tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59868091315431891292024-03-14T05:04:01.942+00:00Friendly encounterswith Douglas BlaneDouglas Blanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05023900300053259070noreply@blogger.comBlogger195125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5986809131543189129.post-40003757047544211272023-08-07T15:22:00.022+01:002023-08-09T13:46:38.716+01:00Banksy – Queen Street Art<p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3ANgQvgaIwjLczTvbT3EhHcW46X01hhONK64u-v_3odvDVwBT8KHUNaRcfYIwNwKEVWnT7OWoiiULG9-ZwF7fcsBZ6g_GPQYIuBTzujrOqYQgn0Jcea5AgVxEpaBzaHSGuvw_32MUu3KKHLqEU1qsOW79Rkf0IFVF0mjjaiQ0Lccx3AHMdrd09e3M0w7H/s4032/IMG_4245.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="clear: left; float: left; font-size: large; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3ANgQvgaIwjLczTvbT3EhHcW46X01hhONK64u-v_3odvDVwBT8KHUNaRcfYIwNwKEVWnT7OWoiiULG9-ZwF7fcsBZ6g_GPQYIuBTzujrOqYQgn0Jcea5AgVxEpaBzaHSGuvw_32MUu3KKHLqEU1qsOW79Rkf0IFVF0mjjaiQ0Lccx3AHMdrd09e3M0w7H/w300-h400/IMG_4245.JPG" width="300" /></span>‘The
artworld is a huge hungry amoeba,’ my son informs us, before shifting his
attention to the menu in the Italian restaurant we’ve found for lunch, following
our visit to the Banksy exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow. He likes to
make us work for his artistic insights, these days.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">So I nod
and go ‘Yeah sure’ like I know what he means, but my sister bites. ‘How’s that?’
she asks him.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">‘Well it’s
like this,’ he says, then gives his full attention to pouring balsamic vinegar
into a little yellow dish of olive oil, dipping his artisan bread in the
pre-emulsion, and gnawing the end of it with obvious relish.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">‘I remember
we used to have conversations and you weren’t annoying,’ I tell him.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">‘No you
don’t,’ he says.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">‘No I don’t,’
I say.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">‘Huge hungry
amoeba,’ sis prompts.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">‘Yeah well,
Banksy began far outside the artworld, right? Outside the law, in fact. He was
a graffiti artist, defacing public property for fun and respect, and trying not
to get arrested. But look at him now. Art gallery exhibitions. Sotheby
auctions. Money to burn.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">‘The
artworld amoeba saw something tasty, enfolded it in its tentacles and swallowed
it whole.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">‘<i>Pseudopodia</i>’,
I tell him. ‘An octopus has tentacles. An amoeba has pseudopodia.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">‘Zatright?’
he says. ‘I almost went octopus but thought amoeba gave a better feel for the amorphous
artworld engulfing its prey. It’s not the first time, either – Van Gogh,
Duchamp, Pollock, Basquiat. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">‘You can’t
throw shit at the artworld for long, because it’s a shape-shifter. It’ll reach
out and swallow you whole, no matter how far back you stand. Tracey Emin once got ridiculed for claiming her bed was an artwork, but she's now a
professor at the Royal Academy of Arts. You could hardly get more mainstream
artworld.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">This restaurant
offers few vegan options, so I stick with the artisan bread and olive oil starter,
while sis goes for a large pizza, and my son orders enough food to feed a horse with a tapeworm. He’s a working man these days.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">‘But did
you enjoy the exhibition?’ I ask him.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">‘Well yeah,
obviously,’ he says.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">‘Thought
you would. Banksy’s stuff has the same playful surface and thought-provoking
depth I see in the art you make.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">‘Some
critics refuse to see any depth,’ he tells me. ‘They say that real art is complex
and challenging, so if people are queuing round the block, it must be too easy
to be art.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">‘That
assumes people are stupid and only art critics can recognise art,’ sis says.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">‘Some of them even say that. Don’t talk to me about art critics!’ He waggles a large slice of
pizza and melting cheese, in a way that might be aggressive if it wasn’t so limp
and floppy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">‘An art
critic is someone who can’t draw, paint or sculpt, has no original ideas but
craves recognition, and needs people to listen to him. So he writes shit for
money.’ <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">He scratches
his bearded chin and looks me in the eye, and I know what’s coming.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">‘Just like
you.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">‘Favourite
part of the show?’ I ask, ignoring the abuse.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">‘I liked
the words as much as the images,’ he says. ‘Words can add something to art.
Sometimes they are the art – like in Yoko Ono’s <i>Grapefruit</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span>‘Couple of
things Banksy wrote stick in my mind. ‘<i>It’s not art unless it has the potential
to be a disaster</i>. That feels true to me. You can't know how it'll turn out when you begin a piece of art </span></span><span>–</span><span> </span><span>and you have to take chances. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">‘I think my
favourite though was his story about a child telling Picasso that when he grew up he
wanted to be an artist.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">‘You can’t do both,' Picasso told him.</span></span></p><p></p>Douglas Blanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05023900300053259070noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5986809131543189129.post-30810433249649755462023-02-07T11:10:00.008+00:002023-02-07T14:20:39.110+00:00Slow looking<p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; font-size: x-large;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPrjst-2yHBlq1v4ARLtF6XRt9Ec1BnDudsnI5hV1F1lBBQgCRi55mIGzDNUrkyW2Gn3iDleuHHxA9GcviV_meoDFEQdT6-BmHflqIDSF670oZfYQuC0WrWBAK-pL_XcKqeAeVaCkbIhBTkBrIRQlG7n33f0gWY0pBzMwfwiH6yF8SDiH0YiDL64peRw/s685/GL_GM_2425-001.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="685" data-original-width="518" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPrjst-2yHBlq1v4ARLtF6XRt9Ec1BnDudsnI5hV1F1lBBQgCRi55mIGzDNUrkyW2Gn3iDleuHHxA9GcviV_meoDFEQdT6-BmHflqIDSF670oZfYQuC0WrWBAK-pL_XcKqeAeVaCkbIhBTkBrIRQlG7n33f0gWY0pBzMwfwiH6yF8SDiH0YiDL64peRw/s320/GL_GM_2425-001.jpg" width="242" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Blute-Fin Windmill (Glasgow Museums)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: large;">It's been a while since my artist son and I got together without domestic stuff weighing us down and slowing the pace of our lightning brains and scintillating conversations.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So we've arranged to meet in the French Gallery at Kelvingrove and take in some paintings, and the first thing I do wrong is start reading the labels, my thinking being that an uneducated viewer like myself needs guidance on what he's supposed to be looking at.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">'No! No!' he tells me. ‘What you already know about a painting isn't relevant on your first encounter. It's just you and the artwork. Look at it. Engage with it. Notice things. Put them into words, if it helps. It’s called <i>Slow Looking</i>. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">'So take your time and tell me what you see here,' he nods towards a small work mounted at eye level and framed by ornate brass, as most of the paintings in this gallery seem to be.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">'It's a windmill,' I tell him. 'Up on a hill against a blue sky with fluffy clouds, viewed from what looks like an allotment that has a rickety old garden shed, lit by the sun. I like the shed. It’s bright and homely. In fact the whole scene sort of glows.'</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">‘Very good. What else can you see? Look more closely.'</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I step in and notice French flags on top of the windmill and a viewing tower beside it. 'Why are there French flags on the windmill and a viewing tower beside it?' I ask him.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">‘Because this is <i>The Blute-Fin Windmill, Montmartre</i>, painted by Vincent Van Gogh,’ my sister reads from the label, having either failed to get the memo or decided to ignore it, as aunts often do.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">‘This windmill was a popular tourist attraction,’ she reads on. ‘Because of the magnificent views it gave over the city of Paris.’</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I stare expectantly at my son, waiting for him to repeat the admonition to engage with the artwork before reading anything about it. But of course he doesn’t. Correcting dads when they’re wrong comes naturally. Correcting aunts would be rude.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">‘I’ve noticed something about these little figures milling around the windmill,’ I tell him. ‘Viewed from a few feet away they’re clearly people. One's even holding an umbrella. But up close they’re just splodges of colour. How does a painter do that? Is it planned precisely or does he just go blob, splash, dash and see what happens?’</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">He pauses, trying to put into words a skill that exists quite happily without language. ‘It’s not really either of those,’ he says. ‘You sort of feel your way into it and the feeling transmits itself to your hand without going through your … intellect. You get the essence of the thing and your hand moves.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">‘You can even look at it afterwards and wonder how you did it – and sometimes you just don’t know.’</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">‘So does that mean art can’t be taught?’ I ask.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> ‘Can anything really be taught?’ he replies.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">‘I guess not,’ I say. ‘You just have to learn stuff yourself, don’t you?’</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">A little splodge of colour beside me grows much more animated than Van Gogh’s on the viewing tower. ‘You do remember I was a teacher for 30 years,’ it tells me. ‘Are you saying I didn’t teach anybody anything, in all that bloody time?’</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">My son gives me a long look then shakes his head sadly. ‘You're still learning about slow looking, chief,’ he says. ‘But you're the best I've ever seen at slow thinking.’</span></p><p><br /></p>Douglas Blanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05023900300053259070noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5986809131543189129.post-66735295206215307582021-08-13T09:22:00.018+01:002021-08-13T10:01:20.227+01:00While my guitar gently weeps<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ern8kLj-RSU/YRYrMa9xyHI/AAAAAAAAHyA/pxGWTJiIRDQmXkBWMU1RYh1dYkltc6p-gCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IMG_2989ar.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ern8kLj-RSU/YRYrMa9xyHI/AAAAAAAAHyA/pxGWTJiIRDQmXkBWMU1RYh1dYkltc6p-gCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h266/IMG_2989ar.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;">"Someone once said they found me intimidating," Bob tells me as we're sat in his back garden, sipping coffee from his bean-to-cup machine, a thing I'd never heard of, whose price when I looked it up later provoked a small pang of envy for a lifestyle that delivers mellow coffee on the patio, a specialist workshop in the extension and a black beast of a BMW in the driveway.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Surprised at first by this depiction of a man that in 50 years I’ve never heard raise his voice, much less lose his temper, I eventually hit on the answer. “You’re good-looking and carry yourself with an air of confidence,” I tell him. “Some might find that intimidating. You also look down your nose at people.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">“I’m six feet three,” he says. “I can’t help it.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">“And you’re witty which intimidates the humourless.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Bob's wife Kim steps through the French windows with a packet of large, hospitable biscuits, briefly stays to chat, then returns to her Zoom call with other international aquaculture experts. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Bob sips his coffee and nibbles a biscuit, while following the flight of a butterfly that’s finding slim pickings on the patio, and asks a hesitant question.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">“How’s your treatment going?”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">“Better than I was led to expect,” I tell him. “Hot flushes and tiredness are the main side-effects. Oh and a weird one I noticed the other day when I was in the shower and made the mistake of looking straight down.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Bob squirms. “Steady on,” he says. “We’re men. We can be good friends without sharing intimate secrets from the shower-room.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">“It’s my legs,” I tell him and he visibly relaxes.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">“What’s weird about your legs?”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">“They’ve gone bald,” I tell him. “Well, half of them. All the hair has vanished from the outside of each leg. The insides are as hairy as ever.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">“Look,” I add, rolling up my trousers for inspection.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">“Bugger me, you’re right,” Bob says. “Did you ask your doc why?”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">“Yeah, she said loss of body hair was a side-effect of the hormone treatment. I’d have to get used to looking like a plucked chicken, she said.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Bob shakes his head. “Harsh but you’re not even that,” he says. You’re a half-plucked chicken. You’re a chicken somebody started plucking, got a phone call from the wife and forgot all about.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">“Speaking of plucking, would you like to see the guitars I’m making?”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Happy to drop the subject of my health and always interested in another man’s workshop, I concur and we head inside. A resinous blend of shellac and pinewood welcomes me, as we enter a white-walled room, well-equipped with dark work surfaces and lined with tools, shelves and enticing, grainy woods.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">“Looks professional,” I tell him. “I’m guessing making a guitar that sounds good - and looks good - is highly technical. Takes a lot of experience?”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">He smiles. “Somebody once said it was easy: you just cut down a tree and take away all the bits that aren’t a guitar.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">“Michaelangelo?”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">“Probably,” he picks up a lovely, light-coloured piece of wood. “This is spruce, a favourite for the soundboard. I’ve been using some very old – and very expensive – spruce from the Dolomites. The cool mountain air makes trees grow slowly there, and evenly. Gives you a wood that’s light, strong and resonant.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">From our student days together, I remember mellow evenings with beer, girls and Bob on guitar, but I never knew he made them.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">“I didn’t then. Built my first three from kits – oh, years ago now. Gave me confidence to start building from scratch. For the moment, I’ve settled on a design that combines classical guitar ideas with techniques for strong steel string constructions. All my guitars are finished with French Polish. Takes a while but produces a lovely, fragile sheen that lets the top vibrate better than a heavy lacquer finish.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I shake my head with that mix of envy and admiration that craftsmen have inspired in me since I was a boy watching my Dad build TV sets in a small bedroom-workshop, filled with the smoky scent of rosin-core solder.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">“Gimme some technical terms, Bob, so I can look them up later and learn more.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">“Sure.” He rubs his chin. “Well, there’s silking, purfling and kerfing.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">“Don’t just make shit up – that’s my job.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">“Silking – small cross-grain lines in the wood, a sign of a perfectly quarter sawn top,” he says. “Purfling – a narrow decorative edge inlaid into the top of a stringed instrument. Kerfing – strips of wood glued around the inside seams to add strength and stability.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Then there’s chatoyancy, Spanish Heel and a phrase that luthiers often use." He gives me that deadpan look of his. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"What's that?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"'Oh shit!'"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">“Right. What’s a luthier?”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">“Me. Someone who makes stringed instruments, especially violins or guitars. Comes from the French for ‘lute’.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It’s my turn to broach a sensitive topic. “How you doing since Archie died, Bob?”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"I miss him. He was a lovely dog."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"You think you'll get another?