2026 Scotland Camping Trip Day 1: The Rings

I woke up this morning with a tight chest, and a feeling that my life was bleeding away, getting taken up by a trillion tiny unimportant things. Ads. Cookies. Politics. Facebook. Weathermen telling us with wonder that the earth is getting hotter. Stressful thoughts. I had a strong suspicion that I would soon lose any chances of me getting away to destress this summer before it was all gone. I had found my tent. I could just disappear. But then I decided it might be better if I okay it with my family first. Once they green-lit me and I confirmed neither of them like camping and were happy for me to go off by myself, I started forming my plan.

I remembered my time camping in Japan with great fondness, and those few sheets of paper that had a multitude of campsite information on them. Maybe I could create my own guide by researching and visiting campsites in Scotland? Helping campers and my future selves bypass Google and all the camping booking websites by gathering phone numbers and getting my feet dirty by getting my boots on the ground and personalising the experience, updating things on my blog to serve as a reminder to myself and signpost for others?

So I scanned Google Maps and Pitchup.com and cast about for a handful of potential first nighters within 50 miles of my house, and tried Ring Farm first. I wanted to go up to Fife, somewhere new, and in the middle of nowhere. So I called the number and a nice lady answered and seemed only too happy for me to turn up the same day. My first generation red 2017 Nissan Leaf (real-life range 85 miles) was fully charged off the solar panels and ready to go, except I needed lunch and the car needed its tyres checked, but I couldn’t put it off any longer. I had to get on the road. 

I drove north-east towards Kirkcaldy, where I found an actual Stephen’s Bakery with an EV charging station in the car park. This made me very happy. I was sick of Greggs and its cold sausage rolls. A bakery that doesn’t sell hot food! Ridiculous! I often made a point of purchasing Stephen’s (award-winning) seeded morning rolls at the local Scotmid, and this was my first time actually finding a real building. With charging point no less! Unfortunately the charging point did not recognise my car and became frigid at the very thought of communing in the biblical sense. But I didn’t care – I was on the road again – and it was all part of the adventure. In Stephen’s I'd already targeted my sausage roll, when to my delicious delight, the deli drifted into my discernment. Two seeded morning rolls to go please, one with tuna mayo and the other with chicken mayo, both with mayo (did I mention that?) salad, a cup of tea, a cookie, and fuck it, a large hot sausage roll. I guzzled my prizes at my car, cup of tea on roof, while striving to keep cap on head and decide whether to call about the EV charger or not. The tuna mayo roll was bliss. I devoured the sausage roll I don’t think without chewing – just inserting it down my gullet like a pelican sword swallower. Alas I was now too full to attempt the second roll and made an executive decision to go straight to choc chip cookie, which melted in the mouth like only a soft choc chip cookie can – like me melting into the sofa post a hard week’s work. I, and by association the cookie, were home. In my mouth.

I decided to drive off but notify the EV charger company en route of the fault as I still had half a tank of battery, was itching to get moving again, but felt a responsibility to my fellow EV’ers. This I did, and the woman was most apopleptically apologetic, gently chiding me for not having downloaded the app, for which I forgave her.

I plugged in the postcode for the Rings Farm into the Nissan sat-nav and soon found myself somewhere in the middle of Fife, and my imagination kicked off on a story called, “The Melting Man”, where a guy driving an EV runs out of battery in the middle of nowhere in Fife and sees a sign saying, “One night only Melting Man Festival!” He follows it only to find some very sinister goings on and that he himself becomes at risk of (spoiler alert) being the ‘Melting Man’.

Before too long , just when I remembered I had only input the postcode and not the house number, I spotted a sign for the Ring Farm on the left and slowed up. Road became single road, tarmac became gravel track, became driveway, became fork, one direction of which lead me to Reception. But I was a little desperate for the loo so I dipped into the facilities prior, only to find a very clean toilet and shower cubicle. Then I met Moira, with whom I’d spoke on the phone. She checked me in and gave me a quick tour. When I texted her later asking if open fires were allowed as I’d brought my Dad’s old volcano kettle, she said that as long as there were not too many sparks then yes that was fine.

So I went and parked in the far corner of the camping field and put up my old orange 1.5 man tent that I’d gotten in Japan many blood moons ago. I was a little concerned it might rip after so long without use, but to my pleasant surprise, despite the old age and except for being a couple of tent pegs short of a full set, I got it up no problem. Except I realised the entrance was facing the wind. So I unpegged it, spun it 180 degrees and re-attached to the planet surface, so the door was facing away from t'other campers, which also makes sense if you think about it.

