I Don't Have The Map.

The Ultimate Sunday

2012-02-05T21:04:00.001Z

I've always considered Sundays to be one of the most boring days of the week. There's nothing much to do and if you do try and go out, you'll find that most places have closed for the day, probably so that the owners can take their shrieking offspring to the nice place you were considering visiting for a walk. I suppose the dreaded, dull Sunday would be far worse if you lived in the Western Isles. You can't even hang your washing out without incurring the pissed off hand of God. Surely there must be better things for God to be doing? Is the hanging of washing on a Sunday really that bad? Why is the “day of rest” essentially a bang your head against the wall till you pass out because anything is better than doing nothing day?

It's a long established irritation that's been in places for centuries and only now are we beginning to see cracks emerge in the walls of Sunday boredom. However, these cracks aren't anywhere near big enough. More people need to start banging their heads against the Sunday wall if we want to have any hope of breaking it. Unfortunately, merely banging your head against the wall is a pretty ineffective means of breaking it so I'm going to bring a sledgehammer to the proceedings in the guise of my Sunday Reform.

Like I say, some cracks have already formed so perhaps we should capitalise on what's already been done to erode the day of rest. The best example of this in this part of Scotland are 24 hour supermarkets. Unlike everywhere else in the UK (from what I've been led to believe, perhaps the larger conurbations like London and Birmingham see sense), Scotland keeps it's 24 hour supermarkets open throughout Sunday, they don't close. In the past, you had to wait till church finished before you could by alcohol on a Sunday. Since the introduction of the 10am till 10pm system, Sunday has seen the back of that highly unfair and insulting practise as the 10-10 system applies to every day of the week, no more exceptions. This is how things should be.

Most shops are beginning to see sense and are extending their Sunday opening hours, however, most places still don't have a full day's trading. This should be changed – my ideal vision for Sunday one where it's treated the same as a Saturday. Of course, I actually want to see the concept of the weekend scrapped entirely but let's focus on one thing at a time here.

So what am I looking for? What I'd like to see happen is the inclusion of essential services into the list of what opens on a Sunday. Let's say you have a parcel you want to post. Oh look, it's a Sunday, I can't do anything about it till tomorrow. Then when you do go to the post office on a Monday, it's full of old people standing on your heels in the hopes that they'll get their pensions faster. Let's look at this another way, say you've ordered something from Amazon. You order it on the Thursday in the hopes it'll come by Saturday. Saturday comes but it's not arrived. At this point it's not as simple as going “ach well, there's always tomorrow” because tomorrow is a waste of a day. Then, because there's a backlog due to the Sunday slacking, you end up waiting till Tuesday. If the postal service worked on a Sunday, not only would they take in more money from those who can't make it in during the week but it'd also create more jobs as they'd need more postmen to collect and deliver that day.

That's the postal service dealt with. Hopefully my idea of a Sunday reform is sounding more inviting by now? What else should operate on a Sunday? Consider this, you notice there's something wrong with you, it's not too major but you want to get it checked out in case it's something that could turn nasty. You phone for a doctor's appointment only to find that you have to wait up to two weeks to be seen. This actually happened to me once, it was around the time of the Royal Wedding last year which happened to coincide with the early May bank holiday. Most people had four days off that weekend so when I wanted to make an appointment to get something seen to, I was told it was going to be at least two weeks due to the backlog of people. When you think about it, that's an insult. I'm not one of these people that sits and badmouths the NHS but that really was pathetic. Some people I don't know are getting married and for some reason there's a Monday holiday so I have to wait till what's wrong with me becomes a serious issue before it'll get looked at. Thankfully it didn't turn out to be anything that some antibiotics couldn't fix but infections aren't something you want to allow to fester.

Of course, these places currently don't open on Saturdays either but with my Sunday reform, you'd be able to get a doctor's appointment on any day of the week. Again, this is something that'd benefit a lot of people and it'd create more jobs due to longer opening hours. There are multiple positive themes that run throughout the Sunday reform and job creation is one of them. This would be especially useful just now. There are many other examples of useful places and public services which, if they opened on a Sunday would hugely benefit the economy. However, once I get into too much detail about this stuff, it becomes dry and boring, kind of like Sundays themselves so let's move on.

Why are Sundays the way they are? Our modern snooze-fest is a continuation of the day of rest concept that's popular amongst Christians and by day of rest, they mean dress up in your best suit, go to church and then spend the rest of the day wishing you were allowed to do something more interesting. However, those of us who aren't religious still have to put up with this, although for a lot of people, Sunday is just a lazy day where you can recover from being a Saturday night fanny down at the local nightclub.

Is it not about time that modern religion was given the same status as ancient Greek mythology? You look at a story from that time period and you recognise it as fiction so why can't the same be true today? The universe is full of wonder and intrigue. Why discredit such an interesting and awe inspiring topic such as wonders of the universe by claiming it's all the result of God? Surely the actual answers as to why things are the way they are far more inspired than simply giving credit to a fictional character?

Realistically, the only way Sunday reform could ever happen is if we removed the outdated concepts and ideas of religion. That way, most of the resistance to such an idea would be removed and we'd finally be able to settle upon a more modern and up to date way of living. A way that would perhaps take a while to for people to fully accept but once it's been established, could you honestly tell me that you'd go back? There's only one way to find out. Join me by picking up your nearest sledgehammer and knocking down the walls that hold Sunday up. You might be surprised at how much light is let through.

A Distant History

2012-02-03T20:11:00.002Z

The topic I'm going to say a few words on tonight isn't really a distant history as it happened in November 2010 but still, I like name dropping Idlewild song titles, especially when they are as good as A Distant History.

Back in 2009 I used to post all my photos from when I went on walks onto Facebook and provide commentary for them - usually in a mildly comical style but in early 2010 I got fed up of doing it, mainly because I was getting a better response from them on Flickr. I was recently asked (probably by Andrew) if I was ever going to do a Facebook photo album again, to which I replied probably not. However, I thought revisiting an old walk and talking about my experiences on it would be a fun thing to do - even if it is just me that cares.

In November 2010 I took a walk from the Cameron Reservoir to Drumcarrow and back again following a circular route. This was a route I'd been meaning to walk for a while and I had planned to walk it in 2009 back when I did do the Facebook albums but I never got round to it. Almost all my walks at that point had taken place from about 9am and tended to carry on till the early afternoon. This one broke that mould a little as I started it in the early afternoon, meaning that I got some very interesting and pleasant lighting conditions once I'd reached the lofty heights of Drumcarrow. Anyway, enough of that, I'm going to show you some pictures and make some sarcastic comments about Cupar or something as that's what I mostly did back then.

This is where the walk started, I'm sure that if you live in this part of the World, you would have come here at some point. If you look at the water itself, it looks as if someone has pulled the plug on the reservoir. My main memory from this part of the walk is that it was quite cold as the reservoir was iced over in the shade. Considering this is 2010 we're talking about, the snow wasn't too far away at this point.

This was one of the first times I'd been shooting with the sun lying so low in the sky, if I were to take this kind of photo today, I'd look for a spot without a tree in the foreground as just adds an element of boring to the photo. This walk definitely required walking boots as the paths around Cameron can get pretty muddy.

I used to do this thing quite a lot before I fully settled on landscape type shots as my priority. If you look through my 2010 photos, you'd see a lot of these macro shots, usually of whatever plants I found lurking. I eventually got bored of them though as so many other people do this kind of thing so much better. This was taken somewhere along the southern edge of Cameron.

This walk never ranked as one of my favourites, although the Cameron and Drumcarrow elements were well worth it. This is because the map implied there was a footpath all the way, however between Cameron and Blackwalls (where this car graveyard shot was taken) the path just petered out and I was trudging through boggy fields. Not only are they annoying to walk through, they tend to slow my pace down as well.

By this stage of the walk, I was just glad to be back on something that resembled a path, you can see the reservoir in the distance.

This was a bit of a photoshop experiment to try and make the scene look more bleak than it was. The hill in the distance here is Norman's Law which is out near Newburgh in the north west, I found it odd that you could see it from this point. Cupar should be in this photo somewhere as it lies in this direction, thankfully it's in a valley so you don't have to be exposed to it in this photo.

I'm sure there was a good reason for both taking and uploading this photo at the time, however I think it's completely overshadowed by...

This photo did really well at the time and part of the reason for wanting to do this walk was so that I could walk this road as it formed an integral part of my driving lessons. It's a fun one to drive if you aren't scared to put your foot down a little. Thankfully no-one did that whilst I was walking by the side of the road though.

When I finally reached the top of Drumcarrow the afternoon light was giving the landscape a special edge. As I mentioned earlier, most of the walks I'd gone on at this point took place in the middle of the day so it was a real treat to be working with such interesting lighting conditions whilst I was up here. Something that I've taken heed of in recent hill walks.

If you like St. Andrews then this one is for you. Since taking this photo I've compiled a massive panorama of St. Andrews from this viewpoint which shows it in far better detail than you can see it in this photo. Check it out. I recently did a full panorama of Cupar as well but the camera decided to over exposed the eastern half of the town. Maybe the camera was trying to tell me something? The panorama mode has worked perfectly for every other landscape I've captured in that manner...

I bet it's nice living in that house, they have a good looking pond and I'd imagine a good view over to Dundee. The view I had that day was better though.

This is the last viewpoint shot I'm going to show you here, although I uploaded more at the time. Since I was taking these shots as the afternoon sun was setting to the west, I couldn't photograph Cupar to the west at all. Is that really a bad thing? (I'm aware that these Cupar jokes will be wearing thin now. It's not actually that bad of a town all things considered).

At the time, this photo created some interesting discussion on the SABRE forums as it's quite rare to see a sign with a speed limit that specific and by specific, I mean to see one ending in a five instead of a zero before anyone gets pedantic about my terminology there. Interestingly, on the shallower, southbound approach, this bend is signed at 30mph. It's not like Fife Council to get something right, is it?

The description I posted on Flickr at the time sums up what I have to say about this photo better than anything I could say now.

When we were about 13/14 one of my friends tried to tell me Cupar was the capital of Fife. To compete with his claim that Cupar was in some way good (which it isn't) we told him that Denhead was the capital of the World. For some reason he didn't believe us.

This photo shows the track marked on the path that was to take me back to the Cameron Reservoir. This "path" might not look too bad here but this was by far the worst part of any walk I'd done that year. Crotch high thorn bushes, thick mud that dragged you down as you walked and no room to breathe. It wasn't pleasant. It also took so long to traverse this route of utter misery that I missed capturing the sunset at the reservoir by about five minutes. I lived to tell the tale though, so that has to be worth something, I suppose.

All in all, it was an interesting walk with some very good bits but some downright horrible sections. As such, I'll never do this loop again but I will and have revisited some of it's component parts since.

I almost forgot, I always ended my Facebook photo albums with a map in case anyone wanted to retrace my steps (although after everything I've said about this one, would you want to?).

It would appear that I have the map.

The Butterfly & The Bee

2012-01-29T21:34:00.004Z

I haven't done something that's photography based in a while so tonight I'll be taking a break from my usual rants about the A914 to tell you a fictional story. Unlike all the other fictional stories I've posted on here, this one doesn't have some underlying issue that I'm trying to poke fun at. This is the story of The Butterfly & The Bee and like all good stories, it involves a journey.

Our story starts in Dairsie where a young, optimistic butterfly is wondering if there's a better World out there. Is the grass greener on the other side? Dairsie is bleak and boring as well as being perilously close to the A914 thought the Butterfly as he stared longingly at Kemback. He'd heard rumours that the gardens there had a better supply of food.

Following the route of the road, the Butterfly journeys south in search of a better life.
"I've often seen these tear through the landscape but I didn't realise how big and loud they'd be up close" thought the Butterfly as he passed over the railway line. After a day of travelling the Butterfly arrived by an old bridge, an old church and a refurbished castle.
"This place seems nice, I must be near Kemback now" thought the Butterfly.
"Naw, this isn't Kemback, this is still Dairsie".
"What, who said that"? replied the Butterfly.
"Oi, over here"!
A large bee flew over.
"I'm the Bee, I've not seen you around here before".
"Well, I'm travelling to Kemback. I've been travelling all day so how can I still be in Dairsie"?
"Look around you, see the castle? That's Dairsie castle, the church here is Dairsie church and that old bridge there, that's Dairsie bridge. Don't land on it though as the road surface is prone to minor cracks which take months to repair".
"That can't be. I've been passing through the countryside all day".
"You'll just have to accept it. Why are you going to Kemback?"
"Well, I've heard the plants are nicer and tastier there."
"They are, trust me, I've been many times. I wouldn't go alone though, Dura Den is full of wasps", warned the Bee.
"Can you guide me then"?
"Tell you what, we'll go tomorrow morning, it's at least another day's flight from here".

The next morning came and the Butterfly and the Bee began their travels into the deep, dark, wooded gorge of Dura Den in search of a better life.
"How do we get there then, Bee"?
"Look, I'll be honest you, I've never been, I've just heard about it's greatness".
"So you lied to me yesterday? I think I'll go it by myself now".
"Fine then, I'll just go back to my bridge, see if I care. I thought we were friends".
The Butterfly now found himself in the woodland by himself getting deeper and deeper in to the encircling darkness.
"Is this really a good idea? I suppose there's no turning back now..."

The darkness of the forest was broken when the Butterfly stumbled upon the flowing waters of the River Eden.
"Kemback lies on the Ceres Burn which is a tributary of this river", the Butterfly mused as he decided this was the safest course.
"Oh, I must be getting close to Kemback now, I can hear the waterfalls".

Unfortunately for the Butterfly, the sounds he heard wasn't from the waterfalls of Kemback, instead it was from a nearby wasps nest.
"Quick, hide under this rock"! shouted the Bee.
"What, why are you here"?
"Look, there's a wasp's nest ahead. I once kind of stole some of their gold so I could afford to buy an apartment in Dairsie Castle... They've hated me ever since".

The Butterfly and the Bee hid under the rock in fear as the wasps flew around about, their buzzing sounding more and more like multiple chainsaws. One of the wasps peaked it's head under the stone but thankfully the shadow of the rock kept the Butterfly and the Bee hidden from sight. Pain and death has narrowly been averted.

The Butterfly and the Bee, who are now friends again continued in their quest for a better life. Only one obstacle remained. They had to climb out the deep gorge to the paradise that lay above in the form of Kemback village. Ahead of them they could see their passage to the promised land but any potential peace and tranquillity was shattered by the raging torrent that blocked the way. The sound of the falling water wasn't too dissimilar to standing next to an aircraft engine as it powered up.

After a quick flight to the top, the Butterfly found some tasty leaves to eat and the Bee located some flowers he could steal pollen from. They both lived happily ever after in the gardens of Kemback.

The end.

I think with some padding and less local references, that'd make a good movie, even if the story is deliberately identical to almost every other animated movie ever made that involves travel.

Anyway, I'll return to the type of thing I normally do next time. Until then, don't steal my drawings, I know you're tempted.

140 Miles

2012-01-22T21:53:00.002Z

If you've been following the news, and by news I mean only the trivial news that I'd care about then you'd know that the goat track known as the A890 has been closed since the 22nd of December due to landslides. Let's say you live in the thriving metropolis of Attadale and your girlfriend lives in Duncraig Castle, you'd have a 10-15 minute drive on your hands. However, due to the landslides you'll have to travel 140 miles round in the car to avoid the closure. It puts my Dairsie Bridge rant into perspective a little, however, Highland Council are working on securing the cliff right now so that the road can re-open.

Of course, Mr Attadale could just get the train and save on the fuel costs. In fact, there's a certain romanticism to a train station as you say goodbye, usually two hours later due to your train being cancelled. Thinking back to my own childhood, I remember having to say goodbye at the train station as various family members travelled back down south. The emotion of the moment was always destroyed by the ear shattering sounds of the old Intercity trains that used to traverse the East Coast Mainline.

Speaking of memories, I've always considered the A890 to be one of my favourite roads. I have a lot of favourite roads, which is a strange thought but this one makes the grade for a number of reasons. I must have only been around four or five, perhaps younger when I first got to see what the A890 had to offer. We were staying in some caravan park that I don't really remember about 12 miles south east of Kyle Of Lochalsh. The A890 starts by climbing high into the hills and I have memories of joining this road and seeing these dark, foreboding peaks rise up in front of me.

I also remember the T-junction at the far end (which isn't actually the end of the road as it carries on to Achnasheen. However, by far my main childhood memory of this road is the avalanche shelter. For some reason, my memories of it have it placed in a flat landscape without the cliffs and the loch, I have no idea why that's the case.

Since then, I've almost always taken this route to Skye as the A890 is one of the finest roads in the UK to drive both from a scenery and driving perspective as you race up and down the hills. One minute you're on the coast, following the railway, the next you're half way into the mountains looking down upon it all. Assuming they've stabilised the cliffs by then, I hope to take this road to Skye at the beginning of March.

Therein lies the problem with the A890, the road was built by removing large areas of cliff face to create a small shelf of road by the railway. This means that the road is single track with passing places for large sections and very steep when following the railway became too difficult. What's the solution then?

Firstly, they had to provide some kind of alternative to the road, this means there is now a passenger and car ferry for the first time in many, many years crossing the Strome Narrows. Extra trains now run along this section to allow school kids to get to Plockton Palms in time.

A temporary solution was also used in 1990 during a similar collapse that allowed the road to stay open, this involved laying sleepers along the parallel railway line to create a temporary, prolonged railway crossing. A plan which is currently being considered whilst they stabilise the cliff face.

What can they do long term? They could build a new road through the hills to the south, although this is out for costing reasons. They could build a bridge across the Strome Narrows, again, I can't see this ever happening so the most likely solution is another avalanche shelter being constructed. This would suit me fine as it'd keep the current route in place whilst making it more interesting at the same time.

This is one of Scotland's finest drives so it would be a real shame if we lost it to an alternative route. I'm not quite sure where I want to take this so I'll stop here as I've probably rambled on long enough about a road in the far north that no-one else but me cares about.

Edinburgh Are At It Again

2012-01-15T20:33:00.002Z

It's been a while since I've left myself fully at the mercy of public transport. When I go to visit friends in Edinburgh I normally drive down to Inverkeithing, park at the Ferrytoll park and ride then bus it in for the last part of the journey as it's only £4 each way to take the bus compared with Edinburgh parking prices.

However, when I went through last Friday I was coming back the same day so I had no choice but to take the train all the way. I suppose I could have driven but then I wouldn't be able to have a pint and where's the fun in that? The journey down was relaxing and enjoyable. I ended up on a Cross Country service instead of a ScotRail train. This happened to be the beastly Aberdeen to Penzance service, which calls at Ladybank. You have to ask yourself, does Ladybank really need a direct service to the south west of England?

You can just imagine the local NED populous of Ladybank wondering what town they can go and bam up today, jumping on the Penzance train, scratching their thick bonces as they all contemplate as to where the final location of the service is...
"You ever been tae Penzance, Mickey"?
"Naw Gaz, let's go there, they won't be expecting the Ladybank crew to be fucking up their town today".
"Tickets? Tickets? You wee shites got any tickets?"
"Day return to Penzance mate".
"We don't do day returns to Penzance".
"How no"?
"Because it's in south west England".
"Aww shite".
"Here, big man, go chuck these wee fannies off at Kirkcaldy for me".

Anyway, the journey home reminded me just how much I hate Dalgety Bay. Possibly the most pointless station on the Edinburgh to Dundee line. Even more pointless than Springfield and that's saying something. The station just slows you down, it's so close to Inverkeithing that the time between stations is around two minutes and Dalgety Bay itself is a reasonable walk south from the station.

As you can guess, I ended up on the night train, a train I used to use a lot after gigs in Edinburgh. This slow paced bastard calls at Haymarket, South Gyle, Dalmeny, North Queensferry, Inverkeithing, Dalgety Bay, Aberdour, Burntisland, Kinghorn, Kirkcaldy, Markinch, Ladybank, Springfield, Cupar, Leuchars and Dundee and trust me, by Kirkcaldy you are suicidal. Springfield tips you over the edge. The station lights turned off as we pulled in - they obviously didn't expect anyone to be using the station and they were right.

However, Springfield could be a useful stop if it had a more frequent service. Unfortunately, it increases the travel time between Cupar and Ladybank by 4 minutes which is quite significant so for a station in a small village, that's a lot of extra time they have to factor into any stopping service. The best thing would be to either include it in ScotRail's hourly Edinburgh to Dundee local service or just close the station all together.

As for travel options between Fife and Edinburgh, you're pretty limited due to the only crossing point being the Forth Bridges. However, Stagecoach recently made the case for a hovercraft to be used between Kirkcaldy and Edinburgh, cutting out the long haul to reach the bridging point. The idea was trialled in 2007 and was highly successful. Since then, Stagecoach have wanted to make it a permanent fixture. Fife Council gave the go-ahead for the required facilities to be built in Kirkcaldy but surprise surprise, the hypocritical cunts who run (and I use run in the loosest possible sense) Edinburgh Council said no.

Apparently the ticket office and waiting room that would be built in Portobello would be an eyesore. This coming from the council that approved millions of pounds worth of perma-roadworks known to you and me as the trams project. Now I'm bias towards transport projects so I'm going to focus on the pros side of the argument. However, from the research I did at the time, the con argument mainly seems to be the same tired eyesore bullshit and people not liking the monopoly Stagecoach has on buses.

The way I see it is that it'd be great for Glenrothes/Kirkcaldy commuters as it'd save them so much time on their commutes. A 12 minute journey over the Forth followed by a short bus ride into central Edinburgh? I'd take that any day over pissing about at Dalgety Bay and South Gyle. I'd also use the hovercraft in favour of the Ferrytoll as it'd save me having to go round to Dunfermline to cross the river by car/bus.

The prices themselves would have been the same as the current bus pricing between Kirkcaldy and Edinburgh and since both the bus and hovercraft are operated by Stagecoach, there would be a bus waiting at either end to take you where you needed to go. You also have to consider that tourism could be gained from the hovercraft service existing, especially during the Summer.

Why would Edinburgh deny permission for such a useful and unique chance to alleviate some of it's congestion? Well, they are hypocrites who live up their own arse, to put it politely. They always talk about their green polices and anti car regime but when a cheap and viable solution to some of it's traffic problems are presented to them, what do they do? Send the idea packing.

The problem I normally have with anti car groups, traffic calming schemes designed to discourage use and general environmental propaganda is that they never try and provide an alternative. Yes, you've made this road an absolute bastard to use with your bollards, bumps and bus lanes but where's my affordable alternative? You scraped plans for the alternative? Why did you do that? You still have pipe dreams of running the failure of a tram project over the Forth in order to link it with Dunfermline? Come on now, Edinburgh, you aren't fooling anyone - that'll never happen so just let us have our hovercraft.

I'm going to steal a joke from Kevin Bridges here. No-one ever calls people from Edinburgh Edinburgers, do they? You've got your Invernesians, Aberdonians, Dundonians, Glaswegians and cunts fae Edinburgh. It may be a joke but it's true. I can imagine that part of the reasoning for not allowing the hovercraft to run is that it'd allow easier access for dirty, six finger Fifers to cross the river and bam up the city.

Unfortunately this is a project, that despite it's low cost to initiate as hovercraft don't need a proper landing area, will never happened because of the small minded people who work for Edinburgh Council. That's it for this entry but I've got so much more I could say about the disjointed thinking that goes on with regards to Edinburgh's transportation network.

Onion Bones

2012-01-08T20:25:00.006Z

It's finally time to release Onion Bones, the sketch show we wrote over the Summer.

Onion Bones

I'll try and keep this short as we have a half an hour long behind the scenes thing where we talk about all the characters and the filming in great detail ready for the DVD which should hopefully be ready to go by the end of the month.

The show has four main sketches and one extra wee one in the middle.

Firstly we have Bob Billiamson who you may recognise from the trailer I posted at the end of a blog entry sometime last year. If it wasn't for him, we wouldn't have this show as he started it all off. Unfortunately, he was really annoying to play and I'm sure that by the end, his catchphrase was grating on anyone who watched.

Ron Orderman was the second character we came up with. His was the first shoot we used a set for (Jimmy was technically filmed first but his set doesn't count as we didn't have to set anything up for it). Setting up and making the restaurant was fun and although the scenes we filmed were quite complex in terms of what went where, we are pleased with how they came out in the end.

Jimmy Buchanan is an interesting case. Believe it or not, he's based on a real person Andrew knew from school and all the stories he tells are based on real life events which is quite disturbing really. All of his dialogue was written within an hour whilst we were waiting for a Roddy Woomble gig to start. This gig happened to be in Glenrothes, hence the Glenrothes Laugh Shack being our comedy venue. Fife Council should open up that venue in order to showcase the best comedians Fife has to offer.

The Kens were also created on the night of the Glenrothes Roddy gig. They were the most fun to film as we could just get on with it without having to do multiple takes at different angles. The Kens were difficult to rehearse for, the dialogue was easy enough to remember because it all follows a pattern, however practising the coughing parts was difficult and it took ages before we could do it without laughing ourselves. The final cough in the last scene was not rehearsed prior. I'm surprised Andrew managed to keep a straight face.

Finally, we have Super Fluous, The Unnecessary Superhero. He was a fun character to work with but the concept only really allowed us one scene with him. Then again, if we ever have the money (which will be never) we want to make Super Fluous: The Movie which will show off just how many times he was hit on the head as a child.

That'll do I think, I'll bring up this topic once more when I'm advertising the DVD at the end of the month. I hope you enjoyed at least some of it and just in case you're curious, it's looking as if the only characters that'll be making an appearance in the next episode will be the Kens, although it's still in the early writing stages so it may all change yet. We're going to be ripping on daytime TV more in the next episode.

Changing Dates, Staying The Same

2012-01-03T22:12:00.002Z

I was going to write this on Sunday the 1st but I ended up going to bed early to recoup from the previous night and yesterday I just didn't feel like it. Anyway, this is going to be about the new year, the second part of the Christmas period celebrations. Compared with Christmas, I have a real fondness for the new year as it's the only holiday I actively look forward to.

Every year for about ten years my friends and I have climbed Hill Of Tarvit for the bells. From there you get a great vista over Fife and can watch all the fireworks from the nearby towns, villages and back yard displays. You can even see what Dundee has to offer from this lofty peak. This is all combined with drinking nice ales and whiskies in good company and the occasion has a real laid back and friendly feel to it. In fact, we don't even have the traditional 10 second countdown, once the fireworks begin and most of our watches claim midnight is upon is, we ring in this occasion with yet more whisky.

Whilst none of this is all that different from what other people do, they are still, in a way, traditions we've created ourselves and thus have a meaning to all the regulars who attend this particular version of the new years' ceremony. Speaking of traditions, the one that none of us seem to follow is the making of resolutions.

Personally, I don't see the point. To begin with, I'm perfect as it is and mainly, if I wanted to fix something about myself, using the old standard of weight loss, then I'd just do it. Why wait until what is essentially an arbitrary date in January?

You also get quite a lot of people that dislike the new year and it'd be hypocritical of me to tell them to get into the spirit considering how I usually react in response to a certain over holiday that happens at this time of the year. The argument I often see against the new year is that it goes on too long - especially up here in Scotland.

However, let's compare and contrast. Do people start to think about new year in August? Do people start playing various repeats of Auld Lang Syne at the beginning of November? The answer is no. Who's the time and glory hog now? Speaking of time, the other argument seems to be that people believe the new year is set arbitrarily. Again, I can counter that but this time it'll be less facetious.

To start off with, let's consider the concept of midday and midnight. Midnight, as the name suggests, falls at the point in the evening where there are equal amounts of darkness on either side, except during British Summer Time which just fucks everything up and skews the bias towards evening light. However, the new year falls during the 5 months we get to enjoy time as it was originally devised. I'll admit that the units of time may be considered arbitrary but it doesn't matter how you divide the day, midnight will still be midnight and the best possible time for the day to change.

On saying that, I would like to see the calendar adjusted so that the solstices and equinoxes happen to fall on the 1st of the month. Unfortunately though, these aren't day long events, they happen to be short moments in time where the Earth's position in relation to the Sun happens to either be sitting over the tropics or the equator. This event varies year by year so if the calendar was to be adjusted so that the Winter Solstice was to take place on the new year, sometimes we'd have to celebrate new years day on the 2nd. To me, it makes perfect sense but I could see it being an awkward concept to explain to the general populous. Easter changing dates based on the lunar cycle is confusing enough as it is.

Anyway, I could talk about this topic for hours as it's one I enjoy, unfortunately, very few other people seem to care about what the solstices and equinoxes mean so I'll leave it there. Assuming all goes well, Onion Bones should be released on Sunday, however I haven't attempted to upload it yet so don't hold your breath.

Finally, all the best for 2012 - it can't be as shit as 2011 (well, it could be but let's hope it won't come to that).

Not Miserable Now

2011-12-25T20:23:00.002Z

Once again, it's time for my annual Christmas blog, an age old tradition almost as old as the holiday itself. It feels like I've neglected the blog over the last month, I'll try and get myself back into a Sunday routine in the new year.

All my previous Christmas blogs have been rants about the festivities, mocking the religious aspects and calling attention to how farcical some of our move beloved Christmas traditions are. However, for a number of reasons I don't feel like ranting this year. Perhaps it's because I'm actually relatively content for once?

Overall, it's been an awful year. I thought 2010 was a wake up call in terms of what I should allow myself to care about but 2011 took what 2010 did and amped up the volume. I'm sure most of you will know what events I'm referring to in that paragraph.

I think in my never ending quest to try and work out why I went off Christmas, I have to look at how it used to be compared with what it is now. In recent years, a lot of people I know seem to be going for a more subtle, elegant Christmas. For example, the Christmas tree has to be decorated with only one colour and the wrapping paper must match. Why? That's not what it's all about. The childhood Christmas is all chaotic and fun. The tree is covered in every colour of the rainbow with some brand new colours thrown in there for good measure. You bring home some shitty glitter covered paper scrap you made at school and it goes right there on the tree.

Then comes the wait, the anticipation. Once upon a time I'd wake at 5am and watch awful cartoons until everyone else got up. In a strange way, I was the first up today which hasn't happened in at least five years. However, I woke up at 9:50am. Not exactly early in the grand scheme of things. In the past, I'd go straight to the lounge to investigate the overflowing stack of presents. This morning I went straight to the cat to make sure he was okay. His reaction to seeing me was comical. I could tell his meows translated to "what the fuck kind of time do you call this? I normally get my morning feed at 7:30".

This year saw another role reversal. As everyone knows, Santa, the big fat creepy bastard who watches children sleep, isn't real. Your parents snook the presents down to the tree after you'd gone to bed. This time round, my parents put them under around the 23rd and I snook mine down last night after everyone had gone to bed.

This year's presents were fun though. I bought three massive gift bags, filled them with shredded tissue paper and wee silver stars and hid the presents amongst the carnage. Everyone seemed to enjoy raking through to find their gifts and hopefully it added a little fun to a holiday that seems to have stagnated a little for us all.

I know that I'll never see Christmas the way I used to but instead of being a miserable bastard about it, I'm going to let it pass me by in the hopes that perhaps one day I can enjoy it again. Then again, the only real way to enjoy Christmas as an adult is to have kids.

Herein lies the problem, at the stage I'm at in life just now, the last thing I want are some wee arseholes running around breaking everything and generally being wee fannies. I don't know if I'm just noticing it more because I'm finding it more irritating but there are some really annoying kids around just now. Sometimes babies cry and young kids shout at their parents when they can't have something. That's just a fact of life. However, none of that prepares you for Kid Screech. These kids instead of crying or shouting make an ear piercing howl that does it's best to scramble what's left of your fragile brain, slowly driving you to the point where all you want to do is lunge over and rip the wee shit's voice-box out.

Anyway, enough of that. I best stop before I get a bad reputation. Though that is something that's been building up inside since the October holidays.

So what do I have planned for the blog in the new year? I have a few road and transport entries I want to discuss. One of which involves hovercraft. Onion Bones should finally come out sometime next month and then I might call it a day for a while. I'm not as enthusiastic about this as I once was so hopefully a month or two away will allow me to come up with some interesting topics to discuss.

Anyway, hope you've all had a good Christmas and all the best for 2012. Here's a Christmas video I made earlier.

Midweek Musings

2011-12-08T22:32:00.003Z

If I'm being honest with myself, I've felt like I've been stuck in a bit of a rut in terms of writing this blog. I feel like I'm always retracing similar ground and for the most part, I've lost a lot of the initial enthusiasm I had when I decided to restart this last May which I believe has been reflected in the writing over the last few entries. I've considering writing less frequently in the new year, with the possibility of focusing on writing the script for next Spring/Summer filming projects instead.

With that said, I do have a lot of ideas floating around inside my head for blog entries. I'll often get some inspiration from my pub Mondays then put the idea aside till the Sunday by which time I've thought of ways to pad it out. Then when I come to write it, I forget to include half of those ideas and it never quite feels like it did in my head. Perhaps that's another reason as to why I'm feeling discouraged, if the idea you have in your head doesn't end up emerging in a fully realised way, you'll be disappointed with it, even though everyone else will see it as it is.

Whisky & Walking partly falls into this category, although I am very pleased with how it came out. I originally wanted to have a four screen introduction with various things going on in each of the screens, as well as a better designed logo. However, the software I installed to edit the show didn't like the mpegs my camcorder produces. I have no idea why since the mpeg is a standard and commonly found media format.

Although everyone who has seen it has said they've enjoyed it, some of it isn't exactly as I'd envisaged based on the problems I faced when I found myself burdened with the task of editing it. However, for the most part, it looks and feels exactly like I had in mind and overall, the project was a success.

Anyway, I'm diverging a little from what I originally had in mind when I set out to write this evening. Like I say, I normally get an idea which I play around with in my head for sometimes a few months before I find myself able to write about it. For example, I wrote about the Forth Road Bridge back in January, the idea for that entry had been kicking about since at least the previous Summer in one form or another.

Earlier this evening I watched a programme presented by Neil Oliver (the original inspiration for George Fraser before we changed almost everything) about John Muir. The show essentially detailed his journey from his heavily religious childhood, through his discovery of one of America's finest areas of outstanding natural beauty and how this shaped the rest of his life. Perhaps I was just enjoying the scenery but I thought it was a good show, even if some of the shots looked a bit weird. No doubt it'll be on iplayer soon enough.