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Yes, we will. Another Labrador. We tried for a rescue dog, but you just can't get them now - everybody wants a dog to keep them company since the pandemic. So we're going to buy one."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"How much?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Couple of thousand."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Wow! You got a name in mind?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Bob scratches his chin. "I reckon good names for dogs have two syllables with a plosive in the middle - like 'p' or 'b' - or a sibilant. So I want to call him Basil."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Not a common dog's name."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"No, but I like it. I don't know if I can get it past Kim, though.” </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">He gives me that look again. “Especially if it’s a girl.”</span></p>Douglas Blanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05023900300053259070noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5986809131543189129.post-3706606063258179322021-07-15T20:36:00.004+01:002021-07-18T14:52:51.159+01:00The Big Grey Man of Ben Macdui<p><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XB3xc_PV2WA/YOoGHtuTF1I/AAAAAAAAHv4/NHfzfIe21SccnqXz8_vcZXpvSV5Vu9WyACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/corry.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; font-size: x-large; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XB3xc_PV2WA/YOoGHtuTF1I/AAAAAAAAHv4/NHfzfIe21SccnqXz8_vcZXpvSV5Vu9WyACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/corry.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-size: large;">Macaroni balls. Sounds like something a cyclist gets after a long run in tight pants, doesn't it? Hands up when you know for sure that's not what they are.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I'm on a recce in the Cairngorms and I've tried to get up on to the plateau near Coire an t-Sneachda, where deep snowdrifts still cling to the walls of the corrie, even in mid June. Out of nowhere, gusts of wind so strong that they twice have me on my knees force me back down.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Having a coffee in the car while assessing alternative routes, I pull a little plastic bag from my backpack, courtesy of a kind friend who doesn't trust me to feed myself, take one of the mysterious, brown wrinkled balls between thumb and forefinger, and savour the sensual springiness as I squeeze. Dipping it in salt crystals from a silver-paper twist, I raise it to my lips and bite. The mouth-feel and flavour are deeply satisfying.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Draining the coffee, I wipe my lips and head up by a different route. Straight out of the car park, I meet a couple of young, street-clothed women pulled along by a perky Jack Russell on a long lead. They ask the way to the Cairngorm summit, so I point them to the Windy Ridge track. But visions of their little pet soaring like a kite, move me to warn of the likely strong gales up top. They thank me kindly, ignore me completely and push on.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">My friend Iain reckons no one ever listens to him. That can't be true or I wouldn't know he says it. But I take his point. It's frustrating that you can't pass hard-won experience on to the young. Muttering about this, I find myself joined in my uphill trudge by a tall, dark, similarly muttering figure, with a woolly bunnet pulled down over his forehead and a scarf covering the lower half of his face up to his nose. His beef seems to be tourists rather than young people, but he sounds as disgruntled as me.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Falling silent as he matches his pace to mine with a loping, effortless stride, he fixes me with a disconcerting stare. I feel compelled to speak, so tell him my plan to come back and camp out on Ben Macdui, once I've recced the route.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Wild camping, iss it?" he says, as he holds me with his glittering eye.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I sense disapproval but burble on. "I've been on a course in the Lake District and now I'm ready to go solo. I'm really looking forward to it. I want to test myself in tough conditions." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"On Ben Macdui?" he says, shaking his head. "You'll not haff heard of Am Fear Liath Mòr?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"What's that?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"It iss a who, not a what. The Big Grey Man of Ben Macdui."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">He says no more and a sepulchral silence falls between us, as our footsteps crunch on the stony track, three of mine to two of his, in a syncopated, slightly stressed beat. I'm keen to hear more but hesitant to question him, so I study the plants beside the winding track, many of them more at home in cooler climes than Scotland. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Dark-hearted flowers of dwarf cornel peek out between clumps of Alpine lady's mantle, their silver-edged leaves spotted with shimmering dewdrops. Ragged deergrass blossoms seek the sun, while solitary bees sip nectar from cloudberry flowers, whose rose-orange fruits I last saw nestling in tall glasses in a Turku boardroom. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Strange tales are told of Liath Mòr," my companion comes to life again. "Many more will never be told." He lapses into silence and I wonder if one lifetime will be enough to reach the end of this conversation. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Sightings are rare," he starts up again, casting a glance in my direction. "But his presence is often felt and his footsteps heard in the mist ... behind you."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I suppress a shudder and try scepticism. "Yeah, but you get stories like that in the hills. Most told by tourists with scant experience of wind and mist and mountains."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">My companion emits a guttural sound and I realise I've annoyed him. "Professor John Norman Collie wass not a tourist," he says. "He was an eminent scientist and mountaineer, the first to tell of Am Fear Liath Mòr."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Crunch, crunch on the track. This is a man who talks slow but walks deceptively fast, and I'm starting to pant as I struggle to keep pace, keen to hear his story. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">“Collie heard footsteps stalking him, near the cloud-covered summit of the Ben. He told himself it was nonsense but the footsteps kept on coming. He was seized with terror. 'I took to my heels,’ he reported later, ‘staggering blindly among the boulders for four or five miles. There is something very queer about the top of Ben Macdui and I will not go back there again.’"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">My companion turns his head to gauge my reaction. We walk on. Crunch, crunch, crunch. He speaks again. “Alexander Tewnion was not a tourist. He wass a naturalist and mountaineer. Will I tell you his story?”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">By this time I can breathe or speak but not both, so I simply nod and he continues. "As Tewnion reached the top of Ben Macdui, the mist swirled across the Lairig Ghru, shrouding the mountain. He heard loud footsteps and a huge shape came charging at him. He pulled his revolver and fired three times.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">“'When it still came on, I turned and hared down the path,’ he reported later, ‘reaching Glen Derry in a time that I have never bettered.’”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Crunch, crunch, crunch. I've heard more than enough to know I should find another mountain for my next camping expedtion. The wind is up again, as strong as ever, shrieking like a lost soul and trying to push me back down the mountain. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"What about you?" I ask and my companion's dark eyes turn towards me. "Have you ever encountered the Big Grey Man?" </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>The cloud is down now, clammy on our faces, as we approach the snow-banks in the headwall of Coire Cas. "I haff not," he says, lengthening his stride and pulling effortlessly away from me. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>As t</span>he cloud closes around him his soft Highland tones sound in my ears one last time.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"But you have.”</span></p>Douglas Blanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05023900300053259070noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5986809131543189129.post-10087956627501175622021-05-30T10:18:00.009+01:002021-06-01T13:40:40.563+01:00Hello darkness my old friend (wild camping part 2)<p><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2zT82-GWF54/YJzOnkhxvII/AAAAAAAAHnQ/_58vaW1YWd4iVcglyAtO70SDZiPwpgyXwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1200/wild-camping-scafell-lake-district-1200x700.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="1200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2zT82-GWF54/YJzOnkhxvII/AAAAAAAAHnQ/_58vaW1YWd4iVcglyAtO70SDZiPwpgyXwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/wild-camping-scafell-lake-district-1200x700.jpg" width="320" /></span></a><span style="font-size: large;"><span><span>It turns out Paul and I have a lot in common. He plays the drums. </span></span><span>I play the drums. He's a vegetarian. I'm a vegetarian. He's good-looking and knowledgeable. </span><span>I'm ...</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>So anyway. H</span><span>aving ascended every peak in this part of the Lake District, and scaled most of the rock faces, Paul has picked out what he considers an ideal spot for my first night wild camping.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span><span>It's not exactly a spot, though, more a vast expanse</span></span><span><span> of marsh and meandering river, cradled by craggy mountaintops</span></span><span>. "It's called Great Moss," Paul tells me, </span><span>as he plots a path across, after three hours hiking</span><span>. </span><span>I had pictured something more secluded for my first night under the stars. But Paul knows what he's doing. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>"You'll see the sun rise in the morning over those hills behind us," he says, as we splash across the shallow water. </span><span>Rejecting several sites as too hard or squelchy he chooses one for me, beside a mountain stream, and another fifty yards away for himself, and we pull the tents from our rucksacks. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Having learned all I know about tents from Carry on Camping, I expect erecting them to be tricky and time-consuming. But it happens so fast I almost miss it, colour coding and </span>structural ribs made of sectioned tent-poles making it look so easy that I think even an idiot could do it. Fortunately. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"And there you are," Paul says. "A two-person tent ready for the night."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"How many persons?" I check.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Two," He confirms. "This one's quite roomy." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Not to my eyes it isn't. </span><span>But that's fine. Solo camping is the long-term plan, not snuggling up with a friend – partly because I want to experience the Cairngorm wilderness without distraction, as Nan Shepherd did, and </span><span>partly because I don't have any friends willing to snuggle up with me on a mountaintop.</span><span> (Yeah, I asked.)</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>During dinner, heated on the stoves and saucepans we carried in with us, Paul chats about wild camping around the country. The short version is that, barring a few exceptions, it's legal anywhere in </span>Scotland and nowhere in England*. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>After dinner, we wash our dishes in the mountain stream and Paul gets to his feet, eyeing the track behind us that leads to the peaks. </span><span>"Do you feel up to it?" he asks. "It'll be easier now you've stowed your rucksack." </span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span>True enough, I do have a pleasant </span><span>floaty feeling, but I'm also </span><span>wearier than I'd normally be after a six mile uphill hike, the after-effects of my second Covid vaccination yesterday. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>It s</span><span>eems a shame not to try for the top, although i</span><span>t's not my main aim in being here, </span><span>so we set off upwards</span><span>. But short of the highest point in England, </span><span>I have to call it a day and we turn back down, to prepare for the night.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>The sun is sinking fast now, the warm afternoon yielding to a cool and peaceful gloaming. The air is still, as it has been all day, the only sound the soft splash of the stream we're camped beside, a soothing murmur that should help me sleep. </span><span>Paul and I chat about the outdoor life as the light leeches away, before he wishes me goodnight and heads for his tent.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So here we are. The moment that's almost haunted my thoughts for over a year. For the next ten hours it's just me, the sky above, the earth beneath and the darkness.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Oh and the thick socks, long pants, thermal vest, woolly bunnet and four-seasons sleeping bag. The forecast is hard frost and I've come prepared. </span><span>But after an hour I realise I'm not cold. I'm hot. </span>The woolly bunnet stays on, partly because the air is already chilly as the day's heat radiates up through a cloudless sky, but mainly because it's a present from my son.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Not my son the artist, who often appears in these pages. This is another son you've never heard of. My firstborn. We were close when he was a boy. We made each other laugh. But he had a hard time as a young adult and found it easier to cut himself off from us.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Around three years ago he </span>gradually <span>began to come back into my life. We meet regularly now and go long walks together. He's a lovely man. T</span><span>he whole experience, lasting twenty years, has taught me something I didn't know about human biology. You can function at some level with a </span>hole in your heart. But you get to live again when it heals.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>The hat stays on, as does the watch he gave me that also shows temperature and compass direction. T</span>he socks come off, and the pants and vest. So now I'm stretched out nice and cosy, naked from the forehead down.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Cosy but by no means comfortable. I favoured quality for the rucksack and sleeping-bag, but economy for the mat, a mistake that's borne painfully in on me as the Lake District presses hard on my ribs and hip. I'm convinced sleep is impossible but I'm wrong. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">At around 5 am, when it's - 6 ° C outside, I'm awoken by urgent messages from my nether regions that my arse is freezing off, as are my feet. I pull on socks and pants again and next thing I know it's 7am and I've almost missed the daybreak.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Quickly unzipping the sleeping-bag and tent, I pull on trousers and top and step into a cool morning under a rosy sky, as dawn turns to sunrise and the first rays illuminate the mountaintops, then travel down towards us.</span><span style="font-size: large;"><span> </span><span>It's too good an opportunity to miss, so before packing up, I </span>sit down to meditate, with my back to a rock, facing the sunrise.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span><span></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span><span><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZAP3jnV1dEs/YLNU4h0uImI/AAAAAAAAHoc/u6r8HtSb5j48DHIx8Wlmw467cTiyZbwGACLcBGAsYHQ/s1440/173192125_4575659915780768_5110592452831402452_n.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZAP3jnV1dEs/YLNU4h0uImI/AAAAAAAAHoc/u6r8HtSb5j48DHIx8Wlmw467cTiyZbwGACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/173192125_4575659915780768_5110592452831402452_n.jpg" /></a></span></span></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><span><span>Half an hour later, leaving nothing behind us, Paul and I set off, with the sun still warming our way. On the hike d</span>own, the chat ranges widely. We compare old injuries, as men do when they're getting to know each other</span> – fractures, sprains, slipped discs, broken hearts. Paul wins the first. I've got him beat on all the rest.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span><span><span>I ask if he considers Ringo a good drummer and nod agreement when he tells me he didn't, but having listened to the thoughts of other great drummers, he </span></span></span>does now<span><span><span>. </span>He asks if I believe in reincarnation and nods agreement when I say I don't know and it doesn't matter: the principle's the same however you get there </span></span>– don't harm any living thing.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>On the last leg, we again pass the little black lambs who, </span>I 'm guessing, look much better for their night of wild camping than I do. At the cars, Paul and I unload our backpacks and prepare to part. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>I have warm memories of our day and a half together. If I want advice or instruction on any other outdoor activity, he's the man I'll call. </span><span>We bump elbows, say goodbye and drive off in opposite directions. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Next stop Ben Macdui in the snow.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Find Paul at <a href="https://www.rocknridge.co.uk/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Rock n Ridge</a></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">* <a href="https://www.trespass.com/advice/wild-camping-legal/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Longer version </a>of wild camping law.