The moving finger rants

The consensus in the comments on my epic coffee post seems to be that I take more sugar than is considered usual. This is probably true: I have an inordinately sweet tooth. Comes of bringing oneself up.

Still not sure that constitutes epic though. A coffee constitutes 3% of my average weekly expenditure (quoth the Spreadsheet), and I'm damned if I'm not going to get it made the way I want it.

The foregoing is presented by way of a somewhat clumsy segue into a discussion of my fat intake. There will be pictures, but not those sorts of pictures, so it's okay.

The other weekend, stormsearch and I went to Berwick for a Special Farmers' Market, organized between the people at Piperfield (who make awesome pork products that I can't afford) and the Slow Food people (who have an annual subscription roughly equivalent to three months' bacon budget; I prefer to practise slow food rather than be a member of a club that simply says I do). It was basically like the Farmers' Market, but in another country.

Next time, I might even do something other than pork.

I don't get it. The Queen is Defender of the Protestant Faith, right? So the Pope comes to town tomorrow, and she's making him tea. She's still excommunicated as far as I know. Shouldn't they fight?

I'd pay twenty quid to see that—much better than some boring Mass any day. We can give the Queen a handbag with a brick in it and Ratzinger has those Gucci shoes with the wicked heel on them. Old person fight! Roll up, roll up! Centuries of doctrinal conflict settled at last in one glorious battle to the death! Official programmes £15. Bring your own popcorn. Soundtrack provided by Battle without Honor or Humanity, natch.

Personally, I think the Queen could take him. Ratzo is a couple of years younger, but she's the bloody Queen, mate.

Okay, it's a state visit, I can grasp that. We get those sometimes and it's very nice for the economy. But the state of which Popeface is head (can't read my, can't read my, no you can't read my Poper face) is, let's face it, a bizarre theocratic dictatorship responsible for millions of deaths and the systematic coverup of organized child rape, not to mention the Crusades, some degree of complicity in the Holocaust, and a great deal of arrogant swanning about the planet like they own the place. If Robert Mugabe came to town, I'd expect a little outcry. The amount of opposition to this has consisted of a single letter to the Guardian. And no one has even begun to talk about my personal inconvenience.

There are nineteen pages of traffic restrictions for the Papal visit tomorrow. Basically, His Holiness pootles into town in his little glass-enclosed mobility chair, and as a result no one is allowed to drive or park anywhere in the Capital. You can do whatever steps you want if \ You have cleared them with the City of Edinburgh Council, which naturally means that nobody will be doing any stepping of any kind.

The Pontiff's route neatly bisects a line between my flat and my work: I have advised my bosses that, if I'm not in on time tomorrow, it's either because traffic is terrible (which it will be) or because I've been arrested.

This year alone I've killed two million fewer Africans than that bloke has. I'm just an honest citizen trying to get to work. Where's my fuckin' motorcade, Officer?

Trying to work out the best way to fit SECULAR HUMANISM ROCKS YOUR SOCKS RIGHT OFF onto a banner.

Yeah. Tomorrow's going to be fun.

We got to move these refrigerators
We got to move these colour TVs

Say one trip across the Meadows is an Ikea bag's worth of stuff. About thirty to forty kilos and about a mile. With someone else assisting (massive thanks to scotm), we could manage three loads on a single trip: one each carried on the shoulders, and another slung between us.

I'd done four or five the previous day. Then, with some help, we did fifteen loads on Sunday. Then five more on Monday, and paid the removal men to shift the really heavy stuff: nine boxes of books, three computers, two desks, amplifier and speakers.

This is after a really vicious cull of books, CDs, audio cassettes (I still have some of those), magazines, and recipes. Paper is heavy. I have thrown so much shit away. I still own a totally ridiculous amount of stuff.

And I carried it all up four flights of stairs at the far end, too.

stormsearch helped me set up my bookcases and arrange my books on them. Now it starts to feel like home.

Yesterday, a run to Ikea for another chest of drawers. Because the flat is full of weird angles and also because we both own so much stuff, the only one that will fit anywhere comes from the kids' section. Since we're getting a taxi back from Ikea anyway, and there's a massive Sainsburys just across the car park, BOOZE RUN! Vodka, whisky, and a case of assorted Wychwood ales. Now it feels like home.

Two more Ikea-bag loads today. Food, tins, storage jars, the rug, the poster I'm keeping, the missing pestle for the mortar, the leftover shot glass so I have a pair, that sort of thing. The empty shell of my former flat looks weird.

$AGENCY are already trying to re-let it. It's not been decorated in ten years and they've not yet engaged a painter. (After the last month of NOW NOW GET OUT NOW WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE GO NOW GO GO GO, they've decided actually, can you wait a week?) The shower is a minimum of fifteen years old. Also we're still moving out, there's dust everywhere and boxes stacked up, and the place looks derelict. They brought somebody round today to view the property. It took thirty seconds before she'd seen enough.

