It's all over now baby blue

Ok.

This is it.
End of the line.

Increasingly over the past few weeks I've been getting less satisfaction from writing this stuff.
Uplaoding has become a nightmare and even downloading has become something of a chore.

Anyone downloading from here will have noticed that all my links have gone over to Sendspace. Simple reason for this is that my RS uploader fell of it's perch some weeks ago.
I have relentlessly tried to fix whatever problem there is with it but nothing is working.
Even consulting the various forums there are on the subject has failed to provide a solution.

Now I'm finding I can barely download anything except from Sendspace.
Rapidshare downloads that used to take a few minutes now take a couple of hours or time out completely.

My connection seems fine and everything else loads fairly quickly, sometimes RS downloads work ok and then nothing so I don't really know what the problem is.
Trouble now is that I don't really care.
There are many ways to string a cat as they say and quite frankly, I can't be arsed with this particular tuning.

Add to that the fact that good old Google have fired off another Cease and Desist notice and quarantined another post in it's entirety all results in a bit of a jaded Hooli.


All I can say now is that most of the time it's been a blast and, although we've been here before and I really appreciated the supportive comments that urged me to continue, now it's over.

I have other things that I should have been doing all along so it’s off to restring some guitars, mandolins and cats.


Thanks to everyone who stopped by and thanks to everyone who commented.
Thanks in particular to Smacky and Landyjon who just kept coming back and were happy to indulge in a bit of banter

Who knows, maybe after a bit of a break, I might find new inspiration but for now…

…here is the last post.

See the smell o’ cabbages first thing in the mornin’

I was reading a book the other day, which anyone who really knows me will tell you, is a strange thing because, as they say in teenspeak, I don’t do lit.

Nevertheless, there I was, for the fifth time this year I might add, reading a book when I get to a great passage in the first chapter about shite and pish and puke, which instantly had me in convulsions.
OK, so there’s nothing particularly funny abour SPP, especially if, like me, you’ve experienced the old salmonella trick where you can project through the eye of a needle from one end and between the Murrayfield posts from the other, but this took on a peculiar humorous slant in light of the fact I was sitting on the crapper at the time.
As I read on there was a bit of descriptive text about the smell and it struck me that smell is something that is quite difficult to describe.


When it comes to senses, everyone can be quite clear about what they like to look at; landscapes, seascapes or skyscrapers; old cars, fast cars or superbikes; bright colours, natural hues or lurid fluorescents; big jugs, little buns or tight butts. Equally, I’m sure we can all be clear about what we don’t like to look at.
Cat’s arses do it for me.
Anyone who’s never owned a cat or isn’t a cat lover will have noticed they way cats always gravitate towards people who are either freaked by them, are allergic to them or just have a plain dislike to them. They can sense it in their evil little Egyptian cat brains and once they have, it’s onto the lap, back arched, tail in the air and a vet’s eye view of their arsehole.
Evil little feline bastards!
This is the reason why I don’t like cats, especially ones with their arses pressed against the rear windscreens of bright fluorescent green sports cars, driven by women with tits like basketballs and complexions like burning rubber that’s been put out with orange sand and a golf shoe.

Similarly, we are pretty clear when it comes to what tickles our tastebuds; beer, wine or whisky; cola, fruit juice or water; coffee, tea or Bovril; Chinese, Indian or Ma’s own; and again, we don’t need a jury to help us decide what we don’t like.
Me, I just can’t go for anything that smells like shite.
Eggs, in almost any form, particularly the high sulphur, yolky variety along with numerous vegetables from the Brassica and Rutabaga families that give off that characteristic peppermint and cabbage shitey yom, when introduced to heat, can instantly trigger my gag reflex.
It actually beats me how we ever managed to convince ourselves that it was ok to eat something that smelled like crap, especially something that looked like a bleached out brain that had been dumped in a bunch of cabbage leaves
Maybe the ancient Greeks were just having a bit of a laugh with us.

In the same way, what we like to feel against our skin follows a similar pattern. Some of us like hairy, some like bald; some like rough, some like it smooth; some like hot and some like cold while some like to be wet and others like to be dry. If you can escape the sexual innuendo and think about it, seldom are we anywhere in between and almost never are we comfortable at both ends of the spectrum.

What we like to hear has pretty much been covered before but smell, now there’s a whole different metaphoric kettle of rancid kippers.


Sense of smell is so variable and even when it works, we can’t agree what things smell like.