Essentially, the show gave me the idea to write an entry about national parks and instead of storing that idea till January, I thought I'd try writing it straight away, whilst the idea is fresh in my mind. The theory being that instead of writing something that follows my usual ranty style that can sometimes be interpreted as being miserable, I'd write something that felt more natural, like the national parks themselves.

I've often taken what seems like a negative stance towards environmentalism and the national park topic is one that relates to that theme. I've always maintained that we should build things where they are needed. We shouldn't bitch and moan about every single thing that people propose be constructed. For example, a few months ago I argued the case for the construction of a proposed coal power plant on the Ayrshire coast. The last I heard, that project was cancelled, along with a similar scheme at Longannet. I still and always will maintain that these schemes are needed and should be built. You'll also have noted that my counter-argument to the claims of landscape violation is that these power plants weren't due to be built in particularly attractive areas.

Had that sort of proposal been put forward in Aviemore, I'd have understood and sympathised with the objectors to a certain degree. That doesn't mean I'd be against the scheme as such, I'd just think there'd be a better place for it. In that part of the World, the Moray coast line near to or at least east of Inverness would be ideal as this area already contains industry and the waters of the Moray firth are littered with rigs of varying sizes.

Now, the interesting thing about the national parks in America is that they all seem to be based around areas of great beauty that are awe inspiring (I stole the awe part from the show I watched). They also appear to cover large expanses of natural wilderness. The kind places where you could walk 1000's of miles and not see any form of human interaction with the land. The same cannot be said of the national parks in the UK.

In my last entry, I briefly mentioned the UK's fascination with living in the past and there no better example of this behaviour demonstrated than in the Peak District national park. Yes, this is a lovely part of the country but a lot of the appeal the park has is in the way it looks, specifically, the patchwork fields and dry stone walls that separate them from each other. This patchwork of ye olde England looks great from the tops of the peaks themselves but it's hardly a natural environment. It's not the kind of place you'd go to escape from all things man-made.

The show I watched specifically dealt with the idea of conserving natural areas as they are and experiencing them as one small individual. The idea being that you see yourself as part of the big picture as opposed to being the big picture. In contrast, the Peak District offers something entirely different from the American national park. They've chosen to conserve an old style of outdated farming because it looks pretty.

I look out the window in Fife and I get lovely views along the valley I stay in. I live in the fertile east so most of what I see are fields (relatively large ones). I like my view, I like where I stay but I'm under no delusion that it needs to stay the way it is just now. If someone wanted to build a house in the field across the road from me, I wouldn't object. I'd think they were stupid since the field across from me is flooded for 80% of the year but that's a different matter.

Dura Den is my local woodland along the side of a steep gorge. It has a river running through that crashes and cascades it's way down to near sea level by the time it reaches it's confluence with the River Eden. However, not all of it is natural. The gorge contains the remnants of it's industrial past. Abandoned mills lay strewn throughout and the river itself was dammed at one point, which created a small artificial loch. The dam remains permanently open now and the loch is no more than a damp area of scrubby trees and the occasional missing traffic cone.

This has led to the river being unnaturally still for about half a mile. I can't help but wonder if this part of the river would be full of rapids and the occasional short drop had the gorge not been altered by man. It goes to show that it doesn't matter how natural an area looks, in the UK it's almost certainly been tampered with somehow. Had the land outside my window not been renowned for it's fertility and therefore not farmed, I'd be living in the middle of a dense deciduous woodland.

Therein lies the problem with our national parks. For the most part, there isn't anywhere in the UK that hasn't been tampered with so what you're doing is preserving an area of man made beauty. The only real wilderness left in the UK is Knoydart but because no-one ever really goes there, I can't see anyone jumping at the chance to declare it a national park.

Is our way of designating what should be national park really as bad as I'm making it out to be? Of course it isn't. The UK is a small and relatively densely populated land so it makes sense that almost all of it has seen the hand of man alter it to make it inhabitable at some point. That doesn't mean that it's not exceptionally pretty in certain places. America's national parks (without reading about all of them) seem to cover the untamed and the wild whereas the national parks in the UK are there to stop what was once our best areas of natural beauty from being turned into the next extension of our large population centres.

Maybe some of them do live in the past but that's only because they have an interesting history, nestled in our finest scenery to show off. The conclusions I can make from all of the above is that we have these national parks so that we can enjoy the countryside and what our concept of rural life entails but at the same time, we need to understand the distinction between these areas where you'd understandably not want to build anything unsightly. However, slapping more industry down in an area like the Firth of Forth won't impact on the landscape too much due to the large abundance of industrial wealth and criss-crossing power lines that already plague this area.

Ho Ho Fucking Ho

2011-12-04T21:06:00.002Z

Okay, it's December and it's already been Christmas time for a couple of months so I may as well jump on the bandwagon. Instead of writing one long Christmas blog this year, I've decided to write three smaller ones but before I start that, here's one of last year's jokes:

There's another song, I have no idea who sings it but there's a line in it that goes: "a choir of children sing this song, they practised all year long". After that you're expecting something good, something that's taken a whole year to perfect. Instead you get: ding dong, ding dong, ding dong".

What kind of morons spent a year perfecting and practising those lines? Was it the Cupar Children's Choir by any chance?
"Right kids, we've been asked to sing back-up vocals on a Christmas song. All you have to do is sing ding dong."
"Hyuck hyuck hyuck..."
"Thank fuck we've got a year to perfect this."

This year I found out that it's Paul McCartney that wrote that travesty, or Paul McCuntney as like to call him. See, I replaced the cart with cunt, it's funny because his music's shite.

Anyway, I've ripped on Christmas music enough in the past (even though there is a lot of material there - for example, Smokey Robinson believes in Christmas eve. Well, Smokey, so do I but I never deemed it song worthy. Perhaps I should write a song about believing in the 23rd of September?)

This slice of Christmas fun will focus on some of the shite that's sold at this time of year and this year, I literally mean shite. I've often maintained that you can slap Santa's jolly mug onto anything and it'd sell as a Christmas item. This year I was proved right when we got Christmas shits in. They are rubber shits with a Santa hat on. Why? Why do they need to exist? Who honestly thought that was a good idea? That's right, Trey Parker and Matt Stone. They've had a famous Christmas shit on South Park for years. Some moron stole their idea to try and make money. Oddly enough, they aren't selling.

What is the most magical, most enchanting and most Christmassy thing you can think of? A snowy scene with kids looking happy? Santa glowing as he enriches the life of children? How about a blackboard with Santa's head stuck to the top and his legs dangling from the bottom? Ho ho fucking ho.

It's time to decorate the house, let's bring out the tinsel, the decorations and the lights. Hold on though, something is missing. We haven't got a gold or silver pear to hang from the tree. It's time to panic, Christmas is ruined. We have no golden pear. Why the fuck would anyone ever want to buy a tacky looking golden pear? It makes no sense. Again, they aren't actually selling - are you surprised?

Let's move on from pears to bears. To complement our usual selection of cuddly wonders, you can now buy a polar bear. Considering what polar bears made the news for this year then is it really appropriate? You can buy your very own cuddly bundle of softness. Only don't go near the real ones because they'll eat you.

There is a certain sense of irony in going to the Svalbard to see polar bears then getting up close and personal with one's mouth. Not quite the trip those kids expected. What irks me is that they shot the poor thing afterwards. It's a polar bear, what do you expect it to do when it sees a food source sleeping in a tent? Anyway, some of you may consider this particular line of discussion in bad taste...

...and speaking of bad taste. Why not buy some snowmen marshmallows. They're seductively soft. If you want to get your hole this season, buy someone a bag of these bad boys. Although, they might just fall for the charms of the sweets. I haven't worked out who's being seductive yet. Is it the person giving you the sweets or the sweets themselves? On the other hand, the manufacturers may have just filled them with rohypnol.

The other odd phenomenon that takes place at this time of year is the introduction of old style things. An elderly couple looked at some nostalgic soap. Yes, you read that right. They commented on how it used to burn when you used it. Surely there's a reason why these things are taken off the market? Hmm, I could buy a new style soap which kills everything bad or go all nostalgic and get something that's uncomfortable and probably smells bad. Oh well, back in the day I remember...

Anyway, modern verses nostalgic is a completely different debate. If you're lucky I might talk about that in the new year. Maybe I'll just write a weekly Christmas blog throughout 2012. I won't really do that.

A Victory For Common Sense

2011-11-27T21:43:00.002Z

It's been a while since I've talked about roads so if you want out, now is your chance. One of my favourite east coast A roads has always been the A92 (which I proved I have an unprecedented knowledge of last night) so let's talk about something terrible that almost happened to it.

The section of the A92 I'm going to focus on tonight is the Tay Bridge approach, essentially the two miles of dual carriageway between the Forgan roundabout and the Tay Bridge in Fife. If you ever watch documentary style programmes, one of their most overused clichés is to suddenly have a dark twist about 2/3rds of the way in that resolves itself by the end of the show. For example, a rock documentary may deal with the death of a band member at this stage but throw a positive slant on it by the end so that you still leave the show feeling educated as well as warm and fuzzy inside.

This is the story of what was nearly a tragedy for the A92 but it worked out okay in the end.

A few years ago someone in their infinite wisdom decided that this was a dangerous section of dual carriageway and that something had to be done. This is despite the fact that the only KSI statistic on this road is located at the Tay Bridge south roundabout (or whatever it's called) and not at the gaps, which is where the objections lay. As such, a case was made to close the gaps on safety grounds. A process which has happened to a lot of dual carriageways (A9, A90, A77 to name but a few).

Whilst this seemed like a good idea, it was not met with praise from the residents of Newport. The closure of the gaps would involve them having to use one of the roundabouts. How horrible, it's not like Newport and Wormit doesn't have enough roads linking to the A92. Starting off in the west, we have the Sandford junction with the B946. Next is the comically named four armed Five Roads Roundabout. The Forgan roundabout is next and last we have the Tay Bridge south roundabout. Four junctions for a small town seems like an awful lot. If you include the gap junctions, that brings the total to 6. Would the loss of the gaps really be that significant?

This is where things become interesting. Due to the residents of Newport not wanting to give up their short cut, they proposed that a 50 limit down north Fife's only stretch of half decent road be introduced. Considering that this dual carriageway was built to keep traffic out of their town (a bypass, if you will), surely it's a little selfish to expect the traffic you don't want in your town to drive slowly around the edge? As far as I'm concerned, the real reason the Newport residents were appealing for a 50 limit was because it'd make it easier for them to use the gaps. A big fuck you to all the people that commute from Fife to Dundee and also to those who visit Dundee from towns in Fife that aren't Newport and Wormit.

Thankfully, the case for the gap closure had already been made and the police themselves said that the current 70mph limit on the A92 is what it should be. As such, the gaps were closed earlier this year which has made driving the A92 safer as there are now no longer people crawling up the southbound carriageway in lane 2 because they want to turn off. If you're heading northbound, you no longer have to worry about morons driving slowly across two lanes of fast traffic after having misjudged the gap timing.

Had the NIMBYs kept their meddling mouths shut, the A92 would have stayed the same and both groups would have been happy. However, considering the evidence and the fact that gaps are dangerous, this is possibly the best solution to a problem that never was.

I'm Mr. November

2011-11-20T22:12:00.001Z

November is a forgotten month. For the most part, it's just an prelude to December and more notably, Christmas. No-one cares about the poor wee month. As such, we have a series of holidays that involve remembering. Remember that November exists. Remember, remember the 5th of November and to make sure you do, here are some colourful explosions. Remember people that died. Remember them all, even if you're too young to know who they are. November tries everything to get you to remember but ultimately, it fails. Santa and his band of glory hogs have claimed it as their own.

However, last November was memorable in a certain respect. November has been taken over by the long length of the Christmas season but it's also been taken over by people trying to predict the future. They want to do this because they remember the events of last November, it snowed. As such, I keep hearing wild rumours about what will happen this year. Will it be cold? Will it be mild? Let's investigate.

Our friends, the doom-mongers have been out in full force this year predicting things like the rapture (good call on that one) and more recently, the advent of snow. Back in August we were told that we'll get snow in October. I laughed at that moronic suggestion. I now wish I'd had enough conviction to place money against such foolishness.

The next prediction was that we'd get snow at the end of November then suffer a Siberian Winter, the likes of which we've never seen. Hey... wait a minute. That prediction sounds somewhat familiar. Almost like it happened last year. That's not predicting anything, that's just remember, remembering the weather we had last year.

Now, the current thinking is that it's going to be mild because it's been mild so far. What most people seem to be forgetting is that it's almost impossible to predict weather patterns more than two weeks into the future and even at that stage, they are a little sketchy.

The problem isn't the long distance forecasts, it's the people demanding them. If there wasn't demand for such things to exist then people wouldn't have to bitch when they turned out to be wrong.

After all that, I'm not going to make any kind of predictions on what the weather over the Winter may be. However, wouldn't it be really funny if all the doom-mongering panic merchants that have bought 50 snow shovels and all the de-icer they can fit in their car found they had no use for their preparedness due to a mild Winter washing over the land, and by washing, I'm saying that it'll rain at some point during the Winter. I'm willing to put money on that.

(I've decided to try writing shorter, more concise pieces to see if less is more, so to speak - no doubt I'll get bored of this style soon enough and go back to long, rambling rants about the A914).

Old Media

2011-11-13T13:46:00.003Z

This is the first time I've written a blog entry mid afternoon in about a year. I'm off to see The Twilight Sad tonight (not related to the vampire movies in any way whatsoever) so as such, I'm going to have a music inspired blog - namely about different media formats.

If I had written this entry two or three years ago, the conclusions I would draw would be somewhat different to those I'm going to draw today. I suppose it's also odd to be talking about conclusions in the second paragraph. Really, I could just stop here but then nothing would be achieved and no insights (or a lack thereof) would be made.

Back when I first started listening to music, the only logical media format was the CD. Tapes did still exist but they were already well out of fashion and rightly so. The stupid bastards always got tangled up and I found myself limiting how many times I'd play a tape to stop it from fraying.

Buying a CD was also an occasion, first off, I had to save my money then carefully pick what CD I wanted and from what record store. Back when Zavvi or Zizzi or Zizzzxxxerston was known as Virgin Records (I think) they used to sell the same CDs you could get at HMV for about £7 more. No wonder CD sales began to decline. This meant that I had to absolutely use HMV or an independent store depending on what I was looking for. For example, it took me forever to track down Idlewild's Hope Is Important. I eventually found a copy at an independent store in Perth. Quite why it was unavailable most places is a mystery as I'd have no problem getting it now.

Acquiring albums this way was fun but it was the dark ages. Going to a shop to buy a CD has a certain nostalgic charm to it but I've not been to a record shop to browse in years. If I'm in Edinburgh, I do take a moment to have a look around Avalanche but I hardly ever buy from them any more as the chances are, I'll already have the record, usually bought from the band at a gig or directly from their record label.

Like most people, I mainly buy my music from online stores. Chemikal Underground usually provide interesting and unique deals on their releases. Only last year I treated myself to a £65 Arab Strap boxset containing multiple pieces of vinyl, a tape (for some reason), live show recordings, posters, notes from the band about the making of the albums and plenty more. Most importantly, the package also came with a data disc that included all the songs on vinyl and tape as mp3 files.

There's a large nostalgic value in buying physical media and this is reflected well by the fact that a lot of bands still release their albums on vinyl. I used to buy it as well, especially as I like my collections for certain bands to be complete. I have almost everything Biffy Clyro released up until Puzzle because they went shite after that. I also have most of Idlewild's physical releases. There are a few gaps but it doesn't bother me.

When it does come to bands like Idlewild who have been a part of my life for almost ten years now, I do buy their music in the physical format. However, for the most part, I prefer to buy mp3 albums. Back when mp3 albums were first released, a lot of die-hard music fans were against them and I wasn't keen myself. They generally offered a low quality 128 or 192kbps mp3 file. That's no longer the case now, almost all legitimate download sites like 7digital and Amazon provide DRM free high quality 320kbps mp3 files. 7digital also offers FLAC and sometimes wave format on their downloads which means you can legally download CD quality albums for a fraction of the price. Amazon just now have a 2 for £10 offer on mp3 albums priced at £8 or below. If you play your cards right, you can get some great deals.

Of course, there are still arguments for physical media, a lot of people like to have a product they can hold, they find the artwork is a big part of the experience. I used to go for all that but in recent years, I've found that I take quick look at the booklet, put the CD into the PC, rip the music and then I never look at the CD again. Now I find it easier to just skip the CD part and jump straight to the part where I hear the music.

With that being said, my days of buying physical media aren't over. I Like Trains (iLiKETRAiNS) have released a few DVDs over their career and they always make quite evocative videos to go with their music. As such, it's worth sinking a few pounds into it to have the product. They're also one of the few bands that raise their money themselves so when they offer a package, whether a DVD or mp3 download I always give them a little extra. They offered a full live album to download for £3 earlier in the year but you can specify how much you want to pay with £3 being the minimum. I gave them a fiver and even then, for the amount of music you're getting, £10 wouldn't have seemed unreasonable. They are even giving away a few tracks for free. I gave them a pound a track. The more music they can make, the better and I'd like to think I've helped them out somehow.

So, in conclusion, readily available high quality mp3s are now my preferred choice when it comes to buying albums. It makes life so much easier. The only thing I have to do is make regular backups - a pitfall that many people fall into when it comes to storing everything digitally.

Anyway, only two more normal blogs to go, then it's December and because I love Christmas so much, I have four Christmas themed blogs lined up. Ho ho ho.

Whisky & Walking

2011-11-06T21:28:00.004Z

Whisky & Walking

Over the Summer, Andrew and I worked on two filming projects, the first of which was for the sketch show, Onion Bones. The second was for a fake documentary entitled Whisky & Walking which you can now watch in full. This entry will contain spoilers so you may want to watch the show first.

First off, a little background. The idea for Whisky & Walking first emerged in 2009. The idea, never to be taken seriously was a BBC style documentary where Andrew, Euan and I walked around the Highlands, visiting distilleries and famous old roads like Jock's Road and the Lairig Ghru. The main thing we discussed was the fact that no-one would take a group of 20somethings seriously on the topic of whisky. You need a loud, seasoned presenter with a broad accent exclaiming the virtues of a good dram.

October 2010 then came along, by which point we'd already made the Glen Lethnot and Orkney videos. We were sitting in a Chinese restaurant when I pitched the idea that we should make a full length episode of Whisky & Walking as it seemed like the perfect progression from what we'd done previously. At that point, we decided we'd play characters instead of ourselves and do it in a mocking way. However, by this stage we didn't really know what direction we were going to take with the characters.

George Fraser was born as the presenter at the time but not in the form he eventually took. His character went through a lot of chopping and changing before we decided on his final and I think best incarnation. Originally he was going to be a very Neil Oliver-esk character who merely presented the show without having any real presence. We rightfully realised that this would be a boring role for Andrew to play and was pretty much based on the Neil Oliver impersonations you can see on both the Glen Lethnot and Orkney videos.

Going back to the Chinese restaurant and the plate of chips I'd ordered for myself... The original idea I had for the show involved two whisky sections and one walking section, which is the format you see now. I'd already come up with the Scottish Wild Bear idea by this point so that's what we talked about. Ryan, another friend of ours was there as well and he suggested he'd play the reverend Ron McCulloch from Montrose. Montrose was chosen as this is the site of the former Glen Esk distillery and it also happens to be Ryan's favourite dram. Another section of the show was born.

With two solid ideas I set about forgetting the idea. It wasn't until March 2011 that we really talked about it again, by this point we already had the sketch show in the making so Whisky & Walking was still a little downplayed. The idea for it then was that it'd provide a more intelligent level of humour than that of Onion Bones and give us a nice contrast in projects. Once both are released, you'll hopefully agree with that.

We eventually filmed Onion Bones in late June/early July. Essentially we needed it all filmed before I moved out of my Dundee flat as we wanted to film some scenes in there. Yet again, Whisky & Walking sat on the sidelines whilst the Onion Bones characters got their chance to flourish. I won't lie, the filming of Onion Bones wasn't as much fun as we'd hoped - bar one set of scenes. These scenes were filmed outside and were so much easier to set up and allowed the characters to really come alive. Whisky & Walking was filmed entirely outside, bar the occasional shot of whisky being poured.

We didn't immediately dive into the Whisky & Walking filming, we still had a lot of details to work out, namely, how were we going to do this. Eventually, we came up with the idea of making George a disgruntled war veteran and in his military role, he was in command, this gave us a good basis for developing a more interesting character, one that had some motivation and reason behind why he acts the way he acts. Once we'd worked out his character, the show took on a whole new dimension and we couldn't wait to start it and allow what could almost be described as the anti-presenter flourish.

The first scenes we filmed were conveniently the first in the show. I'd like to go all melodramatic and declare that this is where it all went wrong but that's not true. It just took a little while to get all the lines down as we worried about an approaching storm - even though nothing came of it. It did lead to a funny out take though. The show nearly became known as Whisky & Fuck.

The next day we recorded all the James Andrews stuff up in Kemback, these scenes were brilliant fun to film and hopefully that's reflected in the show itself, it's certainly my favourite part. It was also nice seeing an idea I'd had in my head for a good nine months come to life. Almost like giving birth except without the sex and the pain. Other than that, it was the same.

For some reason, the scene prior to the finale where I talk about Loch Ness seemed to take forever because I kept fucking up the lines. After that I decided to simplify the whole scene and keep it to a minimum. It's probably funnier without all the original fact I had about why Nessie can't exist. No-one wants to hear about surface area to depth debates anyway.

As we headed back to the car that night we noticed the lovely setting Summer sun across the crop fields so we were able to get some nice shots and part of the whisky making process filmed that day as well. Overall, a successful session.

We eventually filled in the gaps for the whisky making process down at Balmerino - this is where the only critical feedback I've had about the show comes into play.
"You need one of those fluffy mics".
Well, if anyone wants to buy one for us, we'd be grateful.

Almost a month of frustration passed as neither of us could agree to a time to film the scenes with the reverend. We originally planned to record those scenes in Montrose but we ended up in September with a week to go before Andrew moved back to Edinburgh so we had to come up with something and fast. We decided to fake the Montrose scenes by filming them in Fife. I then went to Montrose by myself to film a few shots of the town and the viaducts around it. The viaduct shot may seem insignificant but the river flowing in that scene is the North Esk which is mentioned in the show during one of the few scenes that actually contains some fact.

Anyway, that's about all I want to say on it. Eventually we'll have a DVD out that'll contain both this show and Onion Bones. The DVD will have a behind the scenes on it where you can find out more about the show and making of it. Hopefully you enjoyed it and as soon as Onion Bones is ready, I'll post it up here.

Just as a quick note, we've already begun developing ideas for next Summer's projects and the names seen in the credits reference yet to be made material.

Whisky & Walking

Spooky Ghost Fun Times

2011-10-30T21:38:00.003Z

So I'm sitting here eating a packet of "Squirtin' Skulls", a Halloween sweet I bought not because of the occasion but because they looked good. Remember those sweets you used to get that had some kind of gooey liquid sugar in the middle? Well, these were nothing like that. The skulls had no flavour and there almost no goo within. They were quite possibly the biggest waste of a pound, ever. Naturally, I'm being a little melodramatic when I say that but surely this is the time of year to over blow things? It is Halloween after all and what do most people do on Halloween? They get pished whilst wearing white sheets with eye holes in them.

However, that's not what they do on TV. On TV they sit around a camp fire and tell scary ghost stories which wouldn't even scare an impressionable toddler. As such, I'm going to tell you a story that'll haunt your dreams and terrify you to your very core. It's based on a true story but all the events listed are fictitious. It has a point to it though. I don't think I've done anything that could be considered as proper fiction on here before so forgive me if it's a little rough around the edge. Anyway, here we go.

It was a dark and stormy night (some cliché bullshit to start us off) and I, John Smithson had just finished a hard day's work down the cookie mine. Normally I'd have driven home but due to a spell of bad luck, my car was in for repair and I'd missed the last bus home. The walk was only a few miles so I just got on with it.

The path home traverses through a graveyard and a woodland before emerging at my home village. It would be a dark route to follow, especially on a night like tonight. As a miner, I always have a torch so finding my way wouldn't be too hard. The graveyard was super spooky and scary. I saw at least twelve ghosts. They were playing poker until they saw me, at which point they made a half-hearted boo before returning to their game. A quick glance suggested one of the ghosts had a full house. Looks like he might win.

The woodland was next. I could see eyes following me through the trees, the local bear population gets hungry at this time of night so I always carry a few raw steaks with me in case they try anything funny. The eyes just turned out to be Boris though, he's a local legend around here. Even the kids get on with Boris the bear. He happily wolfed down the steak and we said our farewells.

I soon arrived in the village, by this stage the wind had picked up and it was howling down this unassuming housing estate. Despite the village being a close knit community, this housing estate was quite new so the people on it kept themselves to themselves.

As I walked down the street my attention was grabbed by a rather aggressive sounding barking dog, you know the kind, the owner will claim they're friendly but the teeth suggest otherwise. The dog was the least of my troubles as what happened next was horrible. Due to being distracted by the barking I ended up walking into someone's garden wall. I grazed my knee pretty badly. Wee bits of stone in it and everything.

I knocked on the door of the house the wall belonged to.
"Hello, it's 11 at night, can I help you?"
"You can indeed, I've just walked into your wall."
"Oh", he said, looking slightly more sympathetic: "I'll get a wet cloth and some TCP so you can clean yourself up".
"No, that's not what I knocked on your door for", I replied angrily: "I've come here to find out what you're going to do about it."
"Do about what?"
"The injury your wall has caused me".
"Excuse me?"
"The wall is part of your property so I shall ask you again, what are you going to do about it?"
"Do about what? You walked into my wall, it's hardly my fault". He was becoming more intolerant of my complaint so I decided to step it up a notch.
"Look, I walked into your wall and you're not being very helpful. Look what it's done to my knee. Can I speak to the property owner?"
"Right, I've been patient enough, fuck off you cunt".
I was taken aback by this. Here I am, suffering a minor injury that'll take a day or two to heal. An injury I sustained whilst on someone else's property and they wont accept any responsibility for it.

After limping home, deliberately hamming up the actions in order to garner sympathy from my family, I told my wife about the incident. We've decided we're going to sue this man for everything he has and we'll probably win. The end.

Wasn't that a great story? As you can guess, something similar happened to me, only I was the one on the receiving end of the bitching. The point here is that just because someone was stupid enough to walk into a static object in your home or place of work, doesn't mean they have to right to expect anything from you or blame you for it happening. Unfortunately, this situation arises because people think they might be able to get compensation from a situation like this.

Anyway, I don't want to go too deep into this topic so I'll wrap it up there. If I wasn't living in the middle of nowhere just now I'd head out tomorrow dressed up as a kid in a costume in order to get myself some free sweets, as it is, I'll just go to the pub instead and pay for some real ale.

Next Sunday Andrew and I are releasing Whisky & Walking, once it goes live, I'll be posting it here and on Flickr. Try and contain your excitement for a week.

Murdering Movies

2011-10-23T21:46:00.002+01:00

First off, an apology for not writing anything last week. Instead of starting to write my blog at 9:30, I just went to bed. A week of early mornings had taken it's toll and I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. Thankfully, I didn't have anything topical planned for last week so I'm just going to muse about movie clichés for a while.

You watch a certain type of movie, like a comedy, a teen movie or a sports movie and they all have that certain goofy rhythm to them. They all follow the same basic story and have the same plot twists. You know what to expect, you know you're going to get a happy ending and you know there will be some ups and downs along the way.

Now I'm not talking about interesting movies here like Pulp Fiction or The Shawshank Redemption, I'm thinking along the lines of the American Pie series. Though with that being said, I can only really remember the first in any specific detail. I recently considered the idea of a parody of that movie style in the form of Dundonian Peh which, instead of being about American teens trying to get their hole, it'd be about some NED who was trying to hide the fact he got his 12 year old burd pregnant from the world - with extra lashings of goofiness and peh pumpin'. Who says teen pregnancy can't be funny?

That brings me onto a point raised in the pub a few weeks ago. Why are murder mysteries considered family fun entertainment? They themselves have almost adopted a generic silliness. My parents watch Dr Who, something I've never really got into myself but I've caught the occasional five minutes of it when eating tea. The only reason to really look up from throwing food down my throat is to see the attractive ginger girl that co-stars in it... Anyway, I'm straying from the point a little.

The scene I saw involved some stereotypical old lady taking her rubbish out and complaining about the all the insignificant things in the World. She then hears a rustling sound coming from some bin bags so she shouts over "is that you kids messing around again, don't make me tell your parents", or something along those lines. She starts to get closer and already I can tell she's going to die. Ho ho ho, I sense antics. You could almost play wacky trumpet music over the scene and it'd lose none of the impact it was meant to have. Murder - it's funny now.

Yet, despite murder now being an acceptable form of humour and family fun (I blame Cluedo). Other topics like rape and teen pregnancy are still frowned upon to some extent. I've yet to see a comical rape scene on Saturday evening TV. Killing off innocent pensioners, that's funny though. Hilarious in fact. Those people that go after games like GTA are clearly targeting the wrong entertainment mediums.

Another cliché that you see in almost all comedies involves the leading lady. You have your main character, he's perhaps a little dorky or eccentric but she still falls for his whimsical quirkiness. Then, about 2/3rds of the way through, those same quirks will suddenly grind on her and she'll storm off. How dare you be the person you said you were, you arsehole. You know they are going to get back together at the end so what's the point? It's a boring section of drama that adds little to the story and doesn't reflect accurately on real life. Once a girl decides she doesn't like your personality traits that you never once made an attempt to change or hide, that's it. She's gone. She's not coming back. Then again, maybe I've just been unlucky?

I've had a few movie ideas over the years that play to these clichés and rhythms. The first would be a remake of the classic Titanic story. Any of you that read this blog weekly will already be aware of my opinions with regards to the Titanic. My version of the story involves building up the characters, developing key relationships that would and will get strained in stressful times, for example, a ship sinking. Then, looming up ahead, complete with a frowny face would be the iceberg itself. The ship would start to turn away with all the passengers on board fearing for their lives. Then, just as it was all about to end, the ship would just miss the iceberg and everyone would make it to New York alive and well.

The next idea is a movie with a twist - as it would be advertised. The concept is a deep, brooding and emotive war movie where the drama comes from how the troops waiting in the trenches react to the stress and worry prior to battle. You'd see a wide range of human emotions as different men struggled in different ways to cope with their impending doom in the face of bloody war. About half way through, the battle would begin. Most of the characters you've been following fall, tears are shed. Then, one man can take no more and runs into a cave to escape the carnage. Once he's within the cave, he becomes animated and the second part of the movie is a weird and surreal cartoon with singing squirrels and other assorted woodland critters. No-one will see it coming.*

The main idea for a movie is one Andrew and I would make if we had the budget, time and know-how to pull off. It would be a sequel to the Rob Roy movie, which I'll admit I've never seen. The full title of which would be Rob Roy 2: This Aint A Surfin' Movie. The subtitle comes from a Minus The Bear song.

We'd start off in Scotland as historical Rob Roy boards a ship for America. For some unknown reason, the ship would find itself landing on the Californian coast and off would step Robulous Bob - the cool 90's surfer dude complete with backwards baseball cap. This is where the movie would part ways completely with Scotland, or so you'd assume.

Robulous Bob already has friends on the Californian coast. We have his arch enemy and fellow surfer who always wins the big competition, Brucie the Bob. He learnt his mondo surfing skills from Walt Scotty, who funds Brucie through his big business ties. Robulous learnt his surfing skills from the old and wise Bobby Burns (there are are too many Robert's in Scottish history). Bobby dies midway through the movie to give Robulous some much needed character development. Robulous also needs a comedic sidekick and friend and he comes in the form of the forever goofy, Willy Wally. His sole roll is to be that annoying guy in the movie you just want to punch.

We also need a girl in the movie to originally fall for Robulous' charms, only to later hate him for taking surfing and wanting to beat Brucie in the big competition too seriously, despite already knowing those are his goals. She'd obviously be back at the end to cheer him on during the final. The girl in question is called Mary and she works at Dairy Queen. This is where she first meets Robulous and Willy. She has problems though, she lives on a small island just off the coast with her abusive father who almost keeps her locked up when she's not at work. Her drama comes from how she deals with him and eventually becomes free of his tyranny.

Of course, the movie would just be your classic, generic comedic sports movie with no particular unfamiliar twists and turns. The only catch is that all the main characters are based facetiously on Scottish history. As much as I'd like to make that movie, I know it'll never happen. Unless anyone wants to donate a few million to our cause? No? Suit yourselves.

*credit for the original movie ideas needs to go to Euan as we came up with those ideas one night in the Speedwell.

PS: Speaking of TV, I ended up watching a show called Man vs Food earlier. It stars some over excited American guy who travels across the USA eating loads of food. In the episode I saw he got a little too enthusiastic about some sandwiches and pizza. It's probably not meant to be funny for those reasons but still, I'd check it out. Those pizzas looked fucking good and watching a man eat his own weight in sandwiches stuffed with various meats, a double helping of chips, coleslaw and tomatoes amongst other things needs to be seen.

Everything Changes

2011-10-09T21:51:00.002+01:00

I've wanted to write something about nuclear power for a while but it's one of those awkward topics where I don't feel like I'm as well informed as I could be on the topic, so I've left it alone till now. The main focus will be on coal power though, namely the proposed coal power plant at Hunterston.

To give some credit, for a BBC article it's relatively unbiased and gives both sides reasonable screen time. I mean, it does slightly ebb towards to the side of the objectors but you'll never get a truly unbiased article from the BBC when it comes to environmental issues.

Now, I'm not just going to go through the article pointing out why the objector's views are wrong. I already did that when I looked at the M74 extension opening. Instead, I'm just going to talk about why I'm in favour of this power plant going ahead.

First though, let's look at what happens every time something half decent is proposed to fill the power void that we'll inevitably be left with once Scotland's last nuclear facility is decommissioned. It gets shot down. It doesn't matter if you're proposing something big like the coal plant at Hunterston or a green super environmentally friendly wind farm. Someone, somewhere will complain and as we all know, the vocal minority are given a much greater leaning in terms of decision making than those that are in favour or just have no strong feelings either way. The Aberdeen bypass is a good example of this. Some cunt doesn't like it, therefore no-one likes it.

