And the deck planking, Magnifique!
Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,
With a cargo of ivory,
And apes and peacocks,
Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.
Saturday, December 02, 2006
Apparently she can cook as well.
Result.
Mr Gorilla Bananas put his unopposable thumb right on it.
Do you remember Mark Thatcher and his chums were going to invade some country, set themselves up as rulers, then sell the oil - only they were caught on the plane and lucky not to be shot? Exact same with Bonny Prince Charlie, although there were no planes, obviously. The notion of stable flight through an invisible fluid would have been witchcraft to the Jacobites.
Imagine: highlanders strafing Cumberland’s ranks from tartan spitfires, why, the very idea is criminally insane!
Did you know that the British Aeronautical Society say we better get an Englishman on Mars quick, because they believe we will all be wiped out by a gigantic meteor?
They don’t tell you that over the loudspeakers in Wickes.
Don’t buy that kitchen unit, for you will all be as dust before the warranty’s up.
Might have a kir.
Or two.
Separatin’ the albumen.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Slavery & Famine & Elizabeth I & James I & Cromwell and 1746 and all that (but no Vikings) and apologies thereof.
Descendants of slaves from British Caribbean plantations often have Scottish names like McDonald, Fraser, Stewart and so on. They were owned by someone of that name. It was the same in 18th century Scotland. Feudal serfdom existed in the highlands until 1746. Your chief owned you in a system that hadn’t changed since the 11th century. Even the hero of ‘Kidnapped’ set in the aftermath of 1746, is sold into slavery.
Half my lot came to Scotland in 1840 something to escape starvation in Ireland and the other lot were forfeit a hundred years earlier in 1746.
It’s all true. I’ve seen the mass grave and everything.
It was the way of the world in 1746. If you were on the winning side you got land. If you were on the losing side it was taken off you.
150-200 years earlier, to pick up Conan’s point, Elizabeth then James had distributed land especially in Ireland to their cronies as a reward and to stop further rebellion from Irish lords. The land grab was on in Scotland at the same time. Mary, her followers and opponents alike, carved up the place to suit themselves. We the serfs, were just the chattel that went with the fixtures.
The Indian economist Amartya Sen* showed that famine has an economic cause not related to a physical shortage of food.
In Ireland, the population was halved by famine. The cause is still given as a crop disease, which is convenient as it brings Fate and God into it but the cause of the starvation was deliberate economics. The people were left to starve while food exports from Ireland were encouraged by a government hostile to the people who were starving. A government that had abolished slavery 40 years before.
There is some debate as to whether Blair should apologise for this, and Elizabethan Planters, and pitchcapping, and the Black and Tans and so on.
I’m unsure.
Would he be apologising on MY behalf? I hope not. I’m a product of that famine and a decendant of serfs.
BUT, the likes of the Dukes of Hamilton, Buccleuch, Argyll, etc., they should get down on their hands and knees.
*Amartya Sen won the Nobel prize and ended up Master at my old college. Small world eh?
Descendants of slaves from British Caribbean plantations often have Scottish names like McDonald, Fraser, Stewart and so on. They were owned by someone of that name. It was the same in 18th century Scotland. Feudal serfdom existed in the highlands until 1746. Your chief owned you in a system that hadn’t changed since the 11th century. Even the hero of ‘Kidnapped’ set in the aftermath of 1746, is sold into slavery.
Half my lot came to Scotland in 1840 something to escape starvation in Ireland and the other lot were forfeit a hundred years earlier in 1746.
It’s all true. I’ve seen the mass grave and everything.
It was the way of the world in 1746. If you were on the winning side you got land. If you were on the losing side it was taken off you.
150-200 years earlier, to pick up Conan’s point, Elizabeth then James had distributed land especially in Ireland to their cronies as a reward and to stop further rebellion from Irish lords. The land grab was on in Scotland at the same time. Mary, her followers and opponents alike, carved up the place to suit themselves. We the serfs, were just the chattel that went with the fixtures.
The Indian economist Amartya Sen* showed that famine has an economic cause not related to a physical shortage of food.
In Ireland, the population was halved by famine. The cause is still given as a crop disease, which is convenient as it brings Fate and God into it but the cause of the starvation was deliberate economics. The people were left to starve while food exports from Ireland were encouraged by a government hostile to the people who were starving. A government that had abolished slavery 40 years before.
There is some debate as to whether Blair should apologise for this, and Elizabethan Planters, and pitchcapping, and the Black and Tans and so on.
I’m unsure.
Would he be apologising on MY behalf? I hope not. I’m a product of that famine and a decendant of serfs.
BUT, the likes of the Dukes of Hamilton, Buccleuch, Argyll, etc., they should get down on their hands and knees.
*Amartya Sen won the Nobel prize and ended up Master at my old college. Small world eh?
