Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise and Fall of SST Records by Jim Ruland

 I spent a lot of time as a teenager listening to music released on the SST label.  Black Flag, Minutemen, Husker Du, Descendents, Bad Brains and many more released music via SST in the halcyon days of the 1980s.  Then it all went wrong.  The good bands stopped releasing music or moved to another label and eventually SST ground to a halt.

This book highlights how successful SST actually were at their peak and documents the fall.  It's not totally clear what precipitated the fall but the departure of key team members such as Chuck Dukowski and Mugger seems to have played a part.  Greg Ginn is often cast as a pantomime villain in events although I'm  not sure how accurate this is.  Certainly, early on, he did a lot of good for these bands and gave them a step up to better things.

I was an American hardcore/alternative enthusiast when I was younger but this book contained viewpoints I was unfamiliar with and has introduced some music that I did not know.  I was left pining for a world where SST signed Nirvana and managed to keep Sonic Youth happy/release Daydream Nation.  That may have been an exciting world.

What does the future for the SST bands hold?  Will we see reissues and remasters with unreleased material?  Has it all been lost?  Do they even have decent tapes of the 1982 Black Flag demoes. 

Ian MacKaye took a very different, archivist approach with Dischord and we will have much of the DC scene for posterity.  The LA scene may just be degenerating, covered in some green mould.

Bruce Dickinson - What does this button do?

 I never liked Iron Maiden.  I just never for into them. I liked lots of other heavy metal stuff over the years but Iron Maiden just never floated my boat.  I think it's the way they dressed.  They just didn't do it for me.   I was never really a fan of Bruce Dickinson either.  I have vague memories of him messing about on the BBC Heavy Metal Heaven season in the eighties.  In retrospect he must have been channelling Spinal Tap.

I listen to audiobooks a lot.  When I'm commuting I like to use the time to do something and audiobooks seem efficient when I can't be bothered with music or the kindle. Using Audible you can often get an unexpected gem of a book for a couple of quid.

Which is how I found What does this button do?

Dickinson narrates his autobiography himself and he is funny.  He is very funny.  He doesn't take himself or anything else seriously.  Between his boarding school education, his adolescent interests and his general positive mental attitude this is a real feel good book.  He did very well with Iron Maiden and he became a pilot flying commercial airliners while on a break from music.  Eventually he was flying Iron Maiden around the world in 'Ed Force One',

He is, sadly, a 'Brexit wanker' although I do see that he has expressed dismay at the impact of Brexit on UK musicians which is good.  Thankfully we don't get any Brexit stuff in the book.  Just fencing, beer making and Spitfires.

He would be a better Prime Minister than the one we have.

we often forget how lucky we are

 on a Friday night I'm often knackered after a week at work.  A week at my well paid, comfortable job.  after putting the baby down to sleep I'm often sitting and, as always, I feel a bit brain dead.  sometimes I listen to music.

This evening I was listening to some jesus lizard music and remembering the great times when I saw them play live.  Then I realised that I was once lucky enough to see scratch acid play.  And then I remembered seeing the elephant 6 orchestra play enlightenment by sun ra. twice. and that was really fucking special.

and then i remember how fortunate I am.  how lucky I am.  I have a great wee family and a nice house and a good job and i've had amazing experiences over the years and nothing is perfect but it's important sometimes to just remember how good things actually are.

I hope all of you out there get to feel this good some times.

COVID nutters

 The reality of the pandemic is clearly hard for some to accept.  It was always one of those existential fears that I had, having read lots of science fiction and studied biology and then medicine at university.  I'd read a lot about pandemics in the past.  I knew they were bad and that we were due one.  I knew it would probably happen.  It's just a bit of a shitter that it actually happened.

COVID has happened.  It's almost everywhere and it kills tons of people.  Accept it and deal with it.

Some people can't or won't accept it.  Some reach for a comfortable conspiracy theory to protect them from the brutal truth that humanity is sometimes insignificant in the face of nature and a wee virus could wipe us all out.  COVID-19 isn't going to eliminate the human race but it's still nasty.  We need to do what we can to reduce and avoid infections.  Vaccines, washing our hands, social distancing, wearing masks - all small personal sacrifices to reduce infection rates and reduce deaths.  Some people can't so this.  Idiots like Ian Brown of the Stone Roses and various quack doctors post mad shit on the internet and people believe them and that has consequences.

