"A Quiet Release"

Very soon the eldest of my sons will be getting married. 

But first I get away for a few days, very shortly in fact, for one of my favourite times in the year. I'm going to be writing songs, and unwinding, with a few songwriter friends down in England. 

Just recently, since the roof blew off, I haven't written a thing. I don't know where the time has gone. But I do know that I get very broody and restless if too much time goes by without writing a song. 

It's a magical thing to know that in a week's time I'll hopefully have  handful of new creations that could be making their way on to a Fee Come's Fourth slot. That's if the Songwriting God's be in a beneficent mood. 

So this has got to be short. I've a bag to pack,  a guitar to encase, and a journey to make. There are songs in the air.

Woohoo! 

The line "a quiet release" is from the song You Don't Have To Be Strong off my album A Human Being. 

"You Take The Sticks And Stones"

We have to look after the dog. Because Boy who looks after dog is away in Glasgow with other Boys for Stag Weekend of Oldest Boy before wedding next month. I am really not bitter that I, The Dad, wasn't invited along. Not at all. Even though it wouldn't be unheard of for Dads to go on a Stag do. No resentment here.

 And I'm not un-resentful because I'm not missing out on the chance to watch people dressed up as nurses taking their clothes off while I am inebriated. Firstly that sort of thing doesn't appeal to me anyway, and secondly it's not that sort of Stag do. Younger Boys are up there too, and their seniors are responsible and of good moral fibre. Therefore paintballing and ten pin bowling are where the Stag is at. At least that's what I've been told. There is a picture up on Facebook though I will concede that could be part of an elaborate cover up. Anyway, I'm choosing to believe the story.

But stuff them. Back to the dog.

I know there are many, many people who LOVE dogs and the doggy world. The dog, Marley, who we are looking after is a nice dog really. A black labrador with THE most gentle eyes, and a beautiful coat.

But I really don't like looking after the mangy rat. I think it could be the 25 years and counting of raising 9 children that has done for me. Marley, though over a year old, is technically still a puppy. And he is trainable, because I spent a fair bit of time training him in the beginning. Even in a relatively untrained state (he's lost most of the obedience I taught him) he isn't bad. But it all just requires so much time and attention. Walks. Not nice pleasant walks, but constantly Throwing A Stick walks. Calming The Woofing at visitors. The picking up of pooh. It really is like starting parenting all over again. And I really can't be bothered.

So it is good that Dog Boy actually looks after him without any help the majority of the time. These odd days and weekends are the exception, not the rule.

In the meantime, I have decided to run for the position of First Minister in the soon to be independent Scottish State. And when I reach that position I will outlaw all dog keeping, except for  work dogs, dogs for the blind, and possibly dogs for anybody who lives on their own, assuming they can't be fobbed off with a budgerigar.

I will also make a law which requires Dad's to be invited along to Son's Stag Do. Even if they really didn't want to be invited anyway.


The line "you take the sticks and stones" is from the Fee Comes Fourth song You Hurt So Good - September 4th 2013

"When The Boy Became A Man"

I don't particularly like the entrapment tactics of Facebook, but I still think it is the most democratic media on the Worldwide Webnet.

One thing I like is the fact that age doesn't really matter. I've read stuff by people who are far younger than me, and who have a far better grasp of language than I do, and often an incredibly mature and/or insightful attitude. But I really only notice their age in passing.  Or their sex or background. What matters is the words.  The ideas. And I can be opened up by those wherever they come from. And sometimes I am humbled and realise that I'm not as smart or able or wise as I'd like to be.

Which is good. Plenty of reason to stay alive when there's still a long way to your destination. As I get older I'm actually getting more hopeful about the future. Not particularly my future. My moods are too variable. But I think, on a world wide scale, that the people with the good, creative, constructive ideas are going to beat the numpties.

You heard it here first.


The line "When the boy became a man" is from the Fee Comes Fourth song Big Dream, Little Dream - February 4th 2013

"You See The Light Of God, I See Somebody Losing"

I wouldn't describe myself as a humanist. Just a human. But this description of The Meaning Of Life for humanists sums it up as well as anything does for me.

http://www.upworthy.com/if-you-ever-wondered-what-people-who-dont-believe-in-god-actually-believe-you-should-watch-this-am2-5d

I like Stephen Fry. He comes from a privileged background, but has battled with life problems, being gay in a still sceptical, though slightly more welcoming world,  having suffered from quite deep depression, and being generally too clever for his own good. But to my mind he comes up smelling of roses. I love his program QI too. It lives up to it's name...Quite Interesting, but goes that little bit further. I like understatement. Much rather see a down-played entrance with a fantastic outcome, than a hyped up intro leading to a let down. QI has been a lovely, funny Friday night wind down for me.