My wife would probably agree, unless she was feeling particularly argumentative, that she couldn’t smell a shitey stick supposing it was rammed up her left nostril. I, on the other hand can smell putrefaction a mile off.
Most smells, apart from eggs, I can live with but some things really get to me.

Lemons!

Now I happen to be quite partial to sour things, lemons, limes and so forth but one thing I can’t stomach is the smell of foosty lemons.
One household I regularly visit almost always has a very pungent and acidic waft that I know emanates from the fruit bowl.

A few strategic moves with the apples and oranges and sure enough, festering away at the bottom, a deceased lemon heavily disguised in Penicillin Italicum. The inevitable puffs of blue mould releasing a further acidic assault on my seared nostrils.

Melons are another thing!

Fresh, mouldy or otherwise, to me, they always smell of cat’s piss.
Given that the rest of the family know that any cat that enters the house faces unspeakable things involving Rodger, a baseball bat and some electricity, I know whenever that smell is around that melon is on the menu.

I’m sure by now you’re starting to wonder just what the f4ck the point is that I’m building up to. Well, as I was saying, I’ve taken to reading, generally at the end of the day while resting my butt cheeks over the crapper.

It’s the only time I can get peace and quiet.

There are times when I’ve spent so long sitting there, enthralled by some tale of butchery or murderous mutilation that, on rising to a standing position, I’ve found myself immediately collapsing into the corner like a sack of wet haddock, only realising as I clamber back onto the bog seat that my legs have gone to sleep.
Anyway, the other night, sitting there, locked in mortal combat with my bowels while digesting some very descriptive Christopher Brookmyre, I realised that I was feeling a bit queasy.

Not from the subject matter or from my own stink but from another smell.


Someone had come up with the bright idea of filling the house with air fresheners. You know the sort of thing, looks like glass filled with bright red gel; smells like plastic filled with regurgitated sweets and rotting fruit.
That great artificial perfume that has a particularly nasty knack of fusing with the smell of something foul to produce something much worse.
When I thought about it, these weren’t only in the toilet. They were dotted around windowsills, cupboards even in the bedroom.


Now this came as some surprise as my wife is pretty much a candle fiend.

This extends to the point where she can have anything up to a dozen candles burning around the house in a single evening.

This is clearly some kind of game, like a test for me, just to see if I’m paying attention. Me being the last to bed, I’m sure she thinks if she lights enough of them, I’ll miss one and she’ll have her victory. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve come down stairs in the morning to find the kitchen filled with the scent of mulled wine and forest berries and lit by the faint glimmer of a wax filled glass on top of the hob.
At least now they go on the hob and not on the worktop.
You should see what happens when the heat from a candleholder transfers through the glass, into the formica then forms a bubble underneath which then explodes.
I’m thinking egg in a microwave here…

Speaking of which, being ever the economists, same wife (not that I have more than one) and the teenager decided that it would be a good idea to save all the wax remnants from all the half dead candles and burn it all in an oil burner – I agree, much better than buying new candles all the time and less glass wastage as well.
Unfortunate thing here is that the teenager has obviously been paying attention to the wrong bits of science class while her mother, despite being the product of two eminent scientific minds, clearly didn’t pay attention to any of it.

Using the microwave to melt wax?
Good idea.
Not removing the little metallic disc that anchors the wick?
Bad idea
Realising it was a bad idea but running to get ones mobile and film your own stupidity?
Totally f4cking priceless!

Enter the self-lighting candle.
I was going to add the video clip but like some of my previous posts, it too has been censored


So, as I was saying, house filled with air fresheners, dad out jamming with his mates wife and daughter traumatised by self lighting candle episode, you can see how it all fits together. Clearly the teenager had taken control of the shopping list. And had piled a load of Airwicks into the trolley. Presumably this was as a countermeasure to the melons she had also placed in the trolley, knowing full well I’d come home and start wiring up my baseball bat.

And so, one last stand of defiance...
the music...

