Wings Over Scotland

Scrub that last request, it’s appeared now.

Last episode of Dark to watch for me tonight.

Tune from series that pricked my ears.

May and Robert Koch – Bad Kingdom

link to youtube.com

@Tinto

Youtube has some really great vids on stuff like processing and filleting different types of food. Pike and Perch can be made boneless with a little practice.
Is it a cultural thing that we seem so fussy and accustomed to fillets where as baking a whole fish and picking the meat off the bone is often a very good way of getting more out of the fish. Though of course we do go off piste with an Arbroath Smokie…

This was just a small Pike I kept today. I always put larger ones back and as I’m interested in conservation I’ve learnt to sex the fish too! Behave, that doesn’t mean what you think although a sharp whack on the napper does pretty much fuck them…
Pike will predate on each other until they get to a decent size, so putting back females and only keeping males helps as a large female is safe from getting chomped and can mate with a wee guy (if of course that suits their genders!).

The flesh on fish a few pounds upwards in weight is pretty firm and will take a bit of cooking without turning to mush like a haddock fillet, this means it is great for certain dishes. I produced a pretty epic Pike Jalfrezi many years ago much to my visiting family’s amazement.

Mushroom wise, you’d have to be trippin’ to muck up identifying a chanterelle! 😉

@Tinto

Of course you wouldn’t torment a poor trapped invalid with lovingly described detail of a visit to licenced premises, would you, you…?!!*

Love the Vaughan Williams Fantasia. I have been bingeing music since my accident and it tends to be unintentionally by country. Last month it was the Great Russians and then due to Radio3 bringing back Tippett, it’s going to be English composers – Tippett of course, Britten, Vaughan Williams, Finzi, Tallis, Purcell…

So with two of my favourite pieces you offered, I’ve aleady embarked. Where to after that? Well, I also listen to African music and gamelan ( Balinese & Javanese).

Dan intimidates me. My foraging is confined to the freezer and the fridge. When the apocalypse comes, I’ll starve.

link to youtube.com

This is the Vaughan Williams Fantasia recorded in Lincoln Cathedral. I remember when it was put out on TV, It’s a marvellous space and the setting shows the two string orchestras effectively with the smaller at the other end of the cathedral space, echoing the larger orchestra. It produces an other-wordly effect.

I was going to start the last series of Dark but I’ll leave it until tomorrow. My life is packed with incident & excitement.

And keeping to a “themes from TV current affairs progs” agenda, I offer this.

link to youtube.com

JGedd: I’m glad I didn’t mention Thursday’s light and crispy tempura batter gently embracing the perfectly cooked translucent flakes of plump haddock resting on a golden bed of the airiest slivers of pommes frites, nestling aside a chaste ramekin of caper-bejewelled sauce tartare de la maison 😉 .

I supposed you’ve heard the Peter Mandelson joke and urban myth about his first visit to a chippy in workaday Hartlepool (the WM seat he had been parachuted into). He ordered cod and chips and “some of that lovely guacamole” which turned out to be the inevitable mushy peas.

That was a really beautiful film of the VW. Sometimes these things can be better than the mental pictures you paint while listening. I don’t think they do them much now because the BBC can’t really be Goved.

@BDTT: death to Kevin Turvey and all his works! Thought for a moment Krazy Kat was a reference to a high-volume M/T contributor who sometimes enters the cat-flap here……………..

Hey Tinto Chiel & JGedd

Hope you are both well……

There’s too much news going on in the world just now …hard to keep up….no sooner do we start moaning about something another things comes up….Lol

I watched a video the other night on an Indy twitter account of Manky shirt with sideburns…sideburns were on him not me Lol….that guy is not right….he was playing..and I quote.. ‘British rock music” in the background and quoting the words of the track…” Defender…of the…faith”…

Reminded me of those serial Killers who quote the bible as justification for them killing people….

Proves Care in the Community does NOT work…..I have to assume he is off his meds…….if not, then the ones he is on are NOT working…..

Mad Mad world is it not…….

@Tinto

Fish & chips! You are bad, so ye ur. Your talents would be better employed writing the blurb on one of those upscale (or up themselves) eating establishments like Heston Blumenthal’s where you could write rapturous prose about three squiggles of liquorice, beetroot & minced jellyfish on a plate/slate being culinary joy for which they should pay a fortune.

I enjoyed the joke about Mandelson. Fits that character perfectly. Oily git. Blair could pick ’em.

Though not about a slimy politician, it reminded me of one of my sons telling me about being in a bunch of students ordering fish suppers when one asked tentatively,”Do you do monkfish?

That was a beautiful film of the VW Fantasia where everything came together – filming, setting, music – to create something close to perfection. By the way, I got the location wrong. It was Gloucester Cathedral which I should have remembered since that was where it was first performed.

@BDTT

That’s stirring stuff from Sibelius. He was an enthusiastic Finnish nationalist & supporter of Finland’s independence from Tsarist Russia. (Interestingly, though Finland had been granted autonomous rights, Nicholas II issued a manifesto declaring that he could revoke Finnish autonomy if it clashed with Russian interests. Sound familiar?

By the way, you are doing sterling work on Quarantine. Are you going to do all of the constituencies eventually? I am particularly interested in the South of Scotland since I am pondering on what to do with my vote/s. We have two really good SNP list MSPs, one being Joan Mcalpine.