Imagine being back in school. Remember the class arseholes that'd shout abuse at the teacher, throw things around and generally be wee shites? Remember the teachers that'd punish the whole class because of their behaviour? This is exactly what your garden variety NIMBY is doing. They are shouting and generally being wee shites so the rest of us get punished for it. How do the rest of us get punished for their actions? Well, in terms of power facility construction - the lights go out.

This is where the nuclear debate comes in. You get those who are dead against it. They are dead against it because they feel that with it, they'll die from the numerous meltdowns nuclear plants have on an hourly basis. Whilst I hold no strong views either way, I'd much rather have them than not and decommissioning all of Scotland's nuclear plants without replacing them is silly. I don't care if we get a replacement nuclear plant or another form of power plant (except for solar and wind which are a little useless) the last thing we need is for us to be without.

As well as being mildly irritating for the general public, imagine the harm it'll do to hospitals, business and a whole host of other important things. Once the first set of lights go out, there is going to be a huge backlash against anyone who has ever stood in the way of an energy producing scheme. Just now, most people think these people are just a bit nutty but mostly harmless. Once it starts to impact on people's lives, the vocal minority will receive the beating they deserve, probably both metaphorically and literally.

Let's look at the Hunsterston project. The idea is to construct a new coal power plant with "Carbon capture and storage" to minimise the environmental impact burning coal has. Don't ask me to define what they call CCS for short because I don't really know what it is but at least they are trying to pander to the environment. Points for trying?

The proposed site for this facility is between a coal handling facility on the edge of the Clyde and Hunsterston B nuclear plant, which is due to be decommissioned in 2016. That's pretty much the perfect location for a power plant, especially a coal one. The transport costs will be almost nothing as it won't have far to go once it's been unloaded at the Clyde handling facility and it won't be a blight on the landscape since it'll have company. A quick browse of the area on googlemaps shows that any ugly building or coal pile is hidden by a screen of trees, similar to the quarries near Ladybank, you wouldn't know they existed due to the trees by the roadside.

One of the environmental concerns is that the power plant will ruin part of the Ayrshire coast. I'm not going to repeat myself, just read the last paragraph and you'll understand why that's bullshit. Let's take a local example. Imagine if they wanted to build a power plant over one of the slag heaps by the Standing Stanes road (A915) on approach to Kirkcaldy. Imagine if someone put in an objection stating it'd ruin a natural environment. You'd shoot that person down in a second for being a moron.

The last thing I think of when I think of Kirkcaldy is a natural and well preserved environment. I think of shite left to fester in the hot Summer sun. I'd imagine the people of Ayrshire have similar thoughts to the Hunterston area due to the level of industrial developments that have been there for decades.
"Wah wah wah, it'll ruin a scenic area of Ayrshire coast". No, no it won't. It's already ruined so shut the fuck up.

Of course, the easiest solution would just be to fire up a new nuclear plant and call it Hunterston C but as well all know, nuclear will personally track down all your family members and rub them with blanket laced with radiation poisoning. This is despite modern nuclear plants being the safest they've ever been. Just think how bad the results would have been for Japan if the recent earthquake took down an older plant. Although we did see a meltdown of sorts, it could have been a lot worse.

The key thing about the lack of progress on any type of power generation is that whether you're pro nuclear, anti nuclear or just anti progress, we'll all be on the same team once we find ourselves in a position where the power is going out.

Nothing Changes

2011-10-02T21:13:00.003+01:00

A few weeks ago I was considering pulling the plug on this, at least temporarily. The good thing about that metaphor is that anything that can have it's plug pulled can be re-plugged and filled back up again. Anyway, I seem to have ideas for at least three or four blogs so you aren't rid of me just yet. There are two potential topics for me to cover this week and both are news stories from this week. Unfortunately one of them will have to be relatively less relevant when addressed next week but for now, let's look at the proposal to increase motorway speed limits to 80mph.

Now, anyone who reads this blog on a weekly basis will have automatically assumed my opinion would lie in favour of the proposal. However, you'd be wrong. I'm actually on the fence. Without wanting this to sound too much like an unbiased pamphlet review, I'm going to discuss the pros and cons for the proposal, although I can list more pros than cons because the cons all come from con artists like Brake.

First off, the major pro point in the argument is that you'd be legalising what is already common practise. We've all cruised at 80 down a motorway without the fear of death bearing down upon us for committing such a heinous crime. One of the supposed cons is that people will then potentially go at 90. A few will, yes but these are the few that already do so. I doubt you'll see a significant proportion of traffic go beyond 80. All the cars I've driven don't like going much faster than 80 and the amount it'd cost you in fuel is prohibitive.

Speaking of fuel, that's another con. You'd use more and then you'd be ragging Mother Nature. However, if 80 is already common practise, surely it won't make a difference anyway?

Here's a good pro, the speed limit for most European motorways is 130kph which is roughly equal to 80mph. The 70 limit on our motorways was brought in around the time they were first built and it was based on the maximum speed of your average family car. Despite the improvements made in car design over the last 60 years, no change has been made to what are statistically the safest roads in the country, so perhaps it's about time we put ourselves in line with how the rest of Europe works?

Here's a con that so far, I've never seen in any official debate or press release relating to the issue. Consider the road between Dunfermline and Kirkcaldy. For those of you who don't know it, it's a twelve mile near motorway standard road with grade separated junctions. However, it's not a motorway, it's the A92. A good quality A road that doesn't piss about (until it reaches the failed schemes at Glenrothes which define pissing about).

Since the A92 looks like a motorway, and a lot of locals refer to it as the motorway, you'd end up with a state of confusion between high quality A road corridors and actual motorways. At the moment, both fall under the 70 limit. If the motorways went to 80 and this type of road stayed the same, you'd end up with people speeding down these right into speed traps, blissfully unaware they were doing anything wrong. A good opportunity to litter our A roads with mobile speed cameras?

Like I say, I sit on the fence on this issue. I now pretty much exclusively stick to 70 anyway because it's a nice speed to drive at and maintain. At 80 you can feel the pressure on the car and you have to slow down all the time for elephant races anyway. The conclusion I can draw is that I'd be happy with either decision, as long as it's based on actual hard evidence and not the scaremongering that charities like Brake have been shitting out like a duck with diarrhoea (ever wondered why ponds turn brown if you don't clean them? Well now you know).

I've not mocked Brake properly for a while so let's have a look at their website. The first thing you see pretty much sums it all up.

There are no words. That picture sums up the website better than the pages upon pages of propaganda about speeding motorists, rural 20 limits and general psychotic obsession on a single issue taken to the extreme. A road with no cars in the middle of nowhere that kids can play on.

What's wrong with this photo, specifically though? Other than it showing their utopian dream of a World without cars (and therefore void of pretty much everything else). We should not be teaching kids that it's alright to stand in the middle of a fucking road. What happened to stop, look, listen and think? Think being the key part of that well known phrase. I was taught that and I wasn't run over as a kid. I grew up in a village that was under the national speed limit blanket (therefore had 60mph traffic racing through). It's a 30 now.

Brake seem to want to teach kids that it's alright to just walk out into the road because they will have successfully removed cars from the equation. Brake was founded after a truck with dodgy brakes killed the founders mother. I am human enough to sympathise with that, I think any decent person would be but they've lost all perspective on the real World. Had they just been a group that focused on car safety improvements, I'd have no issue with them. As it is, they've taken their extreme views to an almost Biblical level, and you all know what I think to the Bible.

You have to look at the UK as a whole and realise that you need certain things to keep the country and it's inhabitants happy and flowing. I'm not just talking about roads here. I'm also talking about power generation. However, I shall to save that till next week.

Fat Kids In Fords

2011-09-25T21:36:00.002+01:00

Earlier in the year, I changed cars, as such, I decided to treat my old car to one final drive up into the Highlands. Well, I say the Highlands, I didn't really get that far. Dunkeld was as far north as I got and even then, I didn't stop there, I just passed through after having followed the old A9 out of Bankfoot.

The day was really an excuse to climb Moncreiffe Hill just south of Perth. Since this was July, the weather was somewhat balmy and the route I take up requires me climbing the hill twice (the path dips down then lunges straight back up again for some reason). It's a good walk and one I've done once a year for the past three years. You get some brilliant views from the top, you can even see back towards Dundee.

However, because I'd done the walk so many times before and got all the photos I wanted back in 2010 it didn't take me long to get all the way round. I got back to the car and instead of heading home, I made my way towards Glen Almond, where I encountered the stupidest, most fucked up looking car I'd ever seen. Thankfully, it's the only one I've ever seen. Perhaps it's such a stupid and miserable waste of metal that they stopped producing them? Either way, I'm talking about the Nissan Cube. Look at it. It's hideous. We're only a month from Halloween, fuck going as a ghost or a vampire. I'll be dressing up as one of those and I guarantee you I'll scare more people than the wee arsehole with a box of eggs in hand.

Imagine taking a bus, compacting it down with a crushing device and you're only beginning to touch on how awful this fucked piece of shit looks. If cars could breed and some of those cars decided to have a go of it with their sibling, that'd be the result. It's an inhumane, inbred mess of a disaster. Who was driving such a car I hear you ask? Some old cunt doing no more than 35. No surprises there. Thankfully the road was nice and quiet so I didn't have to look at it long but the memory of that "car" haunts me to this day.

On the positive side, I passed this lovely old bridge. Unfortunately, both routes onto the bridge had long been blocked off so I couldn't go in for a closer look. I eventually found myself by a nice looking country pub. However, it didn't open on a Monday so no pub lunch for me. I did happen to know of some family friends in the same village and by chance, they were in so I scored some free macaroni pies. Can't complain at that.

Moving on to the return journey (which was the part that took me needlessly north to Dunkeld) I passed this sign. A road with a ford on it. I was genuinely interested. I'd never taken my car through a ford before. Well, I've taken it through the flooding that always seems to happen between Pitscottie and Ceres on a regular basis but that doesn't count. This was the real deal. Driving through a river. I'm not easily impressed and I dismiss almost everything (as anyone who reads this will already be aware) but a ford - it was something new, something exciting. Needless to say, I was looking forward to it.

Until then, all my driving had taken place in sheltered, woodland areas. This road gave me the only glimpse of anything remotely Highland like that day. It's a nice wee road, it doesn't really go anywhere but if you're ever up in that part of the World, I'd check it out.

It wasn't long before I found myself descending towards the river the road had been following for the last few miles. Here's the ford in question. As you can see, it's considerably shallower than half the road flooding Fife sees when a singular rain drop falls from the sky.

Unlike the almost tranquil peace of the Google Streetview scene, my experience with this nice anomaly was somewhat different. To begin with, I pulled into the car park with the intentions of taking a few photos of the area as not only was this a unique opportunity for me to photograph a ford, the scenery was top notch. Unfortunately, the second I pulled into the car park some woman gave me a really dirty look. It was pretty obvious she'd come with her kids so I decided to cut my loses and try again some other day. I can't imagine the scenario would have made me out in a good light. Although my intentions were purely road and scenery based, I'd imagine it would have looked a little suspect.

I went to leave the car park and drive through the ford when I noticed the kids in question. Two podgy fat fucks standing in the road section of the ford. No-one would have wanted a photo of those fat bastards. Now, normally if someone drives a car at you, you'd get out of the way. It's just common sense. It's human nature. In fact, any animal faced with an approaching car would try their best to get out of the way.* Not these two chubby morons though. They just stood in the ford and gawked at me. Yes? What are you wee cunts staring at me for? Just move to the side so I can continue driving. They eventually took the hint and waddled away but jeez. No-one can legitimately be that slow. I blame the over abundance of fat, it was not only slowing them down physically, it was slowing them down mentally. They were the Nissan Cube of the human World, if you were.

I told that story, or at least an abridged version of it to a friend shortly after the incident. She had a go at me for calling them fat kids. Apparently it's harsh. Thankfully I don't think she reads this blog so she'll never know just how far I took it here.

I brought up the topic of what to call fat kids in the pub with the lads after this incident had taken place. The conclusion we came to is that we should call them chublings.

However, I've deliberately written that story to be unbelievably harsh. It's all about perception. If I described the kids as kids, I'd have looked like the big, mean car driver ruining their fun. However, by attributing their weight to the story, it makes them look like the bad guys. They are fat, therefore they've brought it on themselves. The same way lung cancer patients are looked down upon as it's assumed they brought it upon themselves. None of it is necessarily true but that's how society functions - you've got to pick fault with others to justify your own existence.

The reality lies somewhere in-between. Yes, those kids were a little on the weighty side but they weren't that bad. Just a little stocky. It's more the look of absolutely nothing going on in their heads and the fact they didn't think to move when a car approached that caused me to remember them. What I said about them was unnecessarily harsh but I did it to prove a point. The point being that by manipulating a single trait I noticed in these kids, I can portray them in a bad light based on the mild inconvenience they caused me.

Everyone does it. You're telling a story and you want to make yourself out to be the hero. Therefore the other person's annoying character traits tend to be almost turned into a verbal caricature. It's not really fair on the person in question and I do feel slightly bad for ripping on those kids so much in this entry. However, I needed it to be as harsh as possible in order to bring out the full effect. Whether I accomplished that is for you to decide. With that said, every bad word I said about the Nissan Cube wasn't said for comedic effect. It really does look like shit.

*I'm not going to go into that topic again. I put the "try" disclaimer into that sentence for a reason.

Covered In Paint

2011-09-18T21:38:00.002+01:00

How gullible can people be? Everyone knows that one person (this is sounding a bit like a Facebook page title) who will fall for anything you tell them. At work, the last person to go downstairs in the evening is tasked with turning off the plugs and lights. One week, the individual chosen was given the list of what to do. "Unplug the toaster. Unplug the microwave. Turn off all the lights, including the ones on the stairs". At this point, she started mentally listing what she had to do by repeating the tasks aloud. I decided to throw in "don't forget to turn off the water in the toilet". Without thinking, she repeated that as if it was a serious task and made her way downstairs. By this point the supervisor and myself were in hysterics. I suppose it's one of those situations where you really had to be there.

This is an isolated incident of falling for something stupid. However, sometimes these silly stories and odd things we make up to test people become set in time. This is where that silly joke about not putting up an umbrella indoors turns into a full blown piece of superstitious stupidity.

What bad thing is going to happen to you if you put up an umbrella indoors? I mean think about it. If there's a wasp inside then it's just as likely to fall on you if you're indoors or outdoors. I did a little research into this to try and determine the origins of some popular superstitions and apparently opening an umbrella will bring death to someone under your roof. That's some pretty heavy shit to take in. Of course, should you open your umbrella indoors and the roof collapses then it will be pretty heavy.

Quite often I'll hear someone say "my left palm is itchy, does that mean I'm going to get into a fight or am I about to come into money?". No, it means you have an itchy left palm.

"I've never once had a full frontal lobotomy... touch wood". Immature jokes about touching wood aside, what's the deal with this? Does wood contain some kind of magical, mystery luck particles sprinkled onto it by leprechauns during the full moon? Yeah, I didn't think so either. What if you need the luck but can't find any conveniently placed trees or tables lying around? Have you got to run around like a fanny looking for some before your luck quantifier ceases to work? What if you need a shed load of luck? Does touching all the trees in a forest grant you super powers?
"I've never once been committed... touch wood. Yippee, time to run around the forest gaining my luck power". You can see where this is going.

Anyway, touching wood seems more likely to result in bad luck. Take this as an example:
"I've not had a splinter this year... touch wood. Ow! You son of a bitch, what the fuck was that for? Stupid table, I knew I shouldn't have put my new shoes on you yesterday".

I really don't get that one. What's the big deal about putting new shoes on a table or surface? Are they going to come to life and kick you? It's weird, really weird and I don't get it. Putting new shoes on a table will not ever, under any circumstances, affect anything in your life. Ever. Ever ever.

So there you are, carrying some salt around with you when whoops! You spill some. What are you going to do? If you answered "clean the salt up" you'd be wrong. What you have to do is chuck some more salt over your left shoulder. Remember, left shoulder, not the right. Now you have double the work load in terms of cleaning but at least you've kept those nasty salt goblins at bay. That's right. The reason you throw salt over your shoulder should you spill any is to keep evil spirits away by blinding them. What the fuck? If I was an evil spirit, flying around and cackling to myself, I'd probably have much better things to do than stalk people on the off chance they spill some salt. Oh no, I've spilt some sodium chloride, whatever will I do? What a tragedy, the ghosts will get me for sure now. My life is over.

However, the salt superstition started back in a time where salt was expensive and used for almost everything, from preserving food to medicine. Therefore, spilling it was bad and a waste. Then some genius came up with the idea of wasting even more by chucking it over your shoulder. Were people in the past really that stupid? Surely if something was that useful and versatile, what's the point in wasting even more of it? The foolishness of this would have even upstaged the most comical of jesters.

Horseshoes are weird. A lot of people put them on their house to bring luck. However, if you turn it upside down, all the luck escapes. That makes luck into some kind of liquid that you or me could stumble upon one day. If luck is in the liquid state at room temperature, why doesn't it just fall out of the horseshoe from the other two open sides?

Sometimes it doesn't matter how many horseshoes, four leaf clovers and magical pixie inspired chunks of wood you own, once every few months you'll get a day that's feared and loathed in equal measure. Friday the 13th. If I think back to all the bad things that have ever happened to me, I can't think of a single occasion where Friday the 13th played a roll. Therefore, based on my sample size of one, I have disproved the horrors of Friday the 13th as pish.

I've been led to believe that a lot of UK housing estates don't have a number 13 because... I don't really know why. Apparently people can't count. Though what I do find surprising is that there's an A666. Who let that one through? Of all the numbers they could have picked for a road, why did they give that one the go ahead? Personally, it doesn't bother me in the slightest but I'm sure some people will avoid it for unjustifiable reasons.
"We can't use the A666, the devil might come for us".

Let's talk about ladders. Now this is the only superstition I take heed of. Why? Well, people are often working at the top of ladders, the last thing you want to do is crash into the ladder and have a pot of paint fall on your head, or worse. My reason for not walking under ladders is based on well grounded evidence that bad things may potentially happen if I do this. It can be justified. What can't be justified is the original reason. Apparently a ladder against a wall forms a triangle shape and by walking through said triangle you are violating the Holy Trinity. This means you'd be walking with the devil and open to accusations of witchcraft. Are any of you old enough to remember the Salem Witch Trials? We don't want to go there again so avoid those ladders.

What else do we have? Sneezing is your soul trying to escape. Saying bless you crams it back in, at least according to Milhouse. What is a soul? No-one who believes in them has ever been able to give me a satisfactory answer. Once I'm presented with a reasonable argument explaining what one is and what function it serves I'll take the concept more seriously. I still won't believe it but I'll be more accepting of that person's beliefs. I'd imagine it's a day I'll never see though.

So that pretty much raps up my look into some common superstitions. I know I've missed a few out like black cats and breaking mirrors but there's only so many different ways I can denounce things before I start to repeat myself. Whilst researching the origins of these superstitions I noticed that all of them had very vague back stories. Often, little information about their origin exists and there's a good reason for this - it's because they are all weird, stupid things that people do because they heard it through an elderly relative. Superstitions are essentially a game of Chinese Whispers that has gone on too long. Their true origins are shrouded in mystery, passed on through the generations and only now are people beginning to think "what? this makes no sense whatsoever".

It's not my place to say whether or not it's worth following these historical notions of fortune but I will look at you funny if I see you chucking salt around like a moron.

Disconnected

2011-09-11T21:28:00.003+01:00

For the past few months I've been playing through Lights Out Asia's most recent album, In The Days Of Jupiter whilst I write my Sunday ramblings. The album is just over an hour which is about the usual length of time it takes me to cobble my thoughts together on whatever subject I choose. Although irrelevant to anyone reading this, I'm going to try something different tonight just to see if it'll affect my mood whilst writing. Perhaps changing the background music will bring me out of the rut I've found myself in. I was looking back at some of last year's entries and I covered so many more topics than I seem to be doing just now. Perhaps I'm just running out of things to say.

Earlier this week I drove to Cambridge and back for a wedding. It's the first wedding I've been to since I was a kid and I've been pondering how I could work in a story about Cambridge into this week's entry without being a boring account of what I did on holiday which so many attempts to write about nice experiences turn into. Yesterday I was asked how British I feel compared to Scottish, or words to that effect. For me, the question is a difficult one to answer because I don't really feel like I'm British, English or Scottish. I'm going to try my best to explain why I have such a confused answer to that question over the course of this evening.

From personal experience, you seem to be far more likely to consider yourself British if you live in England. If you're from Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland there seems to be a much higher degree of patriotism, Scotland especially. First though, some brief back story. I was born in Lincolnshire where I stayed till I was just over a year old, at which point my dad was moved to RAF Leuchars and that's how I came to find myself living and growing up in Pitscottie.

Despite having lived up here for 23 years out of 24, I still retain the accent my parents speak, or at least some kind of bastardised mixture of the two since they are both from different parts of England. Weirdly, up here I just sound English to people but if I go down to visit family, they all say I sound Scottish so I must have picked some of it up.

On the way down to Cambridge earlier in the week I diverted off course briefly in order to see my grandparents. It's not something I get to do very often, in fact, until this week it had been about 4 years since I'd seen them and with the shock of my other gran dying suddenly earlier this year, there's no excuse not to call in whilst in the area.

Over the years, I have visited Lincolnshire a lot so I know my way around (although that can be said about almost all of the UK since I have the map stored inside my head). This grants a sense of familiarity with the area, one that is concreted by the fact that there are so many friendly faces down there. Family members I rarely get to see.

Although I'm connected to Lincolnshire (my mum's side of the family) and Yorkshire (specifically Leeds) I don't feel like I belong in these places. They aren't home and they never will be to me. If I jump back to Scotland I can tell a different story. I have no proper ties up here other than immediate family. Yes, my friends are all up here but they all have their family up here as well. However, this is home to me. Pitscottie is home, Dura Den is home. Cupar and St. Andrews are home. Ceres, Strathkinness, Leuchars and Dundee are all home. Yet, I have no real connection with these places.

This leaves me with a conundrum. I have places that I'm connected to but have no real emotional attachment to but on the other side, I have places I do have emotional attachments to but I'm not really connected to them, other than by random chance and decisions made by the RAF. That's not to say that we haven't made a life up here but it wasn't the life my parents would have had planned for me when I was born.

Maybe it explains why I've always been shy. It's not as if it's a thought that's constantly with me, in fact, I only really think about this issue after trips to England but perhaps, somewhere in my subconscious is the concept that I don't really belong here? Then again, where do I belong? For the most part, I have a life that works but it's just isolated events like these that throw up questions, questions that I can never properly answer.

The reason I never feel particularly patriotic or know the words to the national anthem is that I don't feel like I'm really part of the team. Then again, I've always been a bit of an individual in that respect. Team work is all well and good but I know that I tend to work better by myself when it comes to most things.

Hopefully I've managed to explain my answer to the question posed back at the beginning of this entry and if you were expecting a 9/11 themed entry then you'll have to wait till the 9th of November. Day/Month/Year makes far more sense as the size of each increases as you pass through. Anyway, 9/11/11 falls on a Wednesday this year and I don't write on a Wednesday. Phew.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgEhaCNXe78

Building A Town

2011-09-04T22:09:00.002+01:00

It's no secret that I'm a fan of games like Sim City 4. I even have the solitary expansion pack they released for it. Although, there is a website where you can download some interesting mods to make city construction easier. Most of these are tailored towards transport. I can have decent looking embankments for my railways, proper cuttings for my motorways and all sorts that isn't readily available with the initial material given to you.

Town planning in a game like Sim City 4 is relatively easy once you get the hang of it, except for the fact they constantly bitch about hospital capacity. Get used to it, if real life is shite in that respect then deal with it in virtual reality as well. That stuff can grate on me after a while, so eventually I started making rural landscapes between my larger cities with small, old style towns, villages and farming communities. Those turned out to be much more enjoyable.

I suppose I could always move over to The Sims but I find making houses to be tedious and irritating. Once you've spent a little time with a family you get bored of them and never see them again. It's one of those games you get the urge to play sometimes but the urge usually fades within a week. That's why I prefer Sim City 4. There are far more possibilities and directions you can take your city or landscape.

However, real life is a little different. Almost all our towns were built hundreds of years ago, meaning that attempts to modernise them are generally met with criticism. Take Cupar, we've got a system of narrow roads that aren't designed to take the traffic they currently do. There's nothing that can be done due to the town's age. I mean Fife Council could bypass it but they slapped Kinloss Park down over the proposed bypass route. That turned out to be successful, didn't it? Everyone likes Kinloss Park. Ideally Cupar would benefit more from a southerly bypass but the geography of a southern route almost makes that idea impossible without some serious viaducts and tunnels being installed.

Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked by Cupar's failings, of which there are many but I've talked about them all before and for all I mock it, it's not really that bad, it's just an easy target.

Not all towns are old though, Scotland has it's fair share of new towns. New towns are an interesting concept. They are essentially what happens when town planners are allowed to take their Sim City 4 dreams and put them onto a real life canvas. The three big new towns in Scotland that seem to be mentioned above the rest are East Kilbride, Cumbernauld and Glenrothes. Each year there has been a debate about which one should win worst town of the year. In the end, the conclusion they came to was to just call it a draw.

It's odd, these new towns should be the nicest places in the UK. What are we doing wrong? I'm going to take a look at local boy, Glenrothes and give it a fair analysis. I know what you're thinking, I'm just going to spend the rest of this entry laying into the place and mocking it's every being. Don't worry, I'm going to be relatively diplomatic for once.

Glenrothes, on paper is a great concept. Build it next to an existing important road (the A92) so that you get a pseudo-bypass. Make your town approach roads large and full of green space, allowing for better segregation between residential, commercial and industrial areas. Approach Glenrothes from the B969 and you wouldn't think you were even in a town, let alone a large one. In fact, if you follow this road end to end, you'll be lucky to see any signs of life, except for the occasional glimpses of houses from it's many roundabouts.

That's another thing they tried to get right. Make your roads as easy to traverse as possible. Keep traffic lights to a minimum, instead opting for roundabouts or grade separated junctions. Cumbernauld, for example is full of interesting road layouts. Just go take a drive around town and you'll be forever getting tangled up in a maze of flyovers. That's something that Cupar will never see.

Now for your town centre. Create a large, enclosed space that's easy to navigate, no matter what the weather is like. Provide this building with plenty of parking and you should have thriving, safe town centre where everything you could ever want is under one roof. Glenrothes also has it's bus station located by it's shopping centre and I think Cumbernauld does as well. I certainly stopped under the shopping centre there when on a bus once.

On paper, all these things sound great but the reality is that these places are dumps. Glenrothes was built to house the miners of the area and provide them with everything they need in one easy to navigate town. Now we all know what happened to the mines. What we ended up with was a large town, full of people that was suffering from high levels of unemployment. With no money coming into the town, the shops in the Kingdom Centre started closing down, turning a once interesting concept into a large building full of permanently down shutters and clearance sales.

All these great road ideas I mentioned earlier haven't worked out too well either. I mentioned earlier that they provide fast links between residential, commercial and industrial areas but they separate these areas meaning that unless you drive, they are of no use to you and before you know it, you find yourself trapped in the middle of a dull, uninspired housing estate with a limited bus connection. Boredom kicks in, a lack of money kicks in and then it's time to get pished on the street corner. It's just something to do.

Is it any wonder that these new towns have gone to shit? Unemployment and segregation leads to boredom, a lack of money leads to all the shops closing down which further increases the boredom. Boredom turns to crime. The town gets a bad reputation and before you know it, you have a modern ghost town on your hands. A NED on every corner, watching you as you drive by, bottle of Buckie in hand.

So yes, on paper, Glenrothes would have seemed like a modern paradise. It's just a shame that 60's and 70's architecture hasn't aged in the slightest. It adds to that manky, grey, concretey feel that only the misery a new town can provide. Having a town centre that just shuts down at 5:30 is a bad idea as well. The town centre should be the hub of activity at night with pubs taking people in from the streets. If your town gets locked up overnight, what do you do? Get pished on the street corner and pick fights.

So what's the solution? There isn't really one. The bad layout and the unemployment in the area has led to the town's downfall. A once utopian dream has been left for the dogs. It's not all bad though, Glenrothes has a rather impressive bridge and some pretty flowers.*

*I actually quite like the bridge. The flowers are a bit shite though.

If At First You Don't Succeed, Take The Hint

2011-08-28T21:52:00.003+01:00

Here's a familiar story. Someone in the UK wants to build themselves a new house. Person A chooses an attractive plot of land and gets full approval to go ahead. Then Person B comes along and decides they don't want to see any change of any kind to the 500 mile radius around their own home, which they built in a similar manner 20 years ago. A complaint is lodged and before you know it, you have a fight on your hands. In any of these given situations, the vast majority (person's C through Z) don't care what the outcome is but someone always has to be that guy, don't they?

Imagine this. You have a large city that is surrounded by sizeable towns and an airport. North of the city you have some of the largest working harbours and fishing ports in Scotland, to the south you have the road that takes you to the rest of the large cities in Scotland as well as the rest of the UK. Wouldn't it be nice if there was a road, a bypass if you will that allowed the communities surrounding the city and the freight from the north to have direct access to the south without having to deal with city centre snarl ups? Wouldn't it be nice to have a road that'll allow new industries to develop alongside and boost the area's economy?

Well, if you live in the Aberdeen area you might be thinking that this situation sounds familiar. However, if your name is William Walton, you might object to such a road based on the fact that you don't like new roads, regardless of the benefits it'll actually bring. You might get such a bee in your bonnet that the courts have to be troubled with your petty objections to progress.

However, before I start calling Willy Walton all the cunts of the day, let's address the naming issue involved here. The project has been dubbed the "Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route". It rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? Why not just call it the Aberdeen bypass? It's not as if they'd ever consider an eastern peripheral route?

Imagine if the Edinburgh bypass was called the Edinburgh Southern Peripheral Route? It amounts to the same thing. Then again, people tend to call the Edinburgh bypass "that bastard that's full of roundabouts where grade separated junctions should be" or the A720. Either or.

So, back on topic. Earlier in the year, Willy and the gang took their ideals to court in the hopes that they'd be able to squash the bypass plans. They couldn't directly argue against the road so they went with a lack of proper consultation and how that means the road passed through planning without garnering the level of objection it should have.

The reality is that most of Aberdeen wants this road built. Imagine living in Stonehaven and working at the airport which is located at Dyce. Presently you have to drive through central Aberdeen to get there. With a bypass the journey time would be almost insignificant in comparison to how long it must take now. During the consultation phase there were numerous displays put on in Aberdeen and the surrounding communities that would be directly affected by the bypass to show them exactly what course the road would take and what affect it might have on the area. If there was as much objection as road sense claim there should have been, surely it would have emerged at these meetings?

There's no telling NIMBYs though and to make matters worse, not everyone associated with road sense even has an AB postcode. They've probably just dragged in vocal environmentalists from other parts of the country to help them out.

A few weeks ago their appeal against the bypass was rejected and rightfully so, why does the vocal minority always have to get their way when the vast majority are in favour of something? It doesn't seem to matter how wrong you are, if you shout your opinion as loudly as possible you'll always win. Now, if I'd gone to the effort to go to court over something and I'd lost, I'd take the hint and call it a day. Of course, that's too simple. Willy and co are to make a second appeal against the bypass.

There really should be a law against this type of thing. They've lost. Life isn't a computer game, there are no extra lives. It should be game over but no, all the businesses and people who want the bypass built along with all those who'll get jobs in it's construction have to be delayed further just so the vocal minority can have another shouting match against the evils of progress.

So let's have a brief look at the road sense website. Don't worry, I'm not going to sift through it all and argue against everything they've said. This isn't Target Zero we're talking about here, more a ragtag group of NIMBYs who have latched onto this project like wasps that nest in your roof. They're a pain and they'll annoy you for a while but sooner or later, the Winter will come along and put them out their misery.

Well, first off I can tell you that whatever information this site is delivering is badly presented. Just look at that horrible block colour scheme. Overbearing green with deep navy as a contrast. Ugh. It looks like the morning after a heavy drinking session. Look at the blocky nature of it all, you could almost cut yourself on those razor sharp right angles. What's wrong with a pleasing, calming layout? If you want people to take what you have to say seriously, you have to present your argument well and first impressions count in the virtual world as much as they do in any other circumstance.

If you bother to thumb through you'll find one or two gems. For the most part, the information on display bores me to tears but I have found one or two things worth discussing. Firstly, the "sympathetic allies". No surprises that the Scottish Greens and Friends Of The Earth are listed in there.

Secondly, we have the "Download PR Material" section. Here you can download some promotional posters.

What is that? Seriously? I don't get it. Aside from the horrible two tone colour scheme, blocky letters and misaligned text, what is it trying to tell me? Two roads too far? Is it that they want both the current A90 and the new A90 bypass to stop short of Aberdeen because they go far enough as is? Is it because the road will be a dual carriageway? It's gibberish, plain and simple. No-one would want to put that up outside their house or have it as a bumper sticker. People would see it and scratch their heads wondering what the message they were trying to convey was.

This one is slightly more meaningful, even though it's a complete shambles of a poster. A primary school kid could design better than that. No thought has been put into this promotional material at all. Let's just slap something together in paint and distribute it online as part of our environmental and NIMBY based proper-gander.
Hell, I bet I could make my own piece in favour of my side of the cause. Here's one I made earlier in all of a minute, if that.

Doesn't that look wonderful? Like I said earlier, if you want people to take your view seriously, dress it in nice clothes. Produce rushed and shit ugly promotional posters like the ones I got from the road sense website and prepare for people to take one look and walk away in disgust.

Now, it may seem petty and almost irrelevant to be picking on this group for their aesthetics and you'd be right to think so, however, all I'm doing is paralleling their position. Their argument against the bypass, whilst meaningful and well grounded to them, to everyone else it seems petty, immature and a waste of time. The bypass will get built because the people of Aberdeen will demand it.

I was originally going to take this entry quite seriously because it's an issue I do care about, mainly because you shouldn't be allowed to appeal against things you don't like multiple times until you get your way. That's not democratic. That's just selfishness and it's about time normal people rose up and put an end to this level of injustice before an important project near you gets delayed till you die.

PS: I hope you like the new layout. Be honest and let me know what you think. I may change the background photo depending on the season but we'll see. Have a good week.