</span></p><p></p>Douglas Blanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05023900300053259070noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5986809131543189129.post-63244073966862316562021-05-11T21:42:00.049+01:002021-06-01T10:52:35.929+01:00Wild camping<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator"><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pJImjqMeoAo/YJuo-MFFmwI/AAAAAAAAHm4/PUqGmWqeO2APljNGkeVNhyYJxiUAVpiUwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1440/173215512_4575659832447443_3227093805052801031_n.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pJImjqMeoAo/YJuo-MFFmwI/AAAAAAAAHm4/PUqGmWqeO2APljNGkeVNhyYJxiUAVpiUwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/173215512_4575659832447443_3227093805052801031_n.jpg" /></a></div>My companion raises<br /> an eyebrow but says nothing, as another manly moan escapes my aching body. Soft words and sympathy are not part of Paul's job on this trip. </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Taking me up to the Scafell range, pushing me on if he has to, and showing me how to survive overnight in what </span></span><span style="font-size: large;">promises to be seriously sub-zero temperatures, despite the fact that the sun this morning is blazing down from a big blue sky ... are. </span></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">Having grown up in the Ayrshire countryside, not far from Glen Afton, I'd done lots of running and walking in the hills, over the years, without feeling the need for outdoor activity lessons. Seemed like asking someone to teach me how to breathe. But having reached the ripe old age of none-of-your-business without ever camping in the wild, I got a craving to try it last year while reading Nan Shepherd's 'The Living Mountain'. I wanted to experience a dawn like she describes, in which "I hardly breathe - I am an image in a ball of glass.”</span></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">I also wanted to push myself a little, scare myself a bit, without doing anything as stupid as detaching my retinas by diving head-first off a cliff with an elastic band round my ankles. I'd tried Go Ape in the Trossachs, with a friend, which isn't scary but is exhilarating, especially the initial 400 metre zip-wire over a wooded valley. I'd gone coasteering, which allowed us to pose in figure-hugging wetsuits and jump off cliffs into the sea. </span></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">But feeling enough fear to push past, I've found, gets more difficult as the years tick away and emotional scar tissue hardens into the imprint of experience. Just one source of terror from earlier times might, I suspect, still be in there, biding its time to turn my palms wet and my legs wobbly. The scent of tobacco smoke can still carry me back to black nights with the wind howling, when my Dad would come upstairs and lie beside me, his strong presence soothing my fears and helping me drift off to sleep. </span></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">Yep, as a wee boy I was scared of the dark. Imagination conjured monsters from the night. So spending one inside a small tent up a mountain, when you can't see but can hear what's sneaking up on you, may well trigger some of that atavistic dread. Good. That's what I'm looking for. </span></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">The expedition gets off to a shaky start, however, when I don't find Paul until an hour later than we'd agreed, by which time I'm feeling agitated, having misread the map, parked in the wrong place and got to wondering if I'm going to balls up my keenly anticipated but long Covid-delayed expedition before it starts. </span></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">When we eventually do meet up, exactly where Paul said he'd be, I am reassured by his soft Yorkshire accent and air of calm competence, as he shows me how to insert the tent, stove and saucepan he's brought for me into a rucksack I thought was already packed as tight as six badgers in a biscuit tin. </span></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">That done we head off into upper Eskdale, past a pair of tiny black lambs whose large eyes and plaintive bleats make us both go a little soppy. I think I'm going to like this guy. But I'm already beginning to hate my backpack. Paul is moving light and easy, while I trudge along behind, trying to get the hang of walking with a small, knobbly horse on my back. </span></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">It's a gorgeous morning, the Esk below us sparkling white as it rushes over rocks, and translucent green where deep, inviting pools collect the icy waters from the mountains. We pause briefly beside one of these, for a cup of tea and a chat about the other activities Paul offers.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bFbso76iBww/YJtuvmxZZhI/AAAAAAAAHmI/YcHiGUbaIVIspBJLxN5ueTosQ54sXgfwgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IMG_20210414_151051_701.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bFbso76iBww/YJtuvmxZZhI/AAAAAAAAHmI/YcHiGUbaIVIspBJLxN5ueTosQ54sXgfwgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_20210414_151051_701.jpg" width="320" /></a></div></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">Besides wild camping, these include navigation, abseiling, rock climbing, via ferrata, canoeing, winter skills and a host of others, including ghyll scrambling. </span></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">"You've heard of canyoning," Paul explains. "Well ghyll scrambling is similar except you go upstream instead of down. It's a lot of fun."</span></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">"Do you have to carry a rucksack?" I ask.</span></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">"No," he tells me.</span></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">"I'm in."</span></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">(To be continued.) </span></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">Find Paul at </span><a href="https://www.rocknridge.co.uk/" rel="nofollow" style="font-size: large;" target="_blank">RocknRidge</a><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></div></div></div>Douglas Blanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05023900300053259070noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5986809131543189129.post-81589909351347341402020-02-18T12:17:00.001+00:002020-02-18T23:17:19.031+00:00Let me count the ways<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xq7WyjUmCRk/XjgBBOQCCKI/AAAAAAAAGac/u3_64O1YQG4hyCFiJl6r884DX8nKyRmkQCEwYBhgL/s1600/84005804_10219045036268986_566799944925577216_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xq7WyjUmCRk/XjgBBOQCCKI/AAAAAAAAGac/u3_64O1YQG4hyCFiJl6r884DX8nKyRmkQCEwYBhgL/s400/84005804_10219045036268986_566799944925577216_o.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">The sign on the toilet wall in Nuclear Medicine warns me, for the sake of other users, to aim accurately and avoid the toilet seat, "since your urine is now radioactive".</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Well, that's a new one. Little did I realise, as a fresh-faced physics student, learning that an excited nucleus decays by emitting high-energy particles, that one day I'd be pissing them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"What's your superpower, Douglas?"</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"I can shoot gamma rays out my penis."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Respect, man."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Another sign advises me to avoid "young children and pregnant ladies" for a couple of days, until I no longer glow in the dark or set off smoke-alarms.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">All this because I'm having a bone scan to see if the cancerous cells that migrated long since from my prostate have found a new home and started raising a family. But I almost didn't make the appointment. As I was leaving the house, I got a call from a young member of my own family.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"Hi, how you doing?" His usual preamble to bad news.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">"Headed to the hospital. You OK?"</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">"Yeah. Well. Kind of."</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">"What's up?" I ask, with a sinking feeling.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">"Well I was driving to college this morning and the sun started rising in the east, ahead of me. The world changed from black and white to beautiful colour - like the 1960s, I guess, for you hippies. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">"It glowed like the dawn of the last day. Trees on the horizon stood stark and black against a sky that ...</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">"I get it. It looked nice."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Nice? This was a symphony in the sky. It was a Shakespearean sonnet of a sunrise. It ..."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"I'm late for a hospital test. Could we get to the action?"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"I've locked my keys in my car."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Oh dear."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"With the engine running." </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">"Bugger."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"And I'm thinking you must have done it yourself." </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Well of course I have. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">"So have you any helpful suggestions?"</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">"Not really," I tell him. "I did it in my drive. Car key, house keys, engine running. What I did was shinny up the ivy, force open a window and search every nook and cranny in my house, for the spare keys I knew were in there."</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">"Can't do that," he says. "I'm in a layby out in the country. What's a cranny?"</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">"Little crack, I think. What are you going to do?"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Phone Linda and get her out with the spare key. But I'm an hour away. She won't be happy." </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Silence stretches between us. "You'll survive," I tell him confidently.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Course I will," he says in the same tone.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And he did, I heard later. But when I told the story to a friend, her comment annoyed me initially. "What a Blane thing to do," she said.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">On reflection, though, she was right. Locking your keys in your car is hard. But my son did it and I've done it. Another close member of the family went one better. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">She locked <i>herself </i>in her car - don't ask me how - and had to be rescued by the man next door.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">It's some kind of genetic thing, I think, travelling down from my Dad's side of the family. My Mum's were all switched on, wide awake, super-alert. Dad was dopey. Two of his sisters were dopier still. My cousins, their kids, were so lightly attached to reality you felt they'd wandered in from a nearby dimension, and were searching for the door back out again. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">They used to make me smile. But self-awareness grew as time passed. I'm just as dopey and I think I've figured out why. I once met Howard Gardner at an educational event in Glasgow. He was affable and persuasive, so I read a fair bit about his Multiple Intelligences theory. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">IQ tests measure only two intelligences, Gardner says - linguistic and logical/mathematical. Quite a number of others exist, including spatial, emotional, interpersonal, kinaesthetic and so on.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">High IQ runs in our family so people think we're smart, for a while. Then they realise something Gardner never mentioned. If multiple intelligences exist then so too must something else - which sadly we've got.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Multiple stupidities.</span></div>
Douglas Blanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05023900300053259070noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5986809131543189129.post-73126072497922804852019-12-17T20:49:00.002+00:002021-05-11T22:24:07.748+01:00Be afraid<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-R9KxHXp1m7I/Xfdfv-iF_mI/AAAAAAAAGXs/nr5bWNP9jYkT5zr-2fNF_sjOdQLenqj-ACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/raccoon_thumb.ngsversion.1485815402351.adapt.1900.1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-R9KxHXp1m7I/Xfdfv-iF_mI/AAAAAAAAGXs/nr5bWNP9jYkT5zr-2fNF_sjOdQLenqj-ACLcBGAsYHQ/s400/raccoon_thumb.ngsversion.1485815402351.adapt.1900.1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Funny thing, fear. I thought I knew what it felt like. An emotion so essentially human shouldn't, </span><span style="font-size: large;">after decades on Earth,</span><span style="font-size: large;"> come as a surprise. But it did to me.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Having had a couple of days to ponder what happened, I believe I've been mistaking </span><span style="font-size: large;">fright for fear.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I once came off a Scottish mountain by an unfamiliar route, enticed by a virgin snowfield spread beneath me, sparkling in the low winter sun. Having negotiated the steepest part of the descent, I took my hood off, so I could sense the isolation, hear the stillness and feel the cold from the snow that stretched away from me, as far as I could see. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Instead what I heard was an echoing sound of rushing water from somewhere below my feet. I realised that</span><span style="font-size: large;"> I'd wandered onto a snow-bridge high across a stream in serious spate. My </span><span style="font-size: large;">stomach lurched. I pictured falling twenty or thirty feet into a raging torrent, gasping for air and being seized and tossed by the flood, with no way out of the darkness, until I breathed no more. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Gingerly </span><span style="font-size: large;">I stepped </span><span style="font-size: large;">backwards, following my own footsteps, until the sound of angry water faded, then turned and walked briskly away, my boots crunching in the fallen snow. There's no denying I got a fright. But I don't think what I felt was fear. It happened too fast.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Fear, </span><span style="font-size: large;">I've discovered,</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">needs time to </span><span style="font-size: large;">build, as you slowly grasp what is about to happen. It also needs uncertainty. If you can take a fast decision and act on it, fright fades before becoming fear. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Let me share with you how I learned what real fear feels like. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">It's late at night in Killearn and the wind that's been blowing from the west all day has dropped to less than a whisper. The skeletal, leafless trees outside my house are dead still now. A small glass of Dalwhinnie and a mince pie have served as a nice nightcap and I'm anticipating the delicious sensation when I slip between the sheets and every nerve-end in my body basks in the heat from the electric blanket. The intense pleasure often puts me to sleep in seconds.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Tonight, though, I want to read a few more pages of a Peter May novel. </span><span style="font-size: large;">May has a knack of writing small details of place and weather that convince you it's fact you're reading and not fiction. </span><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Cast Iron </i>is the last in a series featuring his forensics expert, Enzo McLeod, and although it grips and I want to know the ending, </span><span style="font-size: large;">I'm thinking that's enough murder mysteries for a while. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I expect you know this, but </span><span style="font-size: large;">the thing about murder mysteries </span><span style="font-size: large;">is that somebody always gets murdered. Read too many and you see serial killers around every corner. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">A young woman's body is being lifted from a lake a</span><span style="font-size: large;">s </span><span style="font-size: large;">I start drifting off to sleep</span><span style="font-size: large;">. </span><span style="font-size: large;">I put the book down, turn the light off and lie quietly in the darkness. </span><span style="font-size: large;">There is no sound anywhere in the world that I can hear. And then ...</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Two loud knocks on my bedroom door,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I am fully awake instantly. My mind races. Did I dream it? I don't think so. Was it the wind? There is no wind. Can it be one of my sons, both of whom have keys to my house? No, because they don't knock; they open the front door and call out. Is it mice, a few of which have recently got in from my garden? </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I'm clutching at straws and I know it. Only humans knock on doors. I've had a bad fright and I don't know why, or what to do about it. I'm uncertain and confused. Fear starts to build.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I realise I'm going to have to get up, go to the door and open it.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">My best hope now is that I dreamt it. But as I'm pulling on my trousers the loud double knock comes again. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I scrabble with both hands at the top of the bedside table and take three steps towards the door. Fear has reached a peak. Fright plus uncertainty plus the almost certain knowledge that something bad is about to happen.