Stephen is in the avidly anti-religious camp. I think a lot of people from a non-religious background actually shoot a lot of red herrings (or whatever the proverb is) in their attempts to make some really quite sensible points in regard to religion. Sometimes Fry does that too, despite being a very sensible chap. But I totally understand why he would  have Fry-ed Chips on his shoulder. Gays have suffered immensely, and still do, at the hands of misguided religious prejudice cloaked in supposedly God ordained authorisation.

And to be honest the battle for the righteous treatment of homosexuals is far from over. Even a more enlightened, compassionate Evangelical church is using a whole heap of mental and semantic gymnastics when trying to practise that compassion with a confusing belief that people who don't feel the same sexual urges as them are still going against God's will. "I love you, but not your sin". And then there is the horrific and open prejudice of some churches in parts of fundamentalist America, and whole countries in Africa (the unwelcome fruit of western missionary fervour.) And then again the muslim world where often, if anything, the attitudes towards gays are even more horrific.

So QI and Stephen Fry's lordly presence, is a beacon of hope but not a sign, by any means, that justice, equality, and freedom of self expression are on the universal horizon.


The line "You see the light of God, I see somebody losing" is from the Fee Comes Fourth song Devotion - April 4th 2013

"Touch Me If You Are Out There And Equally Lost"

I write quite a lot of words one way and another.

I don't write them to myself. I'm usually writing them to someone, even if, as is the case with this blog, I don't know who that person or persons might be, on any given day.

Today I feel lost. It's been creeping up on me. I seem to be very bad at real conversations, even though I've been under the impression that I am OK with words.

I really don't want to be spouting words. I'd rather have conversations. And I appreciate the people who have talked to me and "liked" me. Whatever you've said.

Think that's all I've got today.


The line "Touch me if you are out there and equally lost" is from the Fee Comes Fourth song Sometimes I Cry - November 4th 2014

"You Got Hundreds, I Got Thousands"

Well, in a short while, Fee trivia lovers, I will be off to the CO-OP to spend £80. Because IF I spend £80 I have a receipt which guarantees that they will give me £8 back.

It isn't a bad deal, but I have to do it now. This day. March 19th 2014. If I do it tomorrow, March 20th 2014, I will not get £8 back on the £80 I spend. Which would probably mean I wouldn't spent it. 

Hmm. Am I at the mercy of CO-OP in this matter? I mean, it's not hard for me to spend £80 on provisions, given that there are 8 members of this household at the moment. Just one member can manage to snaffle £10 in no time at all. And also I personally prefer to shop at CO-OP though my good wife prefers The Tesco. I despise The Tesco (not it's lovely staff I hasten to add, but the company) though I am not precisely sure why. CO-OP for some reason, is a purer entity in my head. 

But all the same, I am being coerced just a little bit. Perhaps I wouldn't spend anymore in the long run anyway, but if CO-OP  really wants to reward my custom, perhaps they could consider giving me random money, after random bouts of shopping. This would make me even happier than the present system, in which I have to keep hold of a very perishable piece of paper AND beware of the date AND try to time my £80 shopping trip needs with that date. Random gifts of money, in comparison, would feel wonderful, and would almost guarantee my return. 

As a side note to all of this I would like to report that after many, many shopping trips I am somewhat of an expert at guestimating the amount of shopping in a trolley WITHOUT even adding it up as I go along. I can just look and KNOW. Last 2 trips I was within £1 of the correct amount. One was slightly below resulting in the quick addition of a bar of Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolate to the list. Shame. If I'd been a bit more out I could have justified a bottle of red. 

The line "You got hundreds, I got thousands" as well as being bad grammar is also a line on my Fee Come's Fourth song Have Your Cake And Eat It - September 4th 2012

"This Whole World Just Seems To Pass You By"

There is one thought that almost always hits me right between the eyeballs whenever I visit new places. It is this:

A whole world has been carrying on, day after day, without my awareness. And that is happening all the time, everywhere, even in the places I do know. An almost eternal millennia of experiences, interactions, conversations, interruptions, imaginings, workdays, Sundays, holidays, good days, bad days. And I know nothing about them. I am dead to those worlds.