Mixed bag of live recordings from Ricky Ross & co
Deacon Blue – Orphans
http://www.sendspace.com/file/lokp9s

Richard Thompson - Live
http://www.sendspace.com/file/1rqlyz

Ross Ainslie & Jarlath Henderson – Partners In Crime
http://www.sendspace.com/file/4dxuk1

Yello – One Second
http://www.sendspace.com/file/3q9l9n

Sigur Ros – Odin’s Raven Magic - Live
http://www.sendspace.com/file/c3dfc3

Idlewild – Tom Morton Session
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ko45ex

Taste – London Ivasion
http://www.sendspace.com/file/228x3r

Rock Salt and Nails – Live And Hazardous
http://www.sendspace.com/file/04q58k

10000 Maniacs – Human Conflict Number Five
http://www.sendspace.com/file/arw8gw

Kate Rusby & John McCusker - Heartlands
http://www.sendspace.com/file/funj8o

Billy Connolly & John McCusker – Billy Connolly’s Tour Of New Zealand
http://www.sendspace.com/file/iib1c4

Port O'Brien - All We Could Do Was Sing
http://www.sendspace.com/file/uyn6w9

Death Cab For Cutie – You Can Play These Songs With Chords
http://www.sendspace.com/file/587gt5

The Postal Service - The District Sleeeps Alone Tonight
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ujil9r

The Postal Service - Such Great Heights
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ww3sgr

The Postal Service - We Will Become Silhouettes
http://www.sendspace.com/file/zioqli

Shooglenifty – Troots
http://www.sendspace.com/file/70bqt2

The Raconteurs – Stubbs BBQ
http://www.sendspace.com/file/weo4k2

Modest Mouse - The Lonesome Crowded West
http://www.sendspace.com/file/sjy8q3

Jackie Leven – The Haunted Year Winter
http://www.sendspace.com/file/hjsrft

Blackie & The Rodeo Kings – Swinging From The Chains Of Lone
http://www.sendspace.com/file/e0x1mx


Thanks to you all and enjoy…


Hooli has left the building!

...you walk into the office where the boss is making passes at the young girls on the floor...

We humans, being predisposed to vanity and exhibitionism, are masters at the art of making fools of ourselves. No other animal gets close. No matter how many clips Harry Hill or Les Dennis churn out that leave the kids rolling around on the floor, it’s us humans who are the biggest idiots. It’s probably just as well because who knows where we would be if we didn’t have our own embarrassment to keep our feet firmly planted on the ground.

Sitting here, jabbing away, being distracted by the abysmally embarrassing antics of the idiots on Britain’s Got Talent ???, it strikes me that I’ve never done anything that truly embarrassed me. I never got the whole bit on the side, or flirting with the lassies at work stuff. I see people do it and frankly, I'm embarrassed for them. Sure, I’ve made a twat of myself a few times but I’ve never been the type to get embarrassed, probably because I’ve never put myself into a situation where I was unable find an excuse for twattiness.

I do remember one time, aged about 13, in the midst of a Glaswegian winter, a mate and I went for a spot of snowballing at lunchtime. Being a bit of a growing lad at the time, the inevitable happened when I rashly stooped to scoop up a fresh handful of snow. Rrrrrip. The forgiving nature of my school greys gave up as their seam split from bollocks to waistband.
Ach well, not to worry, it was a Friday and it was sports that afternoon. Bit of a haul down of the blazer, some strategic schoolbag strap adjustment and I’d make it to the gym without getting caught. Quick change, then run home in my footy kit.
What I hadn’t bargained for was some smart arsed teacher deciding we should be doing some Scottish Country dancing because it was getting close to Christmas.
Scottish Country Dancing...
With girls...
And my Ys hinging oot the arse o’ ma breeks!

Another time recently, hill walking around Glen Mark, my eldest daughter and I stopped to fool around beneath a waterfall. Just the usual stuff; chucking stones, flicking water at each other. Eager to show her that my tales of having an affinity with the land weren’t just a pile of pish, I skipped nimbly from rock to rock. Rock to rock. Rock to heather bank. A heather bank that was deceptively overhanging the water. Down I went through fistfuls of heather and bracken.
The Mighty Sploosh.
It was only when the ice-cold water slapped me in the bollocks that I got the strength to pull myself to the bank.

Then there was the time in my late teens when, as a keen photographer, I was chasing a midsummer sunset up the coast, trying to catch that crucial moment when the light was just perfect, the dying glow, perfectly reflected between the water and the evening mist as it rose from some inshore freshwater pools. Another couple of minutes and it would be gone. Just enough time to get over that fence, set up the tripod and squeeze off that killer shot. Quickly slinging my gear over my shoulder, feeling pretty good about it all, I grabbed the top wire of the fence, pulled back and catapulted myself over to the other side and straight into my waist in a foul, gaseous and rancid smelling peat bog.
Fortunately, no-one was around to see me squelching my way back to the car.