Monday, November 27, 2006
Here are some comments that I didn’t reply to and was feeling guilty about.
Someone was telling me the other day that you can get a degree in call centre communications or some shit. I thank my lucky stars that I have neither an education, nor do I have to work in a call centre.
Jagd Kunst Homepage 11.19.06 - 9:35 pm #
they keep telling us here in the states that we're transitioning to a service economy.
If we all serve eachother, who'll be able to afford it?
Its the snake eating its own tail, and no one sees that we're fast running out of snake.
Whatever. We once built our way through a world war we weren't strategically qualified to win, and now our American car companies TOGETHER can't even capture a majority of our own car market. Blech, depressing.
SafeTinspector Homepage 11.20.06 - 12:51 am #
Doc it looks to me like your boat is flying a Danish flag.
Also, Kissinger says we can't win Iraq.
Justin 11.20.06 - 8:17 am #
I heard someone say that a jet is just a propeller with an afterburner and I thought: "How Dr Maroon would pooh pooh that, Sir". Personally, I'd love to hear you discuss the contribution of Sir Frank Whipple. Didn't he invent an ice cream as well?
Gorilla Bananas Homepage 11.20.06 - 6:19 pm #
Not cocoa, as far as I know, but apparently they do a good cup of tea.
Foot Eater Homepage 11.20.06 - 8:09 pm #
Suck,Squeeze,Bang and Blow.All you need to know about jet engines.
oh...and they stop whining at shut down.Unlike most pilots.
Hanger Queen Homepage 11.20.06 - 9:12 pm #
Edinburgh people don't really have a Scottish accent, do they? It's more of an English accent with a bit of a twang on it. Twangers.
kav Homepage 11.21.06 - 9:45 am #
What is a Morningside accent?
Pat Homepage 11.23.06 - 7:29 pm #
Pat , In Morningside, sex is what they take the garbage out in. I hope that helps.
Kav, I feel terribly guilty that no one’s enlightened you yet. There are a half dozen counties in Scotland that must be avoided at all costs. They are, in order of hellishness, Lanarkshire, Ayrshire, Stirlingshire, The Borders, West Lothian, Dunbartonshire, Dumfriesshire and Fife maybe. Fife’s borderline. All the others are tolerable, with Perthshire the best. Obviously.
Get your family and stuff together and shift without delay. It’s a very small country so it won’t be too much of an upheaval.
Hangar Queen, you’re almost right but quite fundamentally mistaken. You are describing an Otto cycle. If you sign up for my home study course, I shall explain.
Foot Eater, I like the one the monkeys drink.
Mr Gorilla Bananas, Frank was in the great tradition of English inventors. A pioneer of remarkable talent. His engines were thermodynamically similar but mechanically different from the Metro Vickers design which is the type in universal use today.
Justin your eyesight is astounding. Kissinger’s a nasty piece of work. Very nasty.
SafeTinspector, your page has a myriad of popups and stuff which does not go down well with steam driven computers like this one. Sort it out boy.
Jagd don’t be so hard on yourself. You’d be great in a call centre. For a while anyway. I think you’d be sacked eventually. There’d be complaints.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
But the wolves came,
and they ate him,
and they drank his beer.
This week, I have been experimenting with the effects of alpha, beta and gamma sources on the physiology of our Finance Director.
I have put the salts of various emitting metals into his lunchtime soup.
All together now,
There’s (deep breath) thallium and thorium, polonium and radium,
And strontium, uranium, plutonium and barium,
These are the only ones of which Maroon has give to Dick yet,
And there may be many others - but they haven't made him sick yet.
(to the tune of “the modern major general” with apologies to Tom Lehrer.)
and they ate him,
and they drank his beer.
This week, I have been experimenting with the effects of alpha, beta and gamma sources on the physiology of our Finance Director.
I have put the salts of various emitting metals into his lunchtime soup.
All together now,
There’s (deep breath) thallium and thorium, polonium and radium,
And strontium, uranium, plutonium and barium,
These are the only ones of which Maroon has give to Dick yet,
And there may be many others - but they haven't made him sick yet.
(to the tune of “the modern major general” with apologies to Tom Lehrer.)
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Glasgow is the call centre capital of Britain.
That’s right! Those annoying people who phone you up at half eight at night when you’ve just started your second kir and are hoping for light relief on the TV, to ask you about your financial affairs, or your guttering or if you’ve got a conservatory.
Thoughtless weasels.
Reading Pat's Blog , I am reminded how high a fall that is.
Her husband, ( not HTL, the other one ) worked for Metropolitan Vickers.
Now it may interest you to know that among many other things, Metro Vickers in Manchester developed the first axial flow jet engine way back in 1938. It was a Metro Vickers jet engine that powered Campbell’s Bluebird speedboat, or one of them, anyway, 4000 h.p. in 1955.
