One last chance among the graves?

MISSING MY DEAD PEOPLE

It's the fourth Friday of the year.  And still I miss the habit, the discipline, the connection with the land below our windows.  Throughout last year, on every Friday (well, almost, I was away for one and had to make do with a Thursday), I'd get up in the morning and take photos of Rosebank cemetery, spreading out five floors below.  Then post them in the blog that was intended to record who that view changed across the seasons. (http://pilriggraveyardlife.blogspot.co.uk/)

Not that seasons bring dramatic change on a weekly basis, so it often felt like one week's view was pretty much identical to the next, and only during Spring and Autumn was there anything like the rate of transformation which justified seven day intervals.  To make more interesting, for myself as much as the few people who followed the posts regularly, I took to going for walks in the graveyard.

I've always liked cemeteries.  As a child I can remember one in the Borders that fascinated me, so old were some of the markings on the gravestones.  Rosebank only has Victorian origins, so there's not much ancient history to be had down there, but it has it's own interest.  And it's still active, with burials taking place regularly, so there's a surprising amount of activity down there.  The funeral ceremonies themselves, regular mourners who come to tend the graves and pay their respects, gardeners, maintenance workers, people seeking out the Gretna Memorial, foxes, squirrels, magpies....

Walking around made me realise just how big the place is.  Alongside the change of seasons over the course of the year, marked by the alteration in the vegetation, there's the slower pace of change reflected in the layout of the graves, the styles of the headstones, the nature of the inscriptions, the slow build up of the dead being interred, one by one, beneath that grassy covering.  I took time to read the words people had chosen to mark the passing of their relatives.  Or, no doubt, chosen for themselves in advance.  There are several large egos buried down there as well as the bodies.

But a year was enough to show how it all alters in appearance and that was time to call a halt.  My one regret remains the lack of a decent snowfall, which would have added something further to the variety of the picturescape.  There's been none here this year.  So far.  If February or March obliged there might yet be one final blog post, and an excuse to don boots and go walking through the white, between the elaborate masonry work, recording a softer yet starker side to the beauty of this world of trees and grass and dead people.

One last chance - please.

Less screen, more page

NOSE REMAINS ON FACE

Digital detox. It's one of those fashionable terms, and concepts, that have been cropping up a lot recently. Spending too much of your life on social media? Then go cold turkey, remove the app, banish the icon, close down your account. Hey presto, instant improvement. Maybe.

But, as is often the problem with radical solutions, throwing away all the bad that a thing does involves losing all the good too. Babies and bathwater time.

For others the more sensible approach is culling - reducing the number of friends on Facebook, stop following so many on Twitter, and so on and so on. But that doesn't always lead to a reduction in the time spent looking at a screen. It may just mean you end up missing fewer posts, but spend as much time as before interacting with a smaller group.

I wanted to reduce my time staring at a small screen. For a specific reason. One of the (pre-planned) joys of retirement is finally having the time to read, and reread, all those books I've bought over the decades. Shelves full of volumes as yet unperused. In my first full post-work year I got through about sixty. In subsequent years the total has been somewhere in the mid forties. Until last year, which saw a miserable thirty one pass before my eyes. It's not even as if there were any mammoth tomes in that list either. I simply wasn't giving enough of my life to the printed (or e-ink) page. That's the change I was aiming for.

Just because you don't like your nose there isn't a good reason to remove it in the hope it'll improve your face (some might disagree in my case....). So the detox scenario was never an option. Twitter connects me with one world, Facebook with another, and Instagram is a creative outlet of sorts. But cutting back is easy enough.

So there are days when the tablet is never turned on. The phone is around, but kept in pocket unless needed. Don't respond to every email instantly, ignore the buzzes and chimes and vibrations unless expecting something important. I can catch up with much of what I need to when I sit down at my desk to go through my daily writing activities (less strain on these old eyes too!). And use the time gained to pick up whatever I'm reading at the moment.

