impossible songs: Now ... and Then

impossible songs: Now ... and Then: Photo above by LB, Koln 2025. As above, farewell for the time being. P.S. Not this year but in case anybody forgot ...

Attack of the Furries.

Your very own Cheddar Ploughman's sandwich. It's from Urban Eat but they're not the one's to blame. The vendor has a problem, perhaps it was lost at the back of the fridge or the display. We'll never know for sure. It should have been eaten by 19th November - the sad sandwich was at it's best before that date. Now it's had a bad attack of the furries. No surprise that nobody wants to eat it. Nobody ever wants to eat furry sandwiches for their ploughman's lunch.

Perhaps We're All Dead

If consciousness is not bound by space or time, then it is possible we are already on the other side and do not know it. We go on as if this is the beginning, or the middle, when it may be something else entirely.

Many physicists say that time, as we feel it, is not real. It is a way the mind keeps order, like a man marking days on a wall while the seasons move without asking him. If consciousness is not fixed to one place, then past, present, and future may all exist at once.

In that case, we may already be dead. The body moves. The days continue. But awareness stays tied to this narrow moment, convinced it is the whole of things.

Some Eastern traditions say that life is a dream. They call it Maya. You live inside it, believe it, suffer in it, and wake from it only when the dream breaks. Death, then, is not an ending. It is waking up.

That idea sits close to what physics now suggests. Consciousness may not belong to the body at all. It may be part of something wider and older than time. Something that does not begin or end.

If that is true, then nothing important is lost. We are only passing through one version of the dream, still unaware that the waking world may already be waiting.

Or,

They may call it the block universe theory now. It says that the world is not moving forward the way we think it is. It says everything that has happened and everything that will happen is already there, laid out whole.

Time does not pass. There are only moments. Each one exists, steady and complete, like points on a long road. You stand in one of them and feel it moving because you cannot see the rest.

If this is true, then somewhere in that road you are already dead. It is not a threat. It is only a fact, the way the end of a journey is already marked on a map before you ever begin to walk.

But death, then, is a thin thing. An idea more than an ending.

Einstein once wrote to the family of a friend who had died. He told them that the difference between past, present, and future was only a stubborn illusion. His friend was not gone. He was simply in another part of the whole.

You can think of it like a man fishing a river. The water keeps moving, but the bends of the river do not. The fish he caught yesterday is still caught there. The fish he will catch tomorrow is already waiting. The river does not care which one he remembers.

So yes, in one place in the universe, you have finished. In another, you are just beginning.

And here, in this narrow stretch you can feel, you are alive. Your lungs fill. Your heart works. The day is still yours.

That is enough for now.

Incorporate

Your task: Incorporate elements of electronic equipment, automotive styling and functionality in a colourful but standard photographic design. Keep it simple, well composed and ensure all the source material is recognizable. Any suggestion of a deeper meaning or message is unimportant to the project so no need to consider any of that. You have 24 hours starting from now. Failure is not an option. (10 Marks).

What gave you your edge?

How did it happen? How did I get this edge? This edgy feeling, this bristle, the persona of some salty old dog. I never was at sea. Not very wise either. Thinks to much but doesn't do anything with it. Shame really. 

In the dark mornings it is hard to find the floor. There are pale shadows running down like they spent their career in dampness prevention. I screw on the tap and plug the kettle in. I open the jar and check the milk. Nobody has Ovaltine first thing in the morning. Nobody who knows anything.

Rain is on the windows. The wind comes and goes and rattles the chimney flue. There are ashes in the fireplace. I will clean it later and bring in more firewood. They say they might outlaw log burners soon and push heat pumps onto us. The common good requires it. I feel I am too far down the road for that.

They do not understand the insulation problems in most Scottish houses, the way they were built back then. Heat pumps are not enough. Understanding a problem before acting is not a skill much valued now. It is better to do something that sounds right and makes a good line. Usually it is the first thing that comes to mind, or to the mind of an adviser with a degree in Australian style cookery. The BBC will carry it.

I breathe out and drop the part I was playing. Enough of that. I say it quietly to the shadows. I take my time and watch them fade into the wall, or wherever shadows go when they are finished.