I've had a look online. For this ruined husk of a potentially lovely dwelling, they've raised the rent to 160% of what I was paying. No wonder they wanted us out so fast. Photos to be taken soon it says on $AGENCY's website. Odd, that. I've watched them take photos twice.

This is mostly Someone Else's Problem, now. I am in my new flat with penelope and the Speakers of DOOM set up, and I am playing Dire Straits, because I can. scattergather would never let me play Dire Straits, or Meatloaf, in the old place.

Looking out of my window, there's a half-Moon poking through suitably atmospheric clouds just above the Crown Spire of St Giles' High Kirk, and Capella is shining brightly over the Union Flag, still flyin', atop the Castle. Feels like home. This'll do.

Anybody want a Sun Sparc Ultra 1? Cost $27,000 dollars new, and I don't want to carry it up four flights of stairs.

Sunday: Eric's Tales of the Sea in the Caves. Not bad. Then: the food stalls! German sossinges and many burgers. I love the Festival.

Monday: Frisky and Mannish: The College Years. Utterly brilliant. We were convinced afterwards to buy the last tickets for their one-night-only revival of last year's show. That's tonight, after work, and is going to rock.

I've been acquiring new music lately. Somewhat belatedly I've been getting into Regina Spektor in a big way, and Frisky & Mannish reminded me to get hold of Florence + The Machine. Florence + The Machine >>> Goldfrapp. I like my music overwrought: Russian composers and German conductors. I like my musicians angsty, the better to facilitate this. (Regina Spektor is the exception. She's just so damn happy.) Thus, Florence + The Machine are fantastic: it's Eighties power ballads but without the hair or, y'know, the Eighties. Marvellous.

On reflection it appears that a substantial proportion of my current music is sung by females of a certain age, all of whom have outstandingly good legs. Regina, Florence, Alison Goldfrapp, Shirley Manson, Amanda Palmer, Rihanna, and Lady Gaga (I presume she has good legs, but it's difficult to tell under whatever it is she's wearing today.) I don't know why legs correlate so strongly with vocal talent, but they do.

Tonight: the School of Pop, then I'm going to see if I can catch some of the Perseids meteor shower (admission free). Tomorrow, Toby Hadoke's new show and whiskies in the Bow Bar.

After that, I'm out of plans, but these are things I'd still like to see:

• Any of the cabaret/burlesque stuff, to give stormsearch a chance to dress up, you know
• Stripped might be interesting, and got four stars in the Scotsman
• Five Clever Courtesans
• Really want to see Caledonia, but it's expensive. It would appear that the extra £5m in government money that the Proper Festival gets over the Fringe doesn't trickle down well.

Next month: Chess. Told you I like my music overwrought.

It is well and truly August. The busy bit isn't supposed to start until Friday, but so far today, the phone hasn't stopped.

Between flat crap and work and additional flat crap (coming soon to a blog near you!) and more work, and then packing and moving, then new flat crap, all while simultaneously handling work, and did I mention work?... anyway, with all of that, plus Other Things, I fully expect to have gone utterly scorching, spinning  mad by the end of the month. I'm not looking forward to this.

Four weeks of unrelenting stupidity and then, should I survive, a glorious, relaxing September. Just need to get through the four weeks first.

All that said, I've arranged to see the following shows so far:

• Frisky and Mannish: The College Years on the 9th
• Toby Hadoke: Now I Know My BBC on the 13th

Other than that, things are pretty groovy. The Spreadsheet still runs my life, but I'm starting to see actual effects from it, which is gratifying. I have an additional spreadsheet now for some minor exercises. And once August is over, September is going to be awesome.

Excessive child noise warranted a police call-out to our building for the crying of a newborn baby

Berlin sounds like a veritable Paradise on Earth, then. If I knew any more German than my grandfather's 1944 invasion handbook and the lyrics to Du Hast, I'd be moving there before you could say Hände hoch, ich bin ein Britischer Soldat. Alas it seems to be all over now.

We've got the Herald in today instead of the execrable Scotsman. The Herald is a much better paper, but concentrates on Glasgow-based news, and Glasgow still scares the hell out of me. Here's an interesting article about how the recent total humiliation of the Scottish Defence League had nothing to do with Scotland being full of high-minded liberals, but rather more to do with the fact that you can't get Scots football hooligans to work together. Still, whatever works, I suppose.

I am totally in agreement with these women:

The idea of mothering Sunday is almost a reinforcement of patriarchy: a woman’s place is in the home with her children—Kainde Manji, daughter of a feminist

I don’t believe in marking a meaningful ritual by engaging in a materialistic capitalist agenda—somewhat pretentious playwright Nic Green (warning: Flashgasm)

Neither of which has anytrhing to do with the fact that I didn't celebrate Mother's Day today, except by accident. I love not having to do this shit.