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I look down to see what I've grabbed to defend myself. A </span><span style="font-size: large;">small hair-dryer and a ventolin inhaler. If my midnight caller has wet hair and a wheeze, I'm in a strong negotiating position.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I open the door quickly, fully expecting to be confronted by a large male, intent on who knows what. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">There is no one there. Moving fast, I search every room in the house. Nothing. As I return slowly to the bedroom, I hear the loud double knock again and this time locate it more precisely. It's not my bedroom door. It's the loft, immediately above the door.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I search the loft with a torch. Nothing.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Eventually I give up and go back to bed. Sleep proves elusive as I try to figure out what could so convincingly simulate a man knocking on my bedroom door. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Days later, I still don't have an answer. If anyone does, please let me know. I welcome any sensible suggestions. I did an internet search, of course, and the answer came back clearly. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Racoons.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I don't think it's racoons.</span>Douglas Blanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05023900300053259070noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5986809131543189129.post-65195141716279853712019-12-15T18:41:00.001+00:002019-12-15T20:14:13.296+00:00You can keep it<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QG-gU8UPfzI/XfVrTSW4X3I/AAAAAAAAGXE/njaYMGqLsGAVM7rHWxSYvnxPIwOGVR3cgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/muffin_header.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="500" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QG-gU8UPfzI/XfVrTSW4X3I/AAAAAAAAGXE/njaYMGqLsGAVM7rHWxSYvnxPIwOGVR3cgCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/muffin_header.jpg" width="400" /></a><span style="font-size: large;">Well that's enough real life for now, thanks. You can't say I haven't </span><span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">given it a fair shake. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">I've been doing practically nothing but real life since <a href="https://friendly-encounters.blogspot.com/2014/05/manly-frank-and-fearless.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">I got the diagnosis</a> five years ago. That's long enough to have formed a solid opinion based on hard facts. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I once asked a friend what he thought about a TV programme from the distant past called Muffin the Mule:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Tried it," he replied. "Didnae like it."</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Well that's pretty much my verdict on real life. I might check back in five years, to see if the psychos, liars and bastards are still running our country, as well their own. But right now I'm going to focus on friends, family and writing, all of which raise my spirits, while current affairs have, for years, been dragging them down. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">There is a small problem, though, with having writing as your occupation and main method of relaxing. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Critics excuse me while I spit.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Even my talented friend Gregor, who used to write a light-hearted fortnightly newspaper column, got the occasional bad review. </span><span style="font-size: large;">I loved his stuff. So did almost everyone else. But you can't please all your readers. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">One serious-minded soul wrote to the paper, describing one of Gregor's offerings as "</span><span style="font-size: large;">worthless and uninteresting small talk." </span><span style="font-size: large;">Now despite his rugged looks and firm, well-muscled thighs, honed by cycling to a hardness that makes you ... ahem, sorry. Despite all that, Gregor is a sensitive soul and he cried on my shoulder.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">But only for a brief moment. Writers inhabit a world unknown to normal people, a world filled with rejection. The phrase you hear most often is "Not for me". I once got a rejection letter from some young punk straight out of journalism school who said he "aimed to discourage tired jokes and hoary old clichés".</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Eventually though, if you persist, you find a few editors who like your </span><span style="font-size: large;">clichés, </span><span style="font-size: large;">offer kind words of encouragement and even pay you real money once a month. But to get there you have to turn a blind ear to countless critics, </span><span style="font-size: large;">and maybe possess the kind of mentality that makes someone <a href="https://friendly-encounters.blogspot.com/2018/09/head-of-chicken.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">run straight at a bull</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So having been forged in the fires of rejection, Gregor soon wiped away his tears and doubled down on his trademark style of taking a lateral look at life and drawing lessons from the quirkier aspects he finds there. He wrote <a href="https://www.tes.com/news/speaking-small-talk-my-ironing-habits-plug-straight-my-teaching-practice" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">an entertaining piece </a>on how he did his ironing, which his critic described as "ridiculous and juvenile" and the rest of us really enjoyed.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And isn't this, dear friends, a lesson to us all in these dark December days, made so much bleaker and more depressing by the prospect of five more years of Tory theft, hatred, ignorance and stupidity?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Don't let people talk you into giving up or changing what you know is right. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Look after friends, family and anyone less fortunate than yourself. </span><span style="font-size: large;">These bad times will pass. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-probe-human-nature-and-discover-we-are-good-after-all/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Scientific studies</a></span><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-probe-human-nature-and-discover-we-are-good-after-all/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> have shown </a>that the vast majority of us are decent human beings, genetically predisposed to care for each other. The cruel, the greedy and the selfish are in the minority. They are running things now but they won't be forever. If nothing else, climate change might drown the fuckers when the Thames bursts its banks.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And if all that science can't cheer you up, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZwubBK78nw" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">take a look at Muffin the Mule</a>, with his good friend </span><span style="font-size: large;">Annette Mills. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Why don't we sing along with Annette and see if the little chap will come out for us?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">We want Muffin, Muffin the Mule,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Dear old Muffin, playing the fool,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">We want Muffin, everybody sing,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">We want Muffin the Mule.</span>Douglas Blanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05023900300053259070noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5986809131543189129.post-32220338361715819942018-10-30T17:49:00.000+00:002018-10-30T21:56:16.536+00:00Backwards and in high heels<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wxjtRh7piGU/W9hZBmrOvKI/AAAAAAAAF4w/6TR701Ks23wKe7VGdiIPGA9dCVt-_yPFgCLcBGAs/s1600/bell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="159" data-original-width="318" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wxjtRh7piGU/W9hZBmrOvKI/AAAAAAAAF4w/6TR701Ks23wKe7VGdiIPGA9dCVt-_yPFgCLcBGAs/s400/bell.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jocelyn Bell, just after she discovered the pulsars</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: large;">I'm sure you've noticed there are far fewer women than men on any list of famous scientists through the ages. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">There's a reason for this imbalance. Female </span><span style="font-size: large;">brains are not up to the job. Science is too hard for them, especially physics, the hardest science of all.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">At least that's the story a senior male physicist presented to a roomful of young researchers, mostly female, during a conference </span><span style="font-size: large;">at CERN</span><span style="font-size: large;"> recently </span><span style="font-size: large;">on <a href="https://indico.cern.ch/event/714346/timetable/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">gender issues and high energy physics</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Not surprisingly his presentation went down like the Titanic. CERN promptly <a href="https://press.cern/press-releases/2018/09/updated-statement-cern-stands-diversity" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">disowned it and suspended</a> Prof Strumia "from any activity at CERN", pending an investigation.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Now I'm not and never have been a woman, </span><span style="font-size: large;">contrary to what my friend Al </span><span style="font-size: large;">says</span><span style="font-size: large;">. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Not in this life anyway. As a Buddhist, I probably was </span><span style="font-size: large;">in a past life and will be again, which is nice. </span><span style="font-size: large;">So instead of applying my currently male brain to the issue I decide to consult my friend Ann, who besides being a woman is also a physicist and a feminist. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I have no doubt she can give me the facts and the female perspective.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">But I have to admit to a slight problem with Ann. Tall, confident and clever, she scares and attracts me in equal measure. Which means when I chat to her my savoir-faire sometimes crumbles, like a gluten-free roll.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I once made the mistake of telling her she reminded me of an Amazon. </span><span style="font-size: large;">"You think I sell books and don't pay</span><span style="font-size: large;"> tax?" she said, with a frown that pushed my panic button.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Strong, scary warrior-women, enemies of ancient Greece, thought to be a myth but some evidence that they existed, I only meant ..."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">She pats me gently on the back, cracking a couple of ribs. "Stop burbling," she says. "I know what Amazons are. Why did you want to talk to me about female brains? Are you struggling to understand them again?"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Not me," I say, leading the way to the table in the corner of the Burnbrae, where Al and I usually take lunch after a session at the gym. "This Italian prof who claims there's loads of evidence that it's men who are discriminated against in science careers - and in life generally - and not women." </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"I saw that," she says, studying the menu. "What do you recommend?"</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">So we order veggie breakfast and coffee for two from the young waitress who, </span><span style="font-size: large;">convinced by our constant bickering that </span><span style="font-size: large;">Al and I are an ageing gay couple, </span><span style="font-size: large;">studies Ann with surreptitious interest.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Are you going to take notes?" she asks me. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"If you don't mind. Means I can quote you accurately."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"No problem," she says, popping a mushroom in her mouth. "Let's start with the reaction from CERN and the audience of young scientists. To me it looks incredibly ineffectual. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"This guy trots out graphs and charts and quotes scientific papers that he claims supports the idea that women are under-represented at the top of the physics tree, because their brains aren't up to climbing it, and what does CERN do?"</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">"Apologises for any offence caused," I say. "Then removes his presentation from its website."</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">"Exactly," Ann says. "</span><span style="font-size: large;">They stick their fingers in their ears and go 'Na na na, can't hear you.' </span><span style="font-size: large;">They try to </span><span style="font-size: large;">shut down the discussion and sidestep the lorryloads of shit headed their way for hosting this guy in the first place. Does that work? Of course it doesn't. All it does is feed the knuckle-draggers' conviction that they're being lied to. That i</span><span style="font-size: large;">t's political correctness gone mad. That the 'cultural marxists' that Strumia explicitly blames are covering-up the truth."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I have no idea what a cultural marxist is. Maybe I'll ask her later. Right now I'm more concerned by the vigorous manner with which she's brandishing a vegetarian sausage to punctuate her points. I guess no one's ever died of vegetarian sausage wounds, but I don't want to be the first.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Moving my chair back six inches I put the key question to her. </span><span style="font-size: large;">"So what is the scientific truth about female brains?"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"I'm glad you asked me," she says. "Here is what we know."</span><br />
<i style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></i>
<i style="font-size: x-large;">To be continued.</i>Douglas Blanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05023900300053259070noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5986809131543189129.post-74654427507101849902018-09-27T16:37:00.001+01:002018-09-28T09:20:31.387+01:00Head of a chicken<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xUOjAKW838g/W6zZnJYr-_I/AAAAAAAAF3E/XxPPgSfVHbkX9Gy20YFU1h0LmR9hIK9tACLcBGAs/s1600/bull2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="501" data-original-width="750" height="266" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xUOjAKW838g/W6zZnJYr-_I/AAAAAAAAF3E/XxPPgSfVHbkX9Gy20YFU1h0LmR9hIK9tACLcBGAs/s400/bull2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I don't recommend playing chicken with a bull. I really don’t.
A male adult Ayrshire – that guy in the picture – weighs around three quarters
of a tonne. I'm barely a tenth of that, soaking wet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">So a contest between me and a bull can have only one
outcome, you might imagine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">But you're forgetting that I'm close to the
pinnacle of four billion years of evolution and the bull isn’t. Well
technically he is too, I suppose. But us monkeys had it harder so we should be smarter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">You have to wonder then why I'm running as hard as I can, straight at this stupendous specimen of malehood. Basically I'm playing
chicken with one of the most dangerous animals in Scotland. And I'm not making
this up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Here's the explanation I figured out later. At the time I wasn't doing much real thinking, as you'll see. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Running is like writing.
If you're easily discouraged - if you need a sunny day, perfect conditions or </span><span style="font-size: large;">warm words of encouragement</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"> - you will never get anywhere.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So this morning I'd bounced out of bed resolved to increase my
distance, in this comeback programme, from three miles to six. And that remained pretty
much the only thought in my head all morning. So </span><span style="font-size: large;">I changed into running gear, drove to the start of my usual route, parked the car, walked for five minutes to warm up and started running. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Fifteen minutes later, as I reach the part of the track where
Loch Lomond appears, way down to my right, brooded over by dark Grampians, I notice a dozen adult Ayrshires, on
and around the track up ahead, chewing the cud and shooting the breeze. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">They all turn their heads to look at me with that disbelieving, “What
the Hell is that?” expression cows reserve for anything that isn't grass.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The altered angles allow me to see
clearly, by the fact that his head is as wide as my front door, that the cow in the centre of the track facing me is actually a </span><span style="font-size: large;">well-muscled </span><span style="font-size: large;">bull, with terrifying testicles the size of a sackful of turnips.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">At this point, about fifty paces out from the herd, a few
sparks sputter in my four billion-year-old brain, eliminating right - a
barbed-wire fence – and left – a steep ditch then heather moorland. Finally they also eliminate - and here's where the runner ape-brain misfires - turning back. Because we’ve only done two miles and the plan was six.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">It's a clear decision with no options. Keep running.