The UK government haven't helped.  Initial standard Eton arrogance quickly followed by bewildered blind  panic bolstered by exceptionalism from Dominic Cummings and standard avarice has muddied the water creating a fertile breeding ground for the conspiracy theory nutters.  We need a government of adults and the UK does not have this.  

We will be living with COVID forever.  We will probably need yearly COVID vaccines for some time and normality will take some time to return.

The big lesson is don't eat random wild animals.

The lunatics have taken over the asylum

The UK is in a sad place.  Our country is being run into the ground by warring factions of the elite Tory party claiming they represent the 'will of the people', egged on by an incompetent Labour party. This time, next year we will have been stripped of our european citizenship, making us poorer both financially and culturally.  We are going to lose a lot because of some posh arseholes playing games with democracy.

The rest of the world is laughing at Britain.  Fintan O'Toole has just written a great book about it.  Watching from the sidelines, the ego-death of a faded imperial empire is pretty funny.  Much was made of the British stiff-upper-lip and the 'keep calm and carry on' meme and this has all been exposed as patent bullshit.  Britain flaps around like a headless chicken or a dying animal, demented and brain damaged, just wanting to be put out of it's misery.  The country is full of angry, angry red faced people, shouting, unhappy with their lot, looking with someone to blame and settling on the EU which they can't quite conceptualise.  They just know it is foreign and stopping Britannia from ruling the waves.

The EU has protected many of us from unfair employment practices, protected us from working too many hours and giving us benefits like maternity or paternity leave.  In America, you get fuck all in terms of holidays or maternity benefits.  Or health care.

The NHS will go after Brexit, another unintended consequence of the will of the people.  If we want a trade deal with the USA, the health care monopoly of the NHS will have to go.  I fear for the future some times.

In recent days the government have started putting out adverts about the need to apply for settled status in the UK.  This even affects children born here to European parents.  This will hurt some of my friends and colleagues.  It's a jingoistic disgrace, bringing to mind Germany in the 1930s.

Fuck me, our country is in a mess.  All we can do is vote but in Scotland your vote and your voice mean little.  Scotland is impotent in the UK.

I'm lucky in so many ways and hopefully I will be cushioned from much of what happens over the next few years but I meet many people who will be directly impacted.  I'm sad for them.

first Christmas in new house

It's the run up to Christmas in our house.  We finally have curtains in the dining room.  The house is warm.  We have neighbours and we have exchanged Christmas cards with them.  We are planning Christmas dinner.  We are adults. The world is a funny place.

We had a bit of snow last week, not much, just a bit.  It was raining today, heavily.  It's nice seeing the house in the different seasons, seeing how things change.  The summer heat was intense, hopefully it will be cooler next year.  We have a warm house which is comfortable but anywhere can be uncomfortable if it gets too warm,

We need to decide where to put all the Christmas cards and maybe set up a CD player in the dining room so we can listen to some tunes.  We were using my record player a couple of weeks ago, listening to Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, Tracey Chapman and Nenah Cherry.  We have lots of decent restaurants around us and some great parks.

Earlier today I watched Bad Santa 2 to help me get into the seasonal spirit.  It's not as good as the first film although I might just be a bit older.  There was a decent Christmas episode of the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina on Netflix last week too.

The world is a wonderful place in many ways and my life is really good.

One friend on Facebook has been having a bad time recently.  I'll try and get to the cinema with him in the next few weeks, see how he's doing, grab a coffee.  Make some time.

It's important to always make time to live.  Life is short and precious.  We all work too hard and stress too much.  It's important to do good stuff for yourself.  A lot of people have difficult lives.  Remember them and help if you can.  Be kind.

Stan Lee - RIP

I never met Stan Lee.  I never had a chance.  He did come to Forbidden Planet in Glasgow but somehow I never knew.  Stan Lee did have an impact on my life in many ways.  I've spent a lot of time reading Marvel Comics in the last 40 or so years and Stan Lee was responsible for many of them.

The first american comic that I read/owned was issue number 3 of Super-villain Team Up featuring Namor, the Submariner and Dr Doom fighting some even more evil fish people.  It was a bit crap.  It came from a neighbours house and I read it from cover to cover many, many times.  I still have it somewhere.  I remember all the strange American adverts from the seventies and the slightly yellow paper.  It wasn't brilliant but it was my first comic presented by Stan Lee.

I had probably seen some Spiderman reprints by then.  I was certainly reading the Marvel UK weekly Star Wars comic as a very young child in the early 80s.  The old sixties Marvel cartoons were broadcast as part of Glen Michaels Cartoon Cavalcade in Scotland with Captain america, Fantastic Four, Iron Man and Spider-Man.  We also had the seventies Spiderman cartoon as well as Spiderman and his Amazing Friends and the Hulk.