Thence I drove into Cupar in search of supermarket to buy provisions and ice, and to give myself bonus points if I found an (working) EV car charger. To my pleasant surprise my Leaf’s sat-nav took me to a retail park to which I had prior been, when I drove up to my ill-starred interview at the new Madras College at St Andrews in June/July 2025. I stocked up on groceries in Tesco (doing my best to ignore the scrupulous glares of suspicious staff members), located a couple of (in use) chargers outside Burger King, hung around suspiciously for a while until an owner came back, plugged in, and went off to Burger King for some well deserved din-dins.

With a full, warm paunch, and my perishables safely in my home-made cool-box under ice, I drove back to the campsite, had a cup of (green - blast!) tea, scoffed some yoghurt, took some photos (happily my camera was fully charged, had an SD card in and was ready to go in the car boot) checked some emails and other messages, cracked open a bottle of Stella and tucked into some Pringles in the tent out of the prevailing wind (Once you pop you can't stop, so they say, so I bought two small packs instead of one big one - ha ha!), while reading ‘Walking on Glass’ by Iain Banks, waiting as patiently as possible for nature to work her magic on my nerves and Mr Banks to get to the crux of his plot.

I succumbed to sleep around 9:30 with the somnambulant sound of raindrops tippy-toe-tapping across the top of the tent. Tomorrow I shall ask who owns the land on which the campsite resides, as surely they must be ... Lord of The Rings.

SafePro X Car Safety Tool

Yes, I know at first glance this looks like a condom ad, but it's not. Read on, MacDuff!

I usually ignore commercials but I saw a really compelling ad on Facebook for these gadgets and figured they were worth taking a chance on, and they arrived this morning.

The idea is that you or your family member have an accident and/or your car crashes into water, but as everything is electric, you can't break the windows. Also, your seatbelt might be jammed. So someone (in Germany) has designed these sleek little tools with a glass breaker at one end and a seatbelt knife blade at the other. A pack of two results in a cost of £17.47 each, and they come with little glass discs to practise on, and sticky dashboard holders.

We have two cars now (my son is learning to drive) so I figured it was a good investment. The chances of having an accident and falling into water are hopefully minimal, but I figure not zero. And I understand the buying power of these can rely on the fear you have for your loved one drowning in a sinking car when you could have prevented it by buying these, but they seem to have good reviews on Trust Pilot

I also get that only those who use it and it works for and survived, would write the most useful review. 

There are a lot of very similar products out there, but you can order these from Amazon currently for £34.72 per pair.

If I die in a drowning car then you will know that they didn't work.

Asics Contend 10 Running Shoes £54.99

The older I get, the grumpier I become, especially with things falling apart seemingly shortly after I buy them.

But is it really poor workmanship that we're all getting scammed by, or just my perception of time?

To try to figure this out and maybe combat it, I'd like to try to write long-term reviews of purchases. Not just the quick 'Four days later' review that Amazon demands.

So here's the first one.

My red running shoes are falling apart, as are my knees, so I thought it was high time to invest in another pair of runners. I chose these Asics from Sports Direct and the shop assistant also suggested some Slazenger gel insoles at £5, so I cut them to size and put them in.

Day 1: very happy with them out the box. I'll let you know how I get on with my first run.

My right knee has been hurting, just under the kneecap, and the google AI machine suggested this was patellar tendonitis, and that the standing quad stretches I have been doing before and after running for 40 odd years could be damaging. That and the old shoes. Jumper's knee it's called apparently. Hence the trip to Sports Direct.

So no stretching, no running, no crawling for me, at least for the next few days. 

This is day three after the run and already feels much better.

I woke up this morning with a headache and the remnants of a nightmare about going back to work, its tendrils still in my nostrils. I was teaching two new classes in a lecture hall, and I couldn't get any of the kids' names right, nor even read their handwriting on the register. Also construction work was being done on my old classroom and no-one had bothered to tell me.

The headache I have attributed to being out in the midday sun (like a mad dog or Englishman) yesterday, trimming the bushes at the front of the the house. However, I am currently rehydrating and already feeling better.

I won't be going for a run though until the pain in my head and knee abates so I'm afraid you will have to be patient for the next installment!