But when I do have that thought, it makes me curious. It makes my imagination spark up. It makes me hungry for more new places, and experiences, and interactions of my own. And this might look like a distracted discontent with the world I do know. I don't think it is that though. I think it's about the search for life, and the battle against stagnation. It's about sucking that marrow till it's bone dry.

It's one reason why I don't want to spend too much time dwelling on past moments. And I think the best storytelling whether it be in conversation or song, in poem, or novel,  painting or photograph, doesn't merely capture its subject. It attempts to release it. To make it new and inspiring and a catalyst to new experiences and new moments.

I have only ever written one limerick. It's a silly thing. But it reminds me of one moment in time on a Hebridean island with a friend from afar. It's a gentle, smile inducing memory. And it makes me want to live for more of those times. But differently. So...

There was a Doctor from Persia
Who discovered the cure for inertia
He visited Gigha, got some cows up the rear
And the weather it couldn't have been worser.


The line "This whole world just seems to pass you by" is from my song Hey Jean which was almost, but not quite, released on my album A Human Being. But it will have it's day.

                                             Gigha

                                              A Cow

A Doctor From Persia (Clue: not me)

"I Am Standing On A Mountain High"

I'm trying out some trainers that mimic barefootedness without the bare feet.

Yes. I'm going back to nature. It's only a matter of time before you start to hear rumours of the hare-lipped hiker wearing nothing but a guitar on his back and his heart on his sleeve. That'll be me.

Hmm. Well, it might be a marketing edge, who knows. But I really am using those shoes. I'm trying to get back to the original gait we allegedly have as young children, and we used to have as adults too, before the fairly recent advent of thick heeled shoes, which involves far more weight on the forefoot, and far less stomping on the heel. The latter has lead, research has shown, to a lot more stress injuries. And I'm a sucker for a bit of research.

So walking up The Hill is actually a bit harder at the moment. Simply because I'm using muscles in my achilles and shin that weren't getting much of an outing. But the shoes provide protection to my feet, without stopping me walking or running naturally. And it feels good.

I've always hated running, but I think I'm going to enjoy, at least a little bit, running in a more bare-footed style. I had a sprint up a slope and that felt good too. Just the strength in the muscles needing to adapt.

You may think this is all yet another middle age thing. And you might be right. I'm 50 next year, and I want to run the Kintyre 10km next May. Not because, as I said, that I like running. But simply to mark it in some way. Trying to get all The Boys to run with me. Don't know if they will. Doubt I'll beat 'em. I'll be trying. It's a goal.

And now I've made it either a bit tougher, or possibly, a bit easier, with this Bare Footed thing.

The Kenyans Can. Maybe I can too.


The line "I am standing on a mountain high" is from my unreleased song Bone Dry. 

Fee Comes Fourth

"I've Come To Appreciate"

Is it possible to fritter away an unlimited resource? Eyebrows have been raised.

Well, technically no. But Fear has been known to blind us. It can make us live as though The End Is Nigh. Hypochondria, and I've had mild outbreaks, causes us to focus on the unknown "maybes" to the point where we spend our time thinking only of dark, negative outcomes. And life ceases to be full of possibilities but becomes a rain-soaked wait for the final bus.

Life isn't limitless of course. But imagine if it was. Imagine if we KNEW it was. Imagine the focus we could give to each and every day IF we knew that we had all the time in the world. That, of course, was the theme of the film Groundhog Day in which Bill Murray's character Phil Connors, faced with endless repeats of the same 24 hours, finally learns to use them wisely.

But it could have gone another way. For a while it did. For a while Connor was gradually overcome with a fear of Eternity, leading to  hopeless despair, leading to him fruitlessly trying to take his own life. Fear leads to frittering. Albeit pointless frittering in the presence of an unlimited resource.

So Phil Connor kept waking up. But the trouble (or troulbe, as it is sometimes known) that an eternal future caused him,  gradually turned into potential. Potential for a new start, a new life, a new day. Potential to focus COMPLETELY on one thing at a time. And he ended up, among other things, making some beautiful ice sculptures, winning the love of a lovely lady...

...and becoming a good human being.