Nothing This Week

2011-08-21T21:29:00.003+01:00

I had an attempt at writing something tonight but once again (third time this year), I find myself riddled with rhinovirus so the results seemed a little forced. As such, I'm just going to rest up this week.

Here's a video of the A9 that'll waste six minutes of your life instead.

A Fraction Above The Surface

2011-08-14T23:11:00.001+01:00

I've recently been listening to a lot of I Like Trains, or iLiKETRAiNS depending on how early the material you're playing is. They write interesting, historical, noisy post rock style songs that are dark and brooding. Naturally, they are exactly what I'm looking for when it comes to a good band.

Their first album called Elegies To Lessons Learnt has some brilliant and well crafted tracks on it, all dealing with interesting stories from history's dark past. We have songs about the plague, the only prime minister to ever be assassinated, the great fire of London and many more. Although the latter might not be all that historical considering recent events. Let's stick it to the man by burning down a family owned furniture business and some independent label music. Wait... what?

I Like Trains followed the excellent Elegies To Lessons Learnt with an instrumental EP called The Christmas Tree Ship. Although instrumental, the EP is about a ship that sunk in 1912. A ship called the Rouse Simmons that was carrying a cargo of Christmas trees to Chicago when it was destroyed during a violent storm killing all on board. The tracks on the EP, bar the first and last are also named after ships that sunk in 1912. Specifically, ships that were also lost during the same storm.

Of course, when you think of ships that have sunk in 1912, you immediately think of that glory hogging prick, the Titanic. I fucking hate the fucking Titanic. Fuck. What an annoying ship. Yes, it was tragic, yes, it could have been avoided but it just seems like every year, we get a new, hour long documentary about it. I can sum up what happened to the Titanic in one short paragraph.

The Titanic hit an iceberg. Glub glub glub. The end.

Of course, each year some team with nothing better to do (that's rich coming from me) goes down to the wreckage to see if they can find out something new about why the ship may have sank. Driving it into an iceberg was the main problem they had. However, it was a crime syndicate. The iceberg just took the blame. It had to do the time whilst the real culprits sat at the bottom of the ocean. Feeling a smug sense of satisfaction that they hadn't been caught yet.

What they didn't know is that everyone would be on their case, even 99 years later. The last boring Titanic documentary I sat through didn't just blame the iceberg. He was just the muscle they brought in to do the dirty work. The masterminds behind the fiendish plot to stop some ship making it to America were badly designed bolts in conjunction with conspiracy theories about the Titanic being it's sister ship, the Olympic.

Jeez, this plot is getting way out of control. There are far too many bad guys and this conspiracy theory just confuses things. We're never going to see a happy ending now for the little ship that couldn't. I've always had this weird plan to make a movie about the Titanic. Tell the story the way I want to. The ship would set out in search of America, dodgy bolts and all. They'd see an iceberg with an evil, yet slightly dopey grin waiting in it's path. Panic would ensue. Then they'd miss the iceberg and arrive in America safely. After all, sometimes you just want a happy ending.

It's about to get a lot worse though. Next April, the sinking of the Titanic will be 100 years old. That's weird. It's almost like people are celebrating the anniversary of a death. It'd be like going to a graveyard, finding a grave that's been there 50 years and having a wee party by it. I'm dreading April next year. The Mayan prediction is for December 2012. That's wrong. The World will end on the approach to the 15th of April 2012. You won't be able to go anywhere near your television sets without being reminded that the Titanic died 100 years ago. It'll be a big deal. There will be tributes to those that lost their lives, the survivors and oh yes, yet another documentary that'll retread the same ground that mankind has been putting up with for the last 100 miserable years.

The whole thing will also overshadow my birthday, which is far more important. Speaking of which, the I Like Trains Christmas Tree Ship DVD is currently selling for £50 so if you all want to chip in and buy it for me then I'd appreciate it. I did something quite unusual the other day, I liked the I Like Trains page on Facebook. I normally don't bother because I'm miserable that way. I also have an only real people rule. If anyone tries to add me who isn't a person, I ignore the request. Harsh, but fair.

I decided to look into what the stupidest non person Facebook friend was out of my group. Don't worry, I didn't go snooping through all 80 odd of you, just one person (he happens to have the highest friend to inanimate object ratio of anyone I know). The result was the RMS Titanic. I'd understand if it was a page or an appreciation group but someone actually made an account for a ship that hasn't been active in nearly 100 years? What does it post?

Titanic: It's kind of boring down here, I saw a film crew yesterday but they were going shark hunting. That is to say, they were looking for sharks. (5 minutes ago)

What if Facebook existed 100 years ago?

Titanic: Welcome aboard, in the lobby you will find an internet terminal, please friend us on Facebook. (99 years ago)
Creepy Baws and 245 people like this.
The Titanic has 2223 friends.

Titanic: Help, I'm sinking. (99 years ago)
Titanic: I was too cocky and I don't have enough lifeboats. (99 years ago)
Titanic: All my friends are dying. (99 years ago)
Creepy Baws likes this.
The Titanic has 706 friends left.

Creepy Baws and 15 other friends like multiple pages about the Titanic disaster. Some serious, some funny and some that have solutions to the disaster like not sailing into an iceberg.

Just one final bit of business to take care of before I wrap this up for the night. It's about time I let people see some sketch show to prove it's actually real. Enjoy.

Real Ale In A Bottle

2011-08-07T21:54:00.005+01:00

Real Ale in a Bottle can be abbreviated to RAIB which turns up in a google search for that particular acronym. However, that hit is a few hits down. The first hit you get under RAIB is for the Rail Accident Investigation Branch. They've recently completed a report on the rural railway crossings of the Highlands. The vast majority of which have no physical barrier and have decided that this will not do.

I've always liked railway crossings. I think it was down to the wigwags and the massive train that used to roar through as you sat and watched from the car. It's hard to imagine any kid not responding positively to flashing red lights and large, loud, fast things. There used to be a railway crossing on the A919 just south of Leuchars. You can still see the remnants of it when driving that section of road. I was always disappointed when we drove through to Dundee that way because I never once saw a train cross the line. Had I known that it was a disused branch line to the soon to be disused RAF base - I wouldn't have got my hopes up.

I've not been for a while now but my mum's side of the family are all from south Lincolnshire. If you aren't familiar with the area, imagine Tentsmuir, imagine that part of Fife with all the trees removed. It'd be flat and dull. Southern Lincolnshire is like a treeless Tentsmuir that stretches on for miles. As such, the landscape around there is perfectly suited to railway crossings. Whenever we went down to visit family I got my flashing red light fix. The only time I tend to see wigwags in action now is when the Tay Bridge is closed and that tends to rag me more than impress me.

Although railway crossings played a moderate role in my childhood and were probably one of the many triggers that got me interested in roads, they have been mostly absent since. One of the only ones in the local area is on the road between Pitlessie and the Bow of Fife. I happened to photograph it last year on a walk where I was teaching myself the HDR technique. It came out quite well, even if I do say so myself.

Now that I've mentioned the memories I have with regards to railway crossings, let's move into the present. In 2009 (wait, that's not the present) an old man with vision problems drove past flashing wigwags and into the path of an oncoming train just outside of Halkirk in Caithness. RAIB investigated this incident and have come to the conclusion that if the crossing had automatic barriers installed the old man would have just driven into those instead.

As such, there are now calls to install automatic barriers at the vast majority of the open crossings in the Highlands - if barriers aren't installed, the road should be closed permanently. That's a good idea. The Highlands is full of alternative routes. Close one and your diversion will only be a mile at the most... wait, you're probably going to have to drive a good twenty miles around before you find a route that heads in the same direction as the one you wanted to use. What do you do if that has a closed crossing on it as well?

Now, I don't object to barriers on safety grounds or anything like that. I just personally feel, that in a time where money is tight for everyone that there are much better ways to spend it. Why waste money on an expensive piece of kit like an automated barrier on roads that see very little traffic?

Let's take a look at a few examples. Case studies, if you will. I'm going to have a look at some of the crossings on the Far North Line. As the name suggests, this railway links the far north of Scotland (Thurso and Wick) with Inverness. You don't get much more remote than that. The line passes through the heart of the flow country which is the largest expanse of blanket bog in Europe. It's a fascinating place and I use the word fascinating because I find it an almost mystical place. There's just something about the flow that makes me happy just mulling over it's existence. It's bleak, it's lonely, it's not regarded as the most dramatic or even nicest places in the Highlands but there's a certain beauty to it that really does capture my interest.

The Far North Line, for the most part follows the old route of the A9 (once the A88) as far as Helmsdale (an odd name for that part of the country). The direct route from Helmsdale to Thurso and Wick is to follow the A9 but instead, it strikes a course inland through the heart of the flow. The reason for this is the number of obstacles on the coastal route.

Just north of Helmsdale you have the Ord Of Caithness which has recently seen some major improvement works in the form of overtaking lanes and straightening works. It's still very steep and twisty but if you have a powerful car, you can make good progress past the border and into Caithness. The next obstacle to the railway and perhaps the biggest one on the coastal route are the Berriedale Braes. They are brilliant. The A9 soars down a steep hill into two narrow valleys meeting the sea, crosses over the rivers before traversing a few hairpins back up the cliffs. This is the only part of the A9 not to have seen any major improvements like the Ord of Caithness to the south or the Dunbeath viaduct to the north.

However, there is a reason for this. The scale of bridge you'd need to cross the Berriedale Braes wouldn't be far off the Millau Viaduct. Well, perhaps not quite that big but it'd still be an impressive structure. This was the main reason why the railway heads inland to meet the metropalises of Kinbrace and Altanbreac. The latter being one of the remotest stations in the UK. There are no road connections and there is absolutely nothing there. I'd like to go but I haven't yet found someone to come with me.

Let's begin by looking at the railway crossing at Forsinard. Forsinard lies on the A897 which is single track throughout and links nowhere in-particular to nowhere in-particular. I tried finding the AADT (Annual Average Daily Traffic) figures for this road but to no avail. I'd imagine there's no reason to record the solitary land rover and goat that traverse this road once a week. Eight trains pass through here a day and they all stop here. That means that although the crossing isn't barrier controlled, you'd have to be a complete moron to drive into a train that's crawling into or out of the station. That's assuming you've missed the flashing red lights.
Verdict: Leave it as it is.

This is Kildonan. This crossing is so remote that it doesn't even have wigwags. The road crossing the railway at this location is so remote that streetview doesn't bother to cover the road to the south. I'm not entirely sure why there's a station at this crossing at in the first place. It's probably a request stop which means that most of the time, trains passing through won't bother to call here but will pass through slowly.
Verdict: This road will be so lightly used that nothing really needs to be done. However, I wouldn't say no to a set of wigwags at this location.

The final example I'll look at is located here, just south of Lairg. Lairg is a moderate sized town, at least for this part of the World and one that I have visited. There is a famous waterfall not too far from this station and whilst walking around this area I stumbled upon a large dragonfly that resembled a monster of a wasp. The road passing over the railway at this location has a lane of traffic for each direction. A bit of a rarity is this part of the World. However, that suggests it's busier than most.
Verdict: I'd give this one barriers. The road is quite straight so people tend to drive it quite fast.

I only chose three and I deliberately picked three with different outcomes. Yesterday, I had a look at all the railway crossings I could find on the Far North Line and almost all of them fall into the Forsinard category of "don't bother changing it, it's not worth it" - even the ones near Halkirk but Network Rail won't be able to get out of installing barriers to the two there.

The issue I have with this whole thing is that it's a massive over reaction to an unfortunate, yet one off incident that almost certainly won't be repeated. There really isn't the need to blow vast amounts of money on automatic barriers for crossings that see very little road and rail traffic. The flashing wigwags should be more than adequate with regards to these crossings, otherwise they'd have seen barrier installations years ago. Let's put the money saved by not installing the barriers into the Edinburgh tram works... wait, I'd rather just have the barriers - they're far more useful.

Your Favourite T-Shirt

2011-07-31T22:14:00.002+01:00

You'll be glad to know I don't plan on taking on the same heavy topic that I did last week. I'll try and keep anything overly personal away from the internet from now on. You're not supposed to bottle things up but I prefer to.

Anyway, I always come up with a title for these blogs last minute but writing it out reminded me of an amusing incident that happened during P5. I had broke my wrist fighting bears and wrestling wolves so I was given use of the old computer we had gathering dust in the back of the classroom in order to do anything that required writing. During one assignment I misspelt T-Shirt and T-Shit. Thankfully the teacher saw the funny side.

Like most people, I enjoy a pint or two. My friends and I always get together on a Monday evening to sink a few pints as well as discussing things that usually give me the inspiration for this blog. We're all pessimistic, miserable bastards but we have a lot of fun performing that role in society. I even managed to work one of my friend's ghost theories into the script for our fake documentary.

Unfortunately, our style of going out drinking to be social and have an actual conversation with the people your with makes us weird. Wanting to speak to people is odd. I'm young, I should be going to nightclubs like Chubby Fuck Sams and getting wasted on drinks like WKD or whatever the current "cool" drink is. It'll never happen, I appear to have aged ahead of my years. Is that a bad thing? I don't think so.

However, on the plus side, I've been led to believe that the sale of real ale and whisky is on the up and up. Perhaps I could go to Overweight Sams and be able to drink a real ale without it seeming out of place? This is highly unlikely.

Drinking culture seems to have expanded in recent years. Like I said, almost everyone likes a drink but now, in order to prove your worthiness towards all things alcoholic, you have to be wearing the right clothes. You can't walk around any town or city without seeing someone sporting a high quality, super funny drinking t-shirt.

The early ones had great and well thought out phrases on them like "If Found, Return To The Pub". The joke never got old and every time I saw someone wear one or buy one I couldn't resist the urge to laugh out loud. Since then, many more amusing slogans have appeared. My personal favourite is "Bar Wars: May the drink be with you". Whoever came up with that deserves to win an award. Satire like that doesn't come along very often. In fact, I can't think of a more perfect example.

Not only is it great but you can apply it to other words that rhyme with star. I played golf for the first time since primary school the other day and I use play in the loosest possible sense since I was useless at it. However, par rhymes with star so you could create a t-shit (see what I did there) that reads "Par Wars: May the putter be with you". It's brilliant. I'd certainly buy one. Here's one that would appeal to the people of Fife. "Haar Wars: I hate living on the east coast in April".

So, the next time you head out to Skinnily Challenged Sams, remember to take your hilarious drinking t-shirt with you.

Anyway, enough about that. Let's talk about whisky in conjunction with walking. Over the last few weeks we have began filming our second project of the Summer, our fake documentary called Whisky & Walking. It's really coming together nicely. With the sketch show, we had a large number of moron characters who's main purpose was to spout silly catchphrases. I suppose that's all you should expect from a sketch show.

However, on this project we have a well fleshed out presenter who's character has been worked on for months. He has a back story which has shaped who he is today and how he reacts to other people. On most BBC style documentaries, you'll have a presenter who's bland and generic. They show a certain level of enthusiasm and are always eager to learn about their chosen subject from knowledge told to them by whoever has agreed to be this week's local expert. It all feels very staged and in some places, forced.

The presenter we came up with doesn't stand for any pish, he already knows it all and isn't scared to give us his opinion on a given situation. Last week, we filmed a section on the Scottish Wild Bear where the presenter, George Fraser meets up with local biologist, James Andrews. They roam the woods in search of the bear. The entire time, George sets about attempting to discredit James because he doesn't believe the Scottish Wild Bear exists. The scenes were filmed around Kemback.

Andrew's initial worry with the documentary idea is that the presenter would just be a presenter and not have enough good material to work with but because we went for such a bold and opinionated lead character then we've given ourselves a lot of good opportunities to write jokes based on the shock value of what he says to people.

We don't have an awful lot left to film. The next big thing will be to record the scenes with the atheist reverend. George Fraser is a religious man so it'll be fun to see how the two clash. The script has yet to be written for it but based on our writing and planning sessions, it should come together pretty easily.

The way we work together is quite interesting. We come up with most of our jokes on the spot based on what the scene calls for. We practise the scene once or twice. I then take whatever ideas we came up with and write them up. I usually try and flesh them out a little by adding extra things I come up with later on that fit. The script is then presented to Andrew who has a read through, if it's not up to scratch then we work on it some more until it's right.

I've found through this experience that I much prefer doing the writing and that Andrew prefers the acting and it really shows. He's nailed the George Fraser character in terms of costume, mannerisms and accent. The whole project is really coming together and I feel that the jokes we've come up with for this show are a lot more intelligent and thought out than in the sketch show. Then again, that was deliberate to an extent. If we choose to do this sort of thing again, I hope we choose to continue going in this direction. Whether anyone gets it in the end will be a different matter though.

Have a good week.

Wilderness Of Frustration

2011-07-24T23:49:00.002+01:00

It's not often I'll write a late night entry, normally if I've been doing something on a Sunday evening I'll ignore this and come back on a Monday to write. However, I'm in a bit of a reflective mood tonight and I've realised that sometimes I just need to let go of things, let them spill out and I suppose this is the best place to do it. I can talk about everything that's going on in my life just now and pretend someone is listening.

I normally go to write my Sunday evening blog entry around 9:30pm and it usually takes me about an hour. I never bother doing drafts or put too much planning into them. I usually have an idea about what I'm going to write and an idea what jokes I'm going to use. Then, because I haven't made a plan, I forget to include half the jokes and get annoyed with myself later when I realise they're missing. This week, I had planned to talk about alcohol, warning school kids of the dangers of it, along with drugs, unsafe sex and everything else we had drilled into us during Social Education lessons. I tended to drift off during those. The actual plan was to talk about good pubs mixed in with some Facebook culture in order to draw parallels. If you're lucky, I'll get to that next week.

So it came to 9:30 this evening and I went into the living room to see what my parents were doing. They appeared to be watching a film and it was only a minute in so I just sat down and began watching it as well. It was a film called The Lovely Bones, I believe it's based on a novel, oddly enough of the same name. Apparently it's had mixed reviews but I quite liked it. It was one of those movies that puts you into a reflective state and at least to begin with, was about people coping with untimely death. There were obviously a few more twists and turns along the way but the part I seemed to connect with the best was near the beginning when the family were coping with what had happened to their daughter.

If you read last week's entry, you'll know that once again, I've lost a friend. I say friend because it's perhaps one of the best ways to get across just how upsetting and emotionally draining losing a pet can be. Someone at work offered me the great solace of "everything dies" as if I was some naive fool for being upset over my cat's death. This is why I prefer not to tell people about these things. I know that a lot of people don't fully understand.

It's not a case of "everything dies". I know that, I'm not stupid. I was upset when Bogart, my first cat died and I was upset when my grandma died earlier this year but they were both of natural causes which makes a huge difference to both how you process the news and how it affects you in the long run. In both Winston's and Remus' case, they were taken down in the prime of their lives which makes accepting what happened to them a completely different story. It's exactly the same as, for example, a child being knocked down. It's tragic and devastating for those involved and as far as I'm concerned, there is no difference. You can't quantify emotion based on a given set of circumstances. Everyone will react differently and grieve differently and who's to say one family losing a child compared to another losing a beloved family pet in tragic circumstances won't react in exactly the same way?

What I'm trying to say is that people shouldn't try and put things into a list of what's worse and therefore how much sadness you're allowed to express based on that circumstance. It's all very subjective based on the connection one person has made with whoever has died. It's fair to say that a connection between parents and their child will probably be stronger than that of a person's connection to their pet but there's no real way to know. How I'm responding this set of circumstances happening twice in one year have varied both times.

When Remus died, I was the one to discover him lying there when I got back from work. I didn't want to believe what I saw when I first saw him on the road but there was no escape from reality once I picked him up off the road and carried him up the driveway. The amount of shock I was in masked the true emotion I was feeling at the time. That walk up the driveway was painful, slow and by far, one of the worst experiences of my life. What was worse was then having to go inside and tell my mum. Seeing her reaction to the circumstances brought me out of the shock and I too, broke down in tears.

The circumstances involved in Winston's death were a little different, I had no idea he had died, I went to work as if everything was normal. If I happened to work in St. Andrews, I would have passed him on the road out but since we all headed out in the direction of Cupar that morning, none of knew. Around lunchtime, someone finally had the decency to knock on my neighbours door to let them know there was a dead cat around the corner. The news got back to my parents which then got back to me. I found out whilst I was in work.

The news shocked me but it wasn't the same shock that I felt when Remus died. In a way, we all had a feeling his story would end in the same way. Perhaps it was paranoia that he'd go out onto the road or perhaps we thought that because it had happened once before, it'll happen again. Either way, the news was both expected and unexpected and as strange as that sounds, it makes sense.

I spent the rest of that shift in a daze, keeping my head down, ignoring people as best I could, not quite knowing what I wanted to do with myself. This is where the parallels between what's been happing in my life compared with what happens in The Lovely Bones start to come into play. Probably the most poignant scene in that movie for me was when the father took all the bottles with ships in them that he'd been working on for however many years and started smashing them in a fit of emotional rage.

After the news about Winston had properly sunk in, all I wanted to do was smash, break and tear apart everything in the shop before getting in the car and driving away. The urge was there and I almost did it but something held me back. I don't know what did but I managed to keep my emotional rage to myself, only now am I actually letting it drift out in the form of what I'm writing now.

With Bogart and Remus, I found myself crying quite a lot after they died and on and off for the weeks that followed. In Winston's case, I've yet to properly cry over him. Instead I'm just finding myself feeling angry about what happened and unable to properly let go. I don't know what I need to do to allow myself to grieve in a conventional manner. Perhaps it just goes back to what I said earlier about trying to quantify sadness, you can't do that and maybe I'm grieving this way this time because I'm giving up.

I've certainly not been myself over the past few weeks. The things that would normally make me happy, don't any more. I'm hoping that things will return to normal and that walking around the countryside taking photographs will return the same meaning and enjoyment that it used to. I'm also worried that I'm going to end up mildly depressed over all this but if I see myself sinking, cutting people out of my life and finding it difficult to get through the day then I will do whatever I can to make sure that doesn't happen. There's a huge difference between pretending to be a miserable bastard in order to portray a certain sense of humour and genuinely being miserable.

There's something else I've been meaning to mention with regards to this topic and it's a strange one. The night before Remus died, I had a very odd dream where I was in a hut on one side of a misty loch, standing inside a small house that looked quite similar to that of a friend's house. Remus was there in that house with me. Later on in the dream, I found myself on the other side of the loch, the house was also on the other side but everything was reversed. Wandering around the backwards house was Remus only this time, he was a ghost.

The night before Winston died I was dreaming that I was driving down the A92 between Kilmany and the Five Roads Roundabout. I was in a stream of traffic when behind me, came a large white 4x4 with a red stripe down it. This vehicle overtook me without any regard to oncoming traffic and continued to overtake coming into blind bends and even when cars were actually coming the other way. In the dream, I thought to myself that he wouldn't live long driving like that.

The next thing I know, I'm being diverted onto the B946 (that's the road that goes to Wormit and passes the Moffat & William bus depot if you don't know your road numbers). There has been an accident and there were police and ambulances all over the place.

Now, you can either say these mean something and were my subconscious telling me was about to happen or happening to my cats or you could choose to believe it was all coincidence. I'm a logical person, things have to make sense. I don't believe in ghosts, I don't believe in the afterlife and I don't believe these dreams were anything but coincidence. I dreamed about my cats all the time. Bogart appeared in my dreams a lot, both when he was alive and after he had died, as did Remus and Winston. The logical explanation to this is that both Remus and Winston tended to meow outside my bedroom window during the night. It would usually wake me but what if it didn't? What if I was hearing their meows whilst being in an unconscious state? That would automatically trigger their existence in my dreams as it'd be my mind's way of interpreting the noises I was hearing.

Of course, you could always look at it another way, Bogart could be in a strange state that exists between Heaven and Hell and is somehow channelling me in my dreams to warn me when bad things are about to happen. It won't be long before Winston and Remus start channelling me to track down whoever ran them over and beat them up with a baseball bat. That last paragraph will only make sense if you've seen The Lovely Bones.

I don't know why I felt like ending what has been quite a difficult and emotional entry to write with a joke like that but it's certainly been helpful to try and get some of this stuff off my chest. Maybe it'll help me in the long run, maybe it'll help me deal with everything that's been happening or perhaps it won't actually do anything at all. Only time will tell.

Speaking of things with Bones in the title, I haven't talked about either of the filming projects in a while, stuff has been going on but I'll talk about it more next time as well. As always, have a good week.

Finished It Remains

2011-07-17T21:39:00.003+01:00

You won't be getting a full entry this week because once again I'm mourning the death of a beloved family pet. You can read Winston's story here.

I was going to use this blog to rattle off some emotional anger at the situation but I'm going to spare you this time. Instead I'm going to briefly talk about a key moment in a walk I took last Thursday.

I took a walk down to the Morton Lochs near Tayport. The path begins by passing through the golf course. Once you leave the golf course, the path passes a house and what comes along to greet you? A loud, barking dog, hell bent on making sure you stay the fuck away from the house. If that wasn't enough, a wee yappy thing also tries to prove it's every bit as manly as the big one by attempting to be intimidating, even though it's too small to be seen without a microscope. The big dog gives off a loud, low pitched and aggressive bark whilst Smally The Short can only manage a high pitched aural assaulting whine. If you ever see me in person, just ask and I'll give you an accurate impressive of how both these morons sound when they're barking together.

Let's look at the animal kingdom for a second. Let's look at something that has a smaller brain than your average dog, a bird for example. If you put out bread scraps every other day they'll come to the same spot in search of delicious treats and easy access food. This is known as a learned behaviour. These dogs, on the other hand, live next to a very popular path. Whilst I was out on Thursday, I met cyclists, bird watchers, photographers and joggers all enjoying this part of Tentsmuir. That means that these dogs will be presented with the same set of circumstances on a daily basis. You'd think on seeing hundreds of people passing their home, they'd learn that passers by weren't a threat and stop being cunts? Unfortunately, this isn't the case - therefore proving that dogs are the stupidest animals in the World.*

As you may have guessed, I don't really like dogs and I know that some people don't really like cats. However, that does not give people permission to run over the latter. I'd imagine that both cats I've lost to the road this year could have been saved if whoever was driving actually slowed down when they saw the cat on or near the road. I know I slow down if I see a cat by the side of the road. Guess what, if I saw a small, yappy shit of a dog sitting by the side of the road, I'd also slow down because believe it or not, my negative opinion towards them doesn't translate to "they must all die because I don't like them".

Anyway, I promised not to get into this stuff so we'll leave it there tonight.

*I feel I must always put a disclaimer on my dog rants to tell people they are meant as a joke and you shouldn't get offended by it since people have strong opinions when it comes to dogs.

If All This Wisdom Is True Then I Doubt It Could Really Have Come From You

2011-07-10T21:45:00.002+01:00

I've just come to an end of my week and a half off work so naturally I should have had time to come up with a brilliant blog idea. Unfortunately I spent all that time boxing up all my stuff and moving then to top all that off, I bought a new car so it's been a busy holiday. As such, I haven't had time to consider what ideas I have. I haven't been checking the BBC site for stupid stories about morons to dissect and I haven't had a chance to think of bendy A roads to hate so it's time for plan B. Namely, a virtual mix CD, except I won't be giving it away because that's illegal. You wouldn't steal a car *cue that annoying rock music*. If I could download a car, I would. Just stick a blank car into the drive and let the internet do it's job.

I used to make a lot of mix CDs, I went through a phase of them around 2006/2007 and my formula for a successful mix hasn't changed much since then. Every mix I've made tends to get as close to the 78 minute mark as possible but the problem I find sometimes is that the mix can sometimes drag on. By the time you're on track 20 you're attention span is dwindling. Then again, due to my music tastes my mixes tend to average out at about 15 tracks.

I think the longest in terms of track number since length never really varies was around 24 tracks. It seemed to go on forever. On the reverse side, the shortest mix I can make only has three tracks on it (and yes, that does fill the 78 minutes). By comparison, that mix feels a lot shorter despite being the same length.

The mix I prepared for this entry is based on a concept I've had for a while. Make a mix CD that plays like an actual album. What I came up with is 12 tracks that flow together nicely to make a coherent sounding collection of songs. The post rock and long, droning instrumentals have taken a back seat in order to make this mix. I'll add a youtube link where possible.

1. Idlewild - (I Am) What I Am Not
Traditionally I'd open a mix CD with arguably Idlewild's most successful single, You Held The World In Your Arms but this one seems to work better for me. It throws you straight into the action and Roddy's wordplay removes any pre conceptions that the mix might be about new love since that seems to be the time when most people make them. I just tend to make them when I'm bored.

2. Frightened Rabbit - Fast Blood
I got into Frightened Rabbit shortly before the release of their second record, The Midnight Organ Fight because they were friends with another of my favourite bands of the time, The Twilight Sad. The first time I heard this song was in the acoustic form followed shortly by a live electric version. The live version I have is followed by Scott talking about cocking bats with Bob Dylan. I've still never quite worked out what the point of the story is but if you can track down the e-music live version of the song then you can listen for yourself.

3. Arab Strap - Don't Ask Me To Dance
I've been meaning to write a blog about these guys for a while. Arab Strap are a special band consisting of Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton. Two unlikely heroes from Falkirk. This song is apparently about the early stages of a relationship and not wanting to fuck about and play games. It's a pretty good message and it's delivered in Aidan's usual mono-tonal manner with plenty of loud distortion and crashing drums to carry you through to the next song.

4. Minus The Bear - Drilling
Minus The Bear are probably the most recent band I've got into big time, however this is quite an old song. It's their best one though. There is a slight introduction that builds up a certain sense of excitement. A few listens to this beast and you'll be leaping around the room.

5. Biffy Clyro - Eradicate The Doubt
I know I've mocked Biffy a lot on this blog and deservedly so. Back in the day these guys were the best of the best. They could do no wrong and produced the best modern music around. Unfortunately they became whores along the way and sold out. Before that they released three great albums so I've included a single from their second album. Listen to this back to back with Mountains and try and tell me modern Biffy is just as good. You won't be able to.

6. Hope Of The States - George Washington (Apologies, I can only find a live version of this song on youtube).
This song changes the dynamic of the mix. The first five tracks of the mix are all guitar based rock songs that make you leap around. This song is just as loud but it also has room to breathe. It's also the first to include an acoustic guitar - though you won't be able to hear it over the adventurous instrumentation in the song. The second half instrumental section is still, in my opinion, one of the most uplifting pieces of music ever recorded. It's just a shame this band split up.

7. Crash My Model Car - Sandshoe Blisters (No video)
This song follows on in a similar vein from George Washington. It starts off quietly and slowly builds to a nice, loud outro. This song reminds me of long Summer evenings spent on Skye looking out at seals in the bay. Unfortunately, Crash My Model Car are another band to have split up.

8. The Twilight Sad - Made To Disappear
The Twilight Sad are the masters of the slow and loud song. In this case, I've gone with one that's slightly more palatable to the masses but the noise is still there to complement James' vocals. I got into the Twilight Sad mid 2007 and not long after I found out they were the main support for Idlewild's autumn tour that year. Those gigs were perhaps some of the most enjoyable I'd ever been to (excluding the fire alarm that ruined the Edinburgh show).

9. Malcolm Middleton - A Moaning Shite
I always find it hard to get an acoustic track into a mix CD, unless the theme is actually acoustic. They always seem to throw a log down and stop the flow of the mix. With that said, this song does seem to fit in quite nicely here. Perhaps because it's not your standard acoustic song. Play this one loud, it's worth it.

10. The Unwinding Hours - Tightrope
The Unwinding Hours are the band that emerged from the ashes of Aereogramme and in a way, this track is probably the one that sounds most like an Aereogramme track. I don't really have a lot to say on this one. It's almost fun and catchy to listen to until you pay attention to the lyrics.

11. Oceansize - Women Who Love Men Who Love Drugs
You didn't think you were getting away without one long song did you? This 8 minute wonder carries itself perfectly. It's managed to perfect the dreamy, washy feel without causing you to drift off and the loud section in the middle really grabs your attention. I'd heard a lot about this band and this song in particular before I bought their first record. Usually when a song has been hyped up a lot it turns out to be a disappointment. Not this time, this song was everything everyone said it was and I still find it a brilliant listen, even to this day.

12. Aereogramme - Motion
I've used this song to close countless mix CDs and it's never failed me on that front. I have so many long, loud instrumental songs I could grant the honour of the closing track but I come back to this early Aereogramme song again and again. The lyrics almost sound positive (though they probably aren't) and the loud instrumental part at the end makes for the perfect mix CD ending, especially as the quiet part that brings the song to a halt gives you time to reflect and take in what you've just heard.

There we go, I know I said I won't be giving this mix away but if anyone would like a physical copy just get in contact in the comments box. I have to approve all comments before they go live so if you provide an address, the World won't see it unless I decide to be a cunt and post the comment anyway.

I'll come up with an actual idea next week.

Lumpy The Lump

2011-07-03T23:20:00.003+01:00

Have you ever decided that you hate nuclear power? Have you ever wanted to shut down your local, community friendly power plant? Well, now you can. Just block it up with jellyfish and the station will automatically shut down. At least that's what happened at Torness nuclear power station this week.

Apparently there have been considerable numbers of jellyfish this year, far more than in previous years and yet I've still to see them wash up on any beach and look like wee oil patches. Though I'd imagine the reasoning behind that is because I never go to the beach. I'm sure if I went down to Tentsmuir in search of stingy goodness I'd find hundreds of them.

So, if jelly fish can block the cooling systems of a nuclear plant, think about the application of the jelly fish to the fight against technology, otherwise known as environmentalism. It won't be long before they devise a jellyfish catapult, perhaps it could be called a jellypult? What's the death of a few million jellyfish if all the World's evil power stations can be removed? As long as they don't try it on wind farms, that could get a little messy.

It can even be used against other environmental issues such as car ownership. You'll be innocently filling up your car and in that brief period between you putting the pump back and re-attaching the cover an environmentalist will shove a jellyfish or two into your fuel tank. You should be as scared as I am.

Speaking of car ownership, the good people of Glasgow have been granted a treat this week in a rare UK moment. We have a brand new section of motorway and it's not just a motorway, it's a six lane super route through the heart of Glasgow's industrial south east.

The M74 extension has been a long time coming - I won't go in depth into the topic of Glasgow motorways but suffice it to say, the M74 was planned around the same time as the M8 was built. In fact, looking at the plans, it could even have rivalled L.A. in terms of the number of motorways that were planned. If you're interested in Glasgow's unbuilt motorways then read this - it's interesting.