31/7/26 Update: Still good! Knee getting better

How (Not To) Holiday With Dogs 1

So here we are on our second night of five away from home on our West Lothian tour of dog-friendly accommodation.

Yesterday we packed the Leaf and drove to Uphall to check in to the Oatridge Hotel, which is quite a nice, clean and upwardly mobile first stop (construction going on in the beer garden (I even saw someone mowing the astroturf!)).

We checked in at 4:30pm or thereabouts and I settled up the remainder of the bill. Then my wife and son went to the local chippy for a special fish for myself, a fish supper for my son, a baked spud for my wife and an additional platter (for everyone, which everyone was too full to eat).

Those of you who have been to Uphall may remember the busy high street and intersection and not immediately be able to envision any green areas for dogs to roam, relax and do their business, but we managed to find a nice walk not too far from the hotel left across the bridge over the Broxburn (which is actually a burn (Scots. valley of the badgers)), up a path and right to a big green square.

Although she’d been fine in the car, for some reason our canine family member was extremely unhappy having to wait outside the chip-shop while my wife and son were inside, and slipped backwards out of her harness completely so I had to grab her between my knees to reapply it. Probably a wolf pack thing. Realised we should maybe have done some separation anxiety training with her little by little to help her get used to us randomly disappearing into shops. Who knows where she would have shot off to had she escaped, as un-street cred as she is. Probably the interior of the chippie.

Tried to watch a terrible movie about dragons on the misnamed Great! Movies on the TV with my son but could barely keep my eyes open. The early 2000s CGI was pretty good, however, and didn’t seem to match the poorness of the hairstyles which suggested 80s straight-to-VHS.

Couldn’t sleep due to worrying about the dog needing a pee, her barking every hour at sounds both real and imagined, me feeling too hot while simultaneously a chilly draft tickled across the small of my back due to not getting enough of the duvet as the dog was sleeping between us on the bed, the window rattling in its frame, birds screeching, the central heating humming and the green unblinking eye of the fire escape sign light above the door.

Hopefully tonight will be better.

Everything You Need From A Store

Yesterday I took a trip down memory lane as my mother asked me to get some groceries and pick up a prescription for her at a small shopping mall near my old high school. This I duly did, looking forward to visiting the old haunt and seeing what, if anything, had changed. 

My old school has long been demolished, rebuilt and renamed and I must say looks very shiny and new and well designed. The modern architecture looks good on it; a step or three up on the communist bloc design of my yesteryouth. I could almost forgive them for erasing part of my life from reality. Almost. But the school lives on in my memory and dreams: its crystal maze-esque one-way system of mouse shoulder-width corridors and stairwells; its ground floor of 'not quite inside not quite outside' pillar-strewn mental space with sharp concrete corners everywhere; its alphabetised Houses of destiny (I was in F) sticking out at right angles towards grass, greenness and glen; its science block plonked on almost as an afterthought; and its playground a prison exercise yard in the centre. My God. Memories gush forth like struck oil. But they're all by the by as I didn't even stop to take a photo of the new place (to which I have no attachment, positive, negative or otherwise except it looks nice and probably smells nice too).

Today I want to talk about the supermarket.

When I was a pre-schooler my mother used to trail me round Safeway on a weekly basis for the groceries. This would have been the late 70s. I clearly remember her allowing me to open 'as yet unpaid for' packets of goodies and then settling up the spent wrappers at the till on the way out. Imagine doing this nowadays. I have absolutely no idea how I am not crippled by debt by this unintended received philosophy even now. Perhaps it was my Dad's mindset that it was better to save up and buy stuff rather than put everything on credit cards which counteracted this. Or maybe I was affected in other ways, as I was too young to understand the economics of such a thing, just the joy of my mum letting me do something slightly naughty and delicious with no concern for the consequences. Perhaps I've been seeking out slightly naughty and delicious things ever since. Who doesn't?