What a way to live. As though we were always going to wake up tomorrow. A way of being. Hopeful, grateful, concentrated living replacing the Fearful Fritter.

Life as though The End had been obliterated.


The line "I've come to appreciate" is from my unreleased song Great Escape. Released songs can be found at Fee Comes Fourth.

"Give Me A Sweet Cacophony"

I like the sound of words. Together. 

Sweet cacophony. Mmmm. I don't know who invented the word "Sweet" (someone invented it!) nor the word Cacophony. I wish I'd made that one. And I'm not even sure if the inventors would have liked their words to be joined together in holy matrimony. But fortunately they don't have a say in the matter. 

Nobody does. There is no courtroom that can rule against the usage of words or the order they can be put in. Well, there is libel I suppose. But that's not about the words themselves. It's the context and the timing and the audience that matter for those sort of judgements. 

Words are there to be played with like a box of lego whose pieces can be made to fit together in any way the imagination can conjure up. They are potential pieces of art. In fact they started off as actual art, the first art, as far as I understand. Pictures, used as symbols, that eventually got turned into letters. And by then the possibilities were endless.

They say that a picture can paint a thousand words. But if you put a thousand words together, you could have a hundred or more little paintings: 

She smelled like the ocean. 

The alarm clock rang it's hyena laughter, shaking awake the sleeping, dreamless vultures. 

February is a short month, packed full with romance and pancake making . 

The letters can be put together in any order too. But they are lifeless without words to contain them, and shape them, and send them on their way to heaven. 

I'm not always particularly careful, or artistic, or poetic, or imaginative with words. Which is a crime really. 

Words might well be our only limitless resource. I really don't want to fritter them away. 

The line "Give me sweet cacophony" is from the Fee Comes Fourth song Have Your Cake And Eat It - September 4th 2012

"I Forget Why I Began This Journey"

So, I do recommend The Railway Man. It's not a particularly easy watch, but beautifully acted and very moving. Like 12 Years A Slave, it reminds me, in a way that I would more often prefer to forget, that human beings are capable of hurting each other very brutally and very directly. But the strongest message is about reconcilliation.

Today though, despite trying, I'm not feeling up to the task of talking about the difficult questions that the film raised. Maybe it would be better for me to write a song about them. What I like about songwriting is the challenge of trying to strip away all the unnecessary clutter surrounding a subject. The information. The emotional NOISE, When I write prose, as I am writing now, it is very easy for the words to multiply. Or become stilted or complicated or preachy or analytical. Or just plain bad.

But when writing songs the focus, for me, is not on the meaning. It's on the emotional ESSENCE the music behind the meaning. The left brain gets switched off, at least until the editing stage, and the whole process is more of a journey, an adventure, an exploration, to an unknown destination.

Which is not to say that the meaning isn't important. Only that the meaning is a place I am travelling to while writing the song, not a building I am trying to construct, carefully, logically, with a set of plans, and with a firm grasp of engineering.

I'd like to write these blogs in the same way. The songwriting way. Sometimes I can. But you'll have to bear with me. It's a work in progress.


The line "I forget why I began this journey" is from my unreleased song It's My Car. Released songs can be found at Fee Comes Fourth

"That's What True Lovers Do, It's An Art"

I'm off to the cinema tonight. To see The Railway Man. It's a love story, and I'm an ageing romantic.  So no spoilers please.

Actually, these days the pre-film Trailers ARE the spoilers. It's often more like watching a summary of everything that happens. For instance, I already know that the film I am about to watch in half an hour is about a story that happens during the second world war, and the present day. It involves a man to whom bad things happen in a prison of war camp, who subsequently suffers great mental turmoil, who plans revenge against his previous captors, and that probably he comes to a place of being able to forgive his persecutor. Woven into all this is the love story.

I get all that simply from watching the trailor. And to be honest, it's more than I want to know, but rumour has it that the film is very good, with or without those pesky trailers.

So, got to go and get ready. Spruce myself up. It's one of the few times me and Ineke manage to get out together at the moment.

Speak more tomorrow. Sorry about the missed blog yesterday.


The line "That's what true lovers do, it's an art" is from next months Fee Comes Fourth song called Cover Me (A Little Bit Longer)

"A White Dove Flies In With The Starlings"

Evolution For Dumb Animals Like Me.