@Clapper57

Hi, Clapper. Hirpling along here thanks.

Are you taking refuge from the MT too? Such total certainty is a real killer of debate isn’t it? Pure tribalism.

Hope you are well & keeping cheerful, despite everything.

@ Tinto Chiel @ 10.18pm

Indeed the MT is a bit of a trial….I keep saying to myself right that’s it no more comments on MT just stay on OT….indeed any time you manage to interact with someone your response ends up sandwiched between peeps arguments and name calling….I give up …..again….till the next time…Lol

Yes there are lots of Rockets about….and some of them end up on the MT…

Glad you are well….

@ JGedd

Yes Refuge from the storm on MT…another one…

Sorry about your leg….what happened ?…If you don’t mind me asking ?….apologies if you have already mentioned on OT…I don’t always keep up with the comments on here…but then I start to miss the friendly bunch on here and always come back for a wee chinwag and to listen to some of the songs you all add via links….

Yes you are right…some can get a wee bit tribal….they haven’t learnt that one can have a different opinion without insulting those who hold an opposing one……I tend to ignore the more mad ones who constantly insult others as you cannae argue with ignorant…..

Yes I am keeping well thank you….

@ Dan @ 10.45pm

Hi Dan, hope you are well.

That WAS an interesting alternative version indeed….really liked the girl’s voice…..kept thinking of ‘IT’ when I was looking at the clown singing….mind you I get the same feeling looking at another clown when he gives… sporadically… the Daily Updates….i.e. Boris Johnson…Lol

Hope you all three have a lovely day tomorrow…..

Hi Tinto Chiel.

“Rear Window”.

Have you seen this?

link to youtube.com

Hi JGedd.

I first came across the Intermezzo from The Karelia Suite as the signature tune for the 1960s current affairs programme “This Week”.

The first track I heard by The Nice was their version of “America” from West Side Story. I still have the single I rushed out to buy.

link to youtube.com

I then bought their album “Ars Longa Vita Brevis” and on that, was a version of “Intermezzo From The Karelia Suite”. Here’s a live version.

link to youtube.com

In the early 70s, I bought an LP which featured the music of Grieg (of Scots descent!) and Sibelius, including The Karelia Suite.

So when Rik Mayall, as Kevin Turvey in “A Kick Up The 80s”, used Alle Marcia as his signature tune, I recognised it.

link to youtube.com

———————————————

Quarantine calculations.

I’ve been busy the past couple of weeks carrying out ‘spring cleaning’ on my two Macs.

My intention is still to do Glasgow, Lothian and West Scotland. I wasn’t going to bother with South Scotland and Highlands and Islands, as ISP have said they won’t stand in those two regions because the SNP have a list MSP in H&I and three in South Scotland.

However, it may be interesting to see what effect a hypothetical ‘pro-indy’ party would have had in those two regions, if they had stood in 2016.

As I get the remaining regions done, I’ll post here with a link to ‘Quarantine’.

@BDTT: have never seen that before and it’s a brilliant compilation. Safely pouched in my faves, so fanx. Inspiration for anti-Christ Microsoft’s Windows?

I’ll bet if the Not So Amazing Grace Kelly had been replaced by, say, Kim Novak, James Stewart wouldn’t have spent his time staring out his window…….

Clapper57: you’ve got to push through the regret/shame barrier when posting on Wings to achieve true contentment 🙂 .

@BDTT: God, she’s not another of your favourite blondes, is she? 🙂

Not even Grace in whatever-the-name-of-that-garment-she-was almost-wearing could float my boat (geddit?).

See wot you mean about that sentimental old song but I prefer The Prodigy’s version 😉 .

I’m beginning to think you’re just a big softy…………

@Clapper57: “I remember a time on MT when we all used to interact.”

Yes, but now we seem to get turbo-charged Duracell Bunnies on speed simply thrawing and disrupting.

Re Sarah: everyone needs a rest. Capella’s been MIA for a while and, although I don’t always agree with her on SNP matters, she’s spot on on GRA.

But then I’m only a non-uterus bearer who cares very much about four uterus-bearers in my family.

Big Reveal: did you pure ken there is a hill above EK where you can see Goat Fell to the west and the Forth Railway bridge and Hillend Ski Centre from the same spot, deo volente?

#The Wonders of Scotland.

@BDTT: what was that saying about knowing Doris Day before she was a virgin?

I try to concentrate on a good book and a milky drink at bedtime now….

@ Tinto Chiel @ 8.48pm

“Big Reveal: did you pure ken there is a hill above EK where you can see Goat Fell to the west and the Forth Railway bridge and Hillend Ski Centre from the same spot, deo volente?”

Hi Tinto…no I did not …but living in Scotland I know chances are God is never usually willing….

Re Sarah fair enough we all need time away from MT…hence my writing this on OT….and did notice Capella too was not posting….

Have a nice day tomorrow Tinto

@ Dan @ 1107pm

Lol…so a wee chore then….a man’s work is never done for sure…..

Rest well tonight….hard work repairing a Chimney…have a good Sweep…sorry mean Sleep….

What the Hell is a gable wall head when it’s at home ?

I had a hard day too… I washed some dishes in the sink…which sounds comparitive to the work you did today…Lol

Have a restful day tomorrow…hope in saying this I have not jinxed you again…Lol

@Clapper57: “…but living in Scotland I know chances are God is never usually willing….”