One day, when I was slightly older, we were in the afore-mentioned Safeway and we'd become separated as I went off to find a packet of sweets. Having selected a tasty option I attempted to return to my mother but couldn't find her anywhere. After a while of carrying the sweet packet in my hand, without thinking I stuck them in my pocket while continuing my search. By the time I found her I had had this sudden heart-thumping and adrenalin-fueled epiphany: I'd just pocketed a packet of sweets in a supermarket and no-one had noticed. I looked around to see if I'd been spotted, but no. All I had to do was walk out with my mum, act natural, and get away with them scot-free! My God! My first taste of the thrills of breaking the law. As we approached the till my mouth became dry. The candy seemed to bulge in my trouser pockets. I couldn't resist staring guiltily at the adults. The cashier smiled at me. I gulped back at her. Act natural! I told myself. NATURAL GODDAMNIT!*

When we got home I scoffed the lot guiltily behind the garage. It never occurred to me until just now that if I'd simply put them in the shopping trolley mum would have bought them for me without batting a 70's mascara'd eyelid. Or even let me eat them and pay for the empty wrapper at the till. But where would the fun be in that? And so began my life of crime.

Another memory I have is of a friend and me going down the glen and collecting two big bin bags of empty beer and soft drink cans, testing them with magnets to see if they were aluminium, and then bringing them to this supermarket carpark where a scrap guy gave us a few quid for them. Happy days.

Back to the present. I pull my Leaf into the carpark to happily discover that Tesco, being the cheap bastards we love them for, haven't even properly painted over the remains of the old Safeway sign. This more than made up for the erasure of my high school from the annals of history. I feel myself return to solidity, like Marty McFly when his parents finally kiss at the end of Back To The Future. Although upon entry to the supermarket I find it claustrophobically small compared to the planet-sized Asdas and Morrisons to which we are now used. How could I have gotten lost from my own mother in such a tiny grocery store back in the day? You can almost see every part of the shop from a standing position near the door. While gathering the requested shopping - fruit, corned beef and decaf cappucino pouches - I can't help chancing eye contact with everyone I meet, perhaps to see if I know them, they me, or anyone has any knowledge of my past transgressions 40 years prior.

Nearby is the fish and chip shop I'd occasionally escape to from high school and patronise (hah, call yourself a chippie?) for a deep fried pizza at lunchtime. Since you ask, I rarely truanted from school; I only have one vague memory of jumping out a ground floor window and strolling off without a care over the grass, but this is so fuzzy it could well have been a dream.

The whole place seems a little run down. The only establishment doing well is the pub - the Bonnie Prince Charlie - enjoying a recent lick of paint and flowers in hanging baskets. One place is a new and worthwhile addition to the square: a Men's Shed, a sign of the times perhaps, or at least something that wouldn't have existed 40 years ago. Looks like a solid place. Might pop in one of these days. 

It being a Sunday though, the pharmacy is, perhaps predictably, closed, rendering the whole trip ultimately pointless. I could have got the shopping at the new LIDL down the road.

*Slightly dramatised for the purposes of artistic licence.

All Ruts Lead To Rome

Today finds me in a ruminative state of mind, and what I'm ruminating about is ... ruts. 

Yes, those deep, narrow canyons in muddy roads worn down by over-frequent tyre-contact, that it's difficult to get out of. I mean habits. Lifestyle. Routines. Repetitive acts into which by chance or design we have fallen. At the age I am now, I have a lot. That's how we survive. We can't continuously scrutinate* every action afresh to judge whether it is worth continuing. We must focus on the other more important things, besides, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? And ruts work. They get you places. I'm goin' somewhere, man. Groove-y! The trouble is, what if you want to go somewhere else? Inject a little spontaneity into your life and suddenly decide you want to visit Quthing, Lesotho for some reason? Then you're gonna want out of that rut. And what happens when we try to get out of ruts? It's hard. It takes effort. If you're on a bike you might fall over and get a mouthful of dirt. 

In short, ruts suck.

But we are in them, often unconsciously, which is of course the nature of the rut. We do 'em on autopilot, allowing us instead to focus on the more important things, like replaying scenes from old films in our minds, such as Jim Carrey squeezing himself out of the ass of a giant rhino.

If you're anything like me, you wake up in the morning. You stretch. You wash my face. If it's a work day and you're prone to unnecessary facial hair, you shave. You go downstairs and play with and feed the dog. You put three cups and a glass on the kitchen counter and prepare the Four Drinks of the Healthy Lifestyle Apocalypse: coffee, warm water, green tea and orange juice. You take them upstairs and imbibe them in the following order: warm water, to clean your insides; coffee, because it tastes nice; orange juice, because it's cold; and finally, once it's had a chance to cool down slightly, the green tea, which if you're not careful can burn the darn mouth off you.