I want to try and get a grip, for my own benefit, but also for some of my Christian friends and relatives, the one's in denial about scientific evidence,  of my understanding about the theory of evolution and how it impacted on my journey through Life. And why it is important. It might not interest you in the slightest, but feel free to come along for this little ride if you like. Or simply to correct me.

In the scientific world the word "Theory" means, to put it in my own words, "The best explanation available at this moment in time. One that has been thoroughly criticised and tested, taking into account all the observations, and calculations and logic that can be mustered by puny human beings". It doesn't mean an educated guess. The two things are very different. Scientist's DO make educated guesses, but those guesses don't constitute a theory. They are merely ideas that needs to be tested.

There was a day when I believed the bible to be the Word of God but had also come to realise, after reading Darwin's The Origin Of Species, that the theory of evolution was not in fact an idea that was invented to attack and  dispense with my faith in God, but simply a well reasoned method of explaining the process of how organic life (as opposed to the fabric of the universe,  earth, the planets, the stars) had come to be the way it was. Again, two very different realities.

So I was trying to reconcile my faith and science. And I wrote a poem at the time, though it is long lost, questioning why it was possible to believe the words of Jesus: "For I tell you that from these stones God is able to raise up sons of Abraham", but not be "allowed" to believe that God could cause humans to evolve from lower life forms...famously, from monkey's. Human's from stones? Yes! From Monkey's? NO!

Huh! Why? I just couldn't imagine God sitting there thinking, "You know, this turning stones into humans thing. It's a doddle. But I just can't seem to get these goddamn monkey's looking the right way."

These days, long after Darwin, the process of evolution has been demonstrated again and again. I wasn't there at those demonstrations, and I don't pretend to understand the whole shebang, but there is an AWFUL lot of evidence to say that they happened, and that they prove the evolution hypothesis even more thoroughly than Darwin did. They show the way some members of species develop physical adaptations which, if beneficial in their environment, often lead to them being passed on down the generations. These little adaptations have been witnessed happening. They happen all the time. And trillions of little adaptations, over thousands, then millions, then hundreds of millions of years, add up to the sort of crazy sounding stuff that demonstrates...as conclusively as these things ever can be in the scientific world...that we have VERY GRADUALLY evolved from the tiniest of life forms. From Amoeba to A Me.

As a Christian this struck me as amazing. It made so much SENSE. God stopped being a Magician behind a Magic Curtain who waved a Magic Wand and made everything appear. She became an Artist, a Potter, who slowly, patiently, touched and waited, and nudged and waited, and caressed, and looked, and pondered, and breathed life in a wonderful and infinitely varied direction. Even if that only involved designing the first seed of life which held within it this Multi-Life potential.

In other words it enhanced my faith. And my reasoning. And the fact that I no longer actively believe has absolutely nothing to do with evolution. So it makes me very sad that some of my Christian friends and relatives feel duty bound, with a little bit of a push from some self deceiving, possibly charlatan, "scientific" authors, to try and deny and discredit the Science story. Or, if asked to  look at the evidence, suddenly say that it really doesn't matter  HOW life, our lives, came about.

But it does start to matter when faith files for divorce from reason. There are plenty of believers who manage to reconcile faith and reason in a way which doesn't make their faith look like a badly drawn cartoon.

We don't have to be at war with the observable world. One way or another, we are designed for living in it.


The line "A white dove flies in with the starlings" is from the Fee Come's Fourth song Be Still (My Beating Heart) - May 4th 2013 

"When I Was A Little Boy, They Took Me To A Place"

Nothing worse than unwanted preaching. The kind that you do when you're trying to change someone into your own image. Like your children. Or your wife. It's hard for them to get away from it too.

Preaching is definitely a no-no in songs. Not if you want people to like them anyway. Songs are for letting people know that we're all in this together, whatever the "this" happens to be. 

But to be honest, preaching should be about letting people know that we're all in this together too. I grew up  listening to preachers. My Dad was a preacher. As well as an accountant. I've heard hundreds of sermons over the years including some really good ones. I even preached some myself back in the day.

Mostly, these days, I try very hard to avoid getting caught in a situation when I have to listen to one. But I think I've learnt a thing or two about the subject. And I can tell you that the best, the very best preaches, don't instruct, or pass on information, or tell you what you're doing wrong. The very best ones light a fire. 