Stan Lee infected every part of our culture.  He reached Scotland from New York and taught us about heroes and trying to be good.  His personality shone through in his Bullpen Bulletin. He had a heart and he tried to do the right thing.  He was cheesy and a bit of a self-promoter.  He didn't give his collaborators enough talent but he changed the dreams of lots of kids.  Like me, those kids are often successful adults and we live in a world that has seen both the Black Panther and Guardians of the Galaxy on the big screen.  Back in the early eighties this was unimaginable.

My fiancé's niece can name most of the marvel superheroes on a poster in our house and she is 3.  Stan continues to shape young minds.  His imagination lives on in all of us.

RIP

Finding Joseph I: The HR From Bad Brains Documentary

The Bad Brains were co-headlining the second proper gig I saw, playing with Fishbone at the Glasgow Barrowlands in 1993.  Sadly H.R. was not with them that night with vocals from Israel Joseph instead.  It was still mind-blowing but I would have loved to see them with H.R. at their peak.

Bad Brains made amazing music but they were troubled at times.  H.R. was an amazing frontman but, as this film makes clear, he had problems.  His story is told by his brother, friends, bandmates, colleagues and fans. Humorous anecdotes eventually become sadder and the reality of the situation becomes clear.  At times H.R. (or Joseph as he is sometimes called) is homeless and making bad decisions.  He hears voices.  Onstage he can be seen visibly hallucinating and interacting with voices.  Eventually his wife manages to get him proper medical attention and anti-psychotic medications.  He gets better after that.

I learned stuff about HR that I didn't know through this film.  I heard some of his non-Bad Brains music (although I've had a few of his post-Bad Brains SST solo records for decades).  It compiles some great live footage.

Enlightening and sad, it ends on a positive note.

Danzig - 30 years - Live at the Glasgow Barrowlands

Danzig wrote some of the first punk music I heard.  As an 11 or 12 year old primary school kid in the late '80s I heard the metallica version of last caress and I loved it.  I didn't understand the words but I loved the tune.  A year or so later I got a tape with Bullet on it and again I loved it. I then obtained a copy of the misfits album (collection 1) and heard some of their other stuff (earth ad/the album with rollins singing we are 138).

I became aware of samhain and Danzig (the band).  Danzig were actively making music and thankfully, due to a lack of MTV, I never saw the videos.  I only heard the tunes on the first couple of albums and again I loved it.

Danzig stopped writing good music in 1995 when he went industrial but the first 4 albums were good.  I essentially gave up on his new music at that point.  There may be some good stuff in there but I haven't heard it.  Glenn Danzig is probably the last of the classic punk singers that I hadn't seen live (apart from HR who wasn't with the Bad Brains when I saw them).  I couldn't wait to see him live.

It was what I expected.  The live mix wasn't great with the vocals a bit too quiet but for a 63 year old man Danzig still has some moves.  He ran about the stage and interacted with the crowd.  He had a rant about how he was actually singing and how the band were really playing.  He played some hits.

The band came on at about 9:40 PM and we got the set that has been punted around Europe a lot recently.  Sadly he only did a two song encore suggesting that he wasn't too into it himself.  The set included Twist of Cain, Not of this world, Am I Demon, Tired of being alive and Mother as well as She Rides in the encore.

I don't think he'll play Scotland again but I'm glad I saw him.  Childhood dream fulfilled.  Just a shame there wasn't a decent sound engineer

Morrissey, where did it go wrong?

I first became aware of Morrissey when I was about ten.  I saw album covers by the Smiths (specifically Meat is Murder).  I liked the cover of Meat is Murder as it had a man wearing an army helmet which I thought was cool.  At the time I was only starting to listen to music and I liked Metallica and Anthrax.  If I heard the Smiths then I was not immediately stricken.  I remember an aunt asking me if 'I liked that Morrissey' because 'he was miserable'.  Obviously I said no.
?
I guess I started to like the Smiths a few years later when I heard This Charming Man and How Soon is Now?  The music was good, the lyrics were funny, Morrissey seemed like a troubled young man, a bit of a social reject.  You could feel sorry for Morrissey.  He was misunderstood.

