Are idle hands the Devil’s tool?
It’s been a while since I updated this blog, mainly because I screwed up a theme change and threw the whole site into a state of flux, but also because as a ‘semi-retired’ hack I find myself with less free time than when I was in full-time work.
I have been watching and listening to the news though and finding the whole current affairs agenda stranger than the most phantasmagorical work of fiction.
Keir Starmer is about as useful as a chocolate fireguard, with nothing at all to offer Scotland – apart from bringing Donald Trump here against the wishes of most people here.
I guess the US president would do anything to avoid the heat from the continuing rumblings about his late pal and paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and what is (or isn’t) in the as yet unreleased ‘Epstein Papers’.
Starmer and his pitiful bunch are totally disregarding public opinion about bringing Tango Man to these shores, and I hope the decision comes back to bite them.
Russia’s horrific barrage against Ukraine continues unchecked with Putin continuing to mercilessly bomb civilian targets as world leaders sit on their hands and watch. Volodymyr Zelensky has proposed a new round of peace talks with Putin, who is more than living up to his ‘Mad Vlad’ soubriquet, and at the time of writing this it’s not known whether the two will meet face-to-face.
However, the current most horrific conflict must be Israel’s continued bombardment of Gaza. Since October 2023, a figure approaching 60,000 people in Gaza have died as Benjamin Netanyahu continues to unleash the forces of hell upon the millions of people crammed into the narrow strip of land.
And what are Starmer and his Labour party doing? They are supporting Israel’s genocide, as far as I can ascertain against UK public opinion.
With the US and Russia baring their teeth at each other over the madman’s Gaza extermination, we shouldn’t think we are too far from it all to be overly concerned.
But remember HMNB Clyde, aka Faslane, where what’s called the UK’s nuclear deterrent is based.
I’ve been there several times over the years – I didn’t like it too much on either occasion and I sure as hell don’t like it now.
We’re off to India again in a couple of months – here’s a snap I took my last time there a few months back.
Pip pip.
Time takes a cigarette …
I HAVE more time on my hands during these days of (semi-) retirement, but like sand, it seems to keep slipping through my fingers.
Trips to India and, more recently France, have only stirred my wanderlust and I’ll have to keep it in check to let my wallet catch up.
Then I remembered my sadly neglected space on the web, so here I am.
I’m not going to mention the fatuous Trump (just now) or the equally ludicrous sight of Farage trying to give the impression of a serious politician.
I have been looking through the thousands of images on my laptop – some dating back 20 years – wondering whether I should move them all to the cloud or an external drive, but before I do either, I thought a selection might offer a way to use some of my bandwidth.
The images were shot at various locations around the world, but mostly in Scotland, so enjoy our beautiful country and a selection of others.
This was taken at the David Bowie Museum in New York.
Here’s a picture from D C Thomson’s Dundee Courier of Bowie performing at a gig in the Caird Hall in 1973
And another from the same gig and the same publisher. I was working with D C Thomson at the time and I was at this gig. I’m sitting in the balcony with a lot more hair than I have these days!
More pictures some time soon.
Revisiting the dark days of Thatcherism
THE road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions – regardless of how often I promise myself to keep this blog going, something else always comes up.
Sometimes it’s a furry friend with four paws and a tail, and an ever-endearing facial expression that’s urging me to take her for a walk.
At other times it can be the ‘day job’ demanding my attention, but I’m here now with another radio documentary from my days with our ‘national’ broadcaster, and ignoring the world that president Musk and his puppet Trump are seeking to destroy.
The documentary dates back to the 1980s at the height of Thatcherism, when nurses, ambulance crews and other health workers stood up to the wicked witch.
It was the first documentary I did on that nationwide health dispute. A second – some months later – involved me spending a Saturday night shadowing an ambulance crew in Glasgow, and that was a real eye-opener.
Unfortunately, I don’t have the second programme, but here’s the first, which looks at the dispute in Scotland in a UK context.