Now 20 paces from mister bull and going well, I do my best to seem harmless, by making shush-shush sounds and easing slightly right of the centre
of the track, as I run towards him without slowing. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Most of the herd is to his right, my left, and I don’t want the
big guy to think I’m going after his women.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">At the very last moment the bull takes a grudging half-step to his right, giving
me space to ease past, so close that I'm tempted to pat his ample bottom in a bonding
gesture that would cement our friendly encounter. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">A lonely brain-cell, briefly sparking,
tells me not to be an idiot, so I don't. I simply run on, feeling like someone has painted a
bullseye on my back and dropped me in a field of archers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">After a nervy few seconds I risk a look round, to
discover the entire group has lost interest in me and gone back to contemplating the
meaning of grass. I relax and run. At exactly three miles out, I turn. By the
time I reach the cows again, the bull has wandered off across the heather. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I make it home entirely – though perhaps undeservedly – safe and intact.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">And the moral of this story is? </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I don’t know why you’d ask a misfiring ape-brain. But perhaps this old Japanese proverb fits the bill - and I’m not making this up either: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">“It is better to be the head of a chicken than the arse of an ox.”</span></div>
Douglas Blanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05023900300053259070noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5986809131543189129.post-1238423395417963832018-04-16T18:03:00.000+01:002018-04-19T23:04:56.893+01:00Different strokes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0Uuo9QGXc-8/WtTHNQQjWCI/AAAAAAAAFu8/f6bPGhhtr44UQfBiqIWlhgrJ54cJKKWRQCLcBGAs/s1600/1973333_7b530f1b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="640" height="203" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0Uuo9QGXc-8/WtTHNQQjWCI/AAAAAAAAFu8/f6bPGhhtr44UQfBiqIWlhgrJ54cJKKWRQCLcBGAs/s400/1973333_7b530f1b.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Your life is meant to flash before your eyes when you're dying.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">But I seem to have suffered some kind of brain damage, s</span><span style="font-size: large;">o mine doesn't flash so much as flicker fitfully, and I haven't got past the time my brother wrote 'Miss Bryan is an arse' on my English jotter, getting me into terrible trouble, when we arrive at the hospital, the ambulance crew manhandles me into a wheelchair, and we hurtle along the corridor into A & E at Forth Valley Hospital.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Larbert is a place I </span><span style="font-size: large;">know</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">only through road signs, so I'm pretty vague about where I am. Who I am and how I am are also questions to which I have no clear answer. Dongles Something and not so good, I'm guessing, or I wouldn't be here.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I try to relax in the comfy bed, as smartly-uniformed young women bustle around, taking blood from my arm and measuring its pressure. Not the same blood of course. Once outside my veins it's at atmospheric. Inside my arteries it hit </span><span style="font-size: large;">180/150 in the ambulance, but is now back at a high but survivable level of 150/100. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Having poked, pricked and questioned me, the doctors and nurses depart to deal with other patients, while using their test results to ponder what happened and how they're going to respond. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">One slim young woman, who got her nursing degree last year from Stirling University, takes my right hand in hers and tells me to squeeze as hard as I can. She repeats this with my left. "Yes there's some loss of strength in your right hand," she declares. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"I wasn't squeezing as hard as I could," I confess. "I didn't want to hurt you."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">She tut-tuts and shakes her head. "As hard as you can this time please," she says and the habits of a lifetime kick in as I follow a female's instructions exactly.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Fine," she says and strides off, leaving me to lie on the bed and reflect on how I got here, now that normal brain activity seems to have resumed. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The day had begun so well, as the rows and columns on the giant spreadsheet I created when I became self-employed danced into line, summing consistently in all directions. This meant I was ready to transfer the incomes and expenditures to my tax return, and submit it. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">But then a small, strange incident occurred, like the fluttering leaf that's the first sign of a violent storm approaching. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I lost peripheral vision at one side. </span><span style="font-size: large;">My right hand coming in to the keyboard kept taking me by surprise, appearing out of nowhere as if it belonged to somebody else. I'd had a similar episode a couple of days earlier, which passed uneventfully, so at first I wasn't concerned. </span><span style="font-size: large;">I did email Rachel to say "I've got vision disturbance again." </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">When she read "I'be got vidion disturvance" she figured there might be something going wrong, smart cookie that she is, and Skype phoned me.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The second leaf fluttered down when I tried to explain the incident as a result of visual stress caused by peering for hours at thousands of numbers. "There's 500 rows in my spreadsheet," I told her. "A</span><span style="font-size: large;">nd 50 columns. </span><span style="font-size: large;">So that makes ....."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">I couldn't do the sum. Only blankness lay in my brain, where a number should have appeared. Rachel insisted it was a hard sum. But I knew it wasn't. My brain is below average at many things, such as organising, talking sense and understanding what it's told. But it is good with numbers. For simple sums it just sees the answer. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Blankness is scary. So I'd guess this was when my blood pressure began to rocket. Suspecting a stroke, Rachel started asking questions, such as my sons' names and the current Prime Minister. I got the former but not the latter, but encouraged her to continue, hoping the mental activity would help me recover.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The third leaf came tumbling down when I started stumbling over the words I was trying to say. Clear in my head, they were coming out garbled from my mouth. Rachel asked me to count in threes and I didn't understand. She simplified to "What is 3 plus 3?"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I had no idea </span><span style="font-size: large;">and the gathering storm engulfed me.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">I slumped to the floor, convinced my brain was suffering irreparable damage and I'd be confined to a wheelchair, unable to speak, for the rest of my life. I hoped I'd die instead.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Rachel phoned an ambulance, which came within 10 minutes, and brought me to Larbert hospital, while the paramedic sat in the back, chatting calmly and monitoring my blood pressure. My speech slowly returned and by the time we reached the hospital my brain was still fuzzy but just about working.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">After all the tests and talking, t</span><span style="font-size: large;">he hospital staff sent me home late that day, </span><span style="font-size: large;">with a driver and a diagnosis of transient ischaemic attack, also known as </span><span style="font-size: large;">mini-stroke. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The diagnosis was probably wrong, the doctors decided two weeks later. But that's a story for another day.</span>Douglas Blanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05023900300053259070noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5986809131543189129.post-43076861588197167142017-12-23T17:39:00.002+00:002018-04-16T09:38:27.794+01:00Friendly but forgetful<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wC9UnprEVZ4/Wj6UQKFUubI/AAAAAAAAFpw/hflYyrSlFiU1sV0v3RpU-AUDWjmBymjQACLcBGAs/s1600/12036521896_7ec6ed1918_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wC9UnprEVZ4/Wj6UQKFUubI/AAAAAAAAFpw/hflYyrSlFiU1sV0v3RpU-AUDWjmBymjQACLcBGAs/s400/12036521896_7ec6ed1918_z.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by Jeff Moriarty</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: large;">So I just spent 15 minutes looking for my running top, and getting increasingly frustrated because it wasn't anywhere I'd expect it to be. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Minutes earlier I'd had it in my hand w</span><span style="font-size: large;">hen I answered the phone. S</span><span style="font-size: large;">o I knew it couldn't be far away. But could I find it? I could not.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I searched the living-room, my bedroom, the bathroom, the understairs cupboard and the car in the drive. By the second time around I was getting really frustrated at this waste of time, because I've a list of things to do before Christmas as long as my python-shaped draught-excluder (that's not a euphemism, by the way). </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I was also getting annoyed with myself, both for putting the sweater somewhere stupid and for not being smart enough to figure out how stupid I could be. Getting annoyed with yourself is inevitable at these times, I find. But it's far from helpful. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"You're an idiot."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"I know. But that means so are you."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"You're a bigger idiot."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Shut up."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">It's even less helpful if this conversation with yourself - about the only unfriendly encounter I have, since ageing suaveness eased out youthful angst - takes place when you're searching your car, within earshot of your next-door neighbour. Who's had doubts about my mental stability since she saw me refilling the bird-feeder in my underpants. (And n</span><span style="font-size: large;">o I don't have a bird-feeder in my underpants. Don't be a smartarse.)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In the end I give up and do an internet search on the difference between dementia and absent-mindedness. (I'll start saying 'googled' when they start paying their taxes.) </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Turns out I've nothing to worrry about because they're completely different. Dementia is far more than ordinary forgetfulness or occasional foggy thinking, according to <a href="https://www.saga.co.uk/magazine/health-wellbeing/conditions/dementia/6-reasons-for-forgetfulness" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Professor June Andrews of the University of Stirling</a>. "You need to start worrying only if you experience a significant, progressive downturn in your mental capacity." </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So if your mental capacity never turned up in the first place you're fine, is how I read that. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Which is reassuring. But to tell the truth I'm still a little worried. Eventually I found the sweater and I went for my run. And I was still wearing it when I returned. Which is all good. But where I found it is the worrying part. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">You'll have figured it out already, I'm sure, because surveys show that Friendly Encounter readers are in the top percentile for intelligence. And good looks.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">It's a small comfort that I also worked it out eventually. I didn't stumble across the sweater, while hunting around in an increasingly haphazard fashion, searching places it couldn't rationally be, like the oven, the fridge or the dog. No, I stood still and asked myself what Sherlock Holmes would do in these circumstances.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"You think I'm wearing it?"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"I think you should consider the possibility."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">I look down. "You're right, I'm wearing it. Damn and blast. I've just wasted 15 minutes searching for a sweater I already put on."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"What are you?"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Shut up."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Once again this conversation with myself should ideally have taken place inside my house and not in my drive.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Are you all right?" asks my next-door, rather atttractive neighbour. "You seem to be falling out with yourself a lot these days."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"I'm fine thanks, Stevie. I'm going for a run."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Very impressive in this weather. Is that a bird-feeder in your running shorts or are you just pleased to see me?"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Have a nice Christmas, Stevie."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"You too, Douglas."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And off I went on my last run before an afternoon of mince-pies and excess, to demonstrate our joy at the baby Jesus, undoes all my hard-earned fitness and means I start the coming year with the same pot-bellied arteries I did last year.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So I'd like to take this opportunity to wish a merry christmas to all our readers, in the words of Tiny Tim: "Tiptoe through the window, by the window, that is where I'll be. Come tiptoe through the tulips ..."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">No, hang on. Wrong Tiny Tim. Here's the one I want:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"A Merry Christmas to us all; God bless us, every one!"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">See you next year, guys. I'm looking forward to it and I'll tell you why.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">It's not 2017. That's something we all want to forget.</span>Douglas Blanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05023900300053259070noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5986809131543189129.post-4221472624723432552017-11-28T15:26:00.003+00:002017-12-07T13:47:32.271+00:00Blown out of all proportion<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NtQ28xCFyXk/WhyhCPQ89rI/AAAAAAAAFok/vCgPFL1ekQ4uJS5uK3rI8O7G5wDYU3iCwCLcBGAs/s1600/cow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NtQ28xCFyXk/WhyhCPQ89rI/AAAAAAAAFok/vCgPFL1ekQ4uJS5uK3rI8O7G5wDYU3iCwCLcBGAs/s640/cow.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">It's hard to know what to say when the first thing a guest encounters, on entering your house, is a white packet in the hall, bearing the words "Inflatable cow pump".</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">A quizzical eyebrow, a tightening of the lips and a foot wedged firmly in the front door, to prevent its closing, convey her reaction clearly, without words: </span><span style="font-size: large;">"You better have a good explanation, son."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">As regular readers know, thinking fast is for me practically a superpower. But I take my time over this one. Rejecting my first thought - to lead the way upstairs and show her the inflatable cow standing perkily on the cabinet beside my bed - I decide on a full explanation of how the little chap got there in the first place.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Why don't you come in, close the door and I'll tell you all about it?" I suggest.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"I'm fine here," she says.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"It's starting to rain."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"I like rain."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I sigh, take a seat on the bottom step of the stairway leading up from the hall, and cast my mind back to yesterday's expedition. "It began when Linda, my son's fiancée, sent us out to buy a bed for my grandson."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"You went out to buy a bed," m</span><span style="font-size: large;">y guest says, raising the other eyebrow. "A</span><span style="font-size: large;">nd returned with an inflatable cow?"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"It seemed a good idea. My son thought so too. It was a joint decision."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"I haven't met your son. Is he a lot like you?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Some say so."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Does Linda have grey hair and a worried expression?"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"No, why would she?"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Just a thought."</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">"Well, it wasn't only a cow. We also got a wee book, a hat with a fox's face on, and a plastic telephone with little wheels, so he could zoom around the floor with it."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"But no bed?" she says.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"No bed. The shop had a white one and a black one and we couldn't decide." </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Was Linda happy with your haul, when you got back?"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Not happy, exactly. I wouldn't say happy. She wasn't jumping for joy."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"How would you describe her?"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Tell you the truth I didn't see her. I'm only going by what my son told me later. By the time we got back to the flat he was looking kinda pensive. He said maybe I should go home and take the cow with me, as it might push Linda over the edge. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"I dunno what edge he meant. But I said I would and that's why it's in my house, where my grandson can play with it, any time he comes to visit."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">My guest shakes her head. "It's a good story," she says. "It has the ring of truth to it. But I haven't been here before, so for all I know this inflatable cow is your best friend and you talk to her all the time."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"What if I do?" I say. "Writing </span><span style="font-size: large;">is a tough job. Plenty of</span><span style="font-size: large;"> w</span><span style="font-size: large;">riters talk to inanimate objects. It helps us concentrate."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">She pulls her collar up, takes her foot from the door and turns to leave. "I'm sure it does," she says. "I'm just worried that sometimes the cow talks back to you."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Of course the cow doesn't talk back to me," I tell her. "That would be nuts."