Reminds me of the old story about Saint Peter complaining to God that he has been too generous to the Scots at The Creation.

“You have made their men brave and hardy and their women intelligent and beautiful, given them woods and moors full of game, rivers abundant in fish and majestic mountains where the eagles soar. Don’t you think you have been over-generous?”

“Maybe,” says God, “but just wait and see who I give them for neighbours.”

It’s the way He tells them 🙂 .

@Dan

Am I the only one who (almost) envies you going up and down scaffolding? Going up and down stairs is like the ascent and descent of Everest to me at the moment. But hey, I’m down to using just one stick now. Progress.

By the way, don’t let Tinto lure you into the dark arts of trellis wrestling. ( Whisper it: I think he picked it up in a Turkish prison? But keep that under your hat.)

When you go a-foraging, do you have a hat with a big brim and bobbing corks suspended from it? And do you knit your own jumpers from wool gathered from barbed wire fences? You see, I still feel intimidated.

Come the Brexitapocalypse, I am going to have to take tips from you on how to survive. I might have to eat my gammy leg – though you kindly offered air-dried chips to go with it.

Hi Tinto Chiel.

Nina Carter/Corinne Russell

I’ve just been browsing YouTube and came across the link below. Somebody’s put together a short bio of the pair and, no, I am not Funky Moped!
If you watch it, pause on the text, because the uploader hasn’t allowed enough time to read the text before it disappears.

link to youtube.com

@Dan

Seriously though, we don’t know what lies ahead after Brexit and the pandemic. I have a feeling that many of us urban numpties will have to learn from resourceful folk like you & yes, the work ethic of having to source food other than from supermarkets is quite daunting, as well as doing our own repairs.

I admit to not having many of the skills required. Down our way we had a commune of hippies who had formed in the spirit of the 60s & 70s but frankly, though inoffensive folk who helped the locals out with some wacky baccy, they weren’t really serious and most of them drifted away back to middle-class homes in the south. It was fun while it lasted.

In the future though, perhaps the need for pooling of skills in some kind of communal enterprise might happen again and this time out of necessity and not just as a lifestyle choice. Who knows?

Morning, Clapper57. Yes, the Turbo-charged Duracell Bunnies were out again last night so I went to bed early with my Trollope.

Re Manky Shirt man and Heavy Metal, I give you a Tommy Cooper Joke Experience No.103:

“A man walked into a bar.

“Ow!”

It was an iron bar.”

@BDTT: I remember Carter and Russell now. NALOPKT they played up front for Montrose in the late 60s before the lure of the bright lights took them to ply their trade down in Lunnon. Even the Arbroath supporters were disappointed.

@ Tinto Chiel @ 9.33am

““A man walked into a bar.

“Ow!”

It was an iron bar.”

Lol Tinto…..Loved Tommy Cooper though Benny Hill was my favourite…his face…the expressions…so funny.

Hope you are well….I’m gonna take a wee break from posting on WOS…recharge me batteries…non Duracell you see…I operate on the short life ones…Lol

Have a nice evening….

BDTT’s choice of Sibelius in stirring nationalist mode reminds me that we don’t have current Scottish composers in that frame of mind. Scotland’s most notable composer, James MacMillan, even seems to hate Scotland with a passion.

Perhaps we live in a less innocent age when people view nationalism with a jaundiced eye unless it’s the American or British sort which escapes any kind of dark connotations – apparently – or even escapes being called ‘nationalism.’ It seems to be Scotland’s curse that we went for independence too late.

However, a composer who wasn’t born here but lived here, in Orkney, was the late Peter Maxwell Davies. He supported Scottish independence and here are two pieces of music he composed that demonstrate his affection for Scotland (particularly Orkney) – the gentle ‘Farewll to Stromness’ and the more rowdy ‘Orkney Wedding & Sunrise’.

(We’ve all been to weddings like that. Except for Tinto, that is, who probably retires to a quiet corner with his Trollope.)

link to youtube.com

link to youtube.com

@Tinto

‘I’m a great lover of humanity, it’s just most folk I can’t be bothered with’

I’m in total agreement with that sentiment!

Yes, Mr MacMillan appears to have unresolved issues methinks. I remember he got a 2-page spread in The Guardian about 15 years ago(?) in which he delivered an incendiary, contentious diatribe against Scotland. However, it was clear that his focus was on Protestantism.

Religion seems to be the origin of what can only be described as loathing of the society from which he came. He comes from Kilwinning, which could be called a centre of Orangeism I think, which might be the origin of his extreme attitudes. Intolerance creates intolerance. For him, it’s pay back time.

He doesn’t recognise that he has become the mirror image of what he detests. Since he is educated and articulate he can be given a platform by the likes of The Guardian, unlike the unthinking oafs of the Orange Order. (It’s an irony that he and the Orangemen of Kilwinning are on the same side when it comes to Scottish independence though.)

No one at The Guardian would correct nonsense such as equating the Scottish Reformation to Cambodian Year Zero. They see everything through the prism of their own historical perspectives and their Reformation was bloody. Clearly those savage people to the north were likely to be worse.

As you say, the unintended consequence of educating the laity by the reformers, in order that they could read their bibles and question what they had been taught by often illiterate priests, led almost inevitably over time, to the Enlightenment. Once the genie is out of the bottle etc…

Day off from building work as too fuckin scorchio to be on a roof and any nearer the sun than needs be!

