Feline Abductions

A couple of years ago I managed to convince my mother that she was in danger of becoming a Dog Person and had to get new cat(s). I sourced some adorable kittens - by luck, I hadn't met them before we received them - which were ready for delivery whilst she was on holiday in Norway. Oh no! thought I, I'll have to kitten-sit!

Eventually she came to collect the babies and has been terribly happy with them, although I gather they are still rather suspicious of her demonic hounds delightful doggies. They're very photogenic and behave like cats in all those important ways which dogs don't.

Except that, last Wednesday, Aineko didn't come home. She also didn't return on Thursday. Friday, Saturday and Sunday all saw the house lacking half of its Bastian complement. And so on, until this morning when I received a call from my mother telling me that the wayward beast had wandered out of the barn this morning, miaowing for food. She sounded not so much excited by this, but puzzled - understandably.

You have to understand that this is not a new thing, for her cats to vanish in unusual circumstances.

Frodo, who I only just remember, disappeared for good when I was about five years old. That's reasonably linear, I suppose. He was mostly renowned for his fabulous eyeliner.

Rover, during the summer holidays on year, got trapped in one of the school buildings across the road from us; we only found him, after about a week, because there were workman around and we wandered across the road and heard him miaowing. A hurried search for a janitor led to a released cat and a Very Happy Ally.

Charlotte went twice; once she got trapped behind the cooker of our downstairs neighbour - which went unnoticed for a while - and another time she managed to slip under the floorboards of the other downstairs neighbours. On that occasion I happened upon her yowling behind a grille in the wall on one of my regular Charlotte-searches (heh heh sounds like Charlotte Churches).

B.B. (originally to be named Bilbo Baggins but he came out female - go figure!) definitely takes the biscuit though. We lived on the first floor and behind out flat there was a flat roof, which the cats used to like wandering around on. One day B.B. didn't come back in. Notices were places around Marchmont, but there was no sign of her. We had long given up hope when, six weeks later (or five weeks, there is some debate), my mother heard a pitiful mewling sound from the bathroom window one morning. Lo and behold! B.B. returns to the very place from whence she had vanished. Much much thinnner than before (but she was always a bit porky) but not dead!

So Aineko is merely following in the pawprints of her predecessors. My mother has some very odd cats...

Oh lordy what am I doing?

Well, that's the exam for this year over.

Since I clearly don't have enough to do (ha! Ahahahahahahahaha!! and further hysterical noises) I've given in to the nonexistent peer pressure and started a 365 thing. May the deity of your choice have mercy on me.

Saw this and thought of Howard

Although what the Suitable For 5-9 Years armageddon could represent I dread to imagine.

Here we go again...

http://cities.uk.com/edinburgh.php appears to have a small piece of Flickr API stuff at the bottom of the page, searching for Edinburgh. The outcome of this seems to be a display of the last five images tagged with Edinburgh being displayed. Shoddy.

Black-balled Medicine

I'm boycotting Black Medicine. Well, I occasionally use the Marchmont branch but not Nicolson Street. It's been my preferred coffee shop since I first discovered it; I've led many wayward souls to its hard seating, extolling the virtues of illy coffee to anyone who would listen... but no more!

An important part of the Black Medicine Experience has always been the staff. Even when there's rapid turnover, over the summer perhaps, there will always be a core team who are competent and friendly - even if only to regulars. People like Natalie or Stewart, coming and going over the years, have been the eye of the staffing storm, lending a tone of consistency and (almost) professionalism to the place and helping to keep the atmosphere welcoming. It's gone now, the atmosphere. Certain members of staff (everyone knows who I'm talking about here, except perhaps the people under discussion) have spoiled it with their accents, cliqueyness, omnipresence and need to change the status quo.

Black Medicine NO LONGER SERVES ILLY COFFEE!