Glasgow is a strange city, mostly in terms of public perception. Meet anyone who lives there or who has lived there and they'll only be too happy to talk to you about how it's the greatest city in the World. Some people really take Glasgow appreciation too far. If you're from the rest of Scotland, you just accept it exists. It's neither amazing or shite, it's just a city. However, if you're from England then the second you step off the train, you'll get chibbed. Of course, I fall into the middle category. I have no great love of the city, though I do like the dramatic urban-ness of it but I don't fear for my life their either. The only reason you'd get stabbed is if you happened to wear something blue and wander into the wrong part of town.

Anyway, the M74 opened last Tuesday to mixed opinion, or at least that's what the well written and not at all biased BBC article wrote. Of course, I take a pro roads stance so I'm also biased, however the difference between my bias and that of the BBC's is their articles are read by millions of people. My opinions will be ignored by about two people.

My issue with the BBC article is that it spends far more time considering the extreme views of everyone who is against it. Those who are actually dead against it will represent an unfortunately vocal minority. Remember when you were at school and some NED cunt did something to piss off the teacher and the entire class lost half their lunch because of their actions? The same applies here. The sooner their opinions are given the weighting they deserve the better.

I can just imagine how the writing of that article went:
"We have a new motorway opening, let's get the opinion of the greens, Friend Of The Earth and BRAKE - those guys will know what they're talking about."
"Why don't we get the views of the AA and the RAC as well so both sides are properly represented?"
"No, that goes entirely against our proper-gander style reporting."

Let's consider a few of the key points mentioned in that article.

Stan Blackley, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland, said ministerial approval for the road, despite a public inquiry ruling against it, was "one of the worst environmental decisions since the beginning of devolution".

Boo-hoo. Try driving the M8 during rush hour and you'll learn exactly why it was built. Surely anything that reduces congestion will be a benefit to the environment? It also provided many jobs during it's construction and now it's built, new businesses will want to be situated by it so it'll create more jobs that way. Anyway, speaking of worst decisions made under devolution - what about the Edinburgh trams? Then again, I'm sure Edinburgh council have a deal with TIE to prolong the works as long as possible. The ultimate designer congestion.

"This new road will, as the inquiry stated back in 2005, have 'very serious undesirable results' and any benefits will be limited, short-term and ephemeral," he said.

Care to tell us what these so-called undesirable results will be? How exactly is this project short-term? Alright lads, we've had our fun with the M74, time to put it back in it's box now. Things can go back to how they were.

"Half of all households in Glasgow do not have access to a car, so this new road will do little or nothing to help them. Instead, it will increase air pollution and carbon emissions. The project's own environmental statement confirms this."

On the other hand, the other half, which is still a considerable number do own cars and therefore this road will be advantageous to them. Then there are all those people who commute as well as all the buses and taxi's that those who rely on public transport have to use. They'll probably use the new M74 in part. Yes, the areas directly around the M74 will probably see an increase in emissions but they will be far less of a problem than the one it'll be removing, namely the way your lungs turn back due to the Charing Cross congestion.

Green MSP Patrick Harvie described the road opening as "a dark day for Glasgow".

I saw a video of the M74 extension from the evening it was opened, it looked like a really nice day to me.

"Hundreds of millions of pounds have been blown, along with the chance to build a city designed around people and their needs.

People need to be able to get where they are going easily. I'm sure the vast majority of Glaswegians are glad it exists.

"A fraction of this vast sum (£692m) could have delivered major public transport improvements, and to make the city easier to cycle and walk around."

Have you ever been to Glasgow? It's a big place, the biggest in Scotland. Getting from one end of the city to the other isn't a stroll in the park. Why would anyone want to walk that length daily when they could have a road they can drive on, rain or shine?

The article also mentioned communities being split by it. I was led to believe the motorway has mostly been built as a viaduct. Surely people will be sensible enough to just walk underneath it? It's hardly the Berlin wall. Anyway, Glasgow doesn't need a motorway to divide it. The football already performs that roll and it does a bang up job of it, mainly because every time Rangers and Celtic play, someone gets banged up.

Anyway, if the environmentalists really didn't want the motorway built, they should have just thrown jellyfish at it.

Shopping

2011-06-26T20:38:00.002+01:00

As you may have guessed, I'm beginning to run out of ideas. Perhaps I should stop writing for a little while to allow myself to gather some new information? I decided to have a look on the BBC website to see if I could get inspiration from any of the news stories on there. I went onto the Tayside and Central section and I was linked to this particular story.

"Wah wah wah, I'm too stupid to return a book on time" seems to be the jist of it. Surely if she's been using the library for going on 15 years she'd have an idea of how it works by now? Instead she did something stupid and decided she doesn't want to take responsibility. I have some advice for her. Take the books back on time, pay the £11 and shut the fuck up.

The fact that the Montrose Review had nothing better to write about is bad but what's worse is that I found the link through the BBC site. Surely there has to be more going on in the Tayside area than some woman who fails at the basics of book borrowing?

Well, the answer is that there probably is and the mundane nature of that story leads me nicely into today's main topic of choice. I'm just going to talk about my trip to the supermarket. I received some advice based on the fact that I felt my entries were losing steam that perhaps I'm being too intelligent for my own good (I forget the exact wording, sorry). Instead of trying to combine multiple topics, I'm just going to focus on one thing.

I suppose this entry will be a bit like that annoying Squeeze song that just lists items of shopping (I called it the most redundant song ever written a few entries back). I get to list some items like toothpaste (which I actually bought a few weeks ago when it was on a half price offer) then have a repeated paragraph in the middle and end about deciding to buy my fruit from another supermarket.

My supermarket of choice is Morrisons. At least in terms of Dundee supermarkets, the St. Andrews branch is a bit shite but what I'm saying equally applies across the board. The first issue with the weekly shop is trying to get into the car park. Just today, I had to fight my way through staggering pedestrians, cars reversing out in front of me and other feats of bad driving that I normally only encounter in Cupar. Once I returned to my car I found that the person in the space next to me had parked squint, meaning that getting my door open turned from an easy and simple task to a challenge. I managed it though, eventually.

When I was a kid, I used to hate the fruit and veg section. It's where my mum used to take ages. I'd say a good 75% of the shopping trip was spent here, in this one aisle. Why? Why does it take so long for people to pass through this area? I'll tell you why. It's because every single apple, pear, banana or bag of grapes has to be thoroughly examined in excruciating detail. It's time to get the magnifying glass out. That minute blemish on the apple makes it inedible. This banana has a soft spot from where I forced my finger into it - can't be eaten now.

It's a joke. A tiny spot on a piece of fruit doesn't render it inedible but you'd think the World had ended for contemplating such a thing.
"You're not buying that one, are you?"
"Aye. What's wrong with it?"
"Can't you see that massive blemish on it?"
"Where?"
"There. Look at it - if you eat that, it'll give you cancer."
"What? I can't see anything."
"I already examined that apple with my telescope and I saw it, that's why I rejected it."

It's not such a big thing now, or at least I don't hear about it as often but remember when organic food was the new God? If you weren't eating Coldplay in association with the Lycra Lads Cycle Society endorsed organic produce then you were eating ratty shite that was covered in poison. You could put two identical apples side by side. One would be the best tasting apple ever and the other would taste like dirt and faecal matter because it wasn't organic.

I was in a Sainsbury's once. I normally go for Braeburns myself because they have just the right level of crunchiness and tang. The bag of organic Braeburns were £2 and let's just say the normal, pesticide coated ones were considerably cheaper. Needless to say, I went with the latter.

Moving on to my possibly what was my favourite section when I was younger. The bakery section. It always smells so nice and if you get there at the right time of day, you get your pick of the best. Unfortunately, what was a nice break from the monotony as a kid is now a battle of wits. There's only one cheese topped baguette left. There's an old lady ambling towards it at the same time that you have decided you want it. The whole supermarket suddenly goes widescreen and zooms in on her eyes, then yours. You both want that cheese topped baguette more than anything else in the World. She takes a roll of kitchen foil out her trolley. You grab a stale baguette from the reduced to clear section. The Mexican Stand-off is now in full swing. Who will win? The tension builds. It's almost about to come to blows. Nail biting stuff here. Then bam. Some other tool has just come along and swiped it!

The war isn't over yet though, you and the old lady then take your weapons of choice and start laying into the newcomer, he hasn't respected the rules, he has to pay. Once he's lying unconscious on the floor you both decide to split the baguette. Neither of you planned on eating all of it anyway. That has surely happened to other people and not just me, right?

Let's move onto the meat section before I get a criminal record. The cheese topped baguette was worth it though. This is where expiry dates come into play. You'll often see people pulling out all the chicken chunks from the back in the vain hope they'll get one that is safe to eat till Thursday instead of Wednesday. Of course, it's all irrelevant because they plan on eating it that night anyway.

Speaking of out of date food. Why is it that the dates have to be so hard to find? You look all over your fresh soup or yoghurt for it, only to find something that reads "For use by date, please see elsewhere". This message is usually accompanied by a big space where they could put the actual use by date. Instead you have to stand there like a tool, searching high and low for the elusive date. Why does finding one piece of crucial information have to be such a pronounced project? Just put it in big text along with the main information since no-one cares how much love you put into each of your mass produced cartons.

Once you've got your food you can also get other provisions, like shampoo. Now that's an awkward one. I'm a single guy and I go shopping by myself. I'm not looking for sympathy by saying that. I'm just mentioning it as a matter of fact. So there I am, looking for a shampoo in what appears to be a very saturated market. I'm also the only male in this section so there's a certain degree of awkwardness when it comes to browsing such products.

Like I said, shampoos and other hair products are a very saturated market. You're spoilt for choice. Do I go for the strawberry one, the lemon one or the mango one? They all do the same job but which one smells the best? Then, tucked away in a dusty corner I notice the "blue" one. It's the only one out of the thousands of products that reads "for men". I guess that's the one for me. I guess it wasn't such a difficult decision after all. As an added bonus, it's both shampoo and a shower gel. Score. Now I only have to buy one thing.

I don't watch much TV so I'm not sure if this if this still current but Herbal Essences used to make adverts where the sheer brilliance of their hair care products caused women to orgasm. It must be pretty good stuff if it's that powerful. There's nothing like a passion fruit and rosemary orgasm to start off the morning.

When I first started buying the "for men" shower gel and shampoo supercombo they only had the blue one. However, somewhere along the line they decided only having one product wasn't enough. There are now red and green ones to choose from. There isn't much of a difference between the red and blue one. My personal preference is towards the red one. You can make your shower look like a murder scene. The green one is a different affair. It's mint and tea tree flavoured.

That's brilliant. Women get shampoo that cause orgasms and what do men get? A shower gel that burns your penis on contact. I found that one out the hard way (let's not lower the tone by making a joke out of that) at 6am. Let's just say that I woke up pretty abruptly that morning. Fuck the green one. Whoever came up with that product must really hate the male population.

After you've bought all your food and miscellaneous items it's time to go and pay. I'm a big fan of self service - they scare away old people so the queues tend to be minimal. However, sometimes you just have too much stuff so that means actually having to speak to another human being, someone who probably hates their job which I can relate to so I'm not going to call them up on it. I should clarify that I don't hate my job but anyone who works with customers knows that they can be right cunts sometimes.

Chances are you'll have that customer in front of you in the queue, bitching about the quality of the fruit and veg they spent two hours searching through. They're oversized shopping load is finally scanned through and you're almost ready to go when they decide they don't like the looks of the meat they picked up after all, so one slow dash back to the meat department later and both the cashier and everyone in the queue behind them are now looking utterly fed up. At this point, the customer is digging into the wall to see if there's any other meat hidden inside it.

I think the conclusion we can draw is that supermarkets would be the greatest places built if you got the place to yourself. Then again, that can be said about most things in life. It's why I never go to the places I like at the weekends because they're always full of families. A peaceful afternoon in Balmerino is ruined when the 4X4 family drives right onto the beach and let's both the dog and kids out to play. One runs around screaming whilst the other sees it as a good opportunity to go for a dump. Fun times. That's why I like my midweek days off.

Before I finish up for tonight, I best talk a little about the filming. All the footage for the sketch show has now been completed. We did our first outdoor session in Magus Muir on Thursday and it was probably the most enjoyable shoot of the lot. Apologies to the dog walkers that occasionally came past. We treated ourselves to a nice meal afterwards. We'll hopefully start editing it soon but in the meantime, we still have all of Whisky & Walking to film. Confirmed locations for that are Hill Of Tarvit, Kemback and Montrose. The shoots will be weather dependent.

Stories About Ceres

2011-06-19T21:24:00.002+01:00

This is the first time I've done a local history based blog so I'm not sure how it'll go since history isn't my field of expertise. I'll be reminiscing about some of my own history and childhood memories and reminiscing about some stuff that happened before I was born. I'm that great that I can remember things that happened to me long before I was ever thought about.

The title of tonight's blog is "Stories About Ceres" so let's get the ball rolling by talking about Pitscottie. I can sum up the history of Pitscottie in one sentence. A hamlet that was built around a five way junction at the turn of the 20th century. Here's a link to an old photo of the village. Here's the same scene now, for comparison. It has changed a fair bit.

When you dig into the history of the village, you find out that it's all about roads. Ceres, on the other hand, has a much richer history, however, I'm going to twist it and make the whole thing about roads as well. I'm nice like that. Fuck the Highland games, the Fife Folk Museum and everything else the village is famous for. Let's look at the road to Cupar instead. I spent 6 years stuck on a bus on this road, putting up with NEDs being dicks to everyone, the bus struggling to climb the hill out of the village and all the other long repressed memories that the school bus contained.

If you look at a map of the area or are just familiar with it, you'll notice that the footpath between Ceres and Cupar is considerably shorter than the road. In fact, the road doesn't even appear to want to go to Cupar at first since it leaves the village facing east (well, ENE). Once it reaches the top of the hill there is a sudden and very sharp turn to the left. On the face of it, the road's route seems almost as arbitrarily laid as that of the A91 (mentioned last week) or the A914. However, if you look into the history of the route you'll realise why this curious routing anomaly exists.

Here is the bend in question. You'll notice a narrow farm track heading straight on at the bend. Now let's jump back to Pitscottie and the double bends you find to the south of the village. If you look at the route of this farm track, you can follow it right up the hill and back to the bend above Ceres. You've probably guessed by now that this was an old road.

This track used to be part of the route taken from Cupar to the East Neuk before the road via Pitscottie were thought of. Therefore the most used route between the Ceres area and Cupar followed the route of the present road. It also explains why there are a few houses along the current road and not along the route of the footpath. At the Pitscottie side of the now long abandoned section of road between Peat Inn and Cupar lies an old coaching bridge. It was once the Callange ford but was bridged in the late 18th century. The bridge still exists as part of the farm track that runs between the two points.

Unfortunately the track peters out just north of this bridge but you can still follow the signposted route through the field to keep along the original course. Once it reaches the B939, the track reappears and strikes a course up the hill towards Cupar.

I'm not sure why the route was changed to go via Pitscottie since the route change pre-dates Pitscottie's existence. However, my assumption is that it's to do with the mills located in Dura Den. The new route obviously made more sense and led to Pitscottie coming into this World.

Primary school had a huge influence on my ability to care about Ceres. In either primary 5 or primary 6 we had to do a project on Ceres, either to instil a sense of local pride or because it was a cheap project to do because it negated the need for any expensive trips. I'd say it was 10% former, 90% latter. Apparently they used to use St. Andrews as the local history project. That would have been a lot more fun. School trips to the castle and cathedral would have been far more enjoyable than a walk around the village to look at some stone heads on some guy's house.

With that being said, in primary 7, we were treated the best school trip imaginable. We got to go to Cupar to visit the brand new, superawesomecool Tesco store. We watched a video in an office then we got to play on the tills. Unfortunately they didn't let everyone get a shot on the tills and I was one of the ones left out. The joke's on them though, I've been working a till successfully for the last seven years. Go me.

Most of my primary school memories seem to be bitter and filled with resentment in an almost "fuck the system" way, only I was too young to properly understand things. Perhaps if I hadn't been the Pitscottie outsider in a Ceres World my interests would have stayed on the right track? Perhaps I'd have gone out to the park on an evening to play football with the lads? Perhaps I'd have looked upon the Ceres History project with a sense of pride and fascination? Perhaps I wouldn't have got into the way of writing a weekly blog about the usual subjects? Perhaps you wouldn't be reading this list now?

Okay, now we've got the main topic covered for this week I'll take a moment to talk about this week's filming. We now have about 80% of the footage for the sketch show complete with plans to finish the final part later this week (sunny day dependent). Unfortunately we only had two days in Edinburgh and as a result, a lot of the process felt rushed and it was a little tiring. I guess we didn't realise just how much hard work it would be. However, I think once we start to piece the footage together, we'll end up with something we're really proud of and the long days will have been worth the effort.

The highlight for me was creating the Ron Orderman restaurant set. I think we did brilliantly with it and managed to bring the characters to life with the excellent backdrop they had. Though with that said, Andrew's acting is far superior to mine. I should just stick to writing semi anonymously behind a computer screen and leave the acting to him entirely. I'm not sure how a sketch show with only one actor would work though...

The second day highlight was Super Fluous: The Unnecessary Superhero. After filming his scenes, the potential ideas for a spin off to do with his character have been flooding into my mind, almost literally since I came up with his character (ages ago) and subsequent spin off plot ideas (yesterday) in the bath. However, spin off ideas to do with these characters are a bit far fetched considering the fact that we haven't even finished the sketch show or our other project yet and it'll be a while before we do. I'll keep my ideas noted down though, they might come in handy in the future.

Double Bends

2011-06-13T13:51:00.003+01:00

I'd normally start off by explaining exactly why I didn't post this entry last night but instead I'm going to save that till the end.

If I asked you to describe the landscape between St. Andrews and Guardbridge then the words you'd come up with would be flat, even, level, smooth and floodplain. Perhaps the latter is no longer true but at one time I'd imagine this stretch of the landscape would have either been entirely underwater or held onto the Eden's excess baggage during periods of heavy rainfall.

Fife is one of the most fertile agricultural lands in Scotland, any area of flat land, no matter how large or small will be consumed, where possible, by fields. During the Winter they make the landscape look dull and brown but at this time of year we have brilliant yellows, pleasant beige and healthy green to add a lovely patchwork pattern to the landscape.

What does a flat, arable landscape like the one between St. Andrews Guardbridge suggest about the type of road you should get along there? If you suggested, straight, well aligned, linear, undeviating and like an arrow then you'd be wrong. The best way to describe the A91 along this three mile stretch is bendy, curved, crooked, twisty and fucked beyond belief. The latter isn't recognised as a synonym for bendy on http://thesaurus.com/, however it nicely describes the first three miles of the route you'd follow from St. Andrews (popular tourist resort, busy town, university town, golfers paradise) to Dundee (4th largest city in Scotland, population centre, commuter's end point).

A road like this should be a dual carriageway considering the volumes of traffic it handles or at the very least, follow a straight line. Instead you're stuck in a line of traffic as far as the eye can see, looking for an overtaking spot, only to be confronted by this. It's an insult. You can see St. Andrews ahead but no, we have to fanny about with double bends. Here's how I see the construction going:
"Whoa! Guys! There's a mole hill in the way, best divert around it".

Just to add salt to wounds, look what happens if you decide to turn off for Strathkinness. Straight for as far as the eye can see. Isn't that nice? That stretch of road is brilliant for overtaking on and 9 times out of 10, I perform said manoeuvre when traversing that road.

It's not without issue though, once you pass Kincaple there's a needless double bend once the hill flattens off. If we look at some basic Pythagorean theory here and decide that both these sharp bends could be avoided by having a road that only slightly deviates off the straight course to form a triangle. The current road follows the sides with 3 and 4 theoretical units with the second sharp bend forming the right angle. My route would make up the side with 5 theoretical units, all in all, saving 2 theoretical units of distance.

However, what you have to remember is that this road is only really for people going to Strathkinness. Beyond there the road only serves the metropolises of Denhead and Peat Inn and it falls short of making the latter by half a mile. Then again, once the road reaches the final approach to Strathkinness, it powers up the hill in a straight line, goes back downhill in a straight line through the village then powers up the next hill in, you guessed it, another straight line. It only becomes twisty on approach to Denhead but no-one begrudges the bends there due to the fact it's climbing up Drumcarrow Hill.

Look at it go (this photo was taken during it's twisty phase between Denhead and Peat Inn).

Now, if this unclassified road that links nowhere to nowhere can mostly follow a straight path, why can't the A91 which links St. Andrews with multiple population centres do the same? It goes back to the fact that Fife is fertile. Once again, stubborn farmers and their petty field boundaries come into play. What solutions could we come up with to remedy the issues found on this busy stretch of the A91? Straighten it? Dual it? No. Instead of fixing the main problem with the road which is high traffic volumes, slow drivers and only one safe overtaking spot they just want to extend the 40 limit that is in effect as you leave Guardbridge to the village boundaries further along the course of the A91.

I feel like banging my head off a brick wall. That's not a solution. Decreasing the speed limit will do nothing to ease driver frustration. It won't do anything because no-one who drives the A91 seems to have a speedo that goes above 40 anyway. The road has a foot and cycle way that is segregated completely from the mainline. Though you wouldn't think it when you see how many lycra losers ignore it, instead preferring to hold up traffic. They must get a certain sense of self indulgent, smug satisfaction from knowing they've delayed traffic and caused an increase in emissions from said traffic then having to accelerate.

In fact, the cycle lane goes all the way to Dundee and almost all of it is off-road, except for a few miles through Leuchars and down the seldom driven back roads to Tentsmuir. Once it gets to Tentsmuir it directs you along the coastal path. Personally I'd just take a short cut by following the path that follows the western edge of the woodland. You don't see the coast from any path so why add so many extra miles to your journey?

Compliance with the current Guardbridge 40 is already very low with any non micra drivers, so how is increasing it's length going to make the slightest bit of difference? It's not as if it'll be policed. They have a hard enough time keeping on top of all the legitimate speed limits across the county without having to worry about the pointless ones.

Unfortunately, speed limits are the get out move for any councillor dealing with whiny complaints from locals that traffic speeds are outrageous. If Nowheresville got their speed limit, why can't we have one as well? There are currently plans to ruin the B936 and B937. Why? Well a motorcyclist was caught on the B936 between Falkland and Dunshalt doing 138mph. Therefore everyone who drives down there must do 138mph, therefore a blanket 50mph speed limit is needed. We all have to suffer because some nutjobs decides to have a race one evening. Thankfully it hasn't actually been implemented yet but does it look like a road that needs a 50 limit to you?

Okay, let's draw a line under that for now and let me introduce you to a new section of the blog which will be tacked onto the end of whatever I chose to write about for the next few months.

At the start of the year, I wrote a blog that stated that we had started writing a sketch show and a fake documentary, or a mockumentary if you will. We now have a full script for the sketch show which will be called Onion Bones and the recording will start on Wednesday with the plan being that we'll have it all filmed by the end of the month.

Whisky & Walking - our documentary will see recording take place across July. After which we will begin the editing phase and hopefully have a finished product to release around the middle of August. We'll also be putting both shows on DVD so that friends and family can have a hard copy. The DVD will also feature out-takes and a behind the scenes documentary that documents (surprisingly) rehearsal sessions, set design and anything else we happen to capture. All in all, it should be a lot of fun.

Every week I plan to add a small section to the end of each entry explaining what stage we are at in terms of the final product creation. It also explains why I didn't write this last night as we decided to have a rehearsal and brainstorming session. Have a good week.

There's Glory In Your Story

2011-06-05T21:21:00.002+01:00

Although it was pretty apparent that Idlewild probably wouldn't ever record again, an interview this week has pretty much confirmed that they've hung up their guitars for good. It's a sad moment but I'm not actually that sad about it. When a band splits up there's usually internal politics or other more sinister reasons as to why they've decided to call it a day. I don't personally see Idlewild as a band who have split up in the conventional sense, mainly because they'll still play the odd festival. Instead they've opted to just fade out which suits their musical style and personality far better than a big, overblown breakup announcement.

Obviously Idlewild have been a hugely influential band on my life and in a way, as they've developed their musical style to suit their growing maturity, I've also grown with them and found connections with all parts of their career from the shouty, almost rambling nature of their early work that reflects upon my teenage years nicely to the modern, well polished rock group they became which reflects more the stage of my life that I'm at now.

I'm going to go through and describe my key memories of all their releases though I won't be doing them in release order, instead preferring to look at them in the order I first heard them.

Here's where I should start by talking about The Remote Part which was the first Idlewild album I owned but it wasn't the first album I'd heard. It was 2001 and I used to watch a lot of MTV2, mainly to see the constant repeats of Foo Fighters' videos but every now and again, I'd see a song called Roseability come on and at the time I used to find the song annoying. Things have come a long way since then...

Every now and again, the videos for Actually, It's Darkness and When I Argue I See Shapes would screen and this is when I started taking a little more interest. Not a great deal but enough of an interest to know that the band existed. 2002 came along and with it came a new video for You Held The World In Your Arms. This was the song that triggered my proper interest in the band but it still wasn't enough to force me to part with money. It still takes a lot to get me to part with money.

That Summer was also the first Summer we visited the Isle Of Skye and whilst we were there we visited a CD fair. This was just before The Remote Part came out so my mum of all people decided to buy 100 Broken Windows. Arguably the best album they released and my favourite album of all time. The album received a few plays in the holiday cottage we were staying in but I still wasn't paying that much attention.

Our first holiday on Skye is still one of my favourites of all times as it was the first time I'd ever really been into the far north. Long, warm nights by the sea with seals watching us from nearby rocks. Quiet roads for us to cycle up and down and more beautiful scenery than the human mind is able to take in at once. Needless to say, I've been back many times since.

The story jumps forward to the end of the year where I get The Remote Part as a Christmas present. The Remote Part is probably their best received album in terms of sales and almost shot them into the spotlight but as Roddy said, they weren't ready for it so they never quite made it to super stardom. There are still songs on this record like (I Am) What I Am Not and Tell Me Ten Words that still make it onto my in car mix CDs all the time because they are that good.

I pretty much played The Remote Part non stop for a week before it dawned on me that there was another Idlewild album in the house. It was New Year's Eve and there it was, sitting in front of me. 100 Broken Windows. I still vividly remember my first play through of the album. It was like opening a box of great memories. As I was playing through the album, all the memories I had of Skye came pouring back. Every positive thing about that holiday was sealed within this one CD. It was one of those special moments and songs like Idea Track and Let Me Sleep (Next To The Mirror) are still linked to those memories.

I managed to track down copies of Captain and Hope Is Important. I'm sure I bought Captain in Dundee and Hope Is Important in Perth. Even back in 2003, buying CDs online was in it's infancy so the only times I was able to get new music was on the occasions where I ended up in a city. As nice as those times were, being able to buy online is far easier but it's a debate I won't go into tonight.

These two records were the heavier, screamier ones that I mentioned at the beginning of the entry. These got most of their plays after a stressful day at school. Well, I say stressful. School was never really stressful, at least not compared with the amount of things I've got to worry about now but it was still... what's the word I'm looking for here? Shite. School was shite and nothing improved the experience more than going home and blasting through one of those brutal records. Diving into my beanbag at the end of Low Light or You Just Have To Be Who You Are being a memorable and fun experience. It made you feel like a rock star in your own room. Wait, no; it made you feel like a tool but it was still fun.

From here on out, I got the albums in order and always on release. Warnings/Promises came next on a rather unfortunate day at the beginning of March 2005. This was the album that started the fading out process for Idlewild as it split the fan base. All the die-hard fans that had been there since the beginning didn't like this new, mellow release they'd gone in, however, a lot of people really seemed to enjoy it, myself included. Had this album been better received by both groups then perhaps the band would still be going. However, them making it to the dizzying heights of super stardom may have spelt the end far earlier than the gradual fade out. We'll never know though.

Two years later we got what the band had dubbed a return to form in the guise of Make Another World. This was a much shorter, completely guitar led album that attempted to capture their earlier work and felt more like a continuation of The Remote Part than Warnings/Promises did. Unfortunately, since they'd lost so many fans after Warnings/Promises, album sales dwindled and gig attendance fell sharply. I saw them go from playing large venues like the Aberdeen Music Hall to the small room at Fat Sams in Dundee. It was a shame really since their live shows were really beginning to become something special with constant set changes and the inclusion of b-sides.

2009 saw the release of Post Electric Blues, the band's last album to date. Unlike everything that had come before it, this album was released purely through fan funding and as such, we got something that wasn't influenced by record labels. It might not have had the same flow as some of the other albums and as nice as Take Me Back To The Islands is, it does interrupt the general feel of the album a little but that doesn't take away from the quality of so many of the songs on that record.

We did eventually get an album tour but by this stage they didn't seem as interested in the lives shows as they used to be. They still put their all into them but something quite often felt a little off about them. On their 100 Broken Windows re-release tour at the end of last year, it was really obvious that Roddy just wasn't interested in the songs any more.

Can you blame them though? Idlewild have been active for over 15 years which for a band is a long time. Think of how many gigs they must have played in that time. Think of how many times they had to play American English and You Held The World. I think even the most devoted of bands would begin to lose interest in that time. It almost certainly didn't help that interest in the band was drying up.

Then came that day when the band announced they'd be going on hiatus. It's something we all saw coming really but it was still something we never wanted to happen. However, the news isn't all bad, Roddy and Rod are both doing solo work now so there's still going to be something to listen to.

The other thing to consider is the age of the lads, they're all in their 30's now and at least three of the band members have young children to look after. It's also not worth continuing something if your heart's not in it. I'd rather the band stopped and left us with their almost flawless back catalogue than did a Biffy and start releasing utter pish.

Everyone has that band from their teenage years and early adulthood that'll stay with them for the rest of their lives and that band for me will be Idlewild. That's not to say I won't ever embrace new music again because I will. I'm listening to Lights Out Asia's newest album right now for example but no matter how amazing a new band is, they'll never replace the memories that Idlewild hold for me. Whether good holiday memories or great gig memories, they saw me through what is generally considered to be the most turbulent and changeable time of your life. They gave us seven wonderful albums and more b-sides than most bands have in their regular back catalogue. They were great to the fans in terms of special shows and so I'd like to wish them all the best in whatever they try to do from here on out.

Red Light District: Part 2

2011-05-29T21:11:00.002+01:00

In part, this is going to be a follow on from last week's entry but it's not going to be directly about the rapture, or a lack thereof, more about doomsday theories in general. One of the comments I received last week was about my claim to have answered the big question, namely the meaning of life and like I said, it was discussed in probably my darkest entry which was written after a number of friends and family died but I've realised that my theory also explains why doomsday theories are pish.

Before I get there, I do briefly want to mention the result of the rapture. Apparently it was just a test of faith. Aye, sure. God seems to be a bit of a fanny when you think about it. He left dinosaur bones in the ground for people to find in order to test their faith, or at least that's what the fanatical cult members believe.

My theory on the meaning of life is that there is no meaning to it all. How predictable was that? Blog over, come back next Sunday and I'll swear at the A914 for a while. Seriously though, unless I'm able to at least attempt to back up my reasoning for making such a bold claim then I shouldn't be making it and thankfully, I can justify it.

It all boils down to the fact that we have higher reasoning skills in the first place. Skills that developed over evolutionary time. Just in case you're in any doubt, evolutionary time is like regular time, except there's more of it. I made that joke in an exam once. It was the only one I passed that year. Not quite sure how that happened but there we go.

The fact that we have higher reasoning skills suggests that there should be a reason for us to be here when in reality, there isn't. It's all a big coincidence but admittedly, it's a fun coincidence to explore and one that I need to spend a little more time looking at. The last time I talked about this, I used animals in general as my reference point. Do they believe in an afterlife? Do they believe an all powerful God put them here? Do they believe that there's a deeper meaning to it all? I can say with a high degree of confidence that the answer is no. Eat. Sleep. Sex. That's all it boils down to and the exact same thing can be said about us as well.

I went into far more detail the last time I talked about this so I won't drag it out any further, I'm sure you all get the point without me labouring it too much. So then, how does this fit in with doomsday theories? My theory suggests that there is no deep meaning and that any attempt to create one is just the human mind trying to elevate itself above everything else that exists on this planet. Therefore, it's only natural that people have worked themselves into a state where they believe that something is watching over them and at any point, could end all life as we know it with the click of a finger. The cold, hard truth is that there is no-one watching from above and even if they were, will they really care if you accidentally ran over a pheasant?

Yes, you might feel bad about it but at the end of the day, not many people will be that bothered. Though, if like me, you watched that TV show about the A303 (yes, I just admitted to watching a programme about roads, do you honestly expect anything else) you will have noticed that they had an expert on roadkill on there. Now I've seen some weird people in my life. Most of them through working in Cupar but this guy was something else. If I told him about the pheasant I ran over then he'd be about the only person to be interested in such information, probably so that he could get himself up to Scotland in order to take it home for his tea.

I should note that I haven't actually ran over any pheasants. So far, the only thing I've ever hit on the roads was a blackbird that flew into my windscreen. I'm not counting the thousands of insects I've probably taken out of life over the years on that list otherwise I'd be here all night.

Almost all doomsday theories seem to come from human concepts and as such, if you follow my theory that just because you have higher reasoning skills at your disposal, it doesn't mean that there is any greater significance to it then you can see why any doomsday theory that comes about can be instantly disproved. The only time there could be a possible doomsday for us all is if there was a genuine natural disaster about to happen that would be big enough to change the Earth's atmosphere and even then, it'd only be a doomsday to those directly in the line of fire. For everyone else it'd be a doomsprolongedperiodofmisery.

Let's go back to the time of the dinosaurs and let's assume, just for a second that they weren't just a madcap notion invented to test faith but rather a real group that lived long ago in the past. Do you think they spent their time considering their own mortality? Do you think they believed that some giant T-Rex put them there and spent his time watching over? Do you think a wise old Stegosaurus predicted the end of the World by observing meteor movements throughout the solar system? See, it all links together nicely.

Dinosaurs are an interesting case themselves. When I was in primary school they were just seen to be big lizards but modern science now suggests they'd have been covered in feathers as they supposedly had more in common with birds than reptiles. Our general idea of T-Rex is that he'd be a big, scale covered beast. Now take your pre-conceptions of T-Rex and imagine him covered in feathers. If he's anything like modern birds, pheasants again being a good example then the males would be brightly coloured in order to attract a mate whereas perhaps those dinosaurs that were primarily hunted would have been more camouflaged and would have sported a less colourful feathery coating? Of course, no-one will ever know what a dinosaur truly looked like but it's fun to speculate.