Sarah, where art thou? Hope all is ok with you and yours and yer jist taking a break and busy in the garden.

JGedd, further larder stocking today as harvested 4.5lbs of blackcurrants from my 6 bushes and have made jam. Wowser it packs some flavour!
I’m building up stocks of so much tasty stuff that I may have to start taking advance bookings for folk wanting to come stay when the apocalypse kicks in.
TBH, there’s so much work to do around here folk can rock up now and pitch in.
The local farm needs an egg farmer so if anyone fancies saying to heck with city life and taking on the excitement of country life and keeping a hunner chickens safe from marauding predators then the options there. Could be a busy job as the last 50 chickens got reduced to a dozen in short time. Free Range certainly ain’t all it’s cracked up to be the chickens round these parts!

@Dorothy

Mentioning the prickly desert plant word will get your posts held in moderation.
Stu obviously adds certain words into the word filter to catch and moderate stuff.
In my experience the posts will most likely show up when he gets a chance to look over the site.

@Dan

I feel tired out just reading about your daily labours. I might have to lie down.

My mother would have loved you. Every summer for about two days out of our hols, we kids were trailed with her to her own secret spot in our countryside hinterland to pick raspberries then later, brambles. We always emerged stained like assassins with more berries inside us than in her baskets.

(She had remembered that hidden spot from before the war when it had been an allotment which had been abandoned. The rasberry canes kept going.) Blackcurrants had to be sourced with a visit to the Clyde Valley fruit farms but I didn’t mind that since you simply bought the punnets from the side of the road – no picking involved and no moaning about prickles in your fingers then.)

We forgave her those treks to pick fruit which always seemed to happen on hot days, since, on coming home from school, you could smell the wonderful aromas coming from the kitchen where the big jampot sat bubbling and anticipate the first tasting of that year’s harvest of jam. There’s nothing like homemade.

Thanks everyone , I will be more careful with the links next time!

But I happen to like the prickly plant – singularly unprickly in real life.

Aha! I was looking for the third single that turned me on to Nancy and here it is…

link to youtube.com

However, the uploader has used video from this next link and the lip-syncing in the first clip (above) is atrocious!

link to youtube.com

Onnyhoo, more news on boots…

link to youtube.com

I’m actually warming to Nancy’s voice now, BDTT, and Honor Blackman was always pure klass btw.

Have to say this young woman’s voice is an absolute belter, her lyrics pure peotry and the whole experience so inventive: a symphony of voice, off beats, great drumming and back-up vocals, and all bang up to date and almost ten years old:

link to youtube.com

Off to bed: too much excitement for an old dude.

Never mind Claudia. Think, Gina Lollobrigida.

I enjoyed this fillum in the picture hoose, back in the day. Stars Gina Lollobrigida, Telly Savalas and ‘big stars’.

Gina Lollobrigida looks a treat in director Melvin Frank’s rather tasteless comedy drama about an Italian single mother whose promiscuous wartime past comes back to haunt her.

If you’re a fan of 1960s farces and find comedy of the opening-and-shutting-door variety funny, this glossy romp may well pass muster. It’ll Be Alright on the Night’s Denis Norden had a hand in the script.”.

link to losmovies.to

BTW: Mrs Campbell was named after a soup brand.

Lovely morning here, so it’s a good day for it, JGedd:

link to poetryfoundation.org

I like peoms.

@JG: And Lo The Grate Man speaks! link to youtube.com

He was pretty tight with Sorley MacLean too, in both senses of the phrase. Those must have been some ceilidhs 😉 .

I saw the latter standing outside the butcher’s in Portee once in the 80s, I think, but couldn’t pluck up the courage to speak to him.

Imagine a peot eating sossages! Weird…

@JGedd: I quite agree that Heaney, Graves and Ted Hughes were all great reciters of their work (and Eliot, imo) but I’ve heard some absolute stinkers too, where they reduce their work to “chopped up prose” as Hugh MacDiarmid used to say.

To save their blushes, I won’t elaborate but Norman MacCaig wasn’t one of them. He was a proper rogue, as all peot’s should be. When asked how long it took for him to write a peom, he joked, “One of these (holds up a fag) and one of these (holds up a half)”. All bravado, of course, but he had a sense of rhythm, meaning and humour sadly lacking in others when he recited.

There’s an infamous early one of Tennyson where he sounds as if he’s caught a part of his anatomy in his flies and a lot of groovy young poets on the likes of Poetry Please (Pravdasound 4) who have a flat, declamatory style that really gets on my nads and makes me want to read a NHS pamphlet on haemorrhoids instead.

That Graves antidote ? was a zinger and reminded me of a quotation by the remarkable Frederick Douglass, who was much too busy to get around to poetry but said something very profound which any aspiring writer should remember:

“There is a prophet within us, forever whispering that behind the seen lies the immeasurable unseen.”

Sorry, got to go: just seen my team lost again so I’m off to beat my head against a wooden post for a few minutes and then read a sonnet.

Ahoo, werewolves etc.

@BDTT

Hahaha! Brilliant, Brian! When’s the poetry reading? From here in Pseuds’ Korner, a tip of the hat to you. Brilliant demolition. Pretentious moi? You won. Exocet! (Is that going back too far?)