I can't count the number of times I've heard people say that they will travel great distances to get illy, and Black Medicine has undoubtably received a great deal of custom because of their choice of coffee. However, a certain faction has nagged the management enough (and that must mean a truckload of nagging because they do not give easily to change) that the coffee has changed. According to these people, illy is a shoddy and inferior blend. They're clearly insane, on top of being irritating mingers.

This has become such an issue for me that I have ended up with a Starbucks Card. I may disagree with them on principle - being Giant Corporate Evil, but at least they are fairly consistent and inevitably friendly.

Nobody is more upset by this situation than I am...

So, last Friday I was walking up the road with my Frappucino when I saw Andrew lurking outside the Dread Cafe, so I stood about chatting to him for a while. Before we had a change to muster resistance, a scary man with a squint and teeth that would make a dentist cry accosted us. We were expecting a quick sob story followed by a request for money but instead received a 15 minute tale of woe - he's not a junkie although he used to be, he doesn't drink anymore, he's got a job out of town and needs a bus pass and would we like to buy his PS1 which Cash Generator wouldn't take because they apparently don't sell them anymore?

A little while later I saw him harassing the staff in Jordan Valley. They were less patient; I think he may have been by that point as well if nobody wanted to give him ten quid for his toy.

I finally got someone to sit for my cloning experiments. It went so smoothly I'm kinda disappointed now.

NHS: FAIL

I'm feeling conspired against. Appointment to see the Doctor (no, not The Doctor, sadly) at 1610h. I was in a panic about being late but them, as it transpired, actually arrived twenty minutes early. Not wanting to spend twenty minutes sitting in a stuffy waiting room - especially as I had just finished my book on the bus - I wandered about a bit, finally getting bored enough to go in and have a seat about 1600h.

In the play area were two boys, probably about Primary 1. They were playing with a good old-fashioned toy made of bendy metal and wooden beads. The game at hand appeared to be a race: each pushing a bead from the top and seeing whose reached the bottom first. When boy A won, boy B tutted and turned the toy around - impressive! thought I, he's making sure that there wasn't some mechanical bias, or maybe hoping to win next time. Second try, boy A wins again. Boy B decides they should thy two beads at once. By this point I'm very impressed by his gamesmanship. Boy A wins a third time. Boy B announces that boy A should try it with three beads, at which boy A huffs off shouting that boy B is a cheater. Now, I'm not a great sportsman, but did boy B not just grasp instinctively he concept behind a Handicap in golf? And did boy A then very simply deconstruct this concept, showing it to be flawed and thus effectively demonstrating that the 'sport' is really, truly, not that there was ever boy doubt, POINTLESS?

Out of the mouths of babes...

So there I am, waiting. And waiting. I play on the DS for a while, but I really need a good book or something watchable on my phone. Boy B wanders past, stopping just within my peripheral vision, and watches. His mother calls him but he's clearly more engrossed in the game than I am. With a final cry of "But look at the game!" he is dragged away.

A further ten minutes pass. It is now 1620h. I've become bored of gaming (for the moment, not for all time!) and put the DS away. National Geographic and Saga Magazine hold no appeal. The air is beginning to feel oppressive, the low-ceilinged fluorescent lights are gradually giving me a pain behind my left eye. Someone is taken away by a Doctor, the only remaining person who had been here longer than I. A snatch of conversation from the Doctor, suggesting that there have been delays today and apologising for the wait.

Another ten minutes. I feel on guilt about having my phone on, despite the big notices around the place, because I've set it to offline and, frankly, if anyone is likely to die because there's a bit of semiconductor tech in the vicinity then they're probably dead already. But this means I can't, say, wander the internet. In spite of the schemie girl whose raucous ringtone went off and the yah girl who just answered a call... Dammit I'm going to speak to someone!

Confusing advertising, baths and death

4 free light bulbs for every customer, says the advert on the side of buses. Cue map of Europe, with Britain lit up green versus Europ lit up kinda yellow. A bit odd, but perhaps it's something to do with energy saving bulbs being a bit colder in colour than incandescents. It wasn't until I happened to see the ad on the television that I realised they were talking about the bulbs being 'green' because they're better for the environment.