One of the best Preaches I heard was actually a description of another fella's sermon. It was by a fiery italian/american guy called Tony Campolo. And he was describing a sermon by a black pentecostal preacher he'd heard which was based around one line. And that one line was repeated over and over: 

It's Friday, But Sunday's Coming. 

The sermon was based on the Christian belief that though Jesus was crucified on the friday, he rose again on the Sunday. And the whole message, and you don't need to be a believer to get a little bit of the impact, was simply, and I'm paraphrasing:

Shit might be happening to you right now, but, HALLELUJAH, that shit will pass. A new Day, SUNDAY, is just around the corner! 

It was about hope. 

So that was a really fiery sermon. More recently I heard one just as powerful, but  given by a quiet Church of Scotland fella at the grammar school prize giving. He bravely talked past the heads of teachers and parents and right to the hearts of the children, or at least to the heart of this particular child, about the value of "looking out the window and daydreaming" at school. About education being to do with far more than filling a head with knowledge of the way things are, but  instead allowing ourselves "wasted time" imagining how things could be. Word on the street was that he wouldn't be getting invited back. But I thought he was superb. 

No one needs to be TOLD stuff anymore. If we want information, we can Google it. But we could all do with a bit of inspiration. We could all do with being fired up to start wondering what Sunday might look like. 

                                           

The line "When I was a little boy, they took me to a place" is from an unreleased song called Believe. 

Nearly all my released songs can be found at Fee Comes Fourth

"We've Got Tonight, No More Tomorrow"

Some monk or other (and I realise I'm not  good at giving specific credit to the various sources I refer to) replied, on being asked what he would do if he was going to die tomorrow:

"I would still plant this apple tree".

Which was very forward thinking of him. Unless "he" was a nun. In which case it was very forward thinking of her. Anyway, I'm getting away from the point. Already.

And the point is that I suspect I'm still quite a long way from having that much perspective and wisdom in the presence of my imminent end. Or even if I was able to give the APPEARANCE of having such presence of mind I suspect I would be shaking inside at the same time.

Which I imagine is not abnormal.

But, you know, being honest about my totally understandable weakness in the face of death, isn't the same as saying I want to remain in subservience to that weakness.

I would like to be that monk. I would like to have a calmness and serenity when I approach the drop at that terminal Niagara Falls in my little coracle. I would like to enjoy finishing off my Sudoko puzzle as the water got a bit rougher, and noisier, and sprayier.

And that's why I talk about death quite a bit. Not because I'm morbid or obsessed. Particularly. It's simply that I like to practise the things that I want to get better at. So that maybe, one day, Fee can come third.


The line "We've got tonight, no more tomorrow"is from my unreleased song When The World Blows Up.


You will find most of my released songs at Fee Comes Fourth.

"Forty Two, Forty Two, Forty Two, Forty Two"

I found the books in the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy series hilarious. If you've read them you'll know that the super computer Deep Thought was asked the question: What is the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe and Everything. After 7 1/2 million years Deep Thought produced the answer that mankind had been seeking so hungrily.

And the answer is Forty Two. Apparently  HitchHiker's author Douglas Adams had a lengthy discussion with some friends before coming up with the magical number which they decided was the funniest number in existence.

And I find both the number (in it's context) and the idea of the discussion that led to it very funny. Well it cracks me up, and though I'm not going to hold it against you if you're thinking "WTF is funny about THAT"  it is quite likely that some of my own weird attempts at humour might pass you by. I'm just saying.

The thing is, I'm the kind of guy who likes to roam around, and also the kind who is searching for the Meaning Of Life. But I have that famous British Self Deprecation Gene, and I realise that looking for the big answers can cause a person to become pretentious, anal, and self absorbed.

And those kind of characteristics need to be burst like a puss filled blister.

Which is why the number Forty Two is so funny. And it's lesson so important. It reminds us how, in the grand scheme of things, we are relatively speaking, tiny, silly, insignificant,  and quite weird creatures who don't really have very many answers. And all the best answers we do have always produce more questions.

 I think our ability to laugh...at our environment, our circumstances, our fears, our friends, and ourselves...is one of our most redeeming features.

Now I'm off for a bit of Deep Thoughting of my own. That or watch a bit of Saturday sport on the telly. Actually, probably the sport one.


