Fish, chips and the past

FISHING FOR MEMORIES

"Everyone at the bus stop pretended not to want some of Sandra's chips"

OK, I have no idea who this young woman is, or if everyone else there was as distracted as me by the fragrant aromas from that cardboard box, but I'd be surprised if they weren't.  She clearly couldn't wait around to get home, or for the bus to come.  That fish supper was there, on her lap, begging to be eaten.  And so she did, with obvious enjoyment.  Good for her.

To be fair they were from The Fishmarket.  I wrote about the attractions Newhaven Harbour held for me a few years ago in this post, and the most recent arrival in that long, low red building has added another one.  Part seafood restaurant, part traditional chippie takeaway, one of the joint owners is the excellent Welch Fishmongers next door, so the quality of the source product is in no doubt.  Having only opened in Spring of this year it quickly gained a good reputation locally, leading to a significant appearance on national TV.  It became a rarity to walk past without there being a long line of people having to queue outside for their boxes of deep fried haddock and potato.

But that passed quickly through my mind, elbowed out by a more distant memory in another part of the city.  Back in the seventies Hogmanay wasn't the super organised (super commercialised) event it's become.  Back then it was a night for the locals, and the place to be was the Tron Kirk.  Or rather filling up the pavements and adjoining streets around the kirk.  Depending on the climatic conditions there'd be twenty or thirty thousand 'merry' Scots assembled, waiting on the sound of the bells, ready to put their arms around total strangers for the sake of auld lang syne, the year departed and that to come.  And getting pished together.

It was nearing eleven thirty and a crowd of us were in a pub down in the Grassmarket, thinking it was about time to make a move up the hill and join the masses.  Small problem though.  I, and a couple of the others, felt in desperate need of sustenance.  Probably to soak up all the alcohol sloshing about inside, and contained in the various bottles about our persons.  And there, on West Port, was our wee life saver.  A chippie, long since disappeared, with a not too-long queue forming.  Heaven.  A white pudding supper for me, salt and sauce liberally applied, and we were on our way.

I remember that pudding supper better than most others I've eaten over the decades.  It certainly wasn't the best quality I've ever had.  But it fitted the moment better than any other.  The relish of alfresco dining, the steaming hot chips and the bitterly cold wind, the need to eat quick before it got cold, all the time joining a growing congregation of worshippers walking up every film director's favourite thoroughfare, Victoria Street, en route to the kirk.  The sense of warmth and comfort and friendship and anticipation of what was to come, the mystery of what the next few hours would throw up (hopefully not the pudding supper...).

All these memories from somebody else's box of fried food.  The mind is a strange and unpredictable thing.  I hope she enjoyed it as much as we all wanted to.


PS  It's not that great a photo, but I feel the version of it I posted on Instagram is an improvement on the original.

Doris the Dictator?

THE AUTHORITARIAN STREAK

The clues have been there in front of us for long enough, ever since Doris squirmed his way into Downing Street on the crooked backs of a few ageing southern reactionaries.  His efforts to avoid parliamentary scrutiny; his avoidance of serious media question (Hide in a fridge?  Why not?); the repetitive lies and cheap slogans (No, brexshit will not be "Done", it will just be the beginning of an interminable and impoverishing process.); the video editing, the fake news, the constant deflection tactics, the desperate attempts to create a counter narrative, even if it simply means making shit up.

The latest scandal has everything you could possibly want to show why Doris is totally unfit for any form of high office (as if his shambolic efforts as Foreign Secretary, corruption as London Mayor, suppression of the Russian interference dossier, embarrassingly insulting behaviour towards other European Prime Ministers, and cowardly avoidance of all forms of scrutiny weren't already enough for you) is the story centring on the boy photographed on the floor of a Leeds hospital.  The "good friend" who was a "senior nursing sister" never existed.  But it was a clever ruse, and it's allowed Doris to give the media a bodyswerve over what should be the real story in this sorry tale.  The reasons why that boy may have been on the floor have become the issue being discussed, but the real controversy, the real anger, should be about the behaviour of our erstwhile leader in the interview with the TV journalist.  He stole his phone!

Do I need to say that again?  His first thought was to take the phone out of the journalist's hand and put it in his own pocket.

Not to face up to the question being raised.  Not to seek to engage with what might be a real concern.  But to resort to baltant theft to try and suppress something he didn't want to talk about.  Add in some of the abovementioned characteristics - the refusal to face (right winger!) Andrew Neil, his illegal attempts to prorogue parliament, the threats to clamp down on broadcasters dare who criticise him - and there is only one conclusion.  Doris Johnson, purchaser of the unusable water cannon, is an instinctive authoritarian.  Never mind the vile, amoral Cummings, this is a man who had a private meeting with one of the world's most prominent white supremacists, a known fascist.  Do not vote to put this nasty charlatan in power.

The water is waiting in the trough, how many will be too stupid to drink?

Popeseye, Porn and Politics

THE BIG QUESTION

Q : What do all these people have in common?

A top chef selecting beef for his steak menu

A porn director casting his male lead

Me thinking about the Westminster parliament I'd like to see on 13 December

A : We all want them well hung.

In around four and half decades of taking an interest in politics there has never been so poor a choice to be the UK prime minister.  Our democracy is such that I have often found myself voting for the least worst option, but this feels more like selecting which leg to have amputated.  Thank goodness I made the move back to Scotland, where we have much better alternatives.

Clearly Corbyn is the lesser of the two plagues on offer, but he's looked less and less inspiring, more and more unstable, as the last few weeks have unfolded.  The accusations of racism and financial incompetence in his party may have some grounds in truth, albeit to nothing like the extent being broadcast in multi coloured lights by the right wing media, but they are nothing compared to Islamophobia, xenophobia and deficit-doubling death-dealing austerity of their opponents.

So what's the best outcome we (well, I at least) can hope for on Friday morning?  A tory majority would be disastrous,a Labour one seemingly impossible.  So the best possible outcome for Scotland, and maybe for the rest of the UK too, is a hung parliament, with fifty plus SNP MPs holding the balance of power.  (I'm tempted to say forty nine just so the world is spared this horrific sight which would do old Nessie no good at all.)  England gets to avoid the brexshit that will destroy it's economy, and we get another chance to get ourselves out of the broken UK.  And this time we need to grab it.

Roll on Friday morning....