9/10 customers... say BT; am I the only person who wants to amend the posters to say 9/11? I mean, it's not common for advertising literature to use numerals, is it? Perhaps I've missed a spot of media evolution, but i expect "Nine out of ten customers..."

Andrew complained that I hadn't reported his recent bath problem. He was bleaching some jeans or something equally Andrew. Probably to make him fit in better with the Skinhead thing, i would think. So: clothing into bath; add Domestos; leave and return once the nice cast iron bath is hideously scarred from the bleach. Cue me phoning to say hi and a spew of Andrew-flavoured hysteria. After a bit of 'check the internet you knob'-style advice from moi he comes upon a simple solution involving lemon juice (ah, those Old Wives had good tales) and voila! the bath is as good as new. Literally, since it's far cleaner than it was when he started. Way to offset suspicion!

Since he thinks he is newsworthy, I should probably mention that he recently had a somewhat more serious accident when his paramour of the moment (to be fair, he probably lasted a few hours; Andrew's idea of sexy fun these days is nothing if not protracted) decided to stop breathing for a few minutes. The moral of this story, kids: EROTIC ASPHYXIATION IS DANGEROUS, m'kay?

Continuing the Death theme, we were recently discussing the emotional trauma/lack of trauma suffered on the death of a pet. Clearly cats and dogs will leave a space on their passing, but fish, snakes, hampsters... the jury's still out. I developed a method to get through the deathdeathdeath which aquarium owners have to learn to live with. I never name my fish, or the shrimp, and when one of them dies without being munched too quickly for me to notice I flush them to a watery grave while playing 1000 Oceans by Tori Amos. A touch eccentric, but it works for me, although there have been bad periods where I find myself getting sick to death (sick to death, see what I did there? LOL.) of the song.

I am related!

It might seem an unusual thing to be excited/confused by, but I am now feeling rather like that having spend some time with a bunch of my Relations. Nota Bene: this is a sad story, wherein I detail my sense of loneliness and distance. As such, please turn on some cheesy mournful violin music to accompany your reading.

Most people of my age, in my experience, have a close family consisting of something like: two parents (possibly separated, which can lead to step-parents, step-siblings and half-siblings), one or two siblings, a few aunts and uncles and at least one remaining grandparent. Very often these people will only be seen at Christmas or weddings, but they’ll be there, at least. In my case, close relations = Mother. No sibs, no Grandparents; I haven’t seen Auntie Maisie for a long time… and that’s it. Some people find it difficult to believe I even have a Mother – presumably seeing me as some elemental force of nature.

On Saturday just past, Mother and I went to Bothwell for a Family Do. Her Father’s Half-Brother’s Wife was having a 70th Birthday which we were to attend, along with the couple’s ten Children, 14.5 Grandchildren and all the associated Husbands, Wives and Friends Of The Family. The last time I saw any of these people was somewhere around 1990, and they’ve grown and bred since. Their collective memory of me appeared to be ‘boy with camera’ and every time this was mentioned I tried to hide my great clunky camera, worn around my neck throughout the evening. My memory of that occasion, a wedding, consists mostly of someone wearing a kilt and being tutted at later for having taken photos at very experimental angles.

Saturday was, for me, something akin to culture shock. As an only child, brought up mostly by an only child, I’ve never quite understood siblings. I see some people being very close and some hating and resenting each other; generally I don’t feel like I’m missing much. But the McGurks are so varied and numerous I couldn’t help but look at them more closely – consequently being almost silent (!!!) for most of the time.

Ranging from Andrew (46) to Julia (20(?)), they are of such differing builds and personalities that you wouldn’t think at first that they are a family. Working in Australia, Abu Dhabi, Spain, studying in Dundee, doctoring in Edinburgh… they’re certainly not stay-at-homes; apparently this was the first time they had all been together for many years. An interesting oddity is that they seem to think of themselves as names and numbers, “Kenneth, he’s number nine,” etc. which is certainly helpful for those of us who weren’t even sure how many there were.