The line "Forty two, forty two, forty two, forty two" is from my song Forty Two on the hard to find Lounging On Longrow album from the now non-existent Kintyre Music Cooperative. It will be re-recorded at some point.

Most of my songs can be found at Fee Comes Fourth

"Though We've Never Met"

Or have we?

I'm sure I've met some of the good peeps who are reading these little outbursts of almost daily words.
But I haven't met all of you. And that makes me happy. Not happy that I haven't met you, but that we can have contact, exchange ideas, cause laughter, or tears, or frustration to people who we don't know.

I once got to know a fella, in fact I still know him, who was, and still is, from Australia. In fact he's definitely read some of my bloggings. We met on a forum a few years ago. And though there are limitations to the depth of friendships and relationships that can develop online, I got to know him well enough to suspect that he wasn't a full bloodied psychopath. So I was reasonably confident that should I invite him to stay with us when he was travelling in Europe, that  my family and children would be safe for the week or two he was here.

And so it proved. We had a good time getting to know him better and I was able to proudly show off Kintyre to him. And he liked the Standing Stones and was amazed at how wet the ground seemed to be everywhere. Did I mention he's from Australia?

We went camping one very cold night, it was in February, and I remember an Owl flying low over my bivvy bag thinking what a very big, blue shrew I was, and deciding not to pounce. And that I was very under prepared, not having camped very much, and therefore very cold for a lot of the night. He seemed to be a lot less restless than I was during the night. I've heard they breed 'em tough in Oz.

And it's odd what pops into mind when you're writing a blog.

I just never know what I'm going to be talking about till I write it.

Today it was Mikel. Hi Mikel.


The line "Though we've never met" is from my Fee Come's Fourth song Crossing The Wild Lands - January 4th 2014.

"Well, I'm Not Messy, But I'm Not Neat Either"

At least, that's what I tell myself. I really do think that over many years of marriage and responsibility I have evolved into Homo Domesticus (Almostus).

I cannot really explain this phenomenon. I only know that as a single student my room was so cluttered that the spiders were complaining to the landlord. And that now, although I do still manage to clutter the joint, I am relatively speaking, a neatish person.  I am just as likely to be found moving things to their PROPER place, as I am to be leaving them lying around. In fact I have become at heart a wannabe minimalist who would love, if I could find a legal way of getting rid of all the children, to live a simple life. With a chair. And a plate. And a knife and fork. And not much else.

It is known for me to TELL the children to move THEIR stuff. OK, I do get a bit of the old hypocrite's guilt as I recall the look of horror on Ineke's face when she saw my student pad. But I tell them anyway.

And connected to this I have come to love efficiency, as though my Saxon  genes had, after many years buried at the bottom of my personal gene pool swamp, managed to fight their way to the surface. So if a thing is worth doing (because if you don't do it you will be feel that remorseless stab of Procrastinator's Stitch under the rib cage) then it is worth doing once. And only once. Why would you want to repeat an activity, other than the pleasurable ones, when the repeating of said activity could have been avoided by careful planning.

So I think I have made my case. I am a New Man.

The only fly in the ointment?

It's very frustrating, but Ineke will tell you that I am still a right messy pup. She is the proverbial hard nut to crack. And I would try harder to crack it, but have you noticed what a mess cracked nut shells make?


The line "Well, I'm not messy, but I'm not neat either" is from this month's Fee Comes Fourth tune, Cleaning Out The Shed.

"Cleaning Out The Shed"

So, today's Fee Comes Fourth tune? It's about an old fella who has been grieving for a while. For the lady who was the love of his life, though he would never have described her like that. To anyone really, but definitely not to her.

And, like many emotionally repressed folk of a certain disposition, dealing with the grief wasn't easy. The biggest helps, and possibly the biggest avoidance tactics too, were the regular pints at the local. It was that or the shed at the allotment. And the shed at the allotment seemed too lonely a place. He needed company, he needed distractions, he needed...not to think about her.

But at the end of a night of drinking with the pals, there's still the long, zig-zag walk home. To an empty house. And that walk was where the all the haunting happened. That was the time when his booze addled brain had no control over her presence. When she'd slip in and out, more in than out, like a swallow making dozens of visits to the nest, with a mouth full of midges for the chicks.

That walk was bitter mainly, occasionally bitter sweet. But it was also the time when he could start, subconsciously, and without any knowledge of  strange other-language manifestations such as "Grief Psychology", to process and make sense of and cry for his life with her. And for the rest of his future without her.

