Portpatrick...

The sun made a rare appearance, so I spent a few hours photographing the little town of Portpatrick, on the Atlantic coast. I saw half a dozen black guillemots in the harbour. It’s hard to imagine any birds better adapted to marine life, and they were so animated: not mating, but dancing - pirouetting - around each other.

On a whim I took the ferry to Bute - it took just half an hour - adding to the list of Scottish Islands I’ve visited. The weather may be grim, but it’s still fun to explore…

Global warming...

The year almost past, 2017, is the first in which the most powerful person on the planet has been an internet troll with a Twitter account. As snow comes to the east coast of the USA, Donald Trump writes that the country “could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against”…

Sensitivity

Wise words in my email inbox this morning, from Krishnamurti...

"The so-called saints and sannyasis have contributed to the dullness of mind and to the destruction of sensitivity. Every habit, repetition, rituals strengthened by belief and dogma, sensory responses, can be and are refined, but the alert awareness, sensitivity, is quite another matter. Sensitivity is absolutely essential to look deeply within; this movement of going within is not a reaction to the outer; the outer and the inner are the same movement, they are not separate. The division of this movement as the outer and as the inner breeds insensitivity. Going within is the natural flow of the outer; the movement of the inner has its own action, expressed outwardly but it is not a reaction of the outer. Awareness of this whole movement is sensitivity"...

Stranraer...

Considering the dire weather, I enjoyed my brief exploration of the Rhins of Galloway peninsular, from Stranraer down to the lighthouse at the tip: the Mull of Galloway. I wound up in in a little one-horse town called Drummore, and ventured into the pub. My cricket sweater is proving to be a good starter of conversations, as people wonder why some old geezer appears to be impersonating a cricketer. I tell them that, since England are doing so badly in the Ashes, I’m waiting for that phone-call from the chairman of selectors, asking if I could fly out to Australia and play in the next test. I got into an animated conversation with the locals at the bar, which made for a convivial evening.

This morning I drove to Portpatrick, another little town on the Atlantic coastline, with an attractive harbour, and I’m now back in Stranraer, parked up with a sea view. If the rain relents, I might go back to Portpatrick tomorrow and take some pix. If not, I’ll carry on writing the book… like I did today…

Fairytale of New York...

Christmas has finally arrived, and it feels pointless to wheel out my objections. They’ve all been said before, and sound as drearily predictable as Roy Wood’s probably certifiable request in wishing “it could be Christmas every day”. Most people seem to hold two contradictory ideas in their heads at once. They resent the stress and expense of the festivities, while demanding that Christmas this year is exactly the same as it was last year and the year before that. No wonder Christmas can inflict so much psychic damage.

I feel sorry for those who have been subjected to non-stop Christmas music for the last six weeks. There’s only one Christmas song I enjoy hearing, and I’m happy to hear it at any time of year: "Fairytale Of New York" by the Pogues and Kirsty MacColl. I can’t hear this bittersweet lament without wiping away a tear.

It was Christmas Eve babe
In the drunk tank
An old man said to me,
Won't see another one
And then he sang a song
The Rare Old Mountain Dew
I turned my face away
And dreamed about you

Got on a lucky one
Came in eighteen to one
I've got a feeling
This year's for me and you
So happy Christmas
I love you baby
I can see a better time
When all our dreams come true

They've got cars
Big as bars
They've got rivers of gold
But the wind goes right through you
It's no place for the old

When you first took my hand
On a cold Christmas Eve
You promised me
Broadway was waiting for me

You were handsome
You were pretty
Queen of New York City
When the band finished playing
They howled out for more
Sinatra was swinging
All the drunks they were singing
We kissed on the corner
Then danced through the night

The boys of the NYPD choir
Were singing 'Galway Bay'
And the bells are ringing
Out for Christmas day

You're a bum
You're a punk
You're an old slut on junk
Lying there almost dead
On a drip in that bed

You scumbag
You maggot
You cheap lousy faggot
Happy Christmas your arse
I pray God
It's our last

The boys of the NYPD choir
Still singing 'Galway Bay'
And the bells are ringing
Out for Christmas day

I could have been someone
Well, so could anyone
You took my dreams
From me when I first found you
I kept them with me babe
I put them with my own
Can't make it all alone
I've built my dreams around you

The boys of the NYPD choir
Still singing 'Galway Bay'
And the bells are ringing
Out for Christmas day…

Here's the story of how the song was written, and here's the song itself (and original video)…

Map...

St Bees...

Drove from Barrow up the Cumbria coast. Tourists don’t come here (why cross the Lake District to visit Workington?), but I rather enjoy the ‘back of beyond’. Stopped last night in St Bees and had a pint in the Oddfellows Arms. They were having a sort of kareoke evening, but without any backing tracks: just pissed blokes ‘singing’ into a microphone. It was as bad as it sounds (yet still not as bad as hearing Noddy Holder yell “It’s Christmaaaaaas” for the millionth time)...