But, around 1992, he started to do odd things with flags.  He seemed to be a bit too keen on sidewalks.  He was disco-phobic.  It got worse.  National Front Disco.  What the fuck? It progressed. More and more stupid comments.  A slightly odd autobiography that should have been edited.  Views that became more jingoistic, more English nationalist, more stuck in the past, more gammon, more racist.

Now he defends the leader of the EDL and comes across as a racist Brexiteer.

The Smiths were good but Morrissey, where did it go wrong?  What scared you?  What changed you?   Why are you afraid of the other?  Are we not all the same?  What would the New York Dolls think?

Morrissey, where did it all go wrong?

30 years of Danzig

There is a Big Black concert recording that contains the immortal phrase 'no-one in the room may look Danzig in the eye'.  One controversial punk icon making a snide dig at the other.  Both larger than life figures who attracted controversy.  Both wrote songs about horror with humour in their music.  Both often ended up in physical confrontations with detractors.

There is notorious youtube footage of Danzig being knocked out with one punch (look here if you must).  In 1993 Danzig nearly got into a fight with a member of Def Leppard. This was not the one armed drummer as many suggested.  I think a lot of people wanted to beat up Albini too.

Still, I love Danzig.  I've loved his stuff since I first heard Last Caress/Green Hell on the $5.98 e.p. by Metallica when I was at primary school.  The stupid offensive lyrics and the swearing just got me.  After that I got a tape with Bullet on it and I was in love.  Misfits stuff was hard to find but the first Misfits collection LP was well circulated in the west of Scotland in the '80s.

The Misfits were stupid fun horror punk.  Danzig sang with great passion about the emotional struggles of horror film monsters and other gory subjects.  The energy of the music with the lyrics of songs like Bullet or Attitude were just electrifying.  As a 12 year old I had no idea what the lyrics of Bullet meant.  Reading them now, at the age of 40, I'm still bemused.  If I had the chance I'd love to ask Danzig about them.

The Misfits are not the whole story.  The band Danzig, fronted by Danzig, were superb.  The first album I heard was Danzig II: Lucifuge.  I've been listening to it today.  It's still fucking great.  I'm not sure why they had to lose the original Doors homage cover.  It was a bit homoerotic.  They probably got sued.

Danzig was Danzig trying to be Jim Morrison with a dash of Elvis.  It was metal but blues.  The songs were still fucking ridiculous with Danzig worrying about being a werewolf or some shit like that but it rocked.  It rocked like little else.  It really wasn't cool but it didn't suck.

At this point I must make it clear that I had little access to MTV as a kid.  I've only seen the video for She Rides recently and as a fairly PC, hardcore punk morally puritanical teenager I might have been put off by the blatant sexism and exploitation of this video.  As an adult I just shake my head and sigh.  Danzig was trying to be sexy.  I'm not really convinced he was.

I'm really excited that I've got tickets to see Danzig when he plays Glasgow later this year.  He last played in 1991 when I was just a bit too young to see him.  I did see the Danzig-less Misfits a few times but they could never top the real deal.

When Danzig was young he wanted be a comic book artist.  Indeed, he did have his own line of horror/soft core porn comics called Verotik at one point.  They were kind of stupid, like many of his songs.  My University flat mate was an even bigger Misfits fan than me and he had a few.  Danzig also got famous comic artists like Simon Bisley to do covers for his records and draw his comics.  I used to like Bisley till I met him and he proved himself to be an objectionable twat.  I think I asked him if he knew Danzig.

I met the band Slint once.  I love Spiderland.  I got to talk to David Pajo who actually recorded a solo album of Misfits stuff and all I could ask him was 'you know Danzig, don't you?';  I was a bit drunk.  But Danzig is interesting.

Musically I sort of lost touch with Danzig after Black Acid Devil.  He tried to become Nine Inch Nails or Ministry and he failed.  He has made a few decent records since then but he doesn't get much exposure anymore.  He has also starred in a few slash-fiction comic books focusing about his fictional romantic partnership with Henry Rollins.  Rollins enjoys these comics.  I suspect that Danzig does not.

I love Danzig but it's a complicated relationship.

I just wish he would re-issue the Samhain box set.

Updates and maintenance of the blog

I've been doing a bit of updating of the blog, I was considering a new theme but I'm going to keep this one for now.

I did update the Cool Stuff section a bit click here to read the updated cool stuff page

Life is busy and I always have a lot going on but I do enjoy playing about with this blog at times.