Have a good night.(Still laughing here!)

Just thought a wee bit of my favourite most beautiful man should be allowed to combat the blondes!

youtu.be/QEV_SEN8C3E

Is this what you wanted, Dorothy?

link to youtube.com

Beautiful men? I couldn’t possibly comment…..

*Gazes at mirror admiringly*

Seriously, Elvis was definitely at his best then before his sad decline. Mrs Chiel is also an admirer of Big Sid and Yul Brynner, for some reason, although it’s obvious I’ve got the better cheekbones.

The Laydees, eh? 😉

Also,

What’s the minimum transfer of votes from SNP to Pro-Indy that would have been required in Glasgow to guarantee 1 Pro-indy seat?
Well, from my figures for 25% transfer, Pro-Indy would have to have garnered around 14% of the SNP vote (rough working) to gain 1 seat – but it would be a close-run thing.

@Dorothy: until it came to me, hee hee!

Horrible day Where I Am so I’ll just play a part of one of the greatest fillum scores ever, imho:

link to youtube.com

(It’s too early for the intense melancholy of the “scene d’amour” music: perhaps after my boiled egg and sodgers).

@BDDT

Thanks for your wurky oots.

That’s the second time I’ve had the D’Hondt system explained to me and I think it might have gone in this time. Can’t be certain though, since my memory system is like the murky depths of a vault in there and things can get mislaid or eaten by mice.

Your info about the South of Scotland was also very helpful.

Right, since the sun is almost over the yardarm, it’s time for this:

link to youtube.com

Those of you who can read the musical tadpoles and understand the analysis are welcome.

@Dan: very nice here eventually. It’s no surprise you’re cheesed off (I was saying the same thing to another two Wingers today myself) but Smallaxe’s Maxim has never been truer.

Haven’t heard Furniture for ages but re snappy slogans, the only mental furniture I can offer is a chanky old commode with a shoogly seat.

Tinto , we are all allowed one aberration!

@Dorothy: “aberration”? My carer has called me a lot worse, although you got most of the letters right 😉 !

Had terrific sheet lightning Where I Am last night, which is unusual: it’s usually forked. It was so distant at first that I couldn’t hear any thunder but then we got a huge downpour.

And aargh again. My laptop decided to send that last comment unfinished. Never mind, sometimes the laptop knows better than I do. No mistake is ever really unintentional as old Freud would have said.

Enjoy the weather today everyone. We had a very nice day yesterday down here with only some thunder overnight which was like one volley of heavy ordnance in the middle of the night. There might have been lightning but the curtains were drawn. Went back to sleep. It might have been the start of the revolution for all I knew – or Faslane going up. Still couldn’t stay awake for it.

Hi Dan.

Good to read. Those projectors were used in lecture theatres, as I told you.

Onnyhoo…

OK, I’ve now completed the hypothesis for LOTHIAN. What would have happened in 2016 if a SINGLE Pro-Indy party had stood for election in the region.

Lothian.

Quick summary…
2016 actual result in the regional vote:-
Tories 3 MSPs
Labour 2 MSPs
Green 2 MSP
Lib-Dem – 0

2016, if 25% of SNP regional votes had gone to a Pro-Indy party:-
Tories – 3
Labour – 2
Green – 1
Pro-Indy – 1
Lib-Dem – 0
Lost 1 Green.

2016, if 40% of SNP regional votes had gone to a Pro-Indy party:-
Tories – 2
Pro-Indy – 2
Labour – 2
Greens -1
Lib-Dem – 0
And we’ve lost 1 Tory and, probably Andy Wightman (Green).

A Pro-Indy party would have to have taken 17,277 votes from the SNP to have won the last regional seat, replacing the Green. That is 14.57% of the SNP vote or 5.8% of the total regional vote.

link to wingsoverscotland.com

@Tinto

Your link recently to Bernard Hermann’s score for Vertigo was a reminder of what a distinguished career he had as a film composer. His music was always integral to the plot of the film as he insisted on working with the director as a collaborator. He created several memorable scores for Hitchcock films like this one.

link to youtube.com

Just like Vertigo, the music for Taxi Driver is so much a part of the whole that it’s hard to imagine the film without that score. Those crashing, annihilating chords at the beginning – The City as monster – and that wandering lonely sax, just as doom-laden as the opening of Vertigo. Brilliant.

@JGedd –

Your comment about drawing the curtains and sleeping through the storm reminded me of a thought – how many French citizens/families never ever heard anything about ‘revolution’ and, even in Paris itself, just went about their daily lives completely uninterested/unaffected?

I suppose, in theory, there could be families living all across France who still haven’t been told about it and could care less.

Not even sure why I’m thinking about this but it’s vaguely worrying all the same.

🙁

‘you’re”!

I am going to bring down the tone by inserting my effort at a poem or ‘pome’ for the Scottish press.

I apologise to all and especially Mr William Topaz McGonagall whose efforts far surpass mine!

There once was a great Scottish Press
Who gave honest coverage, no less
With journos numbering some of the best
Sadly these days are over
They’re no longer in clover
To which circulation figures attest.

They’re dying they write
‘Subscribe to our shite
To keep us afloat’
They keep pleading
But the public ain’t buying
They find them real trying
Detesting where journos are leading.

Dishonesty ain’t selling
We can all sniff it smelling
And care not a whit how they cope
Those folk who decry
And rely on a lie
To damage our ambition and hope.