So what's my point, I hear you ask, or in the comments, read. Well, my point is, as busy as my past year has become, I've been forced to prioritize, which has meant pruning my own personal tree of life. Snipping off the branches which, perhaps were nice to have, in order to make room for the more important trunk. 

Perhaps I've pruned too much. Maybe the tree of life needs those branches, otherwise it's nothing but a pointy, brittle, fruitless, birdy-less stump, no more able to grow or bend than dry, dead wood.

It strikes me that a rut is basically a long, narrow, endless cage, with the same windowless view on either side that we sleepwalk along like automatons; blinkered shuffling sheep-zombies guided towards inevitable sheering, dipping, or worse - death. 

On a happier note, solutions abound! Skive a day off a week just to do something different, new, fresh. Take risks. Leave your phone at home. Talk to strangers. Embark on journeys without knowing the destination. Do some of the stuff you haven't done for ages just for the hell of it.

Here, rather than me publish a long list of things I used to do that brought happiness, why don't you take out a piece of paper and a pencil and write down all those things you have fond memories of doing, but have not done in so long. Keep going until you can think of no more. Then stick it to your wall or door - wherever you can see it. Dip into it whenever you feel you're in a rut.

*I know.

Smoke Without Fire

In February last year the Scottish government took it upon themselves, in their infinite wisdom, to order all households to install interconnected wifi smoke alarms. This meant that if an alarm went off in one wing of the house, all would go off. It came at a time during lockdown when the seemingly unnecessary expense of a hundred pounds for something that only people with big houses would benefit from, struck many as excessive. Eventually I only capitulated in case we had a fire and insurance was mitigated by the fact we didn't have them.

So I splashed out and ordered Amazon's choice of two smoke alarms and a heat detector for the kitchen. When they arrived, I distinctly yet fuzzily remember taking one out its box, along with instructions and tiny remote control, and having a mess about with it to try and see how it worked. After that, my memory is a blank. Try as I might, I could not find that smoke alarm or the instructions and began to question that I'd ever experimented with that particular device. The second smoke and heat alarm were still in their boxes. I dutifully affixed them to the walls in the desired places near the old alarms which I left up.

Fast forward a year later, 4:30 am, and the wifi smoke alarms all go off at once. I run downstairs to see what the story is, note the absence of any smoke or heat, and do my best to assure our new puppy that everything is okay. In my sleepy dazed state and after confirming the house is not in fact burning down, I depress the front of one of the alarms until it stops its infernal racket and return to my blissful slumber, only to be awoken once again ten minutes later.

Hooda guessed smoke alarms have snooze buttons?

I leap out of bed and repeat the process, wondering if maybe it's carbon monoxide. The puppy regards me with the expression 'Dude, wtf, again?' But the CO detector in the kitchen flashes silently and reassuringly. And anyway, we have an electric cooker now, which surely must reduce risk of CO poisoning, unless they'd not capped the gas off properly? I don't know.

Anyway, I rotate the alarms out of their holders and hold the front buttons again until they are silent. This they duly were. For another ten minutes. 

At their dratted shrieking I get up, press the front buttons longer this time (of course you can't just take the batteries out anymore), wrap them both in oven gloves, stuff them in a drawer, and go back to bed like a responsible dad.

And there they stayed. We still had the old ones attached, so it didn't bother me too much the damn new-fangled things were out of commission.

Anyway, weeks go by and we got back to normal, or as normal as you can be, getting your puppy used to doing its business outside. Late one night when I was 'peeing the dog' I heard a distant beeping noise which sounded like it was coming from a neighbour's garden. I shrugged, murmured, 'Hmm,' under my breath and thought no more about it.

A few nights later it happened again. 'Bloody neighbours,' I mused. 'Can't even get their bloody electronic gadgets from bloody bleeping.'

The next night the same thing. 'What a second,' I thought, 'Is that coming from our shed?' On further investigation I wondered if it might not have been emanating from the compost bin. It sounded like one of my son's old toys. But why on earth would it be coming from the compost bin?

Despite the rain and dark I put a head torch on and got the spade out, upended the wheelbarrow and began digging compost out like a crazy person. I was a man obsessed, determined to get to the bottom of this, literally if needs be. So much to our puppy's joy and amusement, I transferred rotting food waste from the compost bin to the wheelbarrow as the beeping noise seemed to get tantalisingly closer and closer until finally - tap!

I'd struck something. 