Outside the light is dim. I fill the feeders so the birds can eat early. There is still some quiet satisfaction to be found there. Outside with the cold rain on your face. Improperly dressed I suppose. A strong silence beats the thunder of a vacuum.

impossible songs: Points Mean Prizes

impossible songs: Points Mean Prizes: Pink Floyd: I've no idea what I'm doing here, there's a number  generator  they say. Also something else  it seems, perhaps I...

Economic Gossip

They tried to illustrate the debt of various nations by stacking up biscuits. That worked for me but there are other stories to spin. Secrets and lies. Made me wonder about the bend that reality has taken over economics. Crash landings and no accountability. History is a harsh mistress when nobody can admit the hunger they have and the mistakes they made along the way. 

The huge amounts of thinking, writing and talking about dirty economics and the complete lack of real control over economies and the practices that are revealed - slowly. We only see that we are being played. Too many hard men out there, all too easy to bully the weak and to rattle the markets. All the beans and bean counters with their good intentions that only get obliterated - but then they only bring plastic knives to real gunfights. Now AI wants to run the show and they'll let it. 

This Isn't About Them

Strictly speaking, this BLT isn’t a BLT at all. It’s a BRT but nobody gives a shit. The R stands for Rocket, which may or may not be real lettuce. It’s green enough, and they stack it in the salad aisle, but you can never be sure. Is it the greatest sandwich ever made? Hard to say. There are others that stand in the ring with it.

1.There’s the crayfish and rocket number. Pret used to make one if you were too refined to build your own.

2.There’s a piece on real chips with brown sauce. A working man’s meal once. God only knows if it’s survived the death of the deadly old chip pan.

3. Peanut butter and jam—strawberry jam, crunchy peanut butter. Smucker’s Goober will do in a pinch, though it’s grape and tastes like a far away childhood that never quite happened.

4. Pastrami and pickle, the New York kind, maybe with a slice of American cheese sweating between them like a couple on a cheap date.

5. Crisps of any sort, so long as they’re not vinegar, with a good smear of mayonnaise to ease the going.

6. Anchovies and mustard on toast. That one’s for the brave, or the lonely, or those who have no patience left for Presbyterian opinions about food. No need for salt but you might add a tomato.

I forgot the fish finger sarnie. There may be more. Thinking of all this tires a man.

The bread used to be the Scottish plain loaf. It was the standard. The one true bread for a chip sandwich. Now it’s gone. Possibly banned by the health men in grey suits in grey offices filled with blue screens. Maybe outlawed by the same quiet forces that kill off anything good. I can’t find any in the shops. It feels like something from an old fever ward, spoken of but never seen. Dark times. There are pale and new generations suffering this loss, but they don't even know it.

These days the world is full of white sourdough. Fashionable and fickle stuff. I'm stuck with it for now, leaning into the forces. Diet is important to the rich, essential but tricky for the poor. Two-fifty for seven or eight airy slices. Hardly the people’s bread. It tastes fine though but the cheaper loaves of supermarket junk just taste bad these days, though a good rye can surprise a man if he’s lucky enough to come across one. Tiger bread remains an alternative but lacks staying power.

Leave out the rolls, the stotties, the muffins, the brioche buns. They’re not the bread for a true sandwich. They’re something else and this isn’t about them.

Free Graphic

They (🍎) gave us, and everyone else I guess, a free graphic. So we feel we have to use it. Display it like a badge or a trophy. For whatever it means. Free-loaders. An imaginary bag of magic beans. We're just chimps accepting another banana tossed into the pen while they scoff fine food and wine uptown and maintain a safe distance from the zoo, the coal mine or the paddy field. We scratch each other and check for fleas or tics.

Every so often there's a bit of a fight between the stronger and bigger chimps in the pen or they'll pick on the weaker chimps because they caught a decent sized banana or just seemed contented, but nobody outside pays attention to that sort of thing. They're quite happy if we fight amongst ourselves instead of attacking the fence that keeps us trapped.

That's the truth about the state of the music industry and most of life in general. If you can't see that then you're clearly not looking, perhaps you're not bothered. I'm not bitter. I'm passed that. There's a numbness setting in. The temple of the low man. Life just goes on.