It's working, so far. The end of January is still some way off and I'm about to polish off my sixth novel. I've been in seventies London, Highgate Cemetery, nineties Cairo, medieval Scotland and France, modern Japan and am just about to go to war with Saddam Hussein. My brain is far more active, my imagination widened, my empathy engaged.

An introvert's solution to the digital domination.

Ego massage, courtesy of Google

WHAT WOULD I DO WITHOUT GOOGLE?

I am not a very practical person, at least not when it comes to anything requiring some kind of manual dexterity.  Like pretty much all DIY jobs.  But over the years a lack of money, or thrift (OK, meanness....), or bloody mindedness has meant I've tackled a variety of jobs around the home.  With, admittedly, very varying degrees of success.  In fact if you're a carpenter or the like you might be best to stop reading now, because what follows may just be too painful.

This time it was the decor door on the dishwasher.  Integrated appliances in kitchens look great, but are a pain when something needs doing.  I can recall, in a previous home, ordering a washing machine to replace one that was built in.  But when the men arrived they were baffled by the way it had been installed.  The plinth underneath had been put in in a way that made it impossible to remove.  In the end they took it away, we ordered a freestanding replacement, and I had to saw out a section of plinth.  Not exactly elegant, but it worked.

This one was much simpler.  The decor door had fallen off, partly because it's upper section had split form the lower.  So first I had to find a way to restore the rigidity to the panel.  That proved simple enough, once I adopted a solution my wife came up (I did say I'm not very practical.)  Then I had to get it back on to the door, which looked like this.

Easy, eh?  It will just clip back into place.

Oh no it won't.  What do I do now?

It's 2017 so there's an obvious answer.  Get on to Google with the model number and see what can be found.  After a bit of searching I came across what I was looking for.  And the answer was simple to implement.  Once you knew how.  Now our door looks like this.

Then I can't help but wonder if I'd ever have arrived at the answer without the powerful resource of the internet?  And, if I ever did, just how long it might have taken me to figure out?  Once upon a time we had Haynes manuals for fiddling about with our cars.  Now there's Google for, well, just about everything.

That aspect is patently obvious.  But using the web as opposed to more old school methods often has another benefit.  I found the answer I was looking for on a discussion forum, on a thread that started with someone who'd found themselves in the same situation.  So not only did Google give me the fix I needed.  But it made me feel better about myself by showing me there are other people who are just as stupid as I am.  I feel reassured in my incompetence.  Haynes manuals never did that.

Aren't some details more important than others?

SOMETIMES THE LITTLE THINGS SHOULD BE BIGGER

Advertising is everywhere.  Advertising finds much of the free stuff we use every day on the internet (like this blogging site).  It's become so universal that's also incredibly easy to ignore.  A part of my brain is aware that there are ads there every time I go on Facebook, or Gmail, the many websites I might come across in the course of a day.  They're there on telly, in the cinema, on the sides of buses.  Maybe the advertisers think that there will be a subliminal effect of reinforcing their product, or company name, or brand, or whatever they like to call it, in my mind.  But I certainly don't think I take any notice of them, indeed often I forget they're there.  If there's a 'Sponsored Post' on Facebook or Instagram I'll scroll right on past.  Unless there's a very striking image that grabs my attention.

It's the same in the real world, most of what's out there just flies past me.  But, as on screen, sometimes you see one that catches the attention.

So this is one of those.

The word play amused me.  Well done advertiser, you got my attention.  But.  I can just about see it's an ad for somebody called Fine Holm.  I've never heard of them, have no idea what they do.  Seen from a car or a bus you'd be none the wiser.  Only because I decided to go over and take that photo did I find they are 'property experts'.  Which might mean estate agent, or rental agency, or.... who knows?

OK, there's a bit of a clue in the word Home being there twice, and I suppose the company name gives a vague hint.  But really, who'd know?  What's the point?  Is this just being a bit too clever for it's own good?