Are there countries with media
So willing to feed ya
Bad news and just how awful you are
From drinking to drugs
To fighting and thugs
And the smear of a deep fried mars bar

Now I’m Scottish and proud
With no ‘buts’ allowed
And I’m sick of the drivel and spite
It’s time to confront
That unholy great lump
Let them know that we are up for the fight.

Just work at the scanning – if you can be bothered!

@Tinto

He certainly sounds like a film school graduate. Although a superb filmaker, I’m not sure that Hitchcock chose every single aspect of camera work & positioning as he suggests in that scene. He would have been happy though to go along with the retrospective reasoning here as being every bit what he intended.

I’m not persuaded by Vertigo. In fact that’s a film which I think is carried almost entirely by Herrmann’s score. The music created an atmosphere which gave emotional depth and unfathomable mystery to what is essentially a ludicrous plot with innumerable holes. When Elster outlines his story we are asked to suspend our disbelief but it’s so transparently spurious I lost all belief not just in the story but in the character of Scottie.

After that we are asked to believe that everything that happens has already been faultlessy plotted in exact detail by Elster & Scottie is wholly taken in by it because of this beautiful, mysterious woman. Kim Novak’s character was also wholly unconvincing – so obviously posed & mannered, staring into middle distance in what was supposed to be enigmatic & well, just so.. mysterious.

By the time we got to this stage in the film the first time I saw it, I gave up. Later, under pressure from those who declared it a masterpiece I had another go & saw the whole thing but I was no more persuaded.

We are asked to believe that Madeleine is so besotted by Scottie that she risks discovery & worse when he actually accidentally finds her again(!) (Huge, unconvincing plot device!) She actually passively allows herself to be remade by him as Madeleine. She has to understand the danger but goes along with it because she is so much in love. ( James Stewart? Really?)

One of the most over-rated of Hitchcock’s films IMO, lent some psychological depth by Herrmann’s music. The music transcends the film. Maybe it was just that so many men fell in love with Kim Novak in the film that it gained such praise. She does play, after all, a character who is in every sense a malleable doll who submits to being invented & even dressed by men. The perfect male daydream.

Scottie doesn’t even suffer from vertigo but acrophobia!

“In fact that’s a film which I think is carried almost entirely by Herrmann’s score.”

Yes, the plot is complete bunkum and only a few scenes work for me. There is so much artificiality in H’s work, as here and in The Birds (another loopy story) and Marnie, and all of those lack the humour of North by Northwest, for example. Of course, some say his artificiality is the point but I’ve never been fully convinced.

Knowing Hitchcock was a blonde-obsessed creep who destroyed Tippi Hedren’s career because she wouldn’t succumb to his attempts at sexual coercion makes you see Scottie’s obsessive control of Madeleine in a different light too, as the director’s wish-fulfilment.

Thankfully, the film’s music makes many of its minutes worthwhile.

@DD: on the button about our gutter press and the stenographers for the state as represented by The Herald and |The Scotsman, who used to be real newspapers. If it’s any consolation, the dead tree scrolls will be gone soon, despite their money from the BBC and “other sources” for “regional newspapers”.

That There Ian Brotherhood’s description of our press as employers of presstitutes and churnalists sums it up, really. Oh, to be in Scandinavia, where they have some real journalists, at least as far as the surveys on The Press show.

As far as the French Revolution is concerned, I’ll take the Ho Chi Minh defence and say it’s too soon to know its full effects 🙂 .

I mistyped late 90s for 70s as the years my uncle returned. Unfortunately for all Californians, he discovered Hector Nicol and took back several cassettes of his inimitable “adult” performances.

@JGedd –

I have bored Tinto with this stuff before but you, sah, are fresh meat…

I wanted to find and study fossilised fish. That was my ‘thing’ when I was 13,14. I was really quite determined. But the Maths scuppered me. I went all-out to get the Maths O Level because I knew I wouldn’t be allowed to even try for the Higher unless I did well. And I needed that Higher to even have a chance of being admitted to study Geology at Uni. So I neglected pretty much everything else to get a good O Level and – to the great surprise of all, including meself – got an A.

But the Higher was a bridge too far. After the prelim and Christmas break I was prevented from taking my seat in the class and told to go elsewhere. Apparently my score was one of the lowest ever seen (23%) and the teacher (a properly cool dude, his son was a friend) just couldn’t afford to have me in his class any longer. So I had to physically leave the class. The dream was dead! I was then tackled in the corridor by the Deputy Head (forget his name now) who sympathised greatly with my predicament but said I couldn’t just wander about the place so I was directed to the Art Dept and stayed there, ending up in the Glasgow School of Art with four of my pals two years later.

That’s how my own ‘history’ changed, in the blink of an eye.

So it goes!

😉

@TC –

Haven’t heard that for ages. Good stuff.

In the debating society at Holyrood we once had a motion: ‘Should punk rock be banned?’ It was by far the biggest-ever attendance at a debate (these were held after normal school hours) and the place was packed. The local press even covered it. I spoke against the motion but my argument was that banning it would just encourage it. One of the other speakers against was yer man Bobby Gillespie. He’d never attended a debate before and no-one knew who he was. His presence was also notable because he was wearing a white 3-piece suit. He wasn’t impressed by my speech and told me so.