Before ISO, when British Standards ruled the roost, it was companies like Vickers who wrote the book. They developed the test methods and so on that we still use today.
Manufacturing output in Britain has now fallen to it’s 1840 level. Our Christmas arrived last week on a super jumbo ship from China. Yeah, well, they can make you a microwave oven for £20 but can they make beer? Can they cocoa.!
That’s right! Those annoying people who phone you up at half eight at night when you’ve just started your second kir and are hoping for light relief on the TV, to ask you about your financial affairs, or your guttering or if you’ve got a conservatory.
Thoughtless weasels.
Reading Pat's Blog , I am reminded how high a fall that is.
Her husband, ( not HTL, the other one ) worked for Metropolitan Vickers.
Now it may interest you to know that among many other things, Metro Vickers in Manchester developed the first axial flow jet engine way back in 1938. It was a Metro Vickers jet engine that powered Campbell’s Bluebird speedboat, or one of them, anyway, 4000 h.p. in 1955.
Before ISO, when British Standards ruled the roost, it was companies like Vickers who wrote the book. They developed the test methods and so on that we still use today.
Manufacturing output in Britain has now fallen to it’s 1840 level. Our Christmas arrived last week on a super jumbo ship from China. Yeah, well, they can make you a microwave oven for £20 but can they make beer? Can they cocoa.!
Monday, November 13, 2006
Saturday, November 11, 2006
In England, land of Magna Carta, trial by jury, presumption of innocence - they’ve just sentenced a man to 40 years imprisonment in a way that would be difficult in Scotland. The man claimed to be “the top Al Qaeda operative in Britain.”
Yeah right, of course you are son.
The spooks say they have thwarted some wild terrorist attacks against us in our beds.
The terrifying plans were fantastic, literally.
The man had dreamt up all sorts of nonsensical rubbish. He had worked it all out in school jotters and the security services jumped at the chance to use him to frighten us into giving them more leeway than any government agency has a legal right to expect.
The law in Scotland is quite different. A conviction cannot be secured on an uncorroborated confession; in fact there can’t even be a prosecution. This saves the court’s time when fantasists crawl out the woodwork with schoolboy ideas about putting piranha fish in the Clyde in the hope that Jack McConnell will fall in and be eaten.
Even when these trainee sociopaths work it all out on paper and have diagrams of tankers with ‘nitro-glycerine’ written on them, or ‘poison cyanide gas cylinder here‘, the police, that is, the normal, world weary Glasgow polis, will ask the budding terrorist to prove it;
“ OK son, this bit here, where it says Strontium 90, have you actually got any? ”
“ Yes. ”
“ Where is it then, in your uncle’s lockup? Next to the strimmer? ”
“ It‘s on order, it‘ll come, you‘ll see, then you‘ll be sorry. ”
“ Alright son, alright, what about the explosives? Your ‘plans’, [winks at two way mirror] call for about 10 tonnes of the stuff. ”
“ I’m going to mix it myself. ” says the mass murderer to be.
“ That’s a lot of sugar and weed killer. What about setting it off? ”
“ I kept back some bangers from bonfire night…”
“ You seem to be taking your time about blowing anything up.”
“ What do you mean? ”
“ Well, some of these plans go back to the late nineties…”
“ I’m a meticulous planner.”
“…in fact, to around the time your girlfriend chucked you.”
“ It was amicable, we remained friends, a mutual decision, I chucked her actually…”
I don’t know, maybe he is an Al Qaeda terrorist, he certainly wants us to think he’s important, but there’s something fishy about it all, and the spooks have their excuse now to kneed the country into the shape they or their paymasters want and there ain’t eye-diddly-do you can do about it.
Yeah right, of course you are son.
The spooks say they have thwarted some wild terrorist attacks against us in our beds.
The terrifying plans were fantastic, literally.
The man had dreamt up all sorts of nonsensical rubbish. He had worked it all out in school jotters and the security services jumped at the chance to use him to frighten us into giving them more leeway than any government agency has a legal right to expect.
The law in Scotland is quite different. A conviction cannot be secured on an uncorroborated confession; in fact there can’t even be a prosecution. This saves the court’s time when fantasists crawl out the woodwork with schoolboy ideas about putting piranha fish in the Clyde in the hope that Jack McConnell will fall in and be eaten.
Even when these trainee sociopaths work it all out on paper and have diagrams of tankers with ‘nitro-glycerine’ written on them, or ‘poison cyanide gas cylinder here‘, the police, that is, the normal, world weary Glasgow polis, will ask the budding terrorist to prove it;
“ OK son, this bit here, where it says Strontium 90, have you actually got any? ”
“ Yes. ”
“ Where is it then, in your uncle’s lockup? Next to the strimmer? ”
“ It‘s on order, it‘ll come, you‘ll see, then you‘ll be sorry. ”
“ Alright son, alright, what about the explosives? Your ‘plans’, [winks at two way mirror] call for about 10 tonnes of the stuff. ”
“ I’m going to mix it myself. ” says the mass murderer to be.