I'm going to end this with the only known photo of T-Rex, the king of dinosaurs.

Red Light District

2011-05-22T21:14:00.002+01:00

As you may have noticed, I was struggling for ideas last week and I was worrying that once again I'd have nothing much to go on this week. However, things have really come together this time and anyone who reads my ramblings on a weekly basis will have some idea as to what I'm going to cover tonight. This story has been circulating various news outlets across the country. That's right. Swindon are trialling a new type of traffic light that respond to driver speed by changing to red when you're speeding.

Only joking, it's rapture time. When I first heard the news I thought I'd have to get this entry up before 18:00 yesterday. However, I decided to gamble, take a risk, dice with death by writing my Sunday blog at my usual Sunday time. Had the claims of a rapture been true, I'd be on the firing line, not only for working on a Sunday by committing myself to writing something but also due to the content of this blog which hasn't always looked upon religion too kindly - based on the fact it was forced upon me at school and because I have my own answers to the meaning of life and what happens when you die. I've even claimed to answer the big question with a definitive answer in a previous entry so I won't retread old ground.

Third time lucky is a common phrase and one that is peddled almost daily, depending on whether or not the circumstances call for it. However, in this scenario we cannot use that phrase. Perhaps Camping will emerge from the shadows in another few years to try this again? That is of course, assuming he'll still be alive. Reports claim he hasn't been seen since the rapture was discovered to be false. Perhaps he was the only person on Earth to be raptured?

I was linked to a flowchart yesterday. I followed it to see if I would be saved or not. Turns out that it wasn't any of the bad things I said about Bible stories being taken too literally or the fact that I used to hate having to listen to the minister ramble on about his usual Jesus shite, I'm going to Hell because I've had a haircut recently. I never saw my pitfall in life being at the hands of vanity. I honestly never saw that one coming.

It's not over yet, though. We have till the 21st of October before we finally get judged. The rapture proceedings erupted into action yesterday in Iceland. Some volcano decided to kick into action. Every article mentioned that volcanic eruptions in Iceland are common. It'd be like reporting that Japan had an inconsequential earthquake or that there was a mild avalanche in the Alps. 0 Deaths. 0 Injured. 1 Inconvenienced.
"How has the avalanche affected you?"
"Well, I was going to climb the mountain in question but it would seem a little silly to go up now."

Did anything happen up here in Scotland come 6pm? It rained a little. Big news there.

Most people and most Christians, for that matter, will tell you that this is all bullshit but I do feel a little sorry for those that have been pulled into this. A lot of people have given away all their life savings because they felt they wouldn't need them any more. In some respects, they deserve it for being so stupid in the first place but at the same time, is it really right that this thing was allowed to get so out of hand that people felt they had to wrap their lives up in time for an insignificant date in May? Would God really have cared if they had money? What if they spent it on haircuts and razors?

So what would be happening right now if we'd passed to the other side? Would it be the big, bold, biblical statement that we'd all associate with a rapture scene? Hell fire spreading everywhere with a deep, booming voice telling us all our fate? Perhaps it'd be more subtle than that? Perhaps we'd all end up going to sleep at the same time without realising it. Once we'd woken up we'd find ourselves in our own versions of Heaven and Hell but without immediately realising it. Like I said once in past, this is spirituality, I can make up whatever I want. If Camping can get away with it, so can I.

I've obviously been bad, keeping a trim beard is truly a horrible crime so I'd wake up in my own Hell. An eternity driving the A914 and A91 between Cupar and Dundee, constantly stuck behind slow drivers and on the off-chance I managed to overtake them and make it above 40, a strategically placed speed triggered traffic light would stop me in order to let a tractor out of a field in my path. The very thought of that scenario gives me the fear, right down to the bones.

Speaking of the fear, my Hell would be accompanied by a CD with that annoying Ian Brown song called Fear playing over and over with some wankers in the back seat discussing how the song is so creative and so clever. It isn't really. I re-wrote the song a few years ago with alternate lyrics. Let's just say I kept the F and the A but I replaced the E and R with I and L. That was a proud moment.

Anyway, to conclude, the rapture isn't happening and it never will, any doomsday theory will be looked upon in history as pish. The 22nd of December, 2012 will be a fun day for me, as I'll be able to laugh at everyone who believed the World would end based on some lazy bastards that couldn't be bothered finishing their calendar. Hell isn't real, it's a concept invented to scare people into following the teachings of an outdated book and that's that.

Hey wait, there's something weird going on outside, I'm going to take a look out the window...

There appears to be some kind of ominous red cloud coming towards me, this doesn't look good. I'm beginning to feel a little funny and...

Look at me, I'm back in time, in 1776.
With gaslight corners, cobblestone streets, and humble houses made of bricks.
What a special magic time, and it's all alive for me
I'm so glad the A914 isn't here. I hate that guy, seriously.
Seriously hate that guy. Hate the 914...

Just A Stone's Throw Away

2011-05-15T21:05:00.005+01:00

I never really know how to start off a topic, hence why I tend to begin with what I like to call a housekeeping paragraph. By now it's probably getting a bit formulaic so next time I might try to jump straight into the story. Story possibilities include battling with dragons or going head to head with a bear. Of course those two examples, although completely irrelevant to my usual choice of topics would make for a good introduction to an entry about the A914, even if they have no bearing on the rest. Bearing. See what I did there?

So what's at the end of the A914? More roads but if you follow them you'll end up in Dundee. The city I've called home for the last five years. When I think about Dundee I find it hard to imagine another city with such an impressive approach. How many other cities have a two mile long bridge that drops you right off in the city centre without having to deal with the tedium of housing estates? How many cities have a skyline dominated by two large hills and a couple of towers to add to the city feel? On a still day, how many cities are doubled up by their reflections? I can't think of anywhere else in the UK with such a dramatic approach.

Any excuse to post that photo...

To prove my point, here's what the scenery looks like at the 5 mile mark. As you can see, you're still firmly in the countryside. There's no sign of a city in sight and Dundee isn't a small place, surely with any other city you'd be well into the suburbs at the 5 mile mark.

Contrast that scene with, the A71 in Edinburgh. As you can see, we're a mile further away from the city centre than we were in my Dundee link and yet, we're in the middle of the urban chaos.

Moving over to Glasgow and the A82 we can once again see that we're deep into the suburbs at the 6 mile mark and have been for some time.

So what does all this prove? It proves that I've picked the information I want purely to prove my point. Anyone else could go onto google maps and pick out a different mileage sign. For example, here's the one on the A92 coming in from Arbroath. Since the google car came down here a large housing estate has been built by the side of the road (it happens the be the same housing estate that inspired a blog entry I wrote earlier this year) at this point and it's certainly not rural, at least compared with the previous A92 mileage sign I linked you to earlier.

Whilst we're at it, take another look at the A71 in Edinburgh. Turn around and you'll realise you're only a stone's throw from Hermiston Gait on the Edinburgh bypass. Once you've crossed that beast you're out in the countryside again, so really the only one that is truly well within a city boundary is the Glasgow link. I could link more cities but I don't really have the will to search all the major cities in England. I prefer to keep things local where possible. I Don't Have The Map, sourcing only the freshest local google maps links for your convenience and good health.

However, using mileage signs to prove Dundee city centre's proximity to the countryside is a really facetious way to go about things. All you really need to do is look at a decent map to see Dundee's location in respect to the surrounding geography. Dundee follows the standard city layout. Modern industrial units and retail parks on the outskirts. Housing estates of varying quality as you make your way towards the centre. Then there's the old industrial areas followed by the city centre. In most cities, you'll find this pattern holds true no matter how you access the city. However, Dundee is cut in half by the Tay, hence the dramatic approach you get.

The point I'm really trying to make is about skewed perception when presented by distorted evidence. I didn't use a particularly intelligent example of this, mainly because writing about the A92 is far more fun than getting into a deep debate about serious issues. For example, you wouldn't get a nuclear protester discussing the benefits of building such a facility. Their arguments will be completely one sided and you wouldn't expect anything else. Thankfully the supporters of nuclear power will be able to provide the argument for it. It's not a debate I want to get into but if push came to shove I'd probably side with the supporters.

The idea of skewed perspective comes into play all the time. You end up going to a party and you meet a friend who's wearing the same shirt as you. It'll be remembered forever as this great moment. What won't be remembered is all the times you met that person whilst wearing different clothes from them.

St. Andrews is a popular tourist destination and a lot of people will only visit in the Summer on bright, warm, sunny days. The conclusion they'll draw is that it's a beautiful town where the sun always shines, based on their limited experience of the place. Admittedly, most of my St. Andrews memories fall into the same category but I've also been there in the dead of Winter, on miserable, grey days where it's been pishing with rain.

A tourist will see the town at it's best and they'll remember it for the beaches, the ice cream and the golf. My main reason for visiting the town is to go to the Morrisons there to buy beer. A World renowned town and I use it for the Morrisons. Still though, I get my Morrisons miles. I'm sure I'm due a £5 off voucher soon...

I don't really know where I'm going with this any more so I'll just leave it there. I was originally going to discuss this idea in what I've dubbed "Baby Blogs". These are ideas I have that don't warrant a full entry on them. I think I've managed to pad this one out enough for it to work - even without a conclusive ending. Don't worry though, I'm not running out of ideas yet but I'm not working on my primary computer tonight, hence why I chose to go with the stretched out half idea.

Have a good week.

Inside The Glen - Literally

2011-05-08T21:06:00.002+01:00

I have a few housekeeping issues to get through first. To begin with I'd like to apologise for not providing you with a proper entry last week, I should be back properly from now on. Secondly I'm going to address this milestone entry.

According to Blogger, this will be my 101st entry, however, one of those entries just contain my notes which aren't visible to the public so this one is actually my 100th entry. Though it's a shallow target really since I can't stand looking back at stuff from before 2009, it's a bit cringe-worthy really. Anyway, what am I going to talk about for entry 100? Well, this blog started off as a driving blog. Namely, I used it to bitch about the other drivers of Fife. Not a lot has changed really, I just broadened the moaning to other subject areas. Tonight I'm going to look at Glenfarg.

Glenfarg may just seem like a bog standard, wooded gorge to most people and when I was a kid, that's all I thought of it as well. It reminded me of Dura Den, only not quite as dramatic. I believe it's taller in terms of the sides of the gorge but Dura Den has the waterfalls.

However, unlike Dura Den (notice that I can use "unlike" properly, unlike Facebook), Glenfarg carries two forms of transport and the remains of a third through it. That's quite an impressive feat when you think about it. I suppose the same thing happens at Killiecrankie as well, in fact there are technically four routes through there. Perhaps I should be taking about the Pass Of Killiecrankie instead since at face value, it seems to have double the interest and I use interest in the loosest possible sense since I don't really know anyone else who likes transport routes.

The main reason that I do like roads stems from the terrain they find themselves having to conquer, some do it well, like the roads and abandoned rail through Glenfarg. Some make a total arse of it like the A914.

So what is it about Glenfarg that I like? Let's start off with the B996 and A912. These roads made up the original A90 road from Edinburgh to Perth. Just imagine the chaos today if the main road from Edinburgh to Perth/Dundee/Aberdeen/Invernes and everything in-between still had to take the old route through Glenfarg? It'd be an utter nightmare with long traffic queues, accidents, tipped trucks and all sorts. That's why at the end of 1977, the M90 was extended northwards to Bridge Of Earn in order to bypass Glenfarg. This was no easy feat as this section of the M90 contains the steepest gradient and sharpest bend of any mainline motorway. The construction of the M90 also killed off the railway, more on that later.

The railway line took the most interesting route through the glen. If you look at an OS map of the area you can follow the course of the abandoned railway from Glenfarg to where the M90 was built on the trackbed. You'll notice that there are two long tunnels marked on the map. This had always interested me and in 2009 I decided to go and visit them.

I've now been to them four times and I never get tired of the walk. The railway was twin tracked through the glen so the tunnels themselves are massive cavernous spaces with plenty of room inside.

This photo will hopefully give an idea of the scale of the tunnels.

The first tunnel you arrive at, assuming you approach from the south like I have always done is mostly straight apart from a slight kink at the end. In terms of photography, this is the best tunnel to play around in due to it's near straight nature. It also has a burnt out car in there that must be of a similar age to myself.

This photo shows the burnt out car and gives you an idea of the shape of the tunnel as there's a wee bit of light peaking in at the end.

The first time I visited the tunnels I was in awe of them and the south tunnel was the first one we came to. I still get that same feeling every time I step into it and I still feel extremely happy after the walk is over for a good few days. I'm not sure what it is about this place but it really does bring out the best in me.

The second tunnel is a slightly different experience. Unlike the first tunnel, the second follows a constant curve which makes it it pitch black in the centre. It's not as good for photos but it certainly gives the creepier experience. In that respect it depends on what you're visiting them for. For me it's a mix of both photography and to get the full experience of them. I've yet to visit the tunnels with a torch. This only makes the second tunnel more fun once you reach the centre.

It's an usual experience. You have your eyes open as they try and pick up any light from any point within the tunnel, only to find none. You're constantly attempting to see what's there, even though there's nothing. My eyes have yet to properly adapt to the situation when I'm in there. Mix that feeling with the fact that you're in a cool space, no matter what the temperature outside is along with the damp atmosphere they have. They also smell quite earthy, if that makes any sort of sense? Combine all these features together and you can begin to see why the tunnels are such a surreal and yet entertaining experience.

This photo shows the north tunnel, you can see it curving gradually into the darkness. Unlike the photo of the south tunnel I posted, this one was taken in early Spring, meaning that the leaves weren't in place yet, as such it's lacking the eerie green glow of the Summer photo.

Before the south tunnel and shortly after the north tunnel there are two impressive viaducts so a lot of work went into putting a railway through Glenfarg. When you think about it, it's a real shame the line doesn't exist any more as it was the most direct route from Ediburgh to Perth. The current route to Perth now uses a single track route from Ladybank via Newburgh, as such, it can't run as many services as this route would have done and it takes a lot longer. With those facts considered, why was the decision taken to close this line and leave the less useful line open?

The answer lies with the roads, namely the M90. When the M90 was being built, motorways were seen as the modern saving grace to all our transport needs. An ideal that has long been abandoned in favour of green pandering. Whilst motorways were new and modern, railways were seen as outdated and unnecessary, especially after the Beeching cuts. This meant that the railway had to go as part of the trackbed was needed for the motorway.

Around this point is where the old track bed and the M90 part ways. The M90 bypasses the need for a tunnel by climbing higher and following a course along the top of Glenfarg, hence the need for the sharp bend and steep hill.

The rail enthusiasts disagree with the decision taken here to dismantle the railway and I see where they are coming from. It was a big loss and one that didn't necessary need to happen. However, the topography of the area suggests that perhaps it was the only way of fitting the motorway into the landscape?

There are three alternatives to the removal of the railway that I wish to propose. The first would have required building the M90 on a Killiecrankie style half bridge, keeping both routes side by side. This would have cost a fortune and it might not even be feasible if the land below was unable to support such a structure.

The second option would have been to tunnel through Balmanno Hill. This would require a bored tunnel of just over a mile long on a constant gradient as the road would have to drop about 80 metres in order to come out of the hill at the bottom, assuming you'd want to keep the alignment similar. This would have probably created a road that'd be about as steep as the one we currently have but without the sharp bend. The UK in general is scared of tunnelling, or at least it appears that way. That and the expense of such a project would have ruled that out as an option, not that it would have ever been mentioned in the first place.

The third option would just involve building the motorway around the other side of Balmanno hill. This would have involved a lot more road being built. However, I think if this road were to be built now, with our current want to maintain public transport links then this would be the route the M90 would probably take.

Do I mourn the loss of the railway? Although I'd have probably never used it I'd say yes as it is a key route that served large towns like Kinross en-route whilst passing through some amazing scenery. However, the motorway was needed and in the long run is far more advantageous to have than the railway ever would have been. When you look at the possibilities for alternative routes to save the railway you can see exactly why the current route was chosen and why the railway had to go.

There is a plus side (bar the obvious) to the railway being dismantled. It gives people like me a unique opportunity to explore one of the best sections of abandoned railway in the country.

Springtime Religionfest 2011

2011-04-24T20:58:00.004+01:00

Okay, first off I'd like to apologise for not posting an entry last Sunday. I had a splitting headache and didn't really feel like it at the time. Secondly, I don't really want to talk about Easter at all this week considering the events of Thursday. However, I've decided that maybe a week of added perspective on Thursday's events will remove some of the raw emotion that'd come out of diving straight into an entry about it. To be honest, Thursday isn't really something I want to write about either, although it is far more important, at least to me, than Easter is but since it's Easter today then that's what you're getting.

Unlike Christmas, I don't have an issue as such with the celebration. If, like me, you don't celebrate it, no-one will make a big deal out of it. Compare that with what happens when you decide not to celebrate Christmas... Not celebrating Christmas means you're a miserable prick, not celebrating Easter isn't a big deal.

The one thing that's always annoyed about Easter is the time. Why does it change? Why is it at the end of March one year then at the end of April the next? After seeing how late Easter fell this year I decided to find out why it jumps around like a hyperactive kid who's eaten too many chocolate eggs. It turns out that unlike every other holiday that has a set date based on our 365.25 day calendar, Easter is based on the lunar calendar.

Wow. I wasn't expecting that.

Think about that concept for a moment. We have a hijacked Vernal Equinox celebration of the start of Spring. Baby sheep and new flowers needed Jesus dying on a cross to make them more special apparently. Religion has never been something to follow logic. We're talking about the people that believe the Earth was created in 4004 BC, on a Tuesday. Yet, Easter, one of the most important events in the religious calendar is based on the lunar cycle.

It's utterly mind boggling as far as I'm concerned. We have a story about a man dying on a cross and how do we remember when it happened? Surely the Bible gives us an actual date for such a key event? Apparently not, apparently it happened around the weekend of the new moon. If I wasn't still typing away on this topic I'd be speechless, or whatever the written equivalent of speechless is. Maybe I should just leave a blank paragraph to show my shock at this information?

In fact, let's do just that. I was asked just before I started writing this entry to make sure I mentioned my friend Stuart in here somewhere. Listen to those CDs I sent you, you tool.

The usual argument I hear around this time of year as to why Easter is silly is "how can Jesus have died on a different day each year?" That's not the approach one should be taking in this situation. The real answer to the question of "why did Jesus die on a different day each year" is because it's a fictional story. You can make up whatever you want in fiction. Nobody ever picks up on books like Harry Potter for being unrealistic. They take them for what they are - fictional stories, and the same applies here. Anyway, the lunar cycle thing explains it nicely. In the story, Jesus died on a weekend near to the beginning of the lunar cycle.

I'm aware that I'm trying to add logic and reason to the Bible here but if I don't then who will?

Let's move on to the modern Easter celebration. It's weird, isn't it? Can any of you honestly tell me that it makes sense? Rolling eggs down a hill? What? Why? What possible reason is there to waste perfectly good failed chicken babies? I cooked my eggs this morning instead. I even went to Tesco this morning to make sure I had bagels and cream cheese in for an unforgettable Sunday breakfast. Sorry to anyone who has me on Facebook, you'll have already seen that joke but I only have so many.

Last year I discovered that you roll eggs down a hill to symbolise the rolling of the stone Jesus used when he came back to life. Fiction is great, isn't it? You can make up whatever you want. It's a great lesson for kids. Oh no, someone you love is dead? Don't worry, go find a cave with a stone in front of it and wait for that person to be resurrected. It works every time. Again, I'm trying to bring logic to the Bible, I really need to stop doing that.

What else happens on Easter? I have to work, yet important places like banks and local medical centres get to close. I work in a shop that doesn't sell anything hugely important. Surely getting a new kettle can wait a couple of days? A medical issue doesn't just go away because of a bank holiday. Priorities seem a little screwed up here. That's not to say I mind working over Easter though since I don't celebrate it myself. Come Tuesday life will return to it's passing.

Well, that's that. I don't have anything else to say about Easter so if you're off, enjoy the rest of your break, if not, have a good week.

Just as a warning, next week's entry won't be a nice one and that's assuming I can bring myself to talk about Thursday's events again. If you want to know what happened on Thursday then take a look at this memorial blog I posted on Friday. It's a tough read but I'll talk about exactly why I wrote it in that manner next Sunday.

Playing In The Street

2011-04-10T21:55:00.003+01:00

Last week I foolishly promised an entry about wheelie bins. You'll be able to breathe a sigh of relief because I've decided that I don't have enough material to cover an entire entry's worth on the topic. Instead I'm going to do something topical and I use the word topical in the loosest possible sense since I could really write this entry at any time. Tonight I'm going to cover 20 limits outside of schools.

Why is this topical? Well, because there were some bored looking kids on the front of this week's Fife Herald with "20 Please" signs. In fact, here's a link to the article in question. Before I continue I must stress that I have nothing against 20 limits outside of schools as it's a more than reasonable request. The only issue I have with them is when they're flashing away and the only thing in sight is a tumbleweed. This seems to be an issue in Dunbog more than anywhere else. I tend use my own judgement. If there are no school kids outside of the school I continue at 30, if there are kids around I'll happily slow down. It's all about common sense.

The problem with this article is that it implies the kids actually care about speed limit enforcement. Look at them, they don't care about anything other than the fact they have the morning off to show off their home-made signs to the public mixed with the fact that they'll get to skip boring maths and English lessons. I certainly remember not actually caring about keeping Ceres tidy when I was at school, even though we had to sing a song about it.

The other thing to consider about this is that the kids will be outside for longer and therefore will be spending more time exposed to the speeding dangers of the A91. Along comes Mr Old Man who can't see properly, sees loads of fluorescent yellow blurs by the side of the road that causes him to veer off onto the pavement... Thankfully that never happened but increased exposure to something that the school is considering a danger seems to be a bit counter productive. Surely the kids would be safer inside the school? It's a bit like protesting a nuclear plant by sticking your face into the reactor. A facetious point to make I know...

Anyway, I don't know about you but when I was at Ceres I certainly wasn't allowed near the road nor was it easy to gain access to it without doing something notably retarded that would be immediately observed by the playground staff. Considering that fact, how often do children actually come in contact with the road outside of their school? Only in the mornings and afternoons and even then, most of those kids will be picked up by mothers driving tanks to make sure that they don't get hurt on the way home.

I suppose it's a little hypocritical of me to mention being given a lift too and from primary school since it happened to me every day but that's because I stayed in the next village over and there wasn't a footpath between the two. However, there have been talks about a designated path/cycleway between Ceres and Piscottie for a few years now but I can't see it ever taking off both for financial and logical reasons. Namely there just isn't the demand for such a path since there's nothing to do in Pitscottie once you get there.

I'm getting sidetracked by other issues so where was I? Oh yes, kids playing on roads. It's not something I've ever seen happen, even outside of schools. It's not as if Billy the Gateside kid comes running out of school at lunchtime, sees a Bear Scotland van on the road and screams:
"Hey look a teddy bear, I'm going to go play with it".
"Oh shit, a kid just ran into the road."
*sound of screeching tyres*
"Hey Billy ya little prick, I've told you a thousand times not to play on the road."
"But I saw a bear!"
"That's a Bear Scotland van, not a bear, get inside, you have detention".
A situation like that just isn't likely to occur so why protest? The A91 isn't a trunk road any more so there wouldn't be a Bear Scotland van down there in the first place... (see what I did there?)

I can feel the lack of laughter from that joke so I'll move on to the attitudes of children and roads. Kids currently seem to be taught that roads are bad and that if you complain about them enough then maybe they'll go away. When I was at school we were taught to respect the road and respect the fact that it's dangerous. Use it but be aware of the problems. It's a different story now though, so what could be done?

In Gateside they could just bypass the village, it's not that big so why not just slap down an extra half mile of road to the north of the village and remove the danger? It'd be win win for everyone if that happened. Except possibly the mini showroom - assuming it's still open for business.

Closing the road by the school in Ceres isn't really a possibility though, unless you re-routed the B939 along the Baldinnie road. You could just do a Dairsie Bridge and pretend the bridge half way between Pitscottie and Ceres has a crack in it and slap some barriers and a road closed sign on there. That'd certainly remove the faster, through traffic from beside the school.

Speaking of Dairsie Bridge, there is good news on that front as it's finally getting fixed. I can't find an online link to the story I saw in The Courier so I'm just going to type it out for you and respond to it, consider it a bonus blog if you will.

Dairsie Bridge is expected to reopen again next week after being closed for 14 weeks. The bridge on the C45 between Dairsie and Kemback was closed at the turn of the year when cracks appeared during a cold snap. There were concerns that the 16th century bridge over the Eden may be structurally damaged but council engineers have concluded it only needed resurfacing. This began yesterday (Friday). Transport lead officer Dave Smeaton said: "Hopefully the work will be finished by Tuesday and the bridge will reopen on Wednesday. We did have concerns there may have been problems with the bridge, so an assessment was done. That is why the bridge was closed for so long. Although there were signs of deterioration there was nothing of real concern that required strengthening".

I don't blame The Courier for this but what a load of bullshit. I read back at the beginning of January when the bridge was first closed that the problem wasn't structural, it was entirely to do with a failing of the road surface. I was even down there myself jumping on the cracks last week and there was no sign of anything having happened to the bridge then or any other time I drove past to see if any work was taking place.

The reason it took so long for the council to fix the bridge is that they slapped the resurfacing onto this tax year's budget and just left it closed for three and a half months. However, it's almost all over. I soon won't have to go via Strathkinness, no more having to try and join the A91 when there's a constant stream of fannies coming home from a day out in St. Andrews and I'll get to spend more time in Dura Den again.

The reopening of Dairsie Bridge is a time for celebration. Just make sure you don't speed past any primary schools on your way to drive over it.

A New Friend (No Longer Online)

2011-04-03T22:43:00.003+01:00

I've removed this entry for personal reasons.

Payment

2011-03-27T22:05:00.003+01:00

So I'm walking around Magus Muir stamping on squirrels like a cunt, if karma is real I should find myself tripping over a conveniently placed branch and impaling myself on the pyramid shaped rock in the woods. That's merely one example of the number of ways doing bad things will later lead to you being screwed over.

Of course, if you do good things then good things will happen to you - in theory. Based on my religious beliefs, or a lack thereof, can you guess what I think about the concept of karma? I decide to be super friendly and let a car out of a side junction. Said driver then proceeds to drive at 40mph in front of me. Does that count as good karma? Perhaps the driver of the slow car saved me from driving too fast and totalling my car on a patch of ice or something. Perhaps it's all coincidence and there's no deeper meaning to it than that.

Last Summer my flatmate bought a PS3 so I decided to buy a decent TV to play it on. I went onto the Argos website where I didn't just browse for cheap TV's, I Argos'd them, whatever that means. The process seemed to be identical to what I was doing on the Curry's website and I wouldn't describe that as Currying for a TV. Anyway, I accidentally asked the Cupar store to put aside a TV for me when I meant to check the Dundee Overgate box. A few days later I was queuing up for my lunch in Cupar behind a bunch of Argos staff who were taking their sweet time about deciding what they wanted in their sandwich.

I guess you could say that because I'd annoyed the Cupar Argos staff they got their karmic revenge on me by making me wait for my food. Bastards. The other explanation is that it was all a coincidence. In the face of such obvious karmic retribution how can I still claim not to believe in it? Well, for a start, I didn't mean to annoy the Cupar staff by Argosing my TV to the wrong store so I wasn't being directly evil or vindictive towards them, I made a genuine error. Secondly, Cupar only has a few decent places you can get lunch from (Greggs does not fall under that umbrella). As such, there's a high chance the staff there would decide to visit the same place that I was visiting for lunch and because lunch only happens at a certain time of day then that further increases the chance of two sets of people ending up at the same place at the same time with the same plan.

As for Greggs, there is nothing coincidental about eating one of their sausage rolls and having stomach issues for the rest of the day. Just saying. Pint of grease with your processed pig anus?

So where does the concept of karma come from? To answer that I'd need to delve through masses of religious script and probably spend years studying the subject. That's something I'm not willing to do for a light hearted blog I update once a week after having come up with a topic a few hours beforehand. Sorry. However, from the brief reading I did before diving into this topic I discovered it can be linked into reincarnation.

For example, if I spend my life stamping on squirrels in Tentsmuir (I've changed woodland, I wonder how many more I can name-drop before I'm done tonight?) I might come back again as a diseased red squirrel that's different and gets bullied by the grey squirrels. I could possibly spend my life helping save the life of squirrels in Ladybank woods from the local NED populous. I'd then get to come back as one of the grey squirrels who bullies the red one. However, because I'd be a cunt in my squirrel life form I'd end up being reincarnated as Ceebs or something. The very thought is sickening.

I'm sure the overall concept of reincarnation is far more complicated than my squirrel example but squirrels are funny and cute. They also pose a huge danger to motorists. If you're driving through the woods today, be sure to watch out for those killer squirrels. Does that count as referring the woodland through the Pass Of Killiecrankie?

The other thing to consider is that if spend your life doing evil and inconsiderate things like poking badgers with sharpened sticks and you come back as a fly or other shit loving insect as a punishment then how do you know you're being punished? I certainly have no memories of past lives so how is the fly that happens to be the reincarnation of Hitler going to know it's being punished for it's crimes in it's previous life?

Then again, the idea of an all powerful being, karma and reincarnation is just a way for people doing mundane things to try and pretend someone, somewhere cares about what they've done. The harsh reality is that no-one cares but to remove any negative connotations from that dick move ending I'll make a promise to write a positive entry next week just in case karma turns out to be real and screws me over for writing about it. Or I might just write something positive next Sunday because it's the first Sunday of the month...

In other news, my parents have a new cat that I get to spend time with once or twice a week when I go to visit.

Scary House

2011-03-20T21:27:00.002Z

Back in 2009 I wrote the following about Biffy Clyro's Many Of Horror during a routine album bashing:

Many Of Horror is next and starts off with another questionable lyric. I don't really have much to say on this song, it doesn't do all that much for me but at the same time it doesn't do anything wrong so I'll let it pass by without trying to draw any attention to it, in the same way it's not doing anything to draw my attention.

A year and a half has passed since then and it just couldn't leave me alone, could it? I deliberately laid off the song because I felt sorry for it. It seemed to be trying to do something that it wasn't capable of. It was trying to be the new All The Way Down but couldn't muster the proper emotion and epic ending to pull it off so I decided, out of the kindness of my heart not to rip on it. That all went to shit.

This entry is dedicated to both Stuart (who insists on bringing that song up all the time) and anyone else who thinks new Biffy is better than classic Biffy. For me, Biffy Clyro ceased to be sometime after Infinity Land. They were reinvented as a poor man's Foo Fighters by their new record label and re-branded The Biff by the king of cool himself, Zane Lowe (I actually think he's a dick in case you didn't pick up on the sarcasm).

Most of my friends agree that Biffy lost their way after Infinity Land but they still say some of the Puzzle b-sides are good. I'm not denying that but to make things easy I prefer to draw a nice, neat line between the two time periods. Everything before and including Infinity Land falls into the category of Biffy Clyro. One of the finest bands of the time. Puzzle and onwards are The Biff. A shitty, money grubbing band who pump out songs like Mountains for maximum profit.
I am the mountain, I am the sea. Why won't you give your money to me?

I started by mentioning Many Of Horror. So what is my big problem with it? On a base level it's pretty harmless but it's also really dull and uninspiring. That's why it didn't make any kind of impact on me at the time. However, they just had to go release it as a single and it just had to be the song that took them onto the next step of the ladder. Biffy have made it as a household name not through the songs that deserved it but by watering down their sound and slapping an orchestra all over it like a wet fish.

With Aplomb from The Vertigo Of Bliss had some lovely string arrangements that really complemented the song without taking over. I'm not saying that With Aplomb should have made them famous but I certainly wouldn't begrudge if it had it been the song that shot them into the rock hall of fame.

Many Of Boring on the other hand is just expensive orchestra that hogs the sound layered over some uninspired drivel. If that's what people want though then they might as well have it. The funny part to all of this comes from a little TV show I've never had the misfortune of watching called X-Factor. I'm sure some of you will know what it is.

This incident caused outrage amongst the die-hard new Biffy fans that think Biffy are fuckin' hardcore - yeah let's mosh to all the ballads they're releasing as hit singles. What they fail to mention is the fact that they haven't screamed in a song since Jaggy Snake but that's beside the point. The incident itself caused me great amusement as it's exactly what the band and fans deserve.

It was a firm message to all those people that argue that Biffy are as good as they've always been (aye right) and won't ever sell out. They did and the Many Of Horror incident proves it beyond any doubt, you could say they managed to Eradicate The Doubt. See what I did there?

"Hey, Simon Neil, remember when Many Of Horror made you loads of money?"
"Aye, I used it buy a shed load of bleach blonde hair dye."
"Yes, I remember, ugh. Anyway, how would you like to double your profits on that song?"
"Yes, more money plzzzzzzz."
"Right then, we're going to sell it to X-Factor so they can cover it."
"Genius, I'll get a fortune in royalties and increased sales of the original. Perhaps it's time to die my hair pink with orange streaks through it."
"Don't do that."

It took me ages before I heard the cover version and it happened to be in a trendy bar in Edinburgh no less (Drewbeck and I were the only ones drinking a proper pint). After sitting there and listening to it whilst mocking what Biffy had become I came to the conclusion that the X-Factor version was better than the original because it was more realised. It knew what it wanted to be and just went for it. They turned a bland song that wanted to be a generic pop song into said full blown generic pop song.

All this makes me out to be a stereotypical old Biffy fan that can't get over the fact they changed their sound and those that think that are right. However, I wouldn't want to be anything else. I'm going to don my headphones and play some Hero Management, who's with me?

Dear Fife Council: Fix Dairsie Bridge You Incompetent Fuck-Witted Arseholes

2011-03-13T21:38:00.002Z

Okay, as you may have guessed from the title I will be ranting tonight. Part of it will be because this issue is a genuine bug bearer of mine, secondly because I generally do just feel like screaming and shouting right now and thirdly for comedic effect.

For those of you unaware of the situation; Dairsie bridge, a historic bridge across an important bridging point of the Eden has been closed since the turn of the year due to the council discovering a "crack" in the bridge. The current suggested re-opening date for the bridge is the last day in April. At least according to Fife-direct.