A music course at East Kilbride Art Centre approximately 25 years ago

I was using Twitter this evening and said 'hi' to Davie Scott of the band The  Pearlfishers. He had tweeted a link about Brian Wilson and that brought back memories of a music production course that I attended about 25 years ago (roughly) that Davie taught in the East Kilbride art centre. I loved that course, I learnt a lot and even though I seldom make music nowadays it was a valuable experience.

At that time there was a small digital recording studio in the Art Centre and Davie recorded local bands like Gods Boyfriend. I was a music addict back then and I played in my juvenile punk band with some of my pals. My best friend from school and I signed up to the course to learn more about making music and it was great.

Davie had done some good stuff with the Pearlfishers as well as his earlier group (love and money I think  CORRECTION - hearts and minds!) and he was spreading the gospel of perfect pop to the grunge addled minds of EK. He was not the only person of interesting the course.  There was an older guy, a drummer, a contemporary of the Jesus and Mary Chain, who had apparently played in an early permutation of the Mary Chain and some band with the guy out of the Wildhearts and sadly suffered from mental health problems.  The bloke was a really nice guy with great stories but in retrospect some of his stories may have been delusions.  Back then I didn't know much about mental health problems and in the 25 years since then I've learned more through my various professional studies and personal contacts. I like to think that his story was true and he did play with the Mary Chain and that Never Understand was indeed about him trying to explain his psychotic episodes to William Reid.

Davie Scott himself is a man with a deep love and understanding of music and he was able to clearly explain this to the class. Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys was his hero and he taught us about various production techniques, arrangements and the rivalry between Wilson and the Beatles. I remember one session when Davie went through God Only Knows from Pet Sounds chord by chord, explaining harmonies, melodies, lyrics and arrangements, presenting to us a great argument that Wilson had created the perfect pop song. He may be right although 'Wouldn't it be nice' is a bit more catchy.

Music has been important in my life. It is not all of my life but it has been a major theme and a source of pleasure. I've played my guitar a few times this week for the first time in ages, just for fun. I always mean to write and record some songs  again but real life and its associated pressures always gets in the way.  I have a lot of passions, my girlfriend, music, comic books, neurology, art. I'm a lucky man.  I'm lucky to have had such a rich life so far.

East Kilbride was special at times. I remember playing concerts in the Arts Centre, seeing the great Alex Chilton of  Big Star play there and seeing my pals play there. My teenage life was at times electric and colourful and it is nice o remembered the good bits.

things that happened that I would not have expected 20 years ago

The world is a strange place and you can't predict the future.  I've been about for a while now and I realise that a lot of unexpected things have happened.

Some of the oddest things - in no real order
Preacher being made into a TV show
Ant Man being a live action film
Guardians of the Galaxy being a live action film
7 Star Wars films being made in the last 20 years
Twin Peaks returning to TV after 25 years
Mogwai going from playing the Key Youth Centre in East Kilbride to playing the Hydro in Glasgow
Rangers Football Club going into administration
Woolworths and Safeways no longer being on the high street in Scotland
Netflix and youtube
Every song ever being available instantly on the internet
Me doing the job I'm doing and living the life I'm living

The world in a strange and brilliant place at times

art classes

learned how to paint over a photo in art class today.  much politically motivated fun ensued

This blog is now 12 years old

I started writing this blog in Coventry in 2005.  I am now writing it in Glasgow in 2017.  I am older and the world has changed in some ways.  It's always difficult to say if things are better or worse.  Back then we had terrorism in London and a government that was doing things I don't like.  Right now we still have a government doing things I don't like.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

In 12 years I have managed to do a lot of stuff.  In 1999 or 2000 I decided that I wanted to do some stuff and now I have almost done everything on that list.  I do not see myself as career orientated but I have managed to get myself where I want to be.  Beyond that, I have found a great partner and I've been with her for a couple of years now.  I hope that we will achieve a lot of other stuff together in the future.

I was talking with my partner last night.  We both wish we were 25 physically but we both enjoy the stuff that maturity brings you.  Experience helps you deal with life.  Life does get better in a lot of ways when you get older, if you are lucky.  As always I see myself as lucky.

Sometimes one contemplates the future.  We look at our parents and we see what has happened to our parents and we are scared.  We don't want the same stuff to happen to us but we know it might.  It is important to remember that our parents are a lot older than us and that our futures, if we are lucky, may not be written in our genes.  I don't think I would ever want to know my future.  If a blood test could predict my future I would not want that blood test.  There can be a freedom in not knowing the future.