Choosing the right EU car

BUT YOU MUST BUY THE CAR THAT WE TOLD YOU TO....

I need to replace the family car, but what with? It needs to be able to take all five of us and our luggage, but also has to be economical, reliable and comfy for my long frame on trips away. A dealer or specialist nearby would be handy as well.

Eventually, having had a bit of a look around, I narrow it down to a choice of two, but I'm not sure which to go for. We have a family meeting and the agreed choice is Car A. They all think it looks more stylish than B, could even be considered cool.

So I go off to test drive them. And do some further research. The more I find out the more the reasons to choose Car B stack up. Compared to A it's a lot comfier to drive, cheaper to run, and there's an independent specialist near my work. Ownership reports suggest Car A has had issues with the electrics and that there have been reports of wheels falling off.  (One self-aggrandising owner even tried to make out if was an "assassination" attempt!)

Then, about six weeks after the previous one, I call another family meeting. I tell them that, despite their advice, which was based on what they knew at the time, it's now Car B we'll be having. I explain all the reasons, based on the new information I've discovered since they gave their opinion.

My partner understands completely, our eldest agrees that I've done the research and it's the obvious conclusion, the middle one grumbles a bit and sulks for a couple of days, and the youngest throws a tantrum that goes of for weeks, constantly wailing that it was 'the will of the family'.

And that, I hazard a guess, is how Brexit is going to pan out....

Theatrespotting in Leith

LEITH THEATRE

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The recent news that Leith-born novelist Irvine Welsh will be the leading face of the project to restore Leith Theatre into becoming a working venue once again made me divert my steps that way to have another look at the neglected art deco building.

Hidden away behind the circularity of Leith Library it's not as immediately noticeable from the road, although you can see it quite clearly, beyond the grand mural, from North Junction Street.

The narrow curving driveway makes it hard to gain an overall impression of the place, and any building that's been in disuse since the eighties is going to be showing signs of neglect.

The back of the building can also provide hints as to how it must once have looked.

I have been to the adjoining Thomas Morton Hall a couple of times, for gigs from local musicians, and it's a pleasant enough space, but with a whiff of community centre about it.

The theatre itself is an altogether grander place inside, as the entrance and lobby hint at, and does get used for weddings.

There have been several attempts to get Leith Theatre working again over the past decades, but funding has always been an issue.  Here's hoping the support form one of the most famous living Leithers will provide the impetus to success this time around.  It would be a great boost to the area, could provide an alternative music venue at a time when such places are getting more scarce, and draw tourists down to somewhere in Leith other than the bloody Britannia, especially during the Fringe.  Even as it stands now it's worth a wee look if you're in the area.

A world less safe

APOCALYPSE WHEN?

I'm not quite old enough to be able to recall the state of global tension that existed at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, but it's still remembered as one of those terrifying periods when the possibility of a global nuclear war seemed an all too real possibility. Since then the threat of a man-made apocalypse has been more or less likely, depending on international events. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Science and Security Board publishes their up to date of the likelihood in the form of the Doomsday Clock.  The early eighties felt like a very dangerous time, partly due to Reagan's hawkish posturing, and the demise of the Soviet Union greatly reduced that sense of imminence.

Since that time the world has felt safer, at least in nuclear conflict terms, than it did in the decades immediately following the Second World War. However the aforementioned Doomsday Clock does paint this greater sense of security as somewhat false, at least since the early years of the new century. But the threats posed by Iran, North Korea and Israel, which have been the major sources of concern, now look minor when faced with the way the world is shaping up in 2017.

Putin's Russia has shown signs of aggressive expansionism. China is concerned to protect it's interests as it expands it's influence globally. And into this picture comes a USA led by a thin-skinned, narcissistic neofascist. At a time when cool heads and stability are called for.... Having Trump in command of the world's largest concentration of nuclear destruction is like giving control of the dinosaur herd to Fred Flintstone. You've no idea what they're going to do, but it will be on an irrational impulse, probably angry, and almost certain to end badly. The Orange One is on course to make Dubya look like a great statesman by comparison.