I dug around with my gardening gloves and took out an unidentified composting object, round, plastic, covered in a decaying, soft plastic wrapper and beeping self-importantly.

The other smoke alarm.

How in all mulching Hell had it gotten in there!?

Over the years we've found some strange items in our compost bin. Numerous bits of plastic, a fork, a potato peeler, the head of Alfredo Garcia, and now this. It's like the universe's last ditch place to hide items that don't want to be found. 

"Hey, Universe, I need a place to lie low for a while. I'm done forkin', peelin' or detectin' smoke."

Universe: "I have just the place."

So what I deduced is this: in my office I have three wastepaper baskets - one for recycling, one for general waste, and the third for compost.  Sometime in the past year, the smoke alarm I'd opened and messed about with must have slipped off a shelf or table into the bin destined for compost, and remained there hidden and activated until I threw it without much ceremony into the compost bin outside. There it lay, waiting patiently for the perfect moment in the cold, wet dark. As more and more kitchen waste got thrown on top of it, the soft plastic wrapper slowly disintegrated until finally some liquid or bit of decaying food matter pressed its way smoke-like in between two sensors, and-

Blam!

Operation POACH (Piss Off And Confound Human) is initiated.

Dog Days

And so a new month finds us. Behold July 2023! What surprises and challenges do you bring? What delicious secrets lie buried just below your surface, waiting patiently to be discovered? A gold coin perhaps? A magical artefact? The potatoes I planted?

Yesterday morning I awoke with a start following a dream our dog had been lost somewhere in the highlands of Scotland. There was no way she could find her way home. She was out there, alone, fending for herself. It was horrible. 

It wasn't like the dream of losing a child, like in a big city, which I've also had, and which was also terrible. But my child is at an age now where he has a pretty decent understanding of the lie of the land and how to communicate and get around. Our dog has only been in this world seven months. She's cute and cuddly, yes, but her communication skills are a little lacking. Opposable thumbs are few and far between. Using a credit card, even contactless, may be outwith the bounds of her skillset.

For these reasons having a nightmare about a lost puppy seemed to hit, not harder, but in a slightly different, more sensitive area, where one is not accustomed to be hit.

Upon returning to reality I felt such a wave of relief wash over me, it was indescribable. But let me try. Big. 

Even though it was still an hour before she habitually woke me up, I went straight downstairs to reassure myself that she was safe and sound on the sofa, and there she was, oblivious to the torment I had just suffered at the hands of my subconscious. "What are you doing here?" she seemed to think. "You still have an hour." Needless to say, cuddles and tummy rubs ensued.

Need someone to write mildly amusing doggy blog posts? Hold my beer.

How to Live a Low Carbon Lifestyle

In other news, I was pleasantly surprised seeing the numbers of our June energy usage, which I check the 1st (week) of every month. It being the middle of summer, they are naturally low, but due to our solar panels and the selling of the car, our carbon footprint is way, way down. Like silly small.

Red means winter, green summer. Far right column is year's CO2 output to date.

If my calculations are correct, in June 2023 we output less than the weight of our dog in carbon emissions. 20kg.

This is not including any land-based public transport usage by family members, as I consider the additional weight of a human on a vehicle which is traveling overground somewhere anyway negligible.

I'm talking about the energy for which we are directly responsible.

The gas we use for central heating and showers.

The electricity we use for lights, the kettle, the cooker, the fridge.

The petrol and carbon debt of the car, spread out mile by mile throughout its lifespan.

Note yellow line representing half of solar generation (estimated unused and going back into the grid) which is negative.

20kg of CO2 in a summer month is the lowest since I started taking records of our energy usage going to back to 1st Dec 2018. The closest is 44kg in July 2020 in the midst of the Corona lockdowns. In the winter of early 2019, when I regularly commuted by car to Edinburgh, it was as as high as 533kg. Half a tonne.

I'm not telling people how to live their lives and I know some folk depend on their private vehicles but damn, if you want to rid yourself of carbon guilt and feel better about the planet, sell your car. Tremendous mental health relief. Get a decent road bike with rack and panniers for shopping. Re-acquaint yourself with the sociability of public transport and sharing lifts. Normalise a slightly less convenient, smaller, slower world. Use the capital to install solar panels on your house.

You know it makes sense...

Hydrocarbon Hangover

Since selling our Toyota on Friday the 9th June, it's been a week of utter carlessness. 