Today is Pi Day. I didn't celebrate that because I forgot. I shall just have to wait until 22/7. Mmm, approximation of Pi day.

Spike Milligan's Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall at the Lyceum, early part of October.

Who's going?

The Royal Society of Edinburgh recently released a report damning VisitScotland and calling for it to be scrapped. Or so the Scotsman tells me. Actually, the RSE's press release says nothing of the kind: it barely mentions VisitScotland at all, and merely recommends that they (for a suitably nebulous they) radically reform the support structures for tourism. I haven't read the report: perhaps the report has stronger language. Perhaps the Scotsman is just being sensationalist again.

It's true that VisitScotland are, often, a bunch of incompetent morons who seem to have difficulty in the important business field of arse/elbow distinction. I'm wildly in favour of sweeping reforms, or, on bad days, the tactical nuking of Livingston; nonetheless I think scrapped is a bit strong. First of all they need to decide whether or not they're working with, or against, the accommodation providers, and then I think we can work upwards from there.

However, the knives are out now. Apparently (so the Scotsman tells me) VisitScotland had to change their information on rail travel, because FirstScotrail complained that they were being OMGMEEEAN to them. This is ironic, because the bandwagon that FirstScotrail are jumping on is just about the only movement-related thing that's happening to wagons of any kind at the moment.

Laying aside for a moment the astounding fact that VisitScotland actually got something right for once—namely, that the state of the railways is woeful and unless you're travelling between Edinburgh and Glasgow you'd better get a car, and if you are travelling between Edinburgh and Glasgow it would be faster to walk—this presents me with a moral dilemma. I loathe both organizations, and now they're fighting, so which do I root for?

I have to come down on the side of VisitScotland, because, while it is bungling, inept, and sometimes belligerent, there have been occasions when they've sent us a guest and nothing has gone catastrophically wrong. With FirstScotrail, on the other hand, I've learned to take a massive dose of opiate-based painkillers before even setting foot in the station. There has been one single occasion that I can recall in the last eight years when I've got on a train and not wanted to kill everyone before it starts to move. (Notable example here, and there are many others that languish unblogged because they are too painful to recall.)

Besides, in this case VisitScotland were being entirely accurate and honest, and they were reporting unbiased facts that tourists should know. This is their job, and I wish they'd do it more often. They didn't describe the rail network as skeletal, they said that it was at its most skeletal in the Highlands [emphasis mine, exactitude-fans]—that's a comparative, and to my knowledge it's not libellous or legally actionable in any way. They also apparently had a picture of a sign that said Beware of the trains. This is good advice. Even if the rail network was marvellous, if you get hit by a train it's really going to put a crimp in your day. This is the sort of thing that, in my experience, a lot of tourists need to be told.

I see what's going on here. Not only is it open season on VisitScotland, but one of the most notable complaints in the RSE report (so the Scotsman tells me) is that VisitScotland focuses too much on the central areas, as opposed to the outlying ones that need support. The tourism industry in those areas is struggling for a number of reasons, but key to them is not that VisitScotland has abandoned them, it's that tourists can't bloody get to them in the first place. This is, of course, the fault of FirstScotrail, not VisitScotland^[0], and as a result FirstScotrail has noted that the best defence is a good offence, and that, conveniently, that VisitScotland is now fair game.

Actually, no, there's no moral dilemma here for me at all. I am still on the side of Right as always. Both of you are cretins and should learn to do your jobs. You, provide public transport to places that people want to go; and you, provide information for tourists. It shouldn't be that hard. It's what you're paid to do.

If that's too difficult for you, could you try not to be complete bastards while you're at it? That would be nice, thanks.

~

Holy damn, there were a lot of StudlyCaps in this post. Do businesses think that extra capital letters give them an extra competitive edge?

It doesn't. Even if Scotland's rail network is a bit dodgy is a controversial statement, this isn't: BiCapitalization makes you look like a wanker. This is Truth.

If her profile is to be believed, this woman is 25 years old.

I weep for the state of education in Penicuik.

(WARNING: mosts of the following post will be composed of cheap digs at the Scotsman's abysmal science coverage. Since this is not exactly news to many of you, feel free to skip. Otherwise, feel free to immerse yourself in the deathless wit of my pin-sharp prose. 'Cos it's, like, pin-sharp.)

( Pin-sharp deathless prose follows )

Several members of my friends list may be interested in Five reasons not to visit the Edinburgh Festival. Specifically, many of you may be all too familiar with reason #5.

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[0] Because I can. Also, because the Scotsman doesn't seem to have any qualms about doing the exact same thing to Guido's blog on the exact same page.