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">She gets into her car and, just like that, she is gone. I wander through to the kitchen, make myself a cup of black coffee, climb the stairs to the bedroom, pat the cow on the head and say, "That didn't go well, old girl."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Never mind, you've still got me," Ermintrude replies. "</span><span style="font-size: large;">Would you like some milk in that coffee?"</span>Douglas Blanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05023900300053259070noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5986809131543189129.post-91877366464813722182017-11-25T16:03:00.000+00:002017-11-28T16:57:48.288+00:00Pigs' penises and horse manure<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-y0-Y-6-OYzg/WhmRCRgQV5I/AAAAAAAAFoQ/Zrm_xbWvEZkb6Tx77MH4t4bn6vkvEiQOQCLcBGAs/s1600/david_cameron_visits_coggs_farm-_witney-_britain_-_21_mar_2014.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1141" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-y0-Y-6-OYzg/WhmRCRgQV5I/AAAAAAAAFoQ/Zrm_xbWvEZkb6Tx77MH4t4bn6vkvEiQOQCLcBGAs/s400/david_cameron_visits_coggs_farm-_witney-_britain_-_21_mar_2014.jpg" width="285" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some pigs' penises look almost human</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: large;">Those of you with long memories might recall the very first Friendly, inspired by <a href="https://friendly-encounters.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/" target="_blank">a rant from my son</a>, released in December 2012 for heaven's sake doesn't time fly.*</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I enjoy rants. They make me laugh. But since my son got a car, a good degree, a son of his own and a girlfriend - not in that order I suspect - he seems to have mellowed, and the rants come far less frequently than before, forcing me to look further afield for my amusement.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Last weekend on an enjoyable writing workshop in London, a group of us were asked to compose a little rant, in the style of someone we knew, on a topic assigned to each of us randomly. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I got Organic Food, heard my son's distinctive voice in my head and wrote the following. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Well first of all it's a daft name. All life is organic so all food is organic. What would inorganic food look like?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Welly boots. They're inorganic. A light bulb. That's inorganic. Slabs of sodding concrete. They're inorganic. Try eating any of those pal, and see how long your teeth can take it.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"The whole thing is ridiculous, if you ask me. <i>Organic</i> is just a label for luring gullible, middle-class housewives into Waitrose, to buy carrots shaped like pigs' penises and mushrooms with lumps of horseshit stuck to them." </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The guy running the workshop, a louche writer and actor called Paul Bassett Davies in </span><span style="font-size: large;">pink corduroy trousers - I don't know what he's called in jeans - </span><span style="font-size: large;">then asked us to reverse the rant, using the same character's voice.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Once again my son, who's capable of arguing either side of a position, and would have made a great politican if he wasn't a human, spoke clearly in my head and his words ran down my arm, through my fingers and onto the page:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"You can't beat organic food. It's packed with vitamins, minerals and big lumps of horseshit. Who wouldn't want to eat carrots shaped like pigs' penises? </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"I've had nothing but organic food for a year now, and just take a look at this body. Feel how hard that muscle is.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"No not that one. Up a bit. That's it. Rock hard isn't it? Well, that's what organic food does for you, pal."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The man in the pink trousers commended me on my sense of humour, but he didn't realise that I don't make this stuff up. It comes straight from my son's brain, usually via his mouth and my ears, but not necessarily, I have just discovered.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So the plan now is to try to tune in to other people's thoughts, and see if they can communicate with me in the same way. T</span><span style="font-size: large;">hen I'll never have to leave the house again. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">*My favourite ancient Chinese proverb, often attributed to Confucius: "Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">** Harry Confucius from Auchinleck. </span>Douglas Blanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05023900300053259070noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5986809131543189129.post-67295344387762881822017-11-09T12:38:00.001+00:002017-11-10T13:09:25.528+00:00The physics of big girls<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Yi1Rq8rbeVU/WgSvs4gkJ0I/AAAAAAAAFn0/Y1S_w1Kk3g4gKiiHXMzSGvjZin7HroMaACLcBGAs/s1600/DK2Z36eXoAAVrbq.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="931" data-original-width="620" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Yi1Rq8rbeVU/WgSvs4gkJ0I/AAAAAAAAFn0/Y1S_w1Kk3g4gKiiHXMzSGvjZin7HroMaACLcBGAs/s400/DK2Z36eXoAAVrbq.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">We all have our feminine side, science tells us. Even women, although theirs is often harder to find.<br /><br />My own was obvious from an early age, when I used to pick wild flowers and take them home to my mum. She loved them. The bigger boys I met on the way home were less impressed. I'm not a fast learner, but eventually even I managed to associate the blossoms in my hand with the lumps on my face, and stayed away from the flowers.<br /><br />I went further and tried to suppress my whole feminine side. But you know when you push down on a bubble in an omelette, it just pops up somewhere else? I started dressing differently to other boys and soon I was getting gigs as a male model. That's a photo of me on the catwalk in my early twenties.<br /><br />Soon though I had to choose between fashion and physics and it wasn't hard. You can reconnect with your girly side at any age, but if you don't stuff tensors into your brain when it's young and vibrant, they just won't stick.<br /><br />Females are in the minority in physics, but physicists are the least sexist people I know. They're more interested in brains than body parts, so my colleagues wouldn't have batted an eyelid, I'm sure, if my feminine side had come out to play with them. But I kinda lost touch with her, over the years, even cracking jokes about her absence.<br /><br />"I got in touch with my feminine side once," I'd say. "But she didn't like me. Last I heard she was shacked up with a spot-welder in Cowdenbeath."<br /><br />It made a few folk laugh but it wasn't true. She was still in there, beavering away, if you'll pardon the expression. And in recent years she's been re-asserting herself. I know this because people have been breaking off in the middle of a chat with me to say stuff like, "Don't be such a big girl, Douglas".<br /><br />I'm thinking this is one of those perspective-dependent epithet situations: I'm assertive. You're pushy. He's a grizzly bear. I'm curvy. You're buxom. She's a hippopotamus. I'm sensitive. You're touchy. He's a big girl.<br /><br />Maybe I am sensitive, but so were Keats and Shelley and no one accused them of being big girls. Why? Because Keats and Shelley wrote romantic poetry and were young and handsome, that's why. If you have smouldering good looks then it's fine to have a sensitive side. But if your face looks like it's gone well past smouldering and burst into flames, which someone then beat out with an empty fire extinguisher, they call you a big girl. That's my experience anyway.<br /><br />So by now you're thinking, where's the science? Well, I'll tell you. I took a test recently to see how much of my feminine side had survived, and it was reassuring. Turns out I'm 67% feminine and 78% masculine, which is well above average on both scores. (They don't add to 100%, as you'd expect, because each is a separate percentage.)<br /><br />Some of my friends have taken the test, but I'd like to encourage all my readers to do so, and post the result in the comments below or on Facebook.<br /><br />Come on feminine sides. I bet you can't beat mine.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">There will be prizes.</span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.idrlabs.com/gender/result.php?masculine=78&feminine=67&v=3" rel="nofollow" style="color: #771100; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: x-large;" target="_blank">Gender role test</a></div>
Douglas Blanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05023900300053259070noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5986809131543189129.post-22307434720052330412017-09-09T15:13:00.000+01:002018-03-19T23:26:54.669+00:00Tell me if I'm close<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nIJqEYNOUEA/WbPPsIz579I/AAAAAAAAFls/wjjF8YIN1tU4b921C4zy0sF8ApMTQzoKQCLcBGAs/s1600/2000px-Female_reproductive_system_-_anterior_view.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1294" data-original-width="1600" height="258" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nIJqEYNOUEA/WbPPsIz579I/AAAAAAAAFls/wjjF8YIN1tU4b921C4zy0sF8ApMTQzoKQCLcBGAs/s320/2000px-Female_reproductive_system_-_anterior_view.svg.png" width="320" /></a><span style="font-size: large;">The subject has popped into just about every conversation I've been having this week, so there's no getting away from it, I'm afraid. Much as I'd rather talk to you about music, physics or Al's bulging broccoli, I'm going to have to touch briefly on the subject of sex.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Please don't be alarmed. We are all scientists here. There's no way we're going to toss off any cheap double entendres</span><span style="font-size: large;">. We know that's not why you come here. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So I'm sat in the Drake in Woodlands Road, having a friendly half pint and sharing haloumi and asparagus fritters, for god's sake, with my friend Lucas, who's been doing some fancy software development for us, when he makes a remark that baffles me for a moment, before I realise that he's jumped to a conclusion that I guess is pretty widespread.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I've been telling him about the time I officially became a Buddhist, more or less accidentally, when I attended a seminar in Strasbourg, a couple of years ago, conducted by the Dalai Lama. At the end of the two-day event, spoken in Tibetan, but translated into earphone English, the audience were invited to take five Buddhist vows. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Essentially the same in all branches of Buddhism, these <i>precepts </i>are to abstain from harming living things, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying and intoxication. They're pretty much how I live my life and number one, in particular, is what first drew me to Buddhism. So I went ahead and vowed. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">But it isn't the first precept that has caught Lucas's attention. "The sex part must be easy for you nowadays," he comments and I'm puzzled for a moment before the penny drops.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Ah, you mean at my age?" </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Well, you are a lot older than me. And even I am starting to find it tiresome. All that thrusting is hard work, don't you think?"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">At this point he tries to match the action to the words, as far as can be done from a seated position with a forkful of fancy cheese on its way to your face, and I think I see the problem.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Don't stab yourself in the eye," I say. "But show me that again please." </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">He does so, confirming my suspicions. </span><span style="font-size: large;">"You're doing it wrong," I tell him. "That looks like you're trying to shake cake crumbs out of your lap. What you should be doing is this."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I demonstrate, he continues with his version and Rachel returns from the toilet and raises a manicured eyebrow. "Would you guys like to be alone?" she says and I think quickly.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Lucas was showing me how to dance the Watusi," I say and she shakes her head.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"That's not the Watusi," she says. "</span><span style="font-size: large;">That's the Bugaloo. </span><span style="font-size: large;">The Watusi goes like this."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Right about now the boss man at the Drake, a hipster with gelled hair and a ginger beard, decides we've crossed a line and comes out from behind the bar. </span><span style="font-size: large;">"I have no idea what you three are doing," he says. "But take it outside. You're frightening my dog."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"On the subject of sex," Lucas says, when we're out on the pavement with wisps of water vapour rising from the road in bright afternoon sunshine. "Did you see the latest news? <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2017/09/03/50-of-men-dont-know-where-the-vagina-is-according-to-uk-study/#653869d11774" target="_blank">Fifty percent of men don't know where the vagina is</a>."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I ponder this for a moment. "That's tabloid nonsense," I tell him. "Humans would have gone extinct long since, if it was true. The name isn't the object. What's clearly happened is a bunch of guys have failed to match labels and body parts on a diagram of the female reproductive system. Which isn't surprising because it's more complicated than the London underground."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"You're right of course," Lucas says. "</span><span style="font-size: large;">Amazes me how babies find their way out, when I get lost going from Waterloo to King's Cross. </span><span style="font-size: large;">There's no way 50% of men can't find a vagina in real life. Assuming they can find a woman, of course."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"I'm not so sure," Rachel says. "At least 50% of men can't find the toilet bowl when they're having a pee." </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">She wanders off along Woodlands Road towards her flat, but can't resist a parting shot over her shoulder. "And I don't think either of you could find your bum with both hands," she says.</span><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Lucas looks at me. I look at Lucas.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"She's right," he says. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"She always is," I tell him.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span>Douglas Blanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05023900300053259070noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5986809131543189129.post-60032225022399500362017-08-29T21:07:00.000+01:002017-08-30T15:05:40.569+01:00Road rage<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zTiaPe7BskA/WaXCyDUOuKI/AAAAAAAAFlI/4BGyCEvutz4QHaAjJoqnJx6Tig-5_MAbgCLcBGAs/s1600/shoes-wedding-detail-38564.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1070" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zTiaPe7BskA/WaXCyDUOuKI/AAAAAAAAFlI/4BGyCEvutz4QHaAjJoqnJx6Tig-5_MAbgCLcBGAs/s400/shoes-wedding-detail-38564.jpeg" width="266" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">A silver, stiletto-heeled shoe, looking forlorn on the low wall protecting the entrance to Stewart Street Police Station, hints at a night out that started in smiles, but went south. I briefly wonder if its owner is still banged up in the cells or has hirpled home, oblivious of her loss, on just one shoe.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Once inside I rapidly lose interest in Cinderella's fate, as two </span><span style="font-size: large;">young</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">police officers take a firm grip on my arms, while making soothing sounds that fail to reassure me. "It's just procedure for the closed circuit TV, sir. No need to be alarmed." </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Leading me to a narrow, windowless interview room, they gesture to a hard chair behind a wooden table and sit down opposite me, blocking the only exit. The thought that I might not be going home today flits across my frontal lobes and I shove it away. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">My churchgoing grandmother, when I was a boy, always assured me that "</span><span style="font-size: large;">the truth shall make you free", and for many years I believed her. Doubts crept in when </span><span style="font-size: large;">I took the sole rap several times for teenage group misdemeanours. B</span><span style="font-size: large;">ut on the occasion about which I'm being questioned today I had acted alone and, having just signed away my right to a lawyer, possess only the truth on my side. I'm thinking maybe I should have gone with the lawyer. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">At the end of the interview, which takes about half an hour, giving me plenty of time to tell my story, the young constable who's been asking the questions, while his colleague writes my answers laboriously in his notebook, studies me for a moment and reaches a decision. "Having considered your answers to my questions, sir, and your explanation of what happened, I'm afraid I have to charge you with the offence of acting in such a way as to cause fear and alarm to another road user."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">So much for the truth shall make you free, Gran. But as the constable explains what happens next, I realise with relief that I won't be joining last night's revelers in the cells, because it will be months before my case comes up before the Sheriff. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Back home, I ponder this fear and alarm I'm accused of causing. A quick internet search suggests it's a catch-all used by the police to cover a wide variety of offences, including <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-21576693" target="_blank">spraying tomato sauce</a> around a kitchen, <a href="https://inews.co.uk/distractions/offbeat/10-strangest-crimes-ever-committed-scotland/" target="_blank">behaving aggressively </a>with a black pudding, and distracting drivers</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4230660.stm" style="font-size: large;" target="_blank">by rambling naked in Midlothian</a><span style="font-size: large;">.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">My own offence seems trivial in comparison. All I'd done was get out of my car at the lights, approach the twatmobile behind me and say to the driver, "You shouldn't accelerate when someone's overtaking you, unless you're trying to kill them," before returning to my car and driving away. Admittedly I had tried to open his door so that he could hear me better, and he'd slammed it shut and locked it. Granted, he did look somewhat alarmed. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">But why? If I was a fit-looking man in my thirties, driving a big, black Range Rover, would a grey-haired pensioner coming to talk to me cause me fear and alarm? I don't think so. There were no threats. </span><span style="font-size: large;">I was fully clothed at the time. </span><span style="font-size: large;">My hands were at my sides. They did not contain a black pudding.