“ That’s a lot of sugar and weed killer. What about setting it off? ”
“ I kept back some bangers from bonfire night…”
“ You seem to be taking your time about blowing anything up.”
“ What do you mean? ”
“ Well, some of these plans go back to the late nineties…”
“ I’m a meticulous planner.”
“…in fact, to around the time your girlfriend chucked you.”
“ It was amicable, we remained friends, a mutual decision, I chucked her actually…”
I don’t know, maybe he is an Al Qaeda terrorist, he certainly wants us to think he’s important, but there’s something fishy about it all, and the spooks have their excuse now to kneed the country into the shape they or their paymasters want and there ain’t eye-diddly-do you can do about it.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
We were just talking there at dinnertime hahaha, you’ll love this, about foreign travel and how funny foreigners are, and I remembered my visit to Rome, waitaminute, sorry, but it is funny, I can hardly typre, anyway I was following these signs for the gents that seemed to lead nowhere and I ended up on a dual carriageway in the middle of town with a policeman on points duty har har glugg, so I asked him where the lavatory was and he “pointed” at a small bit of bent tin in the central reserve which covered you from chest to knee on three sides but it was totally open at the back and you peed against this tin thing in broad daylight and there was a rusty gutter affair that collected it and poured it out onto the road so I made a funny face when I was using it so that the photo would look interesting and zany when it came out so that’s what we were talking about at lunchtime here the strange toilet habits of our continental “cousins” that and the fact that interest rates are up to 5% I suppose once I decide on an actual method of killing myself I‘ll feel better more relaxed I hope so.
Friday, November 03, 2006
The most wonderful lesson I ever learned from the Jesuits, perhaps the only lesson, was in Calcutta in 1984. I quote.
Don’t for one minute think, that your presence here will be of any help whatsoever to the people you’re about to live with. You’ve been brought here for your benefit, not theirs.
I’m not 100% sure why I’m bringing it up now.
It was a kind of a gap year* thing and the school tradition was that you got your hands dirty in a semi-sanitised but also thrown into the deep end sort of way.
He said it conversationally, not to fire me up to better things but as a bald statement of fact. In an instant, a fool could see the honesty of it. The most wonderful lesson alluded to, was the accidental nature of our position. If it held for me, then it must hold for all.
* five months only in India then six in Australia.
Don’t for one minute think, that your presence here will be of any help whatsoever to the people you’re about to live with. You’ve been brought here for your benefit, not theirs.
I’m not 100% sure why I’m bringing it up now.
It was a kind of a gap year* thing and the school tradition was that you got your hands dirty in a semi-sanitised but also thrown into the deep end sort of way.
He said it conversationally, not to fire me up to better things but as a bald statement of fact. In an instant, a fool could see the honesty of it. The most wonderful lesson alluded to, was the accidental nature of our position. If it held for me, then it must hold for all.
* five months only in India then six in Australia.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Strange people are wandering the Devon moors with mad monkeys on chains, fresh faces popping up like mushrooms everywhere and we haven’t had a gas flow lecture in ages, there’s a frigate somewhere out there on the foaming billow, Sarah and El Beardy have eloped to the anvil at Gretna without a spare set of handcuffs, there’s a cream Maserati (now a rich gold in the early sun) hammering down the Via Aurelia…the shortbread’s running low…duty free spirits of summer greatly depleted…nights are getting dark…black…bible black…must keep going…
Someone better get their act together and be damn smart about it.
Blogging’s not for the amateur.
You’re either in or out.
Monday, October 23, 2006
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Meeting
Tradecraft it’s called. An ability much prized by western security agencies.
Scotland was pouring forth it’s bounty upon the land, upon the motorways and upon our undeserving heads in long vertical streams of soaking wet goodness.
So as I parked, there was not a soul to be seen. Noone, no dog, no birds no tumbleweed, no nothin‘.
I hopped out and bent back into the car for my jacket. I put it on and turned round.
Holy Mary Mother of Christ!
“Hi Ack.”
“Hi Kim.”
As we walked to the entrance of the licensed premise, I took note of the fact that there were no cars, side streets, doorways, lanes, shops, vennels, alleyways, from which he might have sprung.
Some hours later, as we parted, our plan of action agreed, I deliberately kept an eye on him as he stood there, inscrutable in the rain, watching me, even as I slung my jacket in the back.
I had to turn to get into the car, a matter of seconds only…and he was gone!
I stopped for petrol three times on the road, changing my route, doubling back, you know the drill. I had to be sure.
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