Over the years our hybrid accounted for a third of our carbon footprint. I used it a lot for work, driving all over the country to film weddings and such.

But it has slowly become obvious it's now time to at least attempt a footloose and car-free existence for the following reasons.

• We as a family can no longer afford a car. It would cost £600 to repair the intermittent brake sensor problem, which we don't have. To me that's a signal to sell the car. Yes the Toyota gave 53 miles to the gallon, but our lifestyle sadly cannot stretch to that. Wise man say: live within your means.
• We as a species can no longer afford cars. You may or may not believe in human-caused climate change. But to me it's staring us in the face. It's a logical result of us burning a whole load of fossil fuels and cutting down a whole load of trees. Less rain, record temperatures every year, receding ice caps. Wild fires. Water shortages. The time to make sacrifices is here, if not past. We have to make changes on a personal, local, national and global level. Burning fossil fuels was a mistake at first, then a lie. Now it's unsustainable. The truth is, we were never meant to fly in jet planes. We were never meant to drive gas guzzlers. Those things were temporary luxuries. The golden age of burning oil willy nilly is over. We need to get back to cycling, horse-riding, hang-gliding - something, anything else. We need to accept that our worlds must shrink back to the smaller, slower way they once were.
• I've lost the taste for driving. Fighting to keep my eyes open while weaving home after midnight post-filming an event. Cars veering in off the slip-roads expecting you to move over. People not using indicators or driving on their phones. Feeling sick at the wheel. Being encased in a glass, metal stuffy coffin, hurtling along at break-neck speed. Back pain. Everyone complaining you're driving too fast, you're driving too slow, you're driving too badly, you're driving too well. Actually no-one's ever complained that.
• There are too many cars on the road. The days of cruising down the open road are long gone, because every other person and their lover are doing the same. It's nose to tail. Instead, you can undertake long lines of cars on a bike at the lights while inhaling their noxious exhausts and feeling the heat bouncing off their chassis.

I realise the hypocrisy of what I'm saying. I spent many air miles flying around the world. But shirking life changes due to fear of being called a hypocrite is just another excuse.

Yes, I overindulged carbon like there was no tomorrow. But now I've woken up and it is tomorrow. And must face the hydrocarbon hangover.

Case in point. Yesterday I traveled by train to visit my mum. Usually it takes 47 minutes one way in the car. It took four hours round trip. Instead of getting in the car in the driveway I had to walk a mile to the station with a heavy bag. Rather than focusing on the road, straining to hear music over the sound of the wind and worrying about drivers behind and cyclists in front (we need more cycle paths!) I sat at a train table, wrote the first half of this blog and did my accounts. I gazed out the dirty window at the passing scenery. I thought about life. I drank tea and guzzled an empire state biscuit. That leg lasted an hour. 

At Glasgow I got out and relieved myself in the (now free to use) Glasgow Central toilets, after almost going into the Ladies. I got on the train to my home town. It was too hot. I drank water.  Things cooled down a bit once we got moving. I looked out the window and pondered my next novel. I napped. I drooled. I spotted a missing playpark of my youth which had been turned to grass. This leg was half an hour. One leg shorter than the other. Strangely I was exhausted and beginning to realise I'd vastly overestimated the number of books I would read on the train. I climbed the last incline to the family home, lamenting the fact it was on a hill and has been for the past sixty odd years. Two hours later I'd arrived.

On the return journey I was too exhausted to even read on the train, and took the time instead to deal with the possibility of my phone getting hacked when I'd responded to a scammer's text to download a link, too late realising something was amiss. 

Changed trains again at Glasgow Central, where someone was expertly playing the free piano and bringing joy to a father on Father's Day. In the carriage, two older women dressed to the nines in pinks and yellows sat down at my table and ate a MacDonalds. Through the windows in the adjacent train a group of young girls were dancing and singing and waving at us. They stuck their 'American Catholic Trip' tickets to the windows to communicate where they were going or had been.

Because I had a wooden mug rack attached to my bag the two women at my table asked if I'd just moved house. I said no, I was clearing out my Mum's and this used to be mine. "You make assumptions, don't you?" the woman next to me said chattily. I wasn't chatty. I was tired. My back hurt from too much sitting. I realised they would have been old even in the 80s. But they were nice. I made minimal courteous replies hoping they wouldn't try to seduce me.