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I can think of plenty of things that would cause fear and alarm to me. A triangular fin approaching fast in the sea. An email from my ex-wife. Two police officers at my front door. The opening line "Sometimes it's hard to be a woman" from a pub-singer with lank, black hair and a guitar</span><span style="font-size: large;">. </span><span style="font-size: large;">I have never yet heard the end of that most horrific of all country songs, because</span><span style="font-size: large;"> my ears fill with blood at the first few notes of its maudlin mimicry of real music. Fearful and alarming, for sure.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">But a retired teacher coming to talk to me? Nah. Not a chance.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So what is the moral of this story? Mind your own business? Don't get out of your car? Never object to dangerous behaviour by other people? I don't think so. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Let me tell you about Immanual Kant. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Stop. Come back. It'll be quick and painless, I promise.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Kant's categorical imp</span><span style="font-size: large;">erative is the ethical principle I live by and it goes like this: "</span><span style="font-size: large;">Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So if you're wondering if something is the right thing to do, imagine a world where everyone did it. If you don't like that world then the action is unethical. If you do like it, then you should take the action. It's your duty. Even if it's difficult. Laws are made by politicians, who can be venal and self-serving. The categorical imperative tells you what's right and wrong beyond human laws.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So if a similar situation happens again, will I point out the error of his ways to a dickless driver whose ego is so fragile that when overtaken by a scruffy old banger he accelerates, putting the lives of the occupants of three cars, including his own, in serious peril?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The categorical imperative says I must, because if everyone did then some of these numbnuts would feel the social pressure and change their behaviour, and lives would be saved.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">On the other hand I now possess a little pink slip called a Recorded Police Warning, the nice constable, on considering my story and consulting his superior, having chosen this paper rap on the knuckles, rather than sending me to the big bad sheriff. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And here's the problem. My pink slip says no further action will be taken, but the incident will be kept on file for two years during which, should I re-offend in a similar fashion, it can be dragged up and counted against me.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">So what if I encounter another boneheaded driver, out there on the highways? Will I do what the nice policeman insists and stay in my car? Or will I point out the error of his ways, knowing that his fear and alarm in the present could save somebody's life in the future? I</span><span style="font-size: large;"> think I know the answer but I am not 100% certain. And that worries me. I am way too old to start disappointing myself now.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Sometimes it's hard to be a man.</span>Douglas Blanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05023900300053259070noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5986809131543189129.post-59587264283266291442017-08-23T21:52:00.004+01:002017-09-14T23:24:01.988+01:00It's not drupey<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-anQY0GlDWbU/WZ1xChkGX3I/AAAAAAAAFkk/oJGpVbwfJsE_RI7uQzAVjJY2QYyz7JZ_gCLcBGAs/s1600/Drupe-Fruits.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="500" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-anQY0GlDWbU/WZ1xChkGX3I/AAAAAAAAFkk/oJGpVbwfJsE_RI7uQzAVjJY2QYyz7JZ_gCLcBGAs/s400/Drupe-Fruits.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">My sister is a keen student of nature, so on returning from a long walk, looking flushed and healthy, she starts telling me about everything she's seen in the trees, flowers and fields, not far from the house we both grew up in. My attention wanders after a while, so I ask a question intended to demonstrate my interest that has exactly the opposite effect.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"I told you that already," she says, with some asperity and I have to admit i</span><span style="font-size: large;">t's a refrain I'm hearing from lots of people these days. </span><span style="font-size: large;">First signs of a failing memory, perhaps. But I have a better theory. My brain has learned to filter key ideas from conversational noise.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"You can't expect me to register every word you say," I explain, while carelessly turning to look out the window at the dreich, </span><span style="font-size: large;">autumnal morning. </span><span style="font-size: large;">"A lot of it is stream of consciousness dr ..."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">A slight alteration of the atmosphere in the room behind me, imperceptible to anyone less sensitive than myself, stops my mouth from landing the rest of me in a deep, dark hole with alligators in it. As it is, I'm hanging over the pit by my fingertips.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"What?" my sister hisses, which isn't easy with a word that has no sibilants. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Stream of consciousness? You cheeky bugger!" </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Highly regarded literary device," I back-pedal furiously. "Joyce and Faulkner were exponents. Also Virginia Woolf, although some say 'interior monologue' is a better term for most of her work."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Really?" Helen addresses my back, while my front hunkers down in fear and alarm. "And what about <i>dr...</i>? That was going to be <i>dross</i>, wasn't it? Or even <i>drivel!</i>"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Certainly not," I say. "Neither of those."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"What was it then?" she says. </span><span style="font-size: large;">"I can't think of any other words."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"It could have been loads of them," I tell her. "There are hundreds of words in English that start with 'dr...': Dragons. Dreadlocks. Dragonflies. Dromedaries. Drumsticks. Drupaceous."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"There's no such word as drupaceous," she interrupts. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"There is," I tell her with relief, as the way out of the hole reveals itself to me in all its elegant perfection. As a poet Helen is fascinated by words. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"What does it mean then?" she says.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Not having all the properties of a drupe, but very close," I say, and she raises an imperious eyebrow so I hurry on. "A drupe is a fleshy fruit with a hard stone surrounding a seed."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Like peaches and plums?" she says.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Also nectarines, apricots, cherries and olives," I say. "And almonds."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Almonds are nuts," she says.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Technically no," I tell her. "They're the seeds of a drupe. Walnuts, pecans and pistachio nuts aren't nuts either. Some people say they're drupes. Others spot small differences and say they're ..."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Drupaceous," she says.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Correct. Not having all the properties of a drupe, but very close." </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Hmm," she says. "That was an interesting but deviously irrelevant diversion. You still haven't come up with a plausible word that starts with <i>dr </i>and isn't <i>drivel </i>or something equally offensive."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Yes I have," I tell her. "I was going to say 'stream of consciousness drupaciousness'." </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"No you weren't," she says. "Because that is drivel."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"It's a metaphor," I tell her. "It's the quality of having flesh on the outside, then a hard stone you have to penetrate to get to the seed inside - that kernel of truth, interest and originality in all your conversation." </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I </span><span style="font-size: large;">give her my frank, manly expression that oozes sincerity. </span><span style="font-size: large;">She doesn't buy it. Never has, come to think of it.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"If I wasn't too refined and feminine," she says, raising her right leg and swinging </span><span style="font-size: large;">the sturdy hiking boot on the end of it </span><span style="font-size: large;">in a menacing manner, "</span><span style="font-size: large;">I would show you the best way to penetrate a hard stone to get to the seed inside."</span>Douglas Blanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05023900300053259070noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5986809131543189129.post-43303230760369802382017-07-18T21:16:00.000+01:002017-10-03T17:17:58.151+01:00Hello darkness my old friend<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xim74TyLxvY/WW5qEcvvgXI/AAAAAAAAFjE/qMksJ8HL76kNIAo_Nxa-HLGnFOMGfpJXQCEwYBhgL/s1600/DSCF1674C.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xim74TyLxvY/WW5qEcvvgXI/AAAAAAAAFjE/qMksJ8HL76kNIAo_Nxa-HLGnFOMGfpJXQCEwYBhgL/s400/DSCF1674C.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">You wouldn't expect Space to have a smell would you? Because there's nothing much there. That's kinda why it's called Space, isn't it? </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Well you'd be wrong. Space smells burnt. (At least it does in our neck of the woods. Elsewhere it smells of <a href="http://www.iflscience.com/space/center-our-galaxy-smells-raspberries-and-tastes-rum/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">raspberries and rum</a>, but that's another story.) </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">We know about the burnt smell of Space because astronauts carry it back to the International Space Station on their spacesuits, when they've been outside. ”The best description I can come up with is metallic,” said Don Pettit. “It reminded me of pleasant, sweet-smelling welding fumes.”</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">To Alexander Gerst it had a combination of fragrances, “namely walnuts and the brake pads of a motorbike.” </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So what has the smell of Space to do with that photo of my younger son and myself at his Glasgow School of Art degree show, where his main exhibit was that elegant urn, painstakingly assembled from the walls of the room, which he'd pulled down and cut up into little bricks?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">“Deconstructing GSA” he'd called it and I'd asked him what it all meant. I should have known better, his standard answer to “What does it mean?” being “It doesn't mean anything. It's art.”</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">After four years of being asked </span><span style="font-size: large;">the question</span><span style="font-size: large;">, his response has become dismissively minimalist. It's not easy to convey the sound he makes through the written word, but allow me to try. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Stand up, shrug your shoulders, as he's doing in the photo, and say out loud “I don't know”. Now keep repeating the sentence, gradually removing all consonants, while retaining the vocalised intonation. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">What you're left with, if you do it right, is like the grin of the Cheshire Cat. The substance has gone but the sense remains. It sounds like 'Ah-u-oh', and the vocalisation is roughly re-mi-do (D-E-C).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Got it? Now let's join up the dots. My smart son kept telling me, all the time he was at Art School, that science and art are far more similar than they seem. They are, he believes, two roads to the same distant destination. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I think I now agree with him. He as an artist and I as a scientist are both trying to comprehend the strange universe our mums shoved us out into, without handbook or roadmap, and it is far from easy. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Some scientists suffer from an ossified certainty. They have acquired so much knowledge and authority that they've come to equate these with understanding. The best scientists know that's nonsense. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">“I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there,” said Richard Feynman, </span><span style="font-size: large;">one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century,</span><span style="font-size: large;"> and </span><span style="font-size: large;">a man not known for his modesty.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The correct response of any scientist or artist to the ineffably weird world we inhabit is not dogmatic conviction. It's the sound my son makes when I ask him what it means.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Space has a smell. It also has a sound. “Ah-u-oh” is, I believe, one of the fundamental sounds of the universe. It's the sound of space. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">It's the sound of art.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">It's the sound of science.</span>Douglas Blanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05023900300053259070noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5986809131543189129.post-60426825504865412382015-12-12T21:01:00.001+00:002015-12-13T10:47:00.778+00:00Question of time<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; line-height: 18.9px;">When workload is heavy, Friendly Encounters become less frequent. So we've enlisted experienced reporters to fill the gaps with short, topical news stories. (But remember what </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.85px; line-height: 18.9px;">Walt Whitman said: </span></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; line-height: 18.9px;">"</span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.85px; line-height: 18.9px;"><span style="background-color: white;"></span>Whatever satisfies the soul is truth."</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; line-height: 18.9px;">)</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; line-height: 18.9px;"><br /></span></span>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AHCIOxyWO94/VmyJY_5homI/AAAAAAAAFLE/D8TtOYDVE9o/s1600/balloon2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AHCIOxyWO94/VmyJY_5homI/AAAAAAAAFLE/D8TtOYDVE9o/s320/balloon2.jpg" width="231" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Reports that David Dimbleby has turned into a hot-air balloon have been greatly exaggerated, say experts.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"He's not mature enough," said Dr Turnovah Newleaf, a biologist at Sussex University. "Metamorphosis into a hot-air balloon</span><span style="font-size: large;"> is part of the life-cycle of the Dimblebys. </span><span style="font-size: large;">But David hasn't reached that stage </span><span style="font-size: large;">yet</span><span style="font-size: large;">."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">His father Richard Dimbleby did his best work after the change, she added. "He used to float above Royal Weddings emitting a sonorous, incomprehensible rumble. It was very soothing."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Dr Phil McCracken, a Glasgow psychiatrist, said: "Close study by scientists resulted in the </span><span style="font-size: large;">discovery of </span><span style="font-size: large;">Dimbleby Waves.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> These led to a breakthrough in the treatment of mental disorders, when </span><span style="font-size: large;">a machine was invented that could create the waves electronically."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Dimbleby Waves make humans feel secure, said Dr McCracken. "</span><span style="font-size: large;">They bypass the bullshit deflectors in our brains. So h</span><span style="font-size: large;">ospitals use the machines to pacify disturbed patients who believe Britain is run by psychopaths."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Although David has not yet metamorphosed, the change is inevitable, said Dr Newleaf. "</span><span style="font-size: large;">You might as well try to stop a caterpillar becoming a butterfly as a Dimbleby turning into a hot-air balloon. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"It's his destiny."</span>Douglas Blanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05023900300053259070noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5986809131543189129.post-61341131497193865812015-12-12T12:38:00.001+00:002015-12-21T21:15:38.709+00:00A good deal of plain gibberish<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PQlz5-LnQpc/Vmdj9OI7WjI/AAAAAAAAFKE/7nHDEmDCg20/s1600/2007180466_d4dbf9bcd7_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="287" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PQlz5-LnQpc/Vmdj9OI7WjI/AAAAAAAAFKE/7nHDEmDCg20/s400/2007180466_d4dbf9bcd7_o.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> A MacDog by </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Will Brenner.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: large;">"You have to be nice to them," I try to tell my son, as he curses his computer for the tenth time in an hour. But he's not listening. Essay writing is always fraught at Blane Mansions, and this term it's worse than usual because the subject is postmodernism, which is quite frankly bollocks.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Here's what Noam Chomsky had to say on the subject. "A lot of it is simply illiterate, based on extraordinary misreading of texts, argument that is appalling in its casual lack of elementary self-criticism, lots of statements that are trivial or false, and a good deal of plain gibberish."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Chomsky knew a thing or two. But. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And it's a big but.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Given an essay assignment on postmodernism you </span><span style="font-size: large;">have to convince yourself, for the couple of weeks it takes to research and write, that these people are among the most profound philosophers on the planet. You have to engage with their arguments, such as they are. </span><span style="font-size: large;">And you have to be especially nice to your computer. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Because it doesn't like postmodernism any more than you do," I tell my son. "So it's suffering too. If you want your computer to perform well, you have to treat it like ....."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"A woman?" he scoffs. "You're going to say I have to treat my computer like a woman, aren't you? That's the kind of shit you ageing hippies always say."