😉

I know you’re all desperate to find out more about fossil fish but are just scared to ask.

This is the best place in the world to find them –

link to youtube.com

@Ian B: you don’t have to go that far away.

link to earthwise.bgs.ac.uk

Unfortunately this area of Lanarkshire has been badly affected by fossil thieves who rip them out with no concern for the consequences.

@JGedd: re Radio 3, maybe gamelan isn’t part of their game(p)lan.

I’ll get my coat…..

Of course, given the Hermann, Bax and Tippett phenomenon we have noticed, maybe the security services’ full spectrum surveillance is picking up our comments on Radio 3 and kindly passing them on to the controller, so you may be in luck.

@Ian B: bought a geological hammer recently but Smallaxe advised me it’s really just a brick hammer but they can charge more if they change its name. I used to take the odd Devil’s Toenail when I was in Skye if they had fallen out of the surrounding rock.

Found this while reading about eurypterids…

🙂 🙂 🙂

link to geologyglasgow.org.uk

That should have been noise: can’t explain that.

@JGedd –

I wonder if historians of the future will identify any ‘blink of an eye’ moments in the indy campaign. We’re maybe too close to it all to see them. Can’t think of any off the top of me heid. Events, aye, but actual instances where change can be nailed down to a specific moment?

Hmmm….

Night JGedd!!!

😉

Och SHOOT!

He was one of the ‘good guys’. Thanks for letting us know, Nana.

Aw no Nana, that is really sad news. I’m so sorry to hear that. My condolences to Mrs Smallaxe and all the family.

Not just one of the cleverest men I’ve ever met, but the funniest and bravest too. Proud to have known Smallaxe and his lovely family.

So sad to hear this news about Smallaxe.

The too few times I had the pleasure of interacting with him on Wings O/T I always found him to be such a lovely, friendly and good humoured person.

My condolences to his family and I hope they know how special he was to many people on here as I am sure he was to all others who had the good fortune to meet him in person.

Nana, thank you for letting us all know, I shall miss his wise and gentle words.

Heartfelt sympathy to Sybil.

@Dorothy Devine –

‘wise’

‘gentle’

Soo-perb word choices, and a great combination to find in any person.

😉

Deeply saddened to hear of Billy’s passing. He was a lovely human being and I was glad to get the opportunity to meet him and his family. I shared a few drunken lyrical battles with him on here in the wee small hours and exchanged a few emails with him about setting the world to rights on occasion.

He humoured my more outlandish suggestions that I shared privately with him about taking direct action against those that sought to harm our country and it’s people and he always knew what to say and when to say it, to bring the best out in others.

His message was one of love and peace, with a little bit of mischief thrown in for good measure. Humanity could do with many more like him and will be the poorer for his passing.

I found one my old poems that I shared here when he was seriously ill and had largely stopped posting to spend what time he had left with those he loved. I thought I would share it again and say goodbye one last time.

Ode tae Sma.

Recently I received the saddest news
O a man held in high esteem
Ehm sure it’s gave wi ah the blues
To lose the captain o this great team

When first eh came upon aff topic
he wiz the first tae welcome me
the polar opposite o misanthropic
who conversed in love and poetry

And may I take the chance to say that
in the short time to me was he known
He endeared himself tae me through chat
and the seeds of love were sown

You could tell by the posts he made
that a great beauty lay deep within
Profound wisdom in the words he said
and peace and laughter did he bring

A selfish pert o me wants to deny it
and insist that he comes back tae post
but of course eh understand sma axe
you need to be wi them that you love the most

And thus it pain’s meh heart sae dearly
to ken that you’ll never post again
Let me state this most sincerely
You’ll be missed, peace always sma axe – mah friend

link to youtube.com

The rebel in you touched the rebel in me. Goodnight Sma. Rest in peace brother.

RIP Smallaxe, he was some guy, we only met in person a few times but he was just like his online persona in real life.

There were many long phone calls between Billy and Nana over the years, (I had my suspicions about them, as did Sybil LOL). I wasn’t privy to what was being said but I could hear the laughter every time and she always came off the phone with a new yarn. Throughout his illness we never heard him complain and he always thought of others first.

A big character with a big heart, we will miss him.

link to youtube.com

A wee reminder why Smallaxe made O/T such a fun place to be when he was in his pomp. This poem appeared in April 2017 after I said I was taking SWMBO for a vernal picnic outing to Loch Lubnaig and had joked it was a penance for a night of alcoholic excess on my part, following which conjugal rights had been withdrawn:

“Our Tinto never one to slouch
Arose afore dawn from his lonely couch
With broken heart and throbbing head
The head and heart that lacked a bed
His outing from the other day
Had annoyed Le seul à qui il aimait
But faint heart ner’ a maid had won
So he planned a picnic in the sun
Loch Lubnaig a stunning place
Would put a smile a smile upon her face
So with beret strategically on his napper
And dressed of course impeccably dapper
Our braveheart ventured to his garage
To fire up his stately carriage
A carriage cared for and ridden gently
A most wonderous Continental Bentley
This he filled like the horn of plenty
All from Aldi for six pounds twenty
And then he asked his Lady fair
For a run in the country would You Care
A feast for you I will prepare
I will she said but NO romance
This my lad is your last chance
Our hero sadly accepted this
Hoping at least for a small sweet kiss
A delightful drive he gave his lass
While glens and streams they glided past
Up ahead there lay Ben Ledi
And Tinto had his muse all ready
Sweet words to whisper in her ear
As soon as he could draw her near
They stopped and Tinto helped his beau
To step into this braw tableau
A blanket he laid upon the ground
And then he smiled and turned around
His smile soon dropped when mouth ajar
He saw her sit back in the car
Like Garbo alone a movie star
I warned you Tinto it’s your last chance
So don’t perform your mating dance
Get that blanket off the ground
And get this bloody car turned round
And Tinto finding his muse bereft
Got back into the car and left
Whilst driving back his muse returned
Although his attention had been spurned
Two lines only crept through his pain
I swear I’ll never
Drink again!
!
!
!until next time?
Some way to go yet, I fear…..”

