After posting last night, I sat out on our patio under a clear sky until midnight. It was still light in the northwest. I was accompanied by a dram or two of Old Pulteney, the distant calling of owls, and a startled cat who didn’t see me sitting there.
I enjoyed it very much, and may well do the same tonight, though likely with wine rather than whisky.
There was a haar down this morning when I woke up (too early, again), but it burned off to become a glorious day. I spent a lot of it pottering about, as I’m wont to do, but this evening I had a sudden flashback to what an internet search tells me was 19 July 1974. We were on holiday in Millport and me and a friend (Kenneth Lowe?) took the ferry over to Largs where the Radio 1 Roadshow had set up.
The host was the late Stuart Henry (Hullo, ma friends…), all long hair and leather waistcoat, who at one point mistook the Waverley for a car ferry. There was also a Gary Glitter dance-a-like competition. My memory is playing tricks: I could have sworn that Afternoon Delight by the Starland Vocal Band was one of the records played, but it wasn’t released until two years later. I do not have the first idea why that song suddenly appeared from the recesses of memory, and am more than a little disturbed that it did.
Otherwise there isn’t a great deal to report.
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Music: the official charts for that week in July 1974 aren’t exactly bursting with tunes I want to remember (or even can remember), but at number 24 was Maria Muldaur with Midnight At The Oasis. It’s a song I like, and I also like the album from which it comes (why yes, I do have my original vinyl copy; why do you ask?). Also on that album is this, with the late Dr. John on piano.
After another broken night, I finally got up to find almost-blue skies and warmth, so I straight away put a chair out the front and went out there with a book. But something had changed, something significant: I could hear road noise from down the hill: constant; intrusive.
This thing is done; there will be no green dividend.
So I sat in the back garden for a while, then went inside, turned off all notifications on my phone, and buried myself in my book. Later this afternoon I sat out in the shade of one of the apple trees and caught up on the lates Fortean Times and jotted down a few paragraphs introducing a character in the w-i-p. All in all a decent day, if disappointing about the road noise.
This evening, I wrote up another 1970 music post. I’ve been a bit tardy with them, but there’s really only one further LP released 50 years ago this month that I want to listen to. A post a day was a good idea at the time, but only if there’s material to support it.
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I’m not going to write much on it now because I don’t have all the information I need to hand to put it together, but I continue to be worried by the directions being taken in the USA, partly because I have family and friends there, but also because, post-Brexit, any significant collapse in American civil society will likely take us down with it, particularly with the current incompetent charlatans in office here.
I can’t see a good way through the election process for America; too much is polarised. I also don’t like at all what I see happening there with Covid-19.
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Music: My favourite protest song by anyone, ever, is NWA’s Fuck Da Police, but this one comes in my top two or three. I swithered over whether to post Dick Gaughan’s version or the original, and have gone with the latter.
Tuesday, a day made better by having a reasonable, though not perfect, sleep last night. I went to bed earlier, so, even though I woke up around 03.30 again, I was slightly better rested. Also, it was overcast and miserable and thus a bit darker, so getting back to sleep was easier. I still remember waking up several times, though, and I eventually got up around 07.30 or so.
I’m still tired, but not knackered like yesterday. I also received a handy tip via WhatsApp for a night blindfold that works. I’ve tried with some old ones given out by various airlines over the years, but they’re always uncomfortable.
For the most part I’ve had notifications on my phone switched off and haven’t looked at it today. I did plant out a Hebe of Lindsay’s that was pot bound, pottered around a bit, and perpetrated some writing–not as much as I’d have liked, but enough to get momentum going. I was also given a present of a tub of Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream, which was a very fine present indeed.
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To the extent that I’ve seen the news, it is all about easing of lockdown. I understand the need to get economic activity going again, but I can’t help feeling that, at a UK level, it’s going too quickly.
At the (last) daily press conference in England and Wales today, Professor Chris Whitty said:
I would be surprised and delighted if we weren’t in this current situation through the winter and into next spring. I think then let’s regroup and work out where we are.
I expect there to be a significant amount of coronavirus circulating at least into that time and I think it is going to be quite optimistic that for science to come fully to the rescue over that kind of timeframe.
This is a not-so-coded corrective to the gung-ho political message. The truth is that the virus is still with us; there is no cure and you’re dependent on a set of unknown factors to survive, as most people do, but some don’t. Much as there are some things I miss, I’m not in any great hurry to get back to what I used to call ‘normal’.
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Music: what do civil servants do in their spare time? where do their heart’s desires really lie? This Edinburgh band from many years ago included one of my colleagues at Registers of Scotland, Dunsy. That’s him with the low-slung Les Paul in this video (and this is Dunsy’s Guitar World, his YouTube channel). The photo above is of a couple of mix tapes he put together for me around 1991 I think. I’m entertained that, thirty years on, he’s had his hair cut, and I’ve gone the other way.
The problem with this midsummer thing is nights like last night, when it is light enough by 03.30 to wake me up and leave me playing catch-up. In short, I didn’t sleep well and am knackered.
Corstorphine Physic Well
After yesterday’s writing session I came up with an idea that I elaborated a little in a notebook after coffee this morning–it’s about the only creative thing I’ve done today, except for making scones 🙂 Anyway, in pursuit of the idea, and also to try and wake myself up with fresh air, I took a walk down to the site of an ancient well (more or less, the actual well was slightly to the east of the plaque in the picture.)
The website I linked to classifies it as a holy or sacred well, because it is, or may once have been, dedicated to Mary (the area is still called Ladywell, though the nearby road is marked as Lady Bank Well Road on the OS Sheet of 1895 and the reference may be to another, now lost, well).
In any event, it is referred to now as the Physic Well and was reputed for the sulphurous qualities of its water. Quite what it has to do with a writing idea is one for the future (no spoilers).
The scones are good, and disappearing fast.
And that’s it; I’m too tired for more.
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Music: I had a lovely, effusive email after posting Everything But The Girl a couple of nights ago, and was tempted to more of the same. Instead, here’s the great Bruce Hornsby with Don Henley and a song they co-wrote. It’s references are to US politics of an earlier age, but it retains its relevance. There’s a bit of unfortunate chat in the middle, but what can you do?
I’ve spent all of today writing. Essentially a whole chapter, or the bulk of it, came out of my fingers and onto my hard drive: 3000 words, give or take, after a very quick bit of editing. It pretty much all takes place in an Edinburgh pub. I’ve made the pub up, but it’s based in part on memories of a real one, called the Green Tree, in the Cowgate. It’s no longer there, but it was a favourite of mine in the early eighties when I lived on the Canongate.
Sitting in front of the keyboard doesn’t make for a busy day full of the kind of things I might want to write about here. What I can say, though, is that writing weird stories, based in a world which isn’t quite like ours, is a great way to block out the world and relax.
The weather was filthy this afternoon, so I’m going to go and have a late evening walk while there is a patch of blue in the sky. I also have a 1970 Music post just about ready to go, a project I need to bring up to date.
ps: Happy birthday Steve Bell!!
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Music: inspired by the shitshow that is US politics, here’s the great Norman Blake, who just makes me want to hit my fingers with a hammer every time I hear him play.
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