Brief aside: just caught a glimpse of BBC News and apparently 5000+ Chinese people have been killed in some earthquake. It occurred to me to wonder why it is that this number doesn’t cause as much fuss as deaths caused by ‘terrorism’. And car crashes. It’s all so media-controlled, our emotional responses to illness and death. Fifty dead from terrorism VERY BAD NEWS; five thousand dead from ‘natural disasters’, bad news. Thousands dead from smoking-related illnesses VERY BAD NEWS; thousands dead from vehicular accidents/alcohol-related illnesses… well, that’s inevitable isn’t it? And cars are so useful and alcohol is socially acceptable so if some people get ill, die, beat their wives, cause the aforementioned car crashes? Well, collateral damage. Bloody hypocrisy.

So anyway, the McGurk ‘clan’ have left me in a bit of a muddle. There are clearly some tensions between sibs, and they’re mostly as mad as you might expect, but there’s a certain innate camaraderie in places which I cannot help but envy. It’s very hard to express the contradictory responses I’ve been left with, but I think that, overall, I do rather wish I’d had siblings to form that bond with.

Of course, on my Father’s side they’re just as numerous. He was the youngest of eight children, and most of them – long dead for the most part – dropped at least a couple of sprogs, who then went on to sire yet more Scotts… there are certainly second Cousins of mine who are my age, and it wouldn’t surprise me to find out that I have third Cousins who are at least Ollie’s age by now. They’re dropping like flies, apparently; a first Cousin seemingly died of heart problems at 46 recently, having been suffering from GOUT! Since they are clearly living in the 19th Century, it’s no wonder I never see them and feel somewhat alienated.

Oh, apparently Gout is often caused by high protein diets, obesity and alcohol, while cheese has been shown to help prevent it. Cheese! I should be safe then.

So, next time you are irritated by your brother/sister, spare a thought for poor, lonely me. In the meantime I will make some attempts to keep in touch with some of these people, between twitching and trying to figure out how I feel about Families.

I can see! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

On Thursday afternoon my glasses went PING! I frantically tried to get an appointment with Vision Express, who I have used for the last few years, and found I would have to trail to Ocean Terminal. Alas, the buses are actually as bad as people say and by the time I got there I had missed my appointment. While there I asked how much it would be to get some frames I had (bought about a year ago from eBay) glazed and discovered that it would be £79! Plus £5 if I wanted to get them speedily. So I investigated further, and ended up with an appointment at SpecSavers on Friday afternoon. I had discovered that SpecSavers would give me two complete pairs of glasses - one could even be prescription sunglasses - for something in the region of £85-£95, so I gave up on using the spare frames. I looked through their online catalogue and compiled a list of possible frames, which I sent to people who might have useful opinions and reply quickly.

Apparently my tear film is a bit pitiful and the surface of my eyes is showing slight dryness. Eyedrops, please Mr Pharmacist!
So I went through the fraught process of selecting frames while blind. In the end I went for Damson and Odie (the latter was actually on my list - w00t!).
The Chad left us on Saturday. I was saddened by this as he had turned out to be the sort of person I would deliberately spend time with. We chatted while I was making dinner on Friday, and despite the subject of religion coming up, he being a Christian, I wasn't stoned to death and he wasn't crucified. It's a rare thing for me to get a good religious discussion.
In the evening Ollie and Jenny and Lorraine and I went to Tesco (yes, this IS something worth talking about, as you'd know if you'd ever been to a big supermarket with me or Jenny). While awaiting the silver carriage, Ollie challenged me to take an 'interesting' photo of a tennis ball that was lying in the mulch. Apparently this was a success. On the way back from Tesco Jenny led us astray and Lorraine and I ended up walking halfway to Fife - or so it seemed - from Cramond. Sunday was a day of nothing. I hate long weekends, they're so dead. I went for a wander around Bruntsfield Links just to get out of the house, but that was about it. Monday was a day off work, but I had Other Job to look forward to, so I couldn't DO very much with the day. I discovered to my delight that Cory Doctorow's new novel, Little Brother, had been released - as usual, under a Creative Commons license. I promptly downloaded it and started reading, while poking around with Photoshop and rearranging my neverendingly frustrating hard drives.