Now that I'm older I like the sun more.  I crave daylight and sun.  I crave green places and the outdoors.  I like watching the sea.  Sometimes I even like rain.  In Scotland we never get much sun.  I am lucky that I have been able to see so much of the world.  I hope that stupid politicians do not stop the younger generations from seeing as much of the world as I have.

Next week I'm going to see some sun.  If I'm lucky I might even see some whales.

Idiot wind

When Dylan wrote Idiot Wind I wonder if he had glimpsed the future, peeked into the world of my adult years.  I look at what has happened to our world and I don't know if I should laugh or cry.  Our road went wrong at some point and now we are here, running like headless chickens into an uncertain future.  We have gone off the rails and no-one is trying to get us back online.

What is the root cause that has pushed us into this swamp of stupidity?  Was it television?  Was it crap newspapers?  Was it the internet?  Was it Facebook and porn?

I don't know.  Root cause analysis is not my strong point.  I will just ascribe it to the beating of a million butterfly wings.  Chaos theory.

So, how do we cope with this?I guess we just focus on where we are and what we do in life.  We try to be intelligent in a small way, a focused way.  We should try to do the tasks in front of us well, with quality, on a day to day basis.  We should do as good as we can, everyday.  I accept that this is not easy.

Sometimes, if we are lucky, we can look around and see people do things well. A writer, a musician, a painter, a doctor, a cook.  Producing something that helps us.  Producing work that is good, a lighthouse of quality above the rocks of shite in this modern world.

I like to sit and watch water.  Rivers, lakes, seas.  The water may be calm or rough but it represents a connection with the world as it stretches between continents, filled with hidden and uncertain life.  Great beasts hide in our oceans and are never seen by mankind.

I love the story of the whale found, in the polar seas, to have a 200 year old spearhead in its flesh.  Fuck you mankind!  You cannot dominate all the creatures of this world.  Some born before you will always outlive you and there is nothing you can do about it. No matter how much 'power' you have in the human world, no matter how many buildings bear your name.

I don't like to be in the sea myself.  It is a dangerous place.  I just like to watch from safety, dreaming of a communion that will never be possible.  Dreaming of meetings of minds that will never be possible.  Knowledge that I will never access.

I would love to talk to the whales.  I suspect that they are more intelligent than us.  Their way of life, their freedom, their battles and their losses.  Free for the most part, if they can avoid mankind.  I wonder what they dream of.  Do they think of us?  Do they discuss humans? Would they be interested in human life?  Would they care?

Imagine aliens coming to earth.   Would they have more in common with us or with the whales?  Hopefully they would be more like the whales.  If they are like us, we are in trouble.  Especially if they were to listen to the idiot wind that comes from the mouths of our leaders.

Hot air.

When things are good

Sometimes things are good in life.  It's probably just for a while but sometimes, for a bit, the road gets easier.  It's important to realise that you are in a good time because if you don't you only realise when it's gone.

I'm in a good bit now.  I'm doing a new job that feels worthwhile.  I'm in a good relationship.  I have money in my pocket.  I am fortunate.

At this point I look around me.  I'm doing well but that's not true for everyone.  One of my school friends is very sick at the moment.  He's a young man with a young family who's normally healthy and he has been critically ill in a hospital ITU for over a week.  The doctors are doing their best and he is almost stable,  In that situation, almost stable is a victory.  Bad things can happen with no warning so when things are good, enjoy them.

More generally, our current government are doing their best to fuck the country up.  I will never understand the Tory 'rich obnoxious idiot' mindset.  I will never understand why they have contempt for people less well off than themselves.  I guess humanity is a variable thing.

Anyway, right now, life is internally and locally good for me so I'm going to enjoy it

This blog is ten years old

I've just sort of remembered that I first started writing this blog ten years ago this month.  When I started up I was living in Coventry planning a move to Glasgow.  I am now fully based in Glasgow although I'm currently spending a bit of time in London for work.

The world has changed in a few ways and stayed the same in other ways.  Ten years ago I had an iPod but iPads and iPhones did not exist.  The idea that I would one day see an excellent Ant-man film in a big cinema would have made me laugh out loud.  I have managed to do a lot of things that I only dreamed of 10 years ago.  I have been lucky and I am almost exactly where I want to be.  Life is good.

I should take more time to write and to update this site.  I know I am lazy but I will perhaps do more on here over the next couple of months,

Anyway, I've had ten great years and I hope the next ten are just as good.

Phnuky

A gentle nudge

After a gentle nudge I've got back to writing the blog again.   Service, as always, will be intermittent.

Life is currently full and generally great.  I'm pretty happy.