I'll start off with a little history about the bridge and it's importance in terms of a crossing point. The bridge was built around 1530 which is a real testament to those who slaved away to put this bridge in place. Dairsie bridge was part of the original route between Cupar and St. Andrews. I believe Guardbridge was built in a similar time period but the use of the current A91 as a route between the two towns wasn't established till later on.

If you follow the road up the hill towards Strathkinness from Dairsie Bridge you'll come across a small roadside pull in which is primarily used by fishermen. The signage here will direct anyone walking down to the Eden to follow the route of the old road if there are livestock in the field. I followed the route of the old road as best as possible on an OS map and it can be noted that the old road ran in almost a straight line across the hillside to Kincaple. The current old road appears to be a mix of paths and tracks through fields until Kincaple in reached. From here there is a narrow road that links Kincaple with the A91. My guess is that this is the line of the old road as it cuts out the steep hill on the way to Strathkinness which the current road takes. The route I've identified on the map also appears to be the shortest route between St. Andrews and Cupar when factoring in Dairsie Bridge as a crossing point. This route, although mostly footpath now, is still shorter than any of the current routes between the two towns.

When you look at the importance of the bridge and the length of time it's been around for you get a certain sense of irony from the fact that Dairsie Bridge has been standing and doing it's job proudly for the last 500 years but Fife council's shoddy workmanship can't even last a decade. Well done there lads.

If you have a look at this photo that was taken and posted to flickr yesterday (full credit to be given to Richard for the photo) you can see the severity of the crack that's caused the bridge to remain closed for four months. It really is an absolute joke that the tiny bit of decay to the surface can cause the bridge to be closed when almost all of Fife's roads are in far worse condition. The southbound B940 through Pitscottie and over the bridge is in a far worse state than that with potholes and rough surfaces to destroy your car as you coast down to the crossroads.

I've mentioned the historic and strategic position of the bridge and although it's now mostly overshadowed by Guardbridge in terms of importance, it's still a lifeline route for the residents of Kemback, Pitscottie, Ceres and other houses in-between.

The alternative route is either Guardbridge or Cupar. Normally Guardbridge would be fine but for the past few weeks, Fife council took it upon themselves to close off Strathkinness for resurfacing works. Now I don't live in Strathkinness but I do drive through there a lot and I never had any issues with potholes down there. Speed bumps perhaps but not potholes. Why then is priority being given to that stretch of road when Dairsie Bridge has an emergency closure on it? Don't get me wrong, I don't begrudge Strathkinness getting a nice new surface but the council really needs to keep it's roads open.

The other alternative route to avoid Dairsie Bridge involves Cupar. Yeah, we're pretty much fucked there aren't we. Not only is the town known for it's traffic problems, they've had the B940 bridge across the Eden closed for the last year for strengthening works. So you drive along your alternative route to either find out that the bridge is closed or got the temporary traffic lights of forever telling when and when you can't cross.

I know I've said a lot of horrible things about Cupar's lights in the past but the temporary lights they had during the B940 bridge works took it to the next level. If you were unfortunate enough to catch the lights as they changed to red you may as well just go back the way you came and find a new route. Nothing is worth that level of frustration. Most traffic planners will tell you that 2 minutes is the longest they'll have a red cycle for other wise traffic will assume the lights are broken. These cunts looked at that rule of thumb and said fuck all that, we're making you wait for over three minutes so if you're going somewhere, fuck you.

The ironic thing about the Cupar bridge works is that I used another bridge across the Eden to avoid the roadworks. Any guesses as to which route I took? That's right. I used Dairsie Bridge to avoid Cupar's failings...

If you factor both the road closures in Cupar and Strathkinness then you're left with only one choice if like me you travel between Pitscottie and Dundee a lot. You've got to go all the way across to St. Fucking. Andrews at a time when fuel prices are at a record high and climbing and at a time where we're being told to be friendly to the environment by driving less miles. How am I supposed to do less mileage if Fife council closes all it's roads at the same time?

They actually closed Bank Street in Cupar the other weekend for resurfacing which was desperately needed and has been for some time now. It took them a weekend to resurface a 1/4 mile of wide road. Dairsie Bridge is a small, narrow thing. If they actually bothered to do something about it they could be finished in an afternoon.

Thankfully the works in both Strathkinness and Cupar now appear to be finished which will make the next 6 months of no Dairsie Bridge slightly easier but I still wanted to get that off my chest.

This incident has reminded me of something that happened a few years ago. There were various forms handed to all resident of Pitscottie, Kemback and Blebo Craigs asking the residents what they thought would be the best solution to "speeding" traffic through Pitscottie. The options included a 20 limit, a 20 limit with Strathkinness-esque speed bumps to fuck up your suspension. A 20 limit with Ceres-esque build outs, one other option which I'll cover later and a leave everything as it is.

Those of you that know me know that I object to traffic calming on through routes (again, I'm looking at you Strathkinness - you probably owe me a new suspension). It would therefore seem hypocritical of me to support any of the traffic calming measures mentioned above and guess what? I may have lived there till I was 18 and I may still visit a lot and call it my second home but that does not mean I'm in favour of ruining the village with suspension destroyers or ugly build outs.

Pitscottie doesn't have a large population and the population it does have relies on private transport due to a lack of amenities within the village. Therefore pedestrian numbers are low and there are even less children to run out behind parked cars after a football so there really isn't justification to a 20 limit through the village.

Try telling that to some of the people in the village though. You'd think people deliberately sped up once they passed the welcome signs.
"Look at that, he must have been doing 90! It's outrageous the way people drive nowadays."
"No, he was probably doing about 35..."

Even if there was a 20 applied to the village, it'd make no difference, those that speed would do so regardless and it's just cause contempt towards the village from the driving community.

The final option on the list was what to do with the Dura Den road. Leave it as it is or "permanently close of the road at some point". I honestly can't see how that would improve traffic speeds through the village, if anything it would remove one less junction for passing traffic to have to worry about and in theory, increase traffic speeds. It'd also remove a useful and well used route to Dundee.

Oh wait... That's right. In a very round about way, this has actually happened. Dura Den is effectively closed and look at the hassle and frustration it's causing everyone. Fuck you NIMBYs and fuck you Fife council. We all pay council tax, we all pay road tax and we all pay through the roof for fuel. The least you could do is bother your lazy arses to keep the roads open.

Anyway, I'll just listen to this song and take some deep breathes.

Have a good week.

Into The Woods

2011-03-06T21:55:00.002Z

It's the first Sunday of the month and for now I plan to keep my promise by writing something that isn't a rant. Last Summer I made the mistake of posting something on Facebook stating I was only going to post positive statuses from then on. It started out with good intentions but soon Fife's guild of 40 drivers and the music of Coldplay started to wear on me. A status would almost immediately receive a comment along the lines of "what happened to being positive?" At first I justified it by saying that mocking Coldplay was a good thing because they deserve it (which they do) but I eventually just replied with "shut up". Nobody questioned me after that.

So why did I just tell you that story? Well, I might not keep the happy first Sunday of the month thing up forever and I don't want any bitching to take place if I choose to stop. Anyway, what do I like? Dura Den has always has a positive impact on my life and the subject of a lot of my photos. Here we go, a photo blog. Possibly the most pretentious thing I can do. I'll try and throw a few anecdotes about the place though to keep it from being boring.

I'll start off with an old photo of the snows of 2009.

This was taken on Christmas Day on a short walk we took into the woodland, despite how icy and slippy it was, there was still plenty of traffic charging down here in search of cooked birds and fake trees.

These three photos are pretty much taken from the same place in Winter, Autumn and snowy Autumn just to throw a technicality in there. All three were taken last year as well. All three of those scenes show a broken, curved tree trunk reaching out into the river. When I was a lot younger I decided to take a seat on said trunk when all of a sudden a few wasps came from underneath to greet me. A few more came along. Then a couple more. Finally I ran. Thankfully I managed to avoid getting stung but it was a close call and I've never tried sitting on that trunk since.

The thing that's always brought me back to Dura Den time and time again (other than the obvious fact of growing up there) are the many waterfalls littered throughout the woods. Some of which are better known than others. This photo was taken just after the snow had thawed at the beginning of January. The thaw was helped along by two days of constant heavy rainfall making for a rather spectacular scene. When the river gets like this you can hear the waterfalls coming long before you get in sight of them and they aren't quiet ones at the best of times.

This is the best waterfall in the woods but I've never been 100% happy with any of the photos I've taken of it and this was the one I eventually settled on uploading.

If you follow the line of the river further downstream a little you'll find a small tree (though I'll admit I can't remember which one it is) that has almost been sawn in half at one point. This is an odd story but I was down there with a friend who brought a pocket saw with the dullest blade you'd ever seen with him. He then set about trying to cut down the smallest trunked tree he could find in the area. I told him he was a fanny for even trying at the time but thankfully he never managed to complete the challenge as his saw was just that pish.

I stood around for about 45 minutes utterly bored watching him attack this poor tree only to fail miserably. The stupidest thing is that if he had succeeded, the tree would have just fallen down into the river.

Jumping on a bit we have Kemback, a small village with a lot of charm and character. Both photos here are obviously showing the village in a different light. The only semi amusing story I have about Kemback involves the same guy as before kicking the fuck out of a dead tree stump to get it fall over. He'd spend hours beating this thing whenever we came down here and again, his attempts to damage something that was already dead came to no avail. Even when I was younger I was happy just to explore the woods and appreciate it for the special place it was. We eventually stopped taking this guy into the woods with us.

Kemback's pride and joy and probably the best known waterfall in Fife. I took loads of photos of this waterfall last year and this one is the one I chose to showcase it. If you look on my flickr page you can decide whether or not I made the right call. We used to drink the water that dripped from the rocks next to the main flow. Thinking about it, that probably explains a lot about me now...

Kemback really is one of those special places and it really comes alive on a sunny Autumn day as you can see. One of the occasions I came here was a sunny February Sunday in 2004. Why do I remember that? Well, it was a February the 29th and I made a promise to myself that I'd make sure I'd give myself a key memory for every February the 29th from then on. In fact, it's only a year till the next one.

Friday the 29th of February in 2008 was a good one as well. It also involves an amusing story about the same guy I've mentioned twice already in this entry but I won't talk about that on here, it's one of those stories where you need to know the people involved.

That night did lead to an incident with wine and falling asleep on the toilet. You'll be glad to know I wasn't the one who drank a bottle of wine and slept on a toilet though as I hate the stuff. Anyway, I'm going off at a bit of a tangent. If you'd like to hear the full story of that night, fire me an email or similar.

This photo is taken from a part of Dura Den I don't visit as often. This is the large section north of Blebo Craigs, unlike the bit I've covered so far, this bit isn't based around a gorge and is full of snaking paths so if you don't know where you're going down here you may end up where you started.

I have one route I always take to get through as I know I won't mess up. I have an idea where most paths go but it can get a bit disorientating down there. I once followed a narrow path that went up and down a few hills before reappearing on the other side of Blebo Craigs. At one point I was given a nice vista across Fife towards Dairsie, at the time I could have sworn I was somewhere completely different in the woods and I don't normally have any difficulty with directions.

Finally, at the northern end of the woods we have the way out, Dairsie Bridge but I'm going to save my discussion on Dairsie Bridge till next week. If you're involved in Fife Council's road department then it's not going to be a pretty one for you. Anyone local to the area will know what I'm referring to.

Before I wrap it up for the night I'm going to have a small rant about something - it's not a long one though. There's a song I keep hearing at work by a band called Squeeze. Apparently they were popular in the past, though I can't think why as the song in question just seems to be him reciting his shopping list. I've come to the conclusion that it's possibly the most redundant song ever committed to record. In fact, I'm sure I could write a similar song with no effort.

I was in the supermarket,
bought some pasta, a pie,
milkshake, food for my pet,
6 pack of rolls and that's no lie.

Love, love, lovity love love love, I love stuff,
I was tempted by the fruit in Tesco but I'd already bought some in Morrisons.

This stuff writes itself, no wonder the song was so successful. I'm sure mine will be better though, especially when I slow the whole thing down to 90bpm with a boring drum loop and uninspired instrumentation.

Anyway, that'll do for this week. If you like good music I'm planning on doing my own version of the current Facebook fad 30 Day Song Challenge where you have to post songs you don't like, listen to on the radio and songs that describe you. My version will be called the 7 Day Good Song Experience and will just be songs I like without the pretension. I can say with a 99.9% probability that Tempted and anything by Coldplay will not be in there.

Goodnight.

Living In A House, On A Street... Somewhere...

2011-02-27T22:01:00.004Z

Before I start I feel I should acknowledge last week's entry. A few of you got in touch through various mediums to let me know how much you enjoyed it and I certainly appreciate the thought. Unfortunately I doubt that tonight's entry will be as good but I'll certainly try my best.

If you look back at the reason for towns existing you can usually pinpoint a good reason for it to exist. Cupar, for example lies on both a bridging point for the Eden and it's a route centre. At one point the town would have provided hub for everyone who had to travel in the north of Fife. Of course now, people try to avoid it.

We can also look at the reasons for new towns popping up. Glenrothes, for example was mostly built to house workers at all the nearby mines. Unfortunately the mines and industry no longer exist and the town has ended up as a run down dump. Tumbleweed is a common sight in the Kingdom centre.

A friend and myself were driving out to Arbroath last week and just north of the A92 as you're leaving the extremities of Dundee (though it may be part of Monifieth by this point) there is a massive new housing estate being built. From what you can see from the road, all the houses are the same shade of grey with no defining characteristics.

For some reason all these modern housing estates are given happy names. You drive into Blandland and the first thing you see, other than a maze of monotonous homes are cheery street names like Unicorn Rainbow Avenue and Rose Petal Happiness Fun Street. The reality is that these streets should really be called Vanilla Lane and Grey Stone Boredom Boulevard.

If I ever find myself stuck in one of these generic new build houses I'd have to switch all the rooms in the house around then invite all the neighbours over for a house party. They'd all instantly think they knew which room was the bathroom due to living in identically laid out buildings only to find out that they've accidentally walked straight into a room full of whatever strange things I could find. It'd also have a fake skeleton that drops down from the ceiling and plays a boo sound effect. Watch out if I ever invite you to a house party.

Before global warming was invented, most areas of housing didn't take into account car parking, mainly because cars hadn't been invented yet. My street in Dundee is a prime example of this and parking down here can be a real pain sometimes. Once it was realised that almost everyone would start driving, housing estates would be given ample allocated space for people to park their cars, either in the form of a large garage/driveway combo or a small car park somewhere along the street depending on the size and class of people on the estate.

That is no more. Modern housing estates are deliberately designed to be unwelcoming to cars. Not only are the houses packed so close together that you can hear your neighbours breathe but there is no allowance made for car ownership. Yes, some houses do come with garages but if you own something bigger than a push bike, you're going to scratch your car off the walls trying to get it inside.

So why are modern housing estates designed this way? Surely it's a backwards step? What we all have to remember is that cars are evil and they fill our precious planet with the most destructive, revolting and downright malicious substance known to man. Carbon.*

However, not providing decent parking provision isn't the worst part. Since all these new builds are built by private companies, they show no interest in constructing any useful facilities for these estates. You can have miles and miles of housing but try looking for a shop or a pub. There are none to be found. Try finding decent public transport links back into the city. There are none to be found.

What we end up with are masses of purely residential areas with cars blocking every street. The reason that the cars are there in the first place is down to two things. Lack of provisions made and floored thinking.

Having no local amenities or easy links to public transport services means that people will rely on their cars to get back into the city for food and social reasons. The estate I mentioned at the beginning of this entry is being built not right next to but near enough to the A92 dual carriageway to Arbroath in the east and Dundee city centre in the west. The space between the housing estate and A92 looks as if it'll just be a green belt between the houses and road.

Nobody in that estate will think twice about car ownership as it's even too far to walk to get to the nearest supermarket at Claypotts. I suppose there's a McDonalds and Dobbies right on the city boundary that could be considered walking distance. The question is, which would taste better: a poisonous plant or a Maccy D's?

The floored thinking aspect comes from the councils that give the go ahead for these estates. By removing parking provision they believe people will move to these estates without a car due to the inconvenience of not being able to park. What they fail to consider is that no matter how many of these housing estates go up, car ownership on them won't go down. Instead their ideas for a Carbon free utopia are shattered by the number of cars abandoned by the side of the road, creating some interesting weaving situations once both sides end up filled.

So I've said what I believe the problem is but how would I go about fixing it? First off I'd add more space between the buildings. If you're going to pack that many into one small area, just build a tower block. Secondly I'd provide off street parking for all homes, generally with room for two cars since that's the average number per household. I'd also put in at least one centrally located shop for the convenience of the residents. Being centrally located it'd be able to also sport the main public transport hub for the estate area with a bus stop and a direct road out to the nearest city arterial route. In fact, instead of writing any more, I'm just going to go play Sim City 4 instead.

*I know that cars don't emit carbon in the solid form as implied but from the way people talk about it you half expect cars to go around throwing out solid blocks of carbon every few miles.

Future Works

2011-02-20T21:09:00.003Z

When Facebook first came to the scene it was only for university students for some reason. Until then I'd ignored myspace and bebo (which I believe are both pretty much dead now) but for some reason I made myself a Facebook account, possibly because it was the only one I knew people on. It's changed a fair bit since 2006 and not usually for the better.

There are plenty of ways in which I could mock Facebook but most of them have been done before, just look at sites like lamebook and failbook. However, before I dive straight into the bulk of today's entry I'll talk about some current issues.

I noticed the other day that a friend had joined a group entitled "wear yellow on the fuckitythird of Fuckvember to raise awareness of suicide*". What exactly are they raising awareness of? People killing themselves or schemes to help depressed people? Even if it is the latter then how exactly is wearing something yellow going to help?
"I know both your entire family was killed when a plane piloted by your fiancée crashed into your uninsured home but I'm wearing some yellow so all is right and happy with the World".

I know they mean well but I had the same criticism when everyone changed their picture to a cartoon to raise awareness for some pish. You can raise as much awareness as you like but unless you actually give the charity concerned some money then you aren't achieving anything useful. The cartoon incident did give way to something amusing though.

Nice one Ceebs, ya fanny.

All these attempts to change the World through social networking seem to be the result of Christmas 2009 where someone decided that they didn't want a pop song to top the Christmas charts, personally I couldn't give a shit but enough people did to make the scheme a success. For those who weren't there when it happened I'll try and sum up the situation.

Every year a pop song from some TV show is timed to be released in time for the Christmas charts and therefore wins so some guy made a Facebook group to try and promote the idea of Rage Against The Machine (about as interesting to listen to as the pop song they were trying to beat) winning instead. The idea for this took off and thousands of people paid good money for a boring song just to see if it would work and it did. People like Stuart had made history and all they did was spend 99p on iTunes.

This seems to have triggered this new wave of "Facebook for causes" stuff that is currently clogging up my news feed. The thing is though, the Christmas #01 thing was original when it was done and because the idea was new, it carried a lot of weight as people wanted to see if it could actually work and when it did, people started thinking "can this apply to what I'm doing"? Unfortunately there are now a lot of people that think it will so a once original idea has been destroyed. This was apparent last Christmas where everyone set up groups trying to get their guy to win. Here's a message to everyone on Facebook. If you want to top the charts again, you have to agree on one song.

Now I've got that out of the way I'll dive into what I originally had in mind when I said I was going to write about Facebook, namely the future of the website. More specifically, the future users of Facebook. For our generation, Facebook is new and primarily used by young people. My question is, what's going to happen when the current generation of babies grow up and make an account of their own?

They'll be confronted by photos of their parents throwing up over prostitutes and countless blurry drunk pictures of their parents in all the bars across the UK. How are these kids going to react to this kind of thing? They'll find their parents embarrassing enough without being exposed to their drunken antics. Any kid of mine will just see countless scenery and landscape photos and come to the rightful conclusion that their father is, in fact, a boring bastard.

It might be bad enough for kids coming into the Facebook experience in that scenario but some kids might grow up to realise they already have a Facebook. I have thankfully never seen any of these directly but they do come up on sites like lamebook once in a while. That's right, I'm talking about parents that make a Facebook page for their unborn child.

How horrible will it be for these kids to go into their pre-made account to find it's full of embarrassing photos of their younger years? What will they think when they look back to find that their first ever status was "i lyk kicking mummy's tummy lol"? As you can guess, my text speak isn't up to a very high standard.

At least they'll have plenty of friends like Uncle Eccineezer who turned out to be a cunt or Auntie Erin who was originally Uncle Wilbur. Perhaps their estranged NED father who doesn't pay child support will be a long time friend. Perhaps his last interaction would have gone a little like this:
Unborn Kid posts: My umbilical chord makes me look impressive.
Uncle Wilbur likes this.
Paw comments: Like father, like son.
Maw comments: Aye, you wish, you only have a tiny cock.
Paw comments: Fuck you bitch, you promised you stop spouting this shite on Facebook.
Maw comments: How dare you speak like that in front of our son?
Paw comments: Don't pretend to be all innocent in front of him, he's going to grow up knowing his maw was a whore who'd shag any postman that came to the door.
Maw comments: I only did that once and you know why.
Paw comments: That's it, we're through, I've had it with your constant insults and sleeping around. Good luck with the kid who probably isn't even mine anyway.
*fifteen years later*
Kid comments: Mum, you told me the break-up was all my father's fault...
Maw comments: Yeah, about that, I lied.

I'm sure that's happened somewhere.

Anyway, that'll do, I'm sure I probably took that joke too far. Don't make any pages for babies and don't post anything stupid. I hoped writing all this would actually cheer me up but it hasn't really. Hopefully I'll be back to normal in a few weeks. Take care.

*I made up the date myself.

All Over The Place

2011-02-13T20:17:00.002Z

I was originally planning on writing my Facebook entry this week but unfortunately I'm full of rhinovirus so I don't really feel like it. I'll hopefully do it next week instead.

You'd think after the number of times I've managed to contract the rhinovirus over my lifetime the human body would start to recognise it and go "hey wait, this guy's a cunt, we're not letting you in, you're barred". I know why that doesn't happen (there are so many different types of the bastards) but still, it'd be nice if it did. The human body can be a real pain at times. How many times have you needed to be up early the next morning only to find you can't sleep? Then the next morning you emerge absolutely knackered before you even begin. Well, if you'd shut down when I wanted you to then things would be alright...

Anyway, I don't have much to say about colds, everyone knows they're annoying and tedious, however, I do have one rhinovirus joke and for this joke I will provide you all with a link to the ba-dum-tish sound effect. Just click the conveniently provided link once you've read the joke to get the full effect.

Ba-dum-tish.

Rhino derives from the Greek rhin which means nose. Rhinovirus is nosevirus. Rhinoceros translates to nosehorn. The collective name for a group of rhinoceros is a crash, therefore that translates to a crash of nose horns. Ba-dum-tish.

I'm sorry.

I'll write a proper entry next week when I feel better.

The First Of It's Kind

2011-02-06T21:13:00.002Z

So there I was in the woods when two bears came bounding out from behind the trees. Roaring away as they charged towards me. Fear not though because one shot from my trusty Buffalo rifle to the head brought them down with ease. The fun didn't stop there. The corpse of one bear attracts another and before I knew I had 33 dead bears around my feet. All waiting to be skinned and harvested.

I'm going to try a new feature. On the first Sunday (or sometimes a Monday if I'm busy on a Sunday) of the month I'll write about something I like. It might not last, we'll see. Tonight I'm going to talk about two games. One new, one old. I'm not the biggest gamer out there but I do enjoy them. If you're familiar with modern games you may have already worked out what the first game I'll briefly discuss is, if not, it's Red Dead Redemption.

It's a game I hadn't heard anything about until quite recently. That probably shows how out of the loop I am with games. Once I heard about I thought it sounded like the kind of thing I'd enjoy playing and I wasn't wrong. In my experience, Rockstar tend to go all out when it comes to putting together an open world game. I'm not going to talk about the game too much itself, there are plenty of proper reviews that'll go through that stuff better than I can. Instead I'll just focus on why I like it. Check out the positivity.

The game seems to manage to blend both enjoyable gameplay with an almost cinematic experience so not only did I feel like I was in the old west, it also felt great to watch the story progress around me. The second you step off the train at the beginning of the game you feel like you are part of another world, another time and that feeling lasts right through.

At first, you spend a lot of time on a farm and although it's a tiny portion of the map, the game designers have really made it feel like home. To begin with it's all you know and the level of detail and the number of things you can do on the farm make you not want to leave. Now that I've completed the game the farm does feel very small but it's still the first place in the game I called home (I now tend to hang around in the woods killing bears - the manliest of pursuits).

During one of the first missions you get your first glimpse of the surrounding countryside and it's stunning. They really went all out when it came to creating an interesting map to explore. I still haven't tired of watching the sunset from the top of the waterfall on the river between America and Mexico.

The whole experience is perfectly gelled together by the main character. He's an interesting character who's moral compass isn't too far one way or the other which makes him more human than most people you play as in games. It was certainly a great experience to learn more about this character as time went by.

I've hidden the next bit of text as it's a spoiler for what happens in the game, just highlight it and it'll appear if you want to read.

I'm sure I wasn't the only one who shed a tear at the end of the game. To put it bluntly, the ending is devastating but that only heightens the emotion felt throughout the story.

I'm going to go back in time now. The second game I'll discuss is called Terranigma. It was a game on the Super Nintendo but because it was never released in America it isn't well known. Unlike Red Dead Redemption, it's an old style RPG but the thing that always put me off RPG's was the annoying turn based fighting systems. I always felt they were sluggish and slowed the pace of the action right down. Thankfully Terranigma has a proper attack system where you get to whack people with a shiny, glowing, magical staff. Yeah, fuck off enemies or I'll whack you with my magic stick. It doesn't sound quite right when put that way...

The game is an interesting one, you start off in Hell and work your way back to the surface world. This isn't just some random fantasy planet either. You get to play on Earth, visiting real places and helping real people. You even help Alexander Graham Bell invent the telephone. Although, in the game he lives in America but we'll ignore that because it's such a great concept.

You don't immediately get to do that though, before people come along you have to bring plant and animal life back to the surface world by fighting through dungeons, climbing mountains, fannying about in the routes of a massive tree. It's better than it sounds. Eventually humans come along and at first, civilisation is undeveloped but as you progress you get to see villages turn into cities and life flourish.

Things eventually go too far when a Russian scientist is brought into the mix. To begin with you have plants and animals, friendly people and primitive houses but by the end you are fighting massive robots and bringing down airships in order to save the World from itself. All in all it's an amazing adventure game and one that I always get a lot of joy playing through.

If you want to play Red Dead Redemption, I'm afraid you'll have to go buy it. However, if you'd like a go at Terranigma, this website will give you the links to an emulator and allow you to play the game in full. Trust me, it's worth giving it a go. The scale of thing is out of this World (well, not quite, you don't get to go to space).

So BRAKE were in the news again this week calling for overtaking bans on rural roads. Anyone want to come with me so we can slap these people around the back of the head? And you all thought you were getting away without a rant...

Next week I could either talk about The Simpsons or Facebook, I'll decide which next Sunday. Have a good week.

Floating In The Forth

2011-01-30T19:54:00.003Z

As you're probably all aware, the current Forth Road Bridge is potentially due to be closed to high sided vehicles in the next few years due to corrosion of the main cables. Unfortunately they don't know how quickly the bridge is corroding so a new one is needed, both for safety and capacity reasons.

The new bridge is to be a cable stayed bridge slightly west of the current road bridge and will be tied into the current road network. The original plan was to give the bridge three lanes in each direction along with a hard shoulder. The current plans have removed one of the running lanes. I'd have preferred to see the hard shoulder go in favour of more capacity since that's certainly an issue with the current bridge.

I believe a new bridge would also allow the M90 to be extended southwards and connect with the M9 at an improved junction - the current M9 spur at this point meets an unfortunate end at the current junction. Though one of the lanes on M9 1a has been hatched away. I thought the whole point of the M9 spur was to remove the single lane hell that was the A8000? I guess they just decided to shift the problem instead...

Anyway, enough of that. Let's look at the plans for the old bridge, which is the main reason why I'm writing this entry. The current bridge will be turned into the World's most expensive dedicated public transport corridor. Wonderful, just what we need, a dual carriageway bridge that's entirely bus lane. What a waste.

Just to rub yet more salt into the wounds, the other lane on the current bridge will be left for a light rail extension. Light rail? Lads, look down the Forth a little, see that massive, iconic, red bridge there? That carries the real thing. I was in North Queensferry the other day taking photos of the bridges and for some of the shots I climbed up to the train station there. At least three trains stopped here in the five minutes I was there taking people from Dunfermline/Kirkcaldy to Edinburgh and back again. Why do we need extended light rail to do what the proper railway already does and already does well?

Edinburgh is having enough problems with it's current waste of time tram project without them getting over enthusiastic about future plans to extend them into Fife.

So there we have it, a new bridge that has no improvement in terms of capacity and an old bridge that will pretty much be abandoned. Why are these the current plans? Well, you can't build a new road without giving a token gesture to the environmentalists. A good example of this is the current Hindhead tunnel works on the A3. They are dualling the A3 underground to remove the road from an area of special scientific interest which is fair enough but to justify the project they have to promise to turn the old road into a footpath/bridle-way. I don't have a problem with them abandoning the old road but that's all they have to do. The damage was already done when they built the old A3, might as well just leave it as it is and let nature reclaim it. Though in reality this probably will be what happens.

So what would I like to see happen with the new bridge across the Forth? If they are to insist building the new bridge to D2M standards then finish the new bridge. Close the old bridge and repair it, once that's done, allow the new bridge to be for northbound traffic and old one for southbound traffic, that way there will be plenty of capacity across the Forth at this key crossing point.

That's where the capacity issues exist. Say I have to go from Cupar to St. Andrews, there are plenty of routes for me to choose from so say if there's an incident on the main road I could just go via the back roads. If there's a problem with the Forth I either have to go all the way to Kincardine or just turn back and go home. That's why I believe increasing the capacity by keeping both bridges open to traffic would be the best idea in the long term.

I'm going to have a look at a few other key crossings within the UK and talk a little about them, mainly to make a comparison. The first one I'll mention is the Tyne Tunnel. At the moment they are building a second tunnel so that the A19 can be two lanes all the way from the north of Newcastle to Thirsk. A sensible move considering that the current tunnel is a generally considered a bottleneck at the moment. The plan there is to finish the new tunnel, then direct traffic through it whilst they revamp the old tunnel. Sounds like a winning plan to me.

Next up is the Dartford tunnel on the A282. This is currently the first road crossing over the Thames and the only one to the east of London, therefore it is extremely busy and very crowded. They originally built one tunnel under the river. That soon became full so they bored a second. Again, that became full so they build a four lane bridge next to the tunnels and both tunnels now take northbound traffic. It's still full but at least they had the initiative to keep all possible transport links open. Though there is debate down there as to whether or not scrapping the tolls would improve through-flow.

Finally we have the Second Severn Crossing which is a stupid name. The current M4 runs across here but instead of turning the old Severn Suspension Bridge into a bus and tram only bridge they left it open as the M48, meaning that traffic has a choice when it gets here. Both bridges are both ways but it still means that if for whatever reason one bridge has to close, there's another right there to take the traffic.

So what is Scotland going to do with it's major bridge building project? Give the new bridge the same specs in terms of capacity and ruin the old one and remove it from the picture by painting it Edinburgh bus lane green for environmentalism. It's a bit of a joke when you think about compared to the other high profile projects I mentioned above.

The other topic I'll briefly go into with regards to the bridge are the objections, both by environmentalists and by those that think "why should I be paying for this when I don't live near there?".

The environmentalists objections seem to be the same old "cars are evil" whining. What they don't seem to realise is that with a high capacity corridor in place over the Forth then traffic queues will be a thing of the past. There is far more pollution caused by slow moving and idling cars stuck in traffic then there is by fast flowing traffic. Just look at Cupar if you don't believe me.

The other complaint is about the cost of a new bridge, which is a fair point as it will probably end up costing far too much. The thing is, it's needed not just for the east coast but for the Highlands as well as the west. Don't believe me? How much extra will it cost to ship goods via Kincardine or Stirling if there's no bridge there? How many east coast businesses will go bust if there are no good transport links to the south? How much of a knock on effect will that have on the rest of Scotland? My guess is far more than we'll end up spending on building the replacement bridge in the first place. If you don't think it affects you, think again.

Here's hoping they'll start building the new bridge sooner rather than later because the longer they leave it, the more time we could be left without a crossing over the Forth. Don't pander to the environmentalists or the NIMBY's, build what's best for Scotland and the UK in general because we only have one chance to improve Scotland's east coast links so we need to take this chance to make the best possible job of it.

Anyway, Floating In The Forth.

Wacky Catchphrase

2011-01-24T16:40:00.002Z

I was in Edinburgh over the weekend and because of that I decided to write my weekly blog entry a day late instead. Normally I'd leave this kind of thing till the evening but Monday is pub night. My week is pretty regimented. On a Sunday I write something, on a Monday I go to the pub. On a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday I do fuck all.

If you remember last year, two entries were dedicated to the videos a friend and myself had recorded whilst on days out. Don't worry, there aren't any more to come yet but we were discussing ideas for what we'll do next over the weekend so instead of writing about whatever it was I said I was going to write about I'm going to talk about some of the ideas we came up with instead.

The main idea which has been around since October last year is to record a fake documentary which we'll hopefully start filming in the Summer. We're taking things slightly more seriously this time. Well, I say seriously, what I actually mean is we'll write a script and plan the jokes instead of finding dead crabs on the beach and making them talk. That's not to say that talking crabs aren't funny because they are, even if we're the only ones who believe that's true.

Essentially the idea behind the mock documentary is to film loads of really silly scenarios in the style of something like Coast. A main presenter meets various people and talks to them about the various boring ways in which they live their lives based on a common theme - in our case, whisky. The fun part will be to make the scenarios utterly ridiculous yet play it perfectly dead pan as if there's nothing unusual going on. Whether it works or not will depend on if we can act but it's going to be fun to try anyway.

The other idea we discussed was a sketch show. I'll say now that I don't really like sketch shows. Even Chewing The Fat became tired after a while. My view on them is that it's always the same pish every time. There seems to be a pool of annoying characters and the jokes rely on knowing what's coming next. Unfortunately for me, what comes next loses it's humour the 70th time it's performed.