Little Brother is very good. WAS very good. I continued reading it on my phone while sitting on the bus and then, when I discovered that the Other Job was also closed (dammit, if I'd realised I could have Done Something with my day!) I sat and read it in Starbucks. And then finished reading it in Starbucks. Three hours later. It's very zeitgeist-ey, filled with YouTube and Flikr and Google and other references to the Here and Now, but that's because it's set pretty much Now and is very much to do with the internet. I've liked most of Cory's books, but I don't think I've ever sped through one quite so ferociously before. Having just done something similar, albeit over a couple of days, with Erasing Sherlock, - golly I want more Faction Paradox novels! - this is hopefully a sign that, post-Bronte, I can remember how to enjoy reading again!

On my way home after this, addled by thoughts of internet security and being watched by Them, I discovered the Meadows, filled with cherry blossom and people having Fun In The Sun. This led, of course, to a flurry of photos, some of which I was quite pleased with.

Reasons never to work with the public

Overheard in Starbucks, Hunter's Square:

American Woman: "Do you take British Pounds?"

Barrista: "Errr, yes?"

(pause)

B: "Hang on, do you mean British Pounds or Irish Punds?"

(American Woman looks at Barrista as if he is insane)

AW: "English Pounds"

B: "Then, yes. Yes, we do."

(American Woman goes on to order, amongst other things, an expresso...)

B: "So, how long have you been in Edinburgh?"

AW: "Since yesterday."

(American Woman is buying a mug and Barrista is wrapping it)

B: "Where are you staying?"

(American Woman sounds terrified)

AW: "Why do you want to know!?"

B: "Um, just making small talk?”

Beltane, huh?

Oh what a day Wednesday was. Slight chaos at work with phones ringing off the hook with puzzled old ladies and their relatives. I spent the morning running to and fro trying to figure out what had gone awry. Off to school, where I once again featured as Blanche DuBois, opposed by Tracey's Stanley Kowalski. I don't think Streetcar has ever been so thoroughly entertaining, nor has a rape been so amusedly anticipated. Meet up with Ollie to pick up some music before he dashes off to meet The Chad*, head home and have a quick sing before running up to Calton Hill for Beltane. Shaun, whose ticket I had, eventually arrived in a taxi and we went up the hill... I have to say, I spent a number of years involved with Beltane to some extent or another, and drifted away largely because I didn't feel comfortable with the burgeoning hippy influence. Every year there was the debate about whether the procession should change because it goes around the hill widdershins but, Beltane being the heradling of summer, it really should be going deosil. And of course that argument would drift away when people realised that it just Wasn't Practical. on the site. So, generally, I know what it's all about.

*I should explain The Chad. Many, many moons ago, Ollie's friend Jen used to enjoy meeting men on the internet (latterly, she 'meets' them in Real Life, but since she's eating for two now I think perhaps she's cut back); one of them she ran away from home to live with, in London, but that ended badly and they both swore never to meet people off the internet again (phew! glad that resolution was so easily broken!). One of these men, though, was in Canada and fairly safe because of it. After a while Jen moved onto more visceral encounters and Chad was forgotten... until he Friended Ollie on Facebook. And then announced that he was going to be in the UK and how about he came to Edinburgh to meet Ollie (no mention of meeting Jen; perhaps he realised that he would be in danger of exhaustion...)? Since The Chad was arriving on April 30th, I said we should take him to Beltane, especially as Ollie had never been and Emma had been wowed by the improvement in the ceremony last year. And of course there would be photo opportunities hehehe.

