Golf Tango Foxtrot

..I will always support the right of a Scottish Government to govern Scotland. Not being a member of the SNP, I never feel the need to defend the current government, they're big enough to do so themselves. What I will always attack is the pretence that the "Labour" Party is in any way progressive or on the side of working people. They made their alliance with the Tories and they are most certainly "better together". No doubt half their Shadow Cabinet will defy their leader and vote with the Tories to bomb Syria. Their "opposition" (or otherwise) to Trident simply allows any of them to face both ways. Their "opposition" to austerity in Scotland is a joke. It consists of getting a few cooncillors on expenses to picket Holyrood and blame the Scottish Government. One could suggest they actually fight the Tories, but that would be too difficult and expose their unionist flank. Who you vote for is up to you, but don't have any illusio...

Amidst all the Waterloo commemoration silliness which played up to Brit nationalism and an anti EU "little England" jingoism I was surely not alone in wondering how differently our history might have played out if Napoleon had won. Would there have been two world wars? Sorry Maclean's poem Two MacDonalds muses on the MacDonald who "shut the gate at Hougoumont while behind it your brother did the spoiling". Lieutenant Colonel James MacDonnell commanded the troops at Hougoumont Chateau.  Attacking French infantry had broken into the farmyard, the key to the entire Allied position.  MacDonnell and a Sergeant of the Coldstream Guards showed great personal bravery by shutting the gates to further French intrusion.   The unfortunate French soldiers who were now trapped INSIDE the Chateau were slaughtered, the only survivor being a Drummer Boy. All the while that the brave Lieutenant Colonel was in action at Waterloo, his brother was looking after the shop ...

There is a metal bridge on Castle Terrace in Aberdeen over a railway line that leads to the docks. Two performers on either side of the road use rubber-faced hammers to make the plates and webs of the bridge sound. Performance is ad libitum and underscored by ground bass of passing traffic. Afterwards the performers refresh themselves with a pint in the Prince of Wales public house.

Clouds Over Strathmore A fleet of lenticular clouds Process across Strathmore Alien spaceships Pinkened by the evening sun Their lights go out one by one - I drive to the west and enjoy. From My Kitchen I marvel through the window As freshly turned furrows Smoke in the sun The fence falls down minute by minute I remember the Gean tree that felled it. The Gean Tree Blown down in the Big Wind You blossomed yet for two more years You brought Spring, you! Two years was all you got  For a chainsaw to tick you off its list

It’s been a while. For this blog at least.  We have been busy in other spheres.  The rumour that we went to jail again is unfounded.  The word is busy. Busy +++. Bands, day jobs, consulting, contracting, agitating, politicking, making trouble.  That has been the watchword of the day. Since we last updated GTF, the Smurph has been appointed to be leader of “Scottish” Labour, whatever that may be.  It is simply an accounting unit within the great british Her Majesty's loyal opposition Labour Party. Murphy of course is a career politician.  He has never had any other kind of a job.  Like me (I am slightly older) he benefitted from a public policy of Grants for students.  We got our education at the public expense.  When an official of the National Union of Students Murphy was one of those who strove to ensure there would be no opposition to the abolition of grants. One difference between Murphy and myself is that the public has ...