And one night he remembered a picture, a silver framed picture, of them together when she was a sweet heart and he was a Jack the lad. And he knew he had to find it...


The line "Cleaning Out The Shed" is from TODAY'S Fee Comes Fourth tune called...Cleaning Out The Shed. It was co-written with Gary Carey and Gerri McManus.

"Letting The Light In"

Haven't written any poetry for a long while. Decades in fact. But I got the urge just now. It flowed, rustily, and I think that these words are me trying to say something about the vote for independence in Scotland this year. I happen to think it's a very important moment, and one that we should not just stumble into. And though I have become profoundly in favour of independence, I'd far rather people voted No than let the moment pass by, like a thunderstorm from under the covers.

Letting The Light In

When the window of opportunity reveals curtains open wide
It's one way, but not the only way, to let the light in.
But it's the crimes of omittance that imprison a life,
And the sin of procrastination,
Of cowardly hesitation,
That leave a nation
Holding on
To the apron strings
Of destiny.

When the chance comes to cast a vote with pride
It's one way, but not the only way, to let the light in.
And it's the missed opportunities that breed regret,
With the final destination
For aborted gestation,
Being alienation
From ourselves
And an attachment
To tyranny.

When the moon is full and pulls strong for a high and surging tide
It's one way, but not the only way, to let the light in.


The line "Letting the light in" is from TOMORROW'S Fee Comes Fourth tune, Cleaning Out The Shed. Don't forget to get your free download!

"And Your Face Is The Fallout"

Yesterday I happened upon a police car using the bottom of our drive (which we share with some council offices) as a location for their speed trap.

I had spotted this happening once before, and decided that I wasn't happy about them doing it. So I spoke to PC Driver "I don't want to spoil your fun, but this is our driveway". He said "Well we're on police business, but if you're saying you don't want us to be here...". And I finished with something lame like "Well, I'll leave that up to you, you're the Police"smiled and walked off. I don't know when they left, but they had left when I came back.

And I don't know why I'm telling you this. Except perhaps that I had always felt quite intimidated by "authority" figures in the distant past. And I have always hated conflict. And although I still felt a little bit of tension when I was talking to this guy, it really wasn't that big a deal.

I'm glad I'm relatively comfortable doing that kind of thing these days. Because I happen to think that challenging the Status Quo (and having watched their supposedly FINAL gig at Milton Keynes Bowl over 30 years ago, I feel very strongly about this) is one of the most important duties we have as citizens.

It is a nice delusion we might sometimes tell ourselves, if we haven't happened to grow up in Stalinist Russia, or Nazi Germany, that WE would  never  let  Bad Men Or Women get anywhere near power. WE would have made a stand against them.

But the truth is that none of the really BAD guys will ever get anywhere near power by walking on to The One Show and announcing: "I feel the way forward for our country is to carry out a purge against all the Poles and Romanians and  the Dole-sters and the Gays and anyone who disagrees with me".

Nope it happens gradually. By stealth. Which is why my little rebellion yesterday was one small step for me, one giant leap for liberal democracy. Oh yeah!

The line "And your face is the fallout" is from my song Fallout off the album A Human Being.

"Everybody's Favourite Alien"

I've never seen the movie Alien or it's sequels. I didn't complete Nelson Mandela's autobiography for some reason. Not been to a World Cup match. I haven't visited Madam Tussaud's. I've never been to Italy. Or Scandanavia. Or the USA. Or Peru. I haven't managed to see the Aurora Borealis yet. I haven't read Wuthering Heights. Or listened to a Kate Bush album all the way through. I haven't seen Paul McCartney in concert. I haven't ever sailed on a boat with sails. I haven't swum with dolphins. I haven't walked up a Munro. I haven't flown on a Sea Plane. I haven't knowingly seen a Golden Eagle. I've never run a marathon. Or gone diving with a tank of oxygen on my back. I haven't seen the Pyramids in the flesh. I haven't walked to Iran yet. I haven't had a hit single. I haven't been to an Olympics event. I haven't Skied on snow.

And I haven't got anything remotely interesting to say today. But I had to say something because I'm under oath. Please accept a refund on the way out. Thank you.


The line "Everybody's Favourite Alien" was chosen by Ineke Fee and is from my unreleased song of the same name.