So, Anyway. It all kicked off about twenty minutes late. I made Ollie's gang, Helen Beauchamp & Chris and Shaun get a decent view of the Acropolis and started lurking. Off to the side there were some Christians with a banner of some sort, but before I could take a photo they had rolled it up and scarpered. Probably off to pray for rain on the filthy pagans.

The moment when the drums started I confess I felt it. For that second or so, I could have been swept away by the atmosphere and abandoned this worldly realm with glee. Thankfully(?) I had a camera to look after so I just kept at it. Once the White Women had started their agonising manouevers I scurried off to the Fire Arch, which was the thing I most wanted to capture on, er, memorycard. So I was well prepared long before the procession inched its way into the underworld, even catching some of the ceremony's opening from behind!

Of course, once things were moving people started to cluster around me. Red Men crouching, be-hooded, in front of me, tripod firmly placed and a gradual crowd developing (and a few spots of rain on my screen. Hm....). Annoyingly I couldn't focus on the happenings in front of the Fire Arch, but generally I was very happy with my placement as I caught some nicely Otherworldly images of the May Queen and her coterie passing through. There was an older chap who was in danger of death, though, since he started to LEAN FORWARD and get between me and everything else, apparently while peering at his camera. But I restrained myself, and then went off to find my people and/or go to Fire Point.

I've never been a big fan of Air Point or Water Point. Banners and windchimes don't do it for me, and ever since someone suggested that Water Point enact 'the stillness of a pond' for the May Queen I have had no respect for them. I mean, there's hippies and then there's hippies... I was somewhat sad to miss getting a better view of Earth Point - they seemed to be doing something interesting with big antlered heads fighting - but it wouldn't have photographed well, to I reprioritised. Found Shaun, found Ollie, Stephen and The Chad, then left them all at water point, "Behind the big fish made of tinfoil".

Fire Point is always an odd one. It's on a small flat surrounded by steep slopes up or down, so it's very hard to get a decent view. Since there's a fascinating sense of competition there, having to outdo last year's performance, I though I really had to get a reliable vantage point. Halfway up the hilly bit, tripod set up around me, I was set for a great show. Back when I was first involved with the Beltaners, fire took the form of bonfire, fire sculptures, torches, clubs or staffs, with the occasional fire brether and once or twice a great big wire wall on a chain, filled with fire of course. Gradually poi were introduced - to the point where clubs are now a rarity(!) - and they evolved into double-wicked poit, two-wicked poi, poi with paper rope threaded through to make a WALL OF FIRE; nunchucks, bungee staff (a staff attached to a bungee cord so that, when the wick is first lit, you can create a massive blast of fire in the air) and, the last time I looked, fire fingers (wire attached to the fingers with tiny wicks at the end) and a fire neckbrace thing (with four wick-tipped sticks jutting out from the neck thing).

Sticking to the tradition of excess, Fire Point this year featured lots of poi, a fire sculpture, some more poi, fire fingers, fire skirt and fire horns (they may have been antlers, I couldn't be sure). So I took lots and lots of photos, despite the sky's continued attempts to rain on the Beltane Fire Society's parade.

It was not long after this that the sky stopped trying to rain......

excuse me, my glasses just snapped and I have to do something about it.....

...and started to RAIN. Lordy it were heavy. We shuffled around a bit, reconvened by the Healthy Options van (part of the cheeseburger van, but with Baked Potatoes as well) and put our heads together. Whil we were doing this, a strange hooded (but not painted) man leant into Ollie's face and said "FSHOO", repeatedly. Ollie made the most wonderful faces at this and tried not to giggle too much at the crazy foreigner who had clearly had his brain melted by something. After a while he moved onto me, at which point I realised he was saying "For Sure", but finding it hilarious and over slurring it on purpose. It was a little disturbing because he was leaning in as if he was going for my lips, but he didn't.Ollie and co. went to the pub, Shaun and I meandered and then hid in a bus stop until the rain died down a little before getting a taxi, all the buses having stopped by this point. On my return I had to peel my clothes off as they were pretty much welded to me with water. Bleugh.