Peace Always
This ditty was written by Billy the Rhymer
Last of the Hippies 1969r
If lost and found
Return to me please
If you like it
Please take it
And keep it
In Peace.

Aye Tinto oor smallaxe was quite a character. I never got to meet him in person. I had hoped too at the Dumfries march, but I just missed him at the Wings tent according to Ronnie. I had to settle for a blether wi. Ronnie and I also met BDTT and Lolysmum. Nice to put a face to the names.

Later however, he was standing right in front of me when we were listening to Craig Murray, but I didn’t know who the dude was in the fancy blue suit, hat and crocodile shoes. It was your good self who put me right on OT, when you were having a bit of fun with him about the shoes. I had been busy looking out for you, who had announced that you would be a vision of loveliness in your aubergine outfit. I missed you as well cause you wore something else that day. Oh woe is me richt enough.

Smallaxe was always good fun, and offered wise council at time. The place has never been the same without him. I heard this on the radio this morning and thought of him, I’ll raise a wee glass to him later.

Smallaxe you were a one of. My thoughts are with your wife and family. RIP sir.

It would help if I’d put the link in sigh.

link to youtube.com

@ Tinto, you give up too easily have you never tried the 2 Metres of ale or 2 a fingers dram to the SNP.

@Tinto it was also known as a good Christian drink in the Bohans.

Here’s one for trolls old and new, they don’t know what they’ve missed in here.

link to youtube.com

Just caught up.

Fuckin *class*

🙂 🙂 🙂

RIP Smallaxe.
Another good guy gone to the indy nation in the sky.

Apostrophe, apostrophe, apostrophe!

Tinto Chiel

I have unfortunately lost my copy of my interview with Andy; and, the old memory is letting me down.

He spent his final years in Fife and enjoyed telling the locals how superior Ayrshire was. He certainly enjoyed playing against the Old Firm and had fond memories of playing with Willie Kilmarnock, an Irvine man of course, and “Baldie” Shaw.

On a tangent, a sub-editor with whom I worked was a Motherwell boy and a staunch fan. He told me, when he was at Dalziel High School, “Baldie” Shaw was a big hero, because he apparently got two Central SMT conductresses pregnant in the same month.

@ Song42 @ 10.28pm

Lovely tribute….he was indeed a kind man and a man with a good sense of humour.

@ Tinto Chiel

Hi Tinto…well my break from WOS lasted all of ….two weeks…oh my God how quick do I recharge my batteries…super bl**dy sonic….with a slight delay…courtesy of the human part….namely….ME…

Hope you and yours are well …..have you ever read the book ‘The House with the Green Shutters’ by George Douglas Brown..it is one of my favourite books….I believe there was a TV adaption but I never saw it…..in fact I may just start reading it again….currently I am reading a book written by Ambrose Parry ( a pseudonym for a collaboration between Chris Brookmyre and Marissa Haetzman) called ‘The Way of the Flesh’ which is set in Edinburgh in 1847…just started it…it is a murder story where prostitutes are being murdered….and a medical student and a housemaid collaborate to investigate murders….a bit of light reading……me brain needs a break….

So sad about Smallaxe he was a sweetie…I wish I had spoken to him at the Wings stall the day that I saw him…I did not know it was him at the time until later on when I was on O/T on Wings and I had a wee chat with him and established it was indeed he who was dressed in a very dapper fashion….if I had not been so shy I would have spoken to him and others on that day….big regret.

Anyway have a nice day tomorrow….

@ Tinto Chiel @ 9.17am

Hi Tinto….NRG ?…..not sure…..so far only got Nutcase Rants Garbage….Lol…. 🙂

Re THWTGS I did not know name of village changed…interesting.

As to Chris Brookmyre not sure of his politics…not checked his Twitter account…though he may be one of the few who desists from commentating about politics…..unlike certain other writers and pseudo Historians….Oh and comedians ( term used loosely) like Al Murray & Matt Forde…New Labour kind of ‘alternative’ comedians….in as much as I prefer any alternative to those two where humour (or lack of) is concerned Lol…..

Then we have the rantings of Frances Barber….Gin is a sin you know it destroys your mind and looks….mind you some actresses when they age find it very difficult and I suspect in her case she projects her anger , at losing her looks, onto others…like say projecting her inner wrath upon Indy supporters who frankly care not a flying you know what in respect to her opinion on Indy ….as we know only too well it comes from a dark and deranged place…and a bottle…Lol

Yes I do regret not speaking to Smallaxe on that day….and I am sure I would have, had I done so, been all the better for it….as when you meet good people it restores your faith in mankind…..