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"I am not now and never have been a hippy," I say. "No I wasn't, unless you want it to interrupt you every five minutes to ask if you've put the dustbins out. To get </span><span style="font-size: large;">your computer to behave, you have to treat it like a well-loved pet - like Katy here."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Young, smart, hyperactive, Katy </span><span style="font-size: large;">is a large Alsatian who is still trying to decide if </span><span style="font-size: large;">I'm a member of her pack or a dangerous outsider. She is convinced the answer is hidden somewhere in my groin</span><span style="font-size: large;">.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Gerrof," I tell her and she throws me a look of reproach from big dark eyes, turns her back on me and flops on the floor. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"See what I mean," I tell my son. "You and Linda get the best out of Katy because you're consistently kind with her, but firm when you need to be. You react to your computer, on the other hand, the way I just reacted to Katy, and with the same result. It sulks.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Let me tell you something," he says, having clearly had enough motivation for one morning. "When I'm trying to work at a computer I spend a fifth of my time working and all of the rest of the time trying to make the little plastic turd DO WHAT I TELL IT TO DO! </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"It's a good thing Steve Jobs is dead or I would feel compelled to take all of the hours I've spent swearing at this piece of shit Mac and use that time rowing to California purely so I could KICK HIM UP HIS CALIFORNIAN ARSEHOLE!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">He stops for breath and looks around. "Where is my computer, by the way?"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Long gone," I tell him. "Shot out the front door in the middle of your rant. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Y</span><span style="font-size: large;">ou won't see it again, I'm guessing. It's run away to join one of the bands of feral computers that have been rejected by humans and now haunt the echoing halls of skyscrapers, airports and mainline railway stations, stealing electrons and playing games with each other."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Computer games?" he says.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Nah. That's work to a computer. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Football."</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">He grins. "Well if that isn't post fucking modern I don't know what is. Fancy a cup of tea?"</span>Douglas Blanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05023900300053259070noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5986809131543189129.post-90072555429935126732015-12-11T17:24:00.000+00:002015-12-11T18:19:10.461+00:00Cause of December flooding foundAt times of heavy workload, Friendly Encounters become less frequent. So we've enlisted experienced reporters to fill the gaps with short, topical news stories. Here is the first:<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The severe flooding that has hit Britain this month has nothing to do with climate change, says a prominent scientist.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"It's all </span><span style="font-size: large;">Jeremy Corbyn's fault,"</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">said Dr Nikolai Moss. "</span><span style="font-size: large;">This isn't politics. </span><span style="font-size: large;">It's science." </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Rain forms around negative particles in clouds, Moss explained. "So all the negativity in the media about Corbyn is floating up into the clouds and acting as condensation centres for rain droplets."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Asked to comment, Richard Dawkins, the biologist whose brain is famously so big it can be seen from Pluto, was unimpressed. </span><span style="font-size: large;">"I had never heard of Nik Moss so I looked him up," he said. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"He claims to have a degree in climatology from the University of Auchinleck. But I was on a train once that went through Auchinleck and it's just a couple of crofters' huts in the Scottish wilderness. The man's a charlatan."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"If Nik Moss is a scientist, my arse is an ancient Greek philosopher," he added.</span>Douglas Blanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05023900300053259070noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5986809131543189129.post-70618433433570387622015-11-15T14:20:00.001+00:002015-12-20T01:02:33.718+00:00Jazz journalism<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ex486QJ8gsI/VkWrFxKa9kI/AAAAAAAAFH8/E-9wS4p0tro/s1600/steve.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="296" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ex486QJ8gsI/VkWrFxKa9kI/AAAAAAAAFH8/E-9wS4p0tro/s400/steve.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">So I'm stood in a bar in Amsterdam, last Thursday night, drinking cloudy Belgian beer, courtesy of my old friend Iain, and chatting to the best drummer in the world.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">I am. Honest.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Usually I tell people Friendly Encounters is not reporting. Grounded in a solid groove it takes off at times into flights of fancy. It's jazz journalism.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">But not this week. </span><span style="font-size: large;">The Steve Gadd in this week's story is the real Steve Gadd. The me is the real me. You can even see my head bobbing at the bottom of this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ6U8TKPzWw" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">video taken on the night</a> a</span><span style="font-size: large;">nd hear my cry of pleasure at the end.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Which is a strange sound for my body to make at a jazz gig. But I hadn't realised that's what I was listening to</span><span style="font-size: large;">. I was so entranced by how Steve makes his drum-kit sing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"This is great," Iain says at the break. "Every one of those guys is outstanding. I prefer rock to jazz, so i</span><span style="font-size: large;">t wouldn't have been my first choice. B</span><span style="font-size: large;">ut very well organised."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It's a sentence no one has said to me before, so I take a moment to savour it. Then </span><span style="font-size: large;">I replay some of the sounds in my head. And bugger me, he's right. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Somehow</span><span style="font-size: large;"> I've filtered out one guy tooting a trumpet, another on keyboards and a whole lot of swing, syncopation and improvisation. My dad would have loved it. </span><span style="font-size: large;">They'd even played <i>Bye Bye Blackbird</i>, </span><span style="font-size: large;">a song he used to sing us to sleep with, and a staple of jazz bands since the 1920s.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">The knowledge I'm at a jazz gig doesn't dim my delight, as Steve and the band play half a dozen numbers, build to a drum solo, get rapturous applause and return for the encore.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"I could listen to Steve Gadd play anything, w</span><span style="font-size: large;">ith anything.</span><span style="font-size: large;">" I tell Iain in the bar afterwards. "He could make great music by hitting a fresh cowpat with two sticks of celery."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"Or a four-cheese pizza with a couple of cucumbers," he says. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Now I've read lots of articles trying to understand what makes Steve special. They talk about his wonderful feel, but they don't analyse it much. Having watched him play from a distance of 15 feet I can tell you there's at least three elements. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">He doesn't draw attention to his drumming. It's great music he's after, not the limelight. He works with the other guys in the band to create a groove so strong you could dance six inches off the floor on it. Then there's the dynamics. His are subtle, cool, sometimes surprising. They make you feel good. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Then there's the space he gives to other players in the band. My lasting image is not of triple ratamacues on every available surface, the drumsticks just a blur. It's of one stick moving down, nice and easy, while the other comes off the skins, or more often the cymbals. The 'tssst' sound of a clipped hi-hat closing at the right point to make your spirits soar is quintessential Steve Gadd.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Iain is all for hitting the rain-silvered pavements at the end of the show, since we've a fair walk to the hotel and don't know the way. But the band's coming into the bar to sign T-shirts, so I spend 30 euros and get in line. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The scary bouncer catches my eye and I look away, the schoolboy words 'It wisnae me' forming and dissolving in my head. Clad in a dinner suit two sizes too small for him, this guy is big, bulging and bald. He looks like a cannonball on a column of stone. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Until some poor sap puts his arm around Steve's shoulders and tries to take a selfie. Then the cannonball moves in fast and plucks him off, using an arm like a ballerina's thigh.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">At the end of the long table, Steve stands up and has a quiet word with the bruiser, suggesting maybe he shouldn't break the nice fans. So the next selfie, he just stands and watches, twitching slightly with frustrated force.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">When I get to the front, I move along the table, getting signatures on my T-shirt, and having a wee word with each musician. "I noticed you smiling a lot when someone else was soloing," I say to Jimmy Johnson, the five-string bass player.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"I was enjoying myself," he says. "How could you not? These guys are good."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">And then I'm there. Stood in front of a smiling Steve Gadd, who has signed my T-shirt and is waiting politely for me to say something intelligent. So he's clearly not a reader of this blog.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Thin and wiry, his tattooed arms look just like mine. If only they were. "Imagine you're giving one piece of advice to a young drummer who wanted to get as good as you," I say to him. "What would it be?" </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"There's no secret," Steve says. "Keep playing. Practise. Listen to other musicians. Keep it simple."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I hold my hand out to shake his. "Slip me some magic, Steve," I say and float back to the table where Iain is guarding my beer. Ten minutes later we're all leaving the bar and Steve is chatting to someone next to me. On an impulse I reach out and stroke his arm, an involuntary gesture my hand does to people I really like. He looks at me, smiles and holds his hand out again. I shake it and say goodnight.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I've had hot dates that didn't go half as well. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The final impression that comes to me, as Iain and I wander in circles through the long night, trying to find our hotel using the force, the stars and our unerring sense of direction, is that Steve Gadd isn't projecting. There's no big star aura. Despite all that talent, he's a nice guy who seems to be taking it all in. It's like he's still learning at the age of 70. I love that.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Keep playing," Steve Gadd said to me. "Practise.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"Keep it simple."</span>Douglas Blanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05023900300053259070noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5986809131543189129.post-55620611741567884502015-11-01T14:08:00.002+00:002016-12-10T09:58:59.380+00:00Why can't I come?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-as6Lm6BYS0A/VjMuibJbHxI/AAAAAAAAFHI/8JfkugICnoU/s1600/when-harry-met-sally-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-as6Lm6BYS0A/VjMuibJbHxI/AAAAAAAAFHI/8JfkugICnoU/s400/when-harry-met-sally-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">"So you're off to Amsterdam this week?" Al says, as we walk along Milngavie road, resist the blandishments of the Burnbrae and head towards his <a href="http://friendly-encounters.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/the-good-life.html" target="_blank">ice-cold bungalow in Bearsden</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"Can I come?" he adds.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"You wouldn't want to," I say. "It's a Steve Gadd and James Taylor gig and you don't like either, far as I know."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Who's Steve Gadd?" he says, which doesn't surprise me. Al has strong but not varied musical interests. He's into hard rock and gutsy guitars. He's a Hendrix fan. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"Probably the best drummer in the world," I say.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"I'd go as far as Amsterdam to avoid listening to a drummer," he says.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"But you wouldn't fly there, would you?" I say. "Y</span><span style="font-size: large;">ou're scared of flying."</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"You know that's not true," he says, seeming peeved. "I'm scared of climate change. I don't believe anyone should fly anywhere."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"You think burning your passport will save the planet?" I say.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"You think not eating meat will save the animals?" he says, and it's a fair point. But I have an answer.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"You're right. We both are. I</span><span style="font-size: large;">t's </span><span style="font-size: large;">the same principle. You decide between right and wrong by imagining how things would turn out if everyone did what you're thinking of doing - or not doing. </span><span style="font-size: large;">If the world would be a better place, it's the right thing to do."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"Or not do," Al says. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"Or not do."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"Listen," he </span><span style="font-size: large;">says, grabbing my arm, as we turn into his drive. "C</span><span style="font-size: large;">ould you shut up a minute?" </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">But I'm already in full pontificate mode, so he might as well wave a white hanky at a charging bull. </span><span style="font-size: large;">"There's an alternative principle," I tell him. "The greatest good of the greatest number. Politicians use it to justify everything from benefit cuts to world wars. It's the source of all evil, because </span><span style="font-size: large;">even the simplest dynamic system - </span><span style="font-size: large;">as</span><span style="font-size: large;"> you and I know - </span><span style="font-size: large;">can produce totally </span><span style="font-size: large;">unexpected behaviour. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"A world full of people is anything but simple. </span><span style="font-size: large;">So believe your model, focus on ends and you can justify any means you like. That's not ethics. </span><span style="font-size: large;">To be ethical you have to care about what happens to Mrs McGinty, three doors down, not to the aggregate of 60 million faceless units in a mathematical model that deludes you into imagining you can tell the future, when you're actually talking spurious, self-satisfied, evidence-free, unmitigated shite."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"Has the wee spring wound down yet?" Al says, when I stop to draw a big breath.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"Just about," I say, as we take a seat in his back garden and contemplate a vegetable patch the size of Hampden Park. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Years of Al's tender care and scientific nutrition have given it sinister strength and an air of brooding menace</span><span style="font-size: large;">. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">His broccolis are the size of village bus-shelters. The r</span><span style="font-size: large;">egimented rows of tall leeks look set to invade Czechoslovakia.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">"Just about," I tell him. "Has anyone wandered into your vegetable patch and never come out again?"</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"Not yet," he says. "I think it might have eaten next-door's dog though."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Any chance of a </span><span style="font-size: large;">coffee before I get </span><span style="font-size: large;">back to work?"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Listen, what I was trying to say when you were off on one was this," Al says, five minutes later, placing two full mugs carefully between us </span><span style="font-size: large;">on the wooden bench, dotted delightfully with bird-shit. "Isn't this blog supposed to be mildly humorous?"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"That's the idea," I say, sipping his black, acrid coffee and trying to tell my face it's nice.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Well I've gone over this conversation in my head and it's mainly you on a moral philosophy rant. That's too serious for your readers, isn't it?" </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"<a href="http://friendly-encounters.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/youve-no-idea-how-hard-it-is.html" target="_blank">Most of them</a>," I say. "It wasn't </span><span style="font-size: large;">the plan. </span><span style="font-size: large;">I intended to talk about orgasms."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"</span><span style="font-size: large;">Ancient history then,</span><span style="font-size: large;">" he says. "But w</span><span style="font-size: large;">hy? Is there some topical science angle?"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">"There sure is," I say. "Couple of Australian scientists have launched a study to find out <a href="https://uwopsych.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_03vcDVDFry4LdL7" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">why people fake their orgasms</a>."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">He shakes his head. "Pretty obvious, I'd say, even for Australians. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Daft bloody scientists."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">We sit in companionable silence for a while. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"You ever fake an orgasm?" Al says, without looking at me.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Nah," I say, staring straight ahead. "You?"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">"I can't remember," he says </span><span style="font-size: large;">and w</span><span style="font-size: large;">e sip our coffees, as the vegetable patch rustles ominously and a plane passes overhead, bound for who knows where.</span>Douglas Blanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05023900300053259070noreply@blogger.com0