When his election victory was announced there were hopes raised that he would be making sensible appointments to his cabinet, sage advisers who would be able to rein in his excesses. But when your Secretary of Defence comes with the moniker 'Mad Dog' the signs aren't promising.

Into this uncertain mixture we can through in uncertainty in Europe. At a time when stability appears critical we have the idiocy of the UK wanting to leave the EU, and the threat that fascists might win power in France and The Netherlands. A Europe that is at odds with itself is exactly what Putin would like to see, especially if an isolationist USA distances itself from the coming to the protection of the old Eastern Bloc countries.

Of course the 'Brexit' nonsense can still be stopped, and the shoddiness of the approach being taken may be leading it to fall apart. Polls indicate that a Le Pen victory is unlike in the French presidential race, and Wilders is still an outsider threat in Holland. But the polls said Hillary would be president....

2017 feels like return to the past in so many ways. But the most worrying is the likely impact it has on the Doomsday Clock. We are living in dangerous times.

It's ukip comedy time

CULT WANTS SWORD TAKEN TO CULT LEADER

As if the UK honours system wasn’t already farcical enough, there have been calls from the ukip nutter brigade for Nigel Farage to be given ‘recognition’ for his ‘achievements’.  A knighthood some even venture to suggest.  Now, while it's hard not to feel some interest in the idea of a sword blade being applied to the frog-faced one's neck, you can't help wonder what they think he's done to deserve an accolade.

It's because, they suggest, he’s been responsible for putting the UK government in the position it finds itself in now.

Well.

Quite….

How so?  Well, the slimy one himself says so, so it must be true, mustn't it?

It would be good if he did actually take some responsibility for the mess we're now in, but that's not really the ukip way.  But it's worth recalling he was sidelined by the main Leave campaign for being too toxic a figure, and that we should be damning the BBC for complicity in giving him far more exposure, with so little scrutiny, than his party's electoral results deserved.  Farage has played a part in what's taken place, but nowhere near as much as the bragging blowhard would have us believe.

However the cult of Saint Nige attracts a special kind of window licker, who’ll happily, gullibly swallow every lying word from their messiah.  The narcissistic, hate-mongering, fox-bothering,semi-alcoholic, hypocritical, taxpayer-funded, posh-boy twat could tell them the earth was flat and they'd start worrying about falling off the edges.  And blaming the EU of course.

But PM May might well want Fuhrage to take the 'credit' for the mess her government is now in.  Because the leave people who claim they 'won' seem to have forgotten one important part of the process.  There's not much point in claiming there's been a revolution if you have no idea how to enact it.  And so far there's been no sign that anyone in government has a clue.  As for ukip.... lot's of noise and bluster, but as for any practical ideas, just tumbleweed.  Hardly surprising when they've never given much indication that they actually understand how the law works.

NoW May’s leading Europhobic ministers are already finding that reality, and the rule of law, are interfering with their delusions - Davis and Fox (I'm not counting our Foreign Secretary as we all know his sole motivation is to further the career of one B Johnson) have already started back-pedalling.  So even The Disgraced Liam Fox wants to remain part of the EU customs union, even if, in his stupidity, the actions he proposes are probably illegal….  If Trump's arse-licker-in-chief is going to claim he was responsible I think the Tories would be delighted to pass on the blame as the car crash unfolds before our eyes.

Of course there’s no purpose in trying to point any of this out to the Dear (ex)Leader’s single-minded, simple-minded acolytes.  But it can be fun trying....

(PS I've even seen some of these fruitcakes discussing who should play the role of Farage if a film was made about the EU referendum.  Surely there's only one contender?  An established star with a strong track reocrd in Hollywood and on TV as a leading man.  Kermit of course.)