As such, our idea for a sketch show is to create about four characters, each with their own annoying and irritating catchphrase. The shorter and stupider the better. We will then recycle the same characters over the course of about ten minutes. To finish off they'll all end up in the same room repeating their catchphrases over and over until it just becomes an annoying noise. At least that's the premise anyway. I'm sure once we get into filming that one it'll change.

So far we've come up with one solid character. It all stemmed from us discussing the reasons why shitty lagers are more popular than a good tasting ale. I then started talking about student pubs like Bar Generico Cool selling Tennents and other bad tasting drinks for 50p. This was followed by me putting on a voice and pretending to be someone getting over excited about these low prices. The voice, however fitted an eccentric old man better so our lead character will be a drunk old man who will only pay 50p for things. I'll let you decide how far into the scale of bad that falls.

I'll let everyone know once these videos have been made and I'll try and write this on the right day next week (or this week, as it happens to be).

How Much Environmentalism Can You Buy For 5p?

2011-01-16T20:03:00.003Z

I originally was going to talk about the Forth Bridge today but I'm going to postpone that for a few weeks as something came up this week that I'd rather talk about.

I was in the Cupar post office posting a parcel. Anyone familiar with the Cupar post office will know that by the time you get to the head of the queue you've probably been in there for a couple of days wanting to punch the old guy behind you who thinks it's acceptable to stand in your personal space grunting and smelling of fags. Apparently bunching up to the person who's next in the queue means it'll move faster. I'd best remember that one next time I end up at a petrol station without pay at the pump.

When I finally made it to the front of the queue I was asked "would you like to add 5p to your postage costs to offset the carbon footprint on this parcel?" I had to stop and think for a moment. All of a sudden I'd gone from lethargic standing in a queue staring into space mode to answering stupid questions mode. After a few seconds I said no.

After I left the post office I started thinking about the question some more. What exactly does it mean? What will happen with that 5p since as far as I know, all my post comes by van no matter how many 5ps I chuck at them. I then started thinking about other ways they could spend that 5p.

The current UK population is just under 62 million so let's assume 5 million parcels are sent a day. Maybe 10% of people agree to that extra 5p then that's an extra £25 000 a day assuming my maths is still up to scratch. Of course, my figures are all made up since I can't source any figures on the number of parcels sent a day but I've probably been quite conservative with my estimates. Either way that's a fair whack of cash, especially if it's daily.

It's certainly more than enough money to cover a given area of land with forestry so my guess is that a lot of this money is going to a fancy night out at one of London's more expensive champagne bar. I could be wrong, it could just be me being cynical but I'm sure I'm not the only one to think that. The keen eyed amongst you will also note that the post office will be trying to recover lost revenue from the recent Winter weather. Guilt tripping people into believing their parcel is killing pandas might just get the profit margins back to normal.

As a small car driver and user of fuel I'm considered to be real cunt in the grand scheme of life. If you look at any list of the most hated people in the World you'll be sure to see names like Hitler but take a look at the top of the list. You'll see the average car driver tops the number one spot.

Now that I know how I place in the World I feel it's about time I did something about it. As such I'm going to go from door to door offering to scrub the carbon footprints off people's carpets all for a meagre 5p a time. Those carbon stains don't come out easily either so I hope the World will appreciate what I plan to do for it.

In time I believe that carbon footprints will no longer dirty up people's houses. Then again, in time there will be new phrases for me to turn into a literal translation. Thankfully I don't hear people using the "carbon neutral" phrase any more. Here's hoping most people realise how stupid that phrase sounded.

That's where all this environmentalism falls down for me. I have nothing against it and in principle it's a good thing but I just hate the way it's implemented. The reason recycling works in other countries so well is that it's forced upon them so it becomes something people naturally do. In the UK we have to out our way to recycle things therefore, those that do seem to think they can take a moral high ground over those that don't.

Once we rid the environmentalist movement of the pretentious wankers and make it a way of life then the whole thing will flow more smoothly. Remove all the stupid buzz terms like "carbon footprint" and "carbon neutral" then maybe I'll take it all a little more seriously. I still wouldn't give the post office an extra 5p though.

The environmentalists also need to learn just how detrimental to society the cancellation of road schemes and the constant unfair increases in fuel costs are in terms of their own causes but I'll talk about that in far more detail when I talk about the Forth Bridges. I probably won't do that next week though - I don't want to have two environmental rants in a row.

To conclude this entry I shall answer the question posted in the title of this entry. The answer is negative environmentalism due to the impact of mining the metal and manufacturing the coin in the first place.

We're going bear hunting next week (unless I think of something better to write about) so you won't want to miss that.

Soul Intention

2011-01-09T20:08:00.003Z

Tonight I'm going to write about ghosts, don't worry, this won't be anything like the entry I wrote in December - this will hopefully be far more light hearted.

How do you define a ghost? The idea is that when you die your soul detaches from your body somehow, maybe death dissolves the glue that holds it in place? Souls then go to heaven or hell (I don't believe in any of that stuff but I'm sure you all knew that anyway). If the soul has unfinished business it stays on Earth as a ghost. Generally confined to rickety old country manors and caves. Ghosts obviously know where the best parties are.

However, since as a ghost, you're dead then trying to finish any unfinished business will be impossible due to not actually being able to do anything. Thus a ghost is destined to spending the rest of it's ghost-life on Earth with no escape.

With that in mind, if my views on life turn out to be wrong and I do die with unfinished business and become a ghost then why would I want to spend my time in some crusty, cold cavern somewhere? I'd go off and explore the World. I could climb Mount Everest with ease. No fannying about at base camp for weeks on end acclimatising and drinking goat's piss. I could visit Australia without the fear of being bitten by a poisonous spider every time I went to the toilet.

The possibilities are endless and since you'd have infinite time to do anything you wanted you could visit everywhere in the World. I could even visit the core if I felt like it because as everyone knows, ghosts can walk through walls. If that's the case why don't you see ghosts fall through the floor all the time? They always seem to be able to hold their own when it comes to standing on the ground.

As I've already established, ghosts come from souls and most people only consider humans to have souls. I think that's a bit unfair. Why don't other animals get to have souls? We're talking spirituality here, I can make up whatever rules I want. I don't have to justify anything with facts. If we then consider that animals have souls and say every 1 in 5 people and animals die with unfinished business and that these ghosts never leave Earth then the afterlife is getting pretty full.

Let's now factor in insects. You're a wee fly, enjoying a meal of cow shit and left over food from a bin and along comes Mr Newspaper. Swatted. Dead. You have unfinished business so you're going to become a ghost fly. Imagine just how full the afterlife will be now? There will be no room to move due to the sheer volume of grasshoppers, locusts, flies and other assorted insects milling about looking for their meal.

I've not even mentioned people that claim to have seen ghosts yet and it's something that never can be proven and I firmly stand in the "they don't exist" camp. It's fun over here, I'm surrounded by loads of other cynical people and we stay up all night playing pranks on the people in the believers camp on the other side of the field.

However, if you do believe in ghosts and my theory about insects having souls is true then what's to say you aren't seeing fly ghosts every day? You'll be taking a walk through the park when you pass a steamy pile of dog shit surrounded by 50 flies. What's to say one of them isn't a ghost?

There's one more thing I'm going to cover. It's all well and good saying people die and become ghosts but what are you before you're born? If you have to be something after you die, why shouldn't you be something before you're born? A pre-ghost, if you will. Food for thought if you believe in that kind of thing.

Perhaps I'm wrong, perhaps I'm destined to become a ghost. Perhaps I'm going to spend my entire afterlife standing in one place occasionally emerging to rattle some chains. Perhaps my soul will eventually break down over a period of time allowing the ghost World to reduce it's population over time. Perhaps the break down will bring me into the pre-ghost World as a different composition and before I know I'll be propelled back into life in order to put up with it all over again.

Again, reincarnation isn't something I believe in either but if that does turn out to be true I'd like to come back as an eagle or some other type of bird of prey. The ability to fly and not die due to being eaten after five minutes appeals to me. It'd also make me the stuff of legends.

For now though, I'll continue to believe in my lack of beliefs and we'll see who's right one day. I'm going to put £100 on myself being right, is anyone going to take that bet?

2010 - A Photographical Reminder

2011-01-02T20:59:00.009Z

I'm still a bit tired from the few days leading up to the New Year so I'm going to throw together a cop-out entry this week by just posting a few photos from some highlights of 2010. As far as years go, it hasn't been amazing but I've talked about all the negative stuff already. Most of it happened in the last three months anyway so this will give me a chance to look at the part of the year I liked.

2010 didn't start off very well as I lost control of my car on the ice mere hours after the year had begun and due to having a dodgy stomach the night before I hadn't even been drinking so I can't blame the incident on Mr McEwan either. I suppose if I did have to blame someone else for my icy skid I could blame the big freeze.

I hated that term at the time and it's come back again to haunt me now. I have another name for the big freeze: Winter. It's like when the recession ended up being called the downturn. They created a logo to represent the downturn by having the final flick on the n lower into the shape of an arrow. I wonder how much money they wasted on designing that waste of time?

So what major things happened in 2010 that had a positive affect on my life? I bought my camera so here's a selection of some of my favourite photos of the year. I'll try not to make this too pretentious but I make no promises.

This was taken on my first day out with the new camera. It represents how industry reflects upon our life in a positive way whilst blending in with our natural surroundings. That's a lot of pish. It represents Dundee with some rigs in for repair. I just happened to like the scene and this photo has plenty of views so in my mind, it did well.

This photo, although taken in February is representing January on my mum's calendar. I've taken better sunset shots since this one but it was the first so it has a nostalgic value to it.

This was my first night photo - it got a good reception at the time, I can do them better now. At least I think I can take better night shots now...

I managed to get this photo published in a magazine - I forget which. It was something to do Heritage Walks. Though I get the feeling it was only published because the writer couldn't source any other shots of this ruined church.

Who doesn't like hoverflies? I was really happy with this when I took it. I've found photographing insects this well since this photo was taken to be a challenge. Beginners luck seems to have played a large part in this photo working.

I took this photo during the big mild, or Spring as it's also known.

Towards the end of May, Euan and I went for a short hiking break in the Highlands. On the second day we went to Gairlochy for a look at the canal and I took this photo. It has to be one of my favourites and shows off a great holiday in a good light.

One of my most successful photos, mainly because it appealed to a lot of people - mostly rail enthusiasts which I don't really count myself as. I just like the routes they take and tunnels I'm allowed to explore.

I took this on the Summer Solstice - no-one really paid it much attention at the time but I like it. It's my current laptop backdrop image. The cat still had pride of place on my desktop

This bridge faired a bit better in terms of success on Flickr. I'll definitely be coming back here again as there's a lot of childhood memories linked in with this abandoned bridge. I even managed to drive over it a couple of times myself before it was bypassed.

I really enjoyed my walk through Glen Lethnot, the lesser known of the Angus Glens. We even made a video of our experiences.

I took a photo similar to this in March but this one is so much better. Out of all the photos I have online, this one has the most views at 335. Most only get as far as 20 if I'm lucky.

I've been wanting to see one of these for a while. I managed to miss them all during the Autumn so I'm glad I saw this guy during August. Apparently deer eat them to get high when they get bored in the Winter. Subsequently you can get high from drinking deer piss. Even if that isn't true I'm sure I could trick gullible junkies into giving me money for bottles of genuine stoned deer piss.

A Star Wars-esque space station comes to Dundee for repairs. Unfortunately I was away for most of the time it was in the air so I never managed to get all the photos I wanted of it. This one is pretty cool though.

Orkney was probably one of my favourite holidays of all time so it's only fitting that this happens to be one of my favourite photos of the year.

During the Autumn I got a bit carried away with HDR long exposure waterfall photos. I'm sure you can see why.

November was pretty shit this year but that doesn't mean I couldn't enjoy the fireworks (mainly because they happened a few days prior to the shit event).

This was taken on December 30th so you'll be glad to know that this is the last one and is a nice way to finish the year.

I hope that wasn't too boring and don't worry, I have some better stuff planned for the next few weeks. Including ghosts and the Forth Bridge. Hope you all had a good new year, let's hope 2011 isn't as bad as what preceded it.

Cold Days

2010-12-25T20:05:00.002Z

Before I dived into writing this year's Christmas blog, I re-read last years one. It would seem that I have a lot to live up to - by my own standards anyway. I'm not sure if I'll be able to top the Dead Cow Day stuff or not but I'll give it a go.

I found out today that for it to be a white Christmas then it actually has to be snowing on the day. What a load of bollocks. I look out the window and all I can see covering the landscape is a blanket of snow. This blanket of snow has been with us since the end of November and still, because none of those flakes actually fell today it's technically not a white Christmas. What more do people want? It's white outside. Everything is covered in snow. It's abnormally cold, even for this time of year and it's still not a white Christmas. Someone really dropped the ball there, didn't they? Bing Cuntsby's dream isn't coming true today.

That leads me nicely into the first main topic. Christmas music. Every year it comes along and every year I grow to hate it even more than I thought I did. I could go about naming and shaming some of these Christmas Cunts as I colourfully refer to them as but I'm sure you all know who they are. Most of them are dead as well now - not that that has much relevance on things. I was being haunted by kid Jacko's voice even before he died. The Jackson Five have a lot to answer for in terms of my sanity.

Then there are the profoundly stupid lyrics to Christmas songs. Did you know that snow isn't brought by anything nearly as far-fetched and absurd as Arctic and Siberian weather systems? That's just witchcraft. Snow is brought by snowmen. You might have thought that snowmen were just a result of the snow falling but after six weeks of being told that snow has been brought by snowmen has finally caused me to snap.

Of course, the snowman this year has been a bit of a sadistic prick. Not only has he been laughing at us all struggling to buy presents because of blocked roads he's also decided to try and cripple Scotland. I don't know if anyone noticed but a few weeks ago there was a snowman standing on the new(ish) pedestrian bridge over the M8 at Harthill laughing manically as he closed Scotland's most important motorway during the morning rush. If I lived in Edinburgh or Glasgow, Mr Snowman would be getting a severe booting to the baws for that.

There's another song, I have no idea who sings it but there's a line in it that goes: "a choir of children sing this song, they practised all year long". After that you're expecting something good, something that's taken a whole year to perfect. Instead you get: ding dong, ding dong, ding dong".

What kind of morons spent a year perfecting and practising those lines? Was it the Cupar Children's Choir by any chance?
"Right kids, we've been asked to sing back-up vocals on a Christmas song. All you have to do is sing ding dong."
"Hyuck hyuck hyuck..."
"Thank fuck we've got a year to perfect this."

To add salt to the wounds of those stupid kids that take an entire year to learn how to sing ding dong we get another song where they master it on the first take. It's nice to know that not everyone is stupid. Not that the song mentioned in this paragraph is good, if anything it just brings back horrible memories of being forced to sing in primary school. I was always that awkward kid who stood at the back and just mouthed the words. No surprises there.

So why is it that I don't like Christmas? It's not really a case of not liking it, it's just that I don't get it. Anyone who reads this knows I'm not religious. That means that I don't celebrate Easter either but no-one bats an eyelid at that. No-one bats an eyelid either when I opt out of Ramadan but dare to ignore Christmas. Go on, I dare you. At this time of year I tend to have to put up with people talking about minty sweets with toffee in the centre. I don't get it. I like humbugs, what have they got to do with me not liking Christmas?

Of course I'm joking. What I really need to go is go back in time and boot Dickens in the dick for coining that annoying phrase.

I also feel disconnected with the whole thing. Christmas is supposed to be this big, magical experience where wishes come true and dreams flows through the air. However, as exciting at it was. The excitement almost always led to a feeling of disappointment when I was a kid. I used to get excited at the thought of Santa coming (though even as a kid I never believed he came down the chimney - I assumed he just let himself in through the front door).

The problem was never the presents as I always liked and appreciated them but the whole thing was always over so soon. You'd start getting hyped up mid November time and then after all that excitement and build up, the day was over before it had even started. Only another 365 days till the next one. 366 if it was a leap year.

Oddly enough, I don't hate the commercialisation and materialistic nature of the holiday either. Without it I doubt I'd have a job. I just find it difficult to connect with a holiday that I don't really care about. I talked last year about it being a bastardised version of the Winter solstice celebrations that used to happen around this time of year. I still get oddly excited about seasonal changeovers. I stayed up on the 21st to witness the exact moment where Autumn ceased to be and Winter began. Of course, weather-wise, Winter had about a month on the solstice but it doesn't make the time any less significant. The sun doesn't care about Arctic winds or snowmen. The Earth's position in relation to the sun is the best seasonal marker as it takes into account general trends and not one-off events like this year's dodgy weather.

Speaking of arbitrary changeovers, what about New Year? I'm not going to have a go at New Year because it's a holiday I really do genuinely enjoy. I get to spend time with my friends drinking nice ales and whiskies by a hot fire followed by a stroll up Hill Of Tarvit to watch all of Fife's fireworks.

It's a holiday based on traditions we created ourselves and not one where those traditions were forced upon me with the expectation that I follow them blindly.

Anyway, it's all pretty much over now and I've still got New Year to look forward to so everything can have a positive slant if I think about it enough.

I hope everyone got that train set they asked for.
Happy Dead Cow Day everyone.

Nine One Four

2010-12-20T14:43:00.007Z

The current A914 runs from the New Inn roundabout north of Glenrothes to the Forgan Roundabout south of the Tay Bridge with a two and a half mile gap in the route between Cupar and Dairsie. I can't say I'm a huge fan of the New Inn to Cupar section but that's not the part of the road I have to drive every day so I'm only going to focus on Dairsie onwards.

So what is the main problem with the road? It's utterly useless for the level of traffic it has to deal with. I'm not even talking about dualling the route or anything like that, I'm talking about the obscene number of bends. Thankfully Googlemaps has streetview all the way along the road so I can show specific examples.

Have a look at this part of the road, if you look straight ahead from the bend you can see the A914 in the distance running straight into Balmullo. Can you see any obvious geographical features in this space between this bend and the road in the distance? Can you see any reason why the road doesn't run in a straight line here? You can't because there is no reason. The road fannies about pointlessly ruining any chance of overtaking until you reach that straight in the distance.

Of course, the reasoning for this silly arrangement of stupidity is because the road was built from old farm tracks. Why the farmers couldn't just sacrifice a bit of land one on side of the road and gain a little bit later on to make a straight road is a question that could be asked now. However, they probably all hated each other and the coming of the road probably caused them to get the pitchforks out.

There could be a little straightening done on the section between Balmullo and St. Michaels but for the most part the terrain is hillier for that bit so let it pass. Once in St. Michaels you'd be forgiven for thinking that was the end of the road but what actually happens is that the A914 carries on north. It's a bit complicated but it makes sense when you remember that the A914 used to be the A92 - the main route from the Newport ferry to Kirkcaldy.

Once you turn left at St. Michaels the road begins to get really fucking shitty. I've given this section of road a colourful nickname due to my experiences with it over the last few years. I call it Hell's Pass because it really is that bad.

This is the road that links Cupar and St. Andrews, two large towns with Scotland's fourth biggest city and what kind of road do we get to perform this job? A joke with more bends than an Alpine pass. There are two theories behind why this road is the way it is.

First off we have the Simpsons Theory of the A914 which suggests the road was built with Homer yelling at the construction workers:
"House to left, house to the right! Field! Church! Cattle!"
This caused the road to constantly skid from side to side and created the bendy failure we see today/

The second theory is the Futurama Theory of the A914 which suggests that the two road planners on the job were like Zapp and Kif.
Zapp: Kif, I'm feeling the planner's itch.
Kif: I'll get the powder, sir.
Zapp: No, the itch for adventure! Prepare to change course.
Kif: Sir, this is a main road. Our path was set by common sense.
[He presses a button and a map comes down on the wall showing the route is a straight line from St. Michaels to the Forgan Roundabout.]
Zapp: That's for schoolgirls! Now here's a route with some chest hair.
[He squiggles a new course onto the map.]
Kif: But that course leads directly through people's houses.
Zapp: Yes, houses! The icebergs of the fields. By jack-knifing from one to the next at breakneck speed drivers might just get some kind of gravity boost... or something.

Personally, I prefer the second theory but you can make up your own mind as long as you back it up with evidence. 2000 words maximum.

The route can probably be explained by the fact that originally, the road never really went anywhere due to it ending at a ferry terminal. This doesn't excuse the fact that we've been left with a horrible, bendy, A road that feels like a B road that takes a lot of traffic.

Then again, the A914 would have a lot less problems if people actually drove it at a reasonable speed and by reasonable speed I don't mean 40 on the straights and 35 on the bends. If I can take the bends comfortably between 50 and 60 (bar one or two that do require 40) then every car driver can.

The A914 even makes slow drivers out of normal people. I was behind a guy travelling at 50 but once he reached Hell's Pass he went no faster than 40 and there's no reason for it.

So what would be better?

Notice how my improvement manages to run straight except where I tie it into the old route. Also notice how the current A914 looks so much better in unclassified yellow. Fife council needs to build this - it'd save a lot of stress and hassle on Fife's worst road.

If you liked that quickly thrown together map, here's one I made last year:

I'm maybe going too far into the realms of fantasy with that one...

Anyway, that's it for this double entry. My next entry will be Saturday as I plan to write my annual Christmas blog and thank fuck it is an annual event because there are only so many stewed fruit pies I can cope with.

Travelling The East Coast

2010-12-12T21:41:00.002Z

At this time of year you'd be forgiven for thinking that I was about to write an entry about the snow. Instead I'm going to just do something I've been told I should do for a while and vent my frustrations on the A914. It's been a long time coming and I've not wanted to do it for a number of reasons, the main one being that I wasn't sure if I'd be able to make it funny or not. However, with Christmas coming I need something even more annoying to distract me from it.

Before I go into the full blown rant I'm going to talk about the A92 for a while instead. Unlike the A914, the A92 is my favourite east coast main road and at one time was the main road between Dundee and Aberdeen. The A92 has changed route drastically since it was first built. It originally ran from Inverkeithing to Fraserburgh but now it only travels from Dunfermline to Stonehaven. When I was a kid I originally thought Stonehaven was where Stonehenge was. Now I know it's just home to a train station and some chippies.

The section of A92 between Arbroath and Stonehaven is a lot of fun to drive and makes a great alternative to the speed traps on the A90. Then again the speed traps only get you if you're speeding (because I would obviously never dream of going faster than a signposted speed limit).

The A92 is a historic route and although it's now all entirely superseded by the M90/A90 it still forms a vital route through Fife. The original route also tended to follow the Edinburgh to Aberdeen railway line as far as possible meaning that the A92 once ran through Kingskettle, Cupar, Dairsie, Balmullo and St. Michaels before reaching the ferry in Newport. However, during the mass east coast renumbering that took place in the 1990's the route of the A92 swapped with the route of the A914 which ran alongside Ladybank before racing through the hills of north Fife.

Now we're getting somewhere. If they hadn't changed the road numbers around, I'd be writing a hate-filled entry about part of the A92 but they decided to make my life easier by isolating the bad section and naming it the A914 instead. The east coast renumbering gets a bit complicated and even killed off a motorway* but I felt it essential to talk about it a little bit. It sets the scene, sort of.

The original route of the A92 was an integral part of Fife's road network and a very important road between two ferries back when it was built. However, with the Tay and Forth bridges being built the importance of the route dropped as more people opted for the cross country route which was a faster way to get to Kirkcaldy. That's not to say that the current A914 isn't important as it has to take both Cupar and St. Andrews traffic to Dundee...

On that note I'll conclude this week's entry by telling you to disregard all of the complicated renumbering stuff (I could actually talk about it for hours which is probably why no-one will talk to me**) and just consider how important a road the current A914 is. I'll rant next week in part two of my first ever two part entry.

*the motorway still exists, it just became part of another motorway. If you want to know the full story then check out this link.

**I'm part of a roads forum where plenty of people are more than happy to talk to me about this kind of thing. In the pub I try and keep this stuff to a minimum - unless Drewbeck provokes me.

Questions & Answers

2010-12-05T21:31:00.007Z

I've been wanting to write an entry about death for a while now, mainly because it's been an active feature of my life over the past few months with the death of three people I know, well, two people and one cat. Oddly enough the cat affected me the most. The problem with writing an entry like this is that I like to keep a certain level of humour to everything I do other wise life becomes too depressing. Unfortunately once you start telling dead baby jokes people begin to call you all the cunts of the day.

Since it's now December I've decided to get into the Christmas spirit by means of a virtual advent calendar on flickr. Though the theme for the advent is to have a different photo from my archives each day meaning that December's photos will be a lot more summery than expected. Then again I hate Christmas so it's a good way to take something associated with the event and display it as a big fuck you to the cold and expense of the festive season.

Why am I mentioning this in context with the opening paragraph? As I was looking through my archives from the last year I came across a photo of piece of junk-mail I received earlier in the year. Most of our junk-mail came from a Somerfield that was about 15 minutes walk from the flat but that mysteriously stopped about a year ago. I recently discovered that this was because the Somerfield had become a Scotmid. Shows how often I go up that way if it took me a year to work out why we were getting less shite through the door.

I was originally going to upload this as part of my flickr advent calendar and have a wee go at it on there but the more I thought about it the more I felt I had to say about it.

Does God really care about us?
No.

Will war and suffering ever end?
Only once we rid the World of religion and natural resources. Even then I'm sure people will find something to fight over.

What happens to us when we die?
Not a lot. Sit in a hole forever more or get burnt, depending on your preferences.

Is there any hope for the dead?
Hope for what exactly? It's a bit of an open ended question. Hope that they'll be happy? Have an afterlife? What exactly? I'm sure the question really means "will the dead get into heaven?" The bible can answer that. If you're a cunt you're going to hell. It doesn't put it quite like that but you get the idea. Either way, the dead are dead so they don't need hope. As long as you have good memories of those you loved it doesn't matter what happens to them when they die as that's not the part people should be reflecting on.

How can I pray and be heard by God?
Shout into a megaphone and hope you're yelling in the right direction. Either that or just don't bother as it's a futile exercise anyway.

How can I find happiness in life?
By doing the things you enjoy doing and trying not to reflect on the bad times. If you happen to enjoy spending your life praying and thanking God for taking away everyone you love then feel free to keep doing it.

What I don't get about this kind of junk-mail is that if religious beliefs as strong as this actually made sense in the real world then they wouldn't need to be recruiting this way. Everyone would realise that the idea of an all powerful God made sense but the concept of God is a way of trying to answer the above questions. However my beliefs, or a lack thereof, say that there is no deeper meaning to things and that means that those questions can very easily be answered.

As humans we have far higher reasoning skills than any other animal on the planet. Unless it turns out giraffes have been mastering sudoku puzzles for centuries without us realising - the cunning long necked bastards. With said reasoning skills the human brain has to work out why we're here. Reason has to exist for us to be able to reason, if you follow my line of thought here. However, that's not the way I think of life.

If we go back to basics or at least look at the way other animals and even plants live we can note that all they want out of life is to survive. Eat, drink and reproduce is all that is going on. Going from this my reasoning leads me to believe that there is no reason for us being here other than the fact that we can be here. Death occurs because of entropy and in the end there isn't a great, deep meaning to it all. In essence, life is just a bunch of stuff that happens.

That's not to say that death shouldn't affect us in any way, it's just that there is no deeper meaning involved. I know that not everyone could cope with the way I think about things but I couldn't cope believing there was an afterlife. I'd end up being hopeful that one day I'd be reunited with everyone I cared about then just be disappointed when it didn't happen. Of course I wouldn't really be disappointed because I'd be dead but that's a moot point.

A few months ago I was on a walk and for part of it I was following the roadside. Along this portion of the walk I saw two birds by the side of the road. It looked like one had recently been hit by a car. The partner of the dead bird was standing next to the dead bird looking lost and confused. The whole scene was painfully tragic and I felt upset having witnessed it. There's no way we'll ever know exactly how other animals cope with this kind of thing but the feeling of emptiness is something that I think we all can relate to.

It's been almost a month since the big ginger wuss died and I still miss him every day and will do for some time but the main thing for me is not to focus on his death and instead reflect only on the happiness he brought into my life. Since he was a cat there are no bad memories associated with his life. No silly arguments over nothing to have to worry about in his story and I suppose that only makes it harder in the long run because there is no part in me that could ever find a reason to fault him.

The other thing to consider in this situation is that we never remember someone as "that guy who died". We remember them for who they were and what they meant to us. Then again, I might have got it all wrong myself. When I die I might have an afterlifetime of being a spooky ghost to look forward to. Boo.

I'm not fully sure how to end this as I seem to have come full circle. I'll write something a little less imposing and personal next week but I've been wanting to put those thoughts down into words for a little while now and even if some find it offensive, I don't care because that's just my World view, even if it is a little out of place with the views of everyone else.

Poe-eee-em

2010-11-21T21:34:00.004Z

Whether pronounced poem or poeeeeeeeeem (the former being the way I'd pronounce it) I will probably think it's a bit shit. I've never really liked poems for a number of reasons. Forced rhyming schemes grate on me. They're apparently super meaningful but generally tend to just be pretentious garbage. Primary school made me learn Burns poems off by heart. That's not to say poetry doesn't have it's place and I do tend to appreciate song lyrics but for the most part - no.

Whenever anyone mentions Burns to me the first thing I think of is my online nickname but that's irrelevant and has nothing to do with the poet. Thinking of the poet I just remember the annoying poetry we were forced to memorise as kids - though despite having it forced down my throat I still can't remember it properly: "A wee shimmerin' timmerin' fuckwitterin' beastie..."

No, that doesn't sound quite right and shows just how much impact his work really had on my life. The worst poem though has to be the grace he wrote. Again we were forced to say it at primary school. School, once again forcing religion upon everyone without any consideration for their beliefs. Though I suppose you could argue that primary school children aren't yet old enough to choose their spiritual path but I've already talked about this kind of thing in the past.

The grace we were forced to say goes like this:
"Some hae meat that canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it;
But we hae meat, and we can eat,
And sae the Lord be thankit."

Which translates to:
"Some have meat that cannot eat
And some would eat that want for it
But we have meat, and we can eat
So let the Lord be thanked for it."

If any of that is wrong blame the website I copy/pasted that from.

Anyway, let's have a closer look at that small piece of pish. Some have meat but cannot eat. The fuck's wrong with them? Has someone stitched their mouths together? Have they got some kind of mouth cancer? If they can't eat for whatever unrealistic reason then what are they doing with the meat in the first place? Give it to someone who can it eat it you pricks.

"Some would eat that want for it". That doesn't even make sense in modern day English let alone old Scots. Does it mean they have meat yet want more? Greedy bastards. Or does it mean they don't have the meat yet want some? If that's the case then why don't the lepers who can't eat their meat pass it over? They won't be touching it anyway.

The third line applies to me. I have Cumberland sausages waiting for my tea tomorrow night though it won't be the lord I'm thanking for them, it'll be pig farmers who reared their stock to delicious levels before selling that meat to Morrisons I'll be thanking for that and even then if I hadn't bought those sausages some other chump would have.

Don't even get me started on McGonagall...

Cat In The Snowdrops

2010-11-14T22:19:00.002Z

I'll write something new next week but to fill the gap, here's something I wrote earlier: http://catinthesnowdrops.blogspot.com/

The Sound Of Falling Leaves

2010-11-07T21:11:00.002Z

If I ever decide to rip on religion I tend to feel bad about it afterwards so tonight I'm going to answer an age old question that has been troubling people for years. If a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound?

Of course it does.

That would be a pretty quick entry if I left it at that which I could do if I felt like it but I feel I should try and explain my answer a little.

When a tree falls the sound created causes vibrations in the air which can be interpreted by any animal's auditory system. Whether someone is around to pick up these vibrations are irrelevant because the vibrations will exist no matter what.

One of the common arguments I read when looking up the ideas for this blog suggests that sound is only sound once it's been interpreted by the auditory system which is a nice clean cut distinction but nothing in life is ever that clean cut, no matter how much people want it to be.

Just because sound wasn't picked up by anyone doesn't mean it didn't exist in the first place. The phrase "making a sound" implies that somewhere along the line it was created. If the common phrase was "interpreting vibrations" the people that use the clean cut argument may be onto something but as far as I'm concerned sound exists even if we aren't there to hear it because it was created.

I read a good argument agreeing with my point of view so I'm going to paraphrase it in my own words and apply it to a particular story. During December 2008 Idlewild played five gigs at King Tuts in Glasgow. Each night they rocked through a different album from their back catalogue. I was lucky enough to be at the first two nights.

On the second night instead of opening with the actual album opener they opened with an instrumental b-side from the same era which was an absolute pleasure to watch. Unfortunately throughout the song my friend kept trying to ask me what the song was called because he couldn't remember.

Unfortunately for him I couldn't here him over the music - therefore I can ask the question; If a person tries to talk over a loud band at a gig, do they make a sound? The answer you instantly come up with here is yes because you know they are trying to say something. The fact you can't hear them is because of a louder noise coming from elsewhere in the environment. The same can be applied to the tree in the forest question. Just because you didn't hear the sound it doesn't mean it isn't there.

I actually saw a counter argument for that as well...
A. Retard wrote: "How do we know said tree fell if no one was around to witness it, or even hear it?"

Well, Mr Retard, if you go into the woods today you may well see a fallen tree with a snapped trunk lying on the ground. Observe this tree for a moment, it hardly fucking grew that way did it you moron! Of course a fallen tree fell, even if you didn't see or hear it fall. Hope this answers your query.

By reducing the question to that level I hope I've managed to show exactly why a falling tree does make a sound even without the presence of a person to interpret it. Of course a woodland will never be completely void of life as there will always be insects and small mammals like squirrels dorking it up and creating danger. Especially red squirrels - there's a reason the countryside is littered with exclamation mark warning signs about them. A squirrel would hurt everyone you care about given half the chance...

Anyway, I'm digressing from the issue at hand. Though their auditory systems will differ from that of a human they'll still be able to interpret the sound created by a falling tree and since these animals will always be present in a woodland environment (seriously, there is no woodland in the World that isn't swarming with wildlife) then a tree falling in the woods will make a sound.

That was a rather long winded way of just saying yes to a simple question and Bart's response will always be the best where he imitates the sound of the falling tree because that's exactly what it would do. Come back next week and I'll have a look at some west coast poetry.

PS: Fireworks!