All pretty tame stuff.
Always on my side, the built in defence mechanism, the reflex that wakes you from a dream just before you die. Strangely, dreams are where I find most of my embarrassing moments. The old ‘naked in the street’ scenario or the recurring dream where I have to chase to catch a flight only to get to the airport with no passport.

Anyway, last week’s trip to Birmingham turned out to have a bit of an unexpected twist.
My recollection of the last time I went to Britain’s second city was an 8 hour overnight drive in a borrowed Fiat Uno, arriving at such an unreasonably early hour that we had to wait in the car until we were sure our hosts had woken up. I remember watching a Scotland / Australia World Cup qualifier then heading into the Bull Ring. This had been hailed by our host as the last line in shopping. Well, it certainly was the last line in something but I’m still not sure what. Having gotten hopelessly mangled by the road system around Aston University before heading out in the evening for some beer and a curry, I wasn’t wholly impressed.
My memories weren’t on the side of poor old Brum but as it had been a good twenty five years since my last visit, I was prepared to be surprised.
And so it went, surprised I was. Old Brumsville was great. Great shops. Great curry in a little place above the canal. Great bus service. Shame about the hotel beds but hey, that’s the price you pay for great beer prices.

Standing at the airport check in, silently aggrieved at the fact that the website said “online check in from 36 hours before departure” yet still showed the flight as being closed right up until I finally got checked in only two hours before leaving for the airport, I handed over my boarding cards. I noticed the oddly puzzled look on the attendants face. The fact that she was looking to and fro between her computer screen and my assembled paperwork signalled that something wasn’t quite right but then I thought, well, this is what they do. They are trained to check and double check and make absolutely sure that everything is in order.
The fear of terrorist activity has ensured that our ground staff are trained to look impassive when challenged and to look challenged when impassive. From the way she kept looking around her, from side to side, as if she wasn’t quite sure of what was going on and was somehow doubting her own assessment of the situation, I could tell that natural human behaviour had taken over and that this was no manifestation of some training school role play. After some consultation with her colleagues and some double checking against our reservation code on the website it became obvious something is wrong. Somehow, somewhere between me navigating through their website and reaching the desk, there had been one enormous f4ck up.
She was quite clear on the fact that the first flight was not for another three hours and that the date on our reservation was the 6th. Checking the hotel reservation revealed a similar conclusion.
We had indeed booked to depart on the 6th with our first night’s accommodation also on the 6th.
Why, oh why then, were we standing there, in the middle of Aberdeen airport at 11.50 on Sunday the 5th.
How could we have all got it so wrong?
Now, the natural thing would be to take it out on someone else, nearest and dearest perhaps, or maybe indulge in some fruitlessly argumentative stance with the poor unsuspecting desk attendant but no, for some reason, I found it all quite hilarious.


Nothing like making a tit of yourself then laughing at yourself to keep it all real.

And now some music...

The Modern Lovers
http://www.sendspace.com/file/4wtokm

Death Cab For Cutie – Th ePhoto Album
http://www.sendspace.com/file/56gw1b

The View – Live At Glasgow Barrowlands
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ze0fdm

Ian McNabb – Before All Of This
http://www.sendspace.com/file/zjd20x

Ian McNabb – Live At Life
http://www.sendspace.com/file/g4c5dm

Holly Golightly & The Broke Offs
http://www.sendspace.com/file/mvifk3

John McCusker – Goodnight Ginger
http://www.sendspace.com/file/s1x532

Sigur Ros – Hlemmur
http://www.sendspace.com/file/e1wp3w

Aidan Moffat - I Can Hear Your Heart
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ygm0i0

Malcolm Middleton – Sleight Of Heart
http://www.sendspace.com/file/la6meq

Arab Strap – Live In Belfast
http://www.sendspace.com/file/z5ex0q

Natalie Merchant – Live at the Joint
http://www.sendspace.com/file/czjvvd

Various – Rubber Folk
http://www.sendspace.com/file/otmv86

Boo Hewerdine – A Live One
http://www.sendspace.com/file/g8rzmi

Kate Rusby & John McCusker – Heartlands
http://www.sendspace.com/file/huiklk

Green On Red – Live At The Rialto
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ghurho

Neil Young – Prairie Wind Live
http://www.sendspace.com/file/6ahs68


Enjoy

Hooli