At a station on the way home, we stopped at a platform with significant police presence. I fought the urge to alight with my wrists out to confess. "It was me officer, I did it!" "Did what, son?" "I don't know. What's been done recently?" 

I walked home thanking my stars we live downhill from the station.

Life without a car is hard, but not impossible. Dare I say it, it's healthier and better for the planet. 

And more interesting.

The Luminari Launch

This weeks sees me finally getting my finger out and publishing The Luminari. This is a story I've been working on since November 2020 (what!?) and is Jake Jones's 3rd case after The Old Mice Killer and The Coffee Cup Killer. Happily it is the first of Jake's adventures to reach novel length, coming in at 54k words. 

In it, Jake investigates a mysterious cult in the desert, alleged by his new client Lucida Grande (shortly before she is incapacitated by a poison-laced cigarette) to be brain-washing members and stealing their personal savings and identities, replacing them with font names. He is tasked with finding her sister, Gill Sans, which sounds simple enough. At first.

I blatantly stole the idea from fellow West Lothian Writer, Nadine Little, and ran with it. She seems to have given me her blessing and magnanimously refused accepting ten percent of the profits, unless I make it big. Nadine also was kind enough to write a brilliant foreword for the book, as well as gave lots of great feedback advice and many hours of her time checking for errors (any that remain are definitely mine and not hers).

After approaching several agents and publishers with the story and seeing it rejected time and again, I confess I became disheartened. Felt I was knocking on Heaven's door until my knuckles bled. One or two publishers were tempted but put off by the fact that it wasn't the first in a series, but the third. Was it ever destined to see the light of day? They say you should never give up, and I told myself to keep going until I got at least 100 rejections. Which is easier said than done. The inner child in me was beginning to think, "Screw this," for which I harshly chastized it and told it to get back up the chimney and keep sweeping, dammit.

The light was going out of my writing life. I'm sure you'll agree there's a big soulful difference between creating colourful characters, dropping them in amusing situations and enjoying watching them dig themselves out, versus compiling multiple sightly different pitches to send out to established people in the publishing industry morning after morning, guardians of the golden goose, only to be knocked back again and again. 

For this reason my heartfelt thanks goes out to Twitter pal Andy Crosby, who saw value in, and convinced me to return to, the project. The Luminari will therefore be published under the Raptor Filmz banner (my small media business), as with the first two.

You can pre-order The Luminari ebook here and through the power of science it will be beamed directly to your device on Wednesday 17th May.

The paperback version will be live from Wednesday 17th May too. Those of you who think it's already live are mistaken. It can't be. That would be improper. 

I'm even currently wrestling with the document to craft a hardback version, and recording an audiobook too just for the heck of it. I've already received a proof of the 6" by 9" hardback and it's very nice I have to say. Just needs a few tweaks here and there before finalising.

The audiobook is a whole nother beast. Recording the story in the voice of Jake Jones (who turns out is from a fictional city crossed between Brooklyn and Boston) and maintaining consistency, is not easy. Add to that so many other characters who are from completely random places around the world (decided purely on whether I can do the accents or not) just pours more petrol on the pyre of pandemonium. Why is Freda from Liverpool? Why? No reference is made to this in the text. Why did she move to the US and decide to look after young offenders? Why has her accent not been Americanized? Why have Big Caslon's jaws been wired together? It makes no sense. And not only do I have to do impersonations of characters, I have to do impersonations of Jake doing impersonations of those characters, as he is the one telling the story... It makes me want to pull my hair out, and hopefully you yours.

Anyway, it's a lot of fun and it certainly adds a whole new dimension to the story. Many thanks to John Perivolaris for his mic vocal popper shield that enabled me to get this done. Hopefully it will be completed this week.

So on Wednesday 17th May at, let's say, 12 noon, I'll do a livestream to mark the launch, probably on my Facebook page. If you have any questions you'd like to ask me about the writing or publishing of The Luminari, or any of the Jake Jones stories, please email me at chrisryoung75@gmail.com or just ask me in the livestream.

Looking forward to seeing you then!

The Pursuit of Will Power

Good morning world!

This edition is beamed to you from a sleepy, drizzly, mild last Sunday in April in Scotland.

The locals have barely surfaced. The roads are quiet. The dogs, save those yapping, are napping. We'll just let those ones lie.

I would like to share my thoughts with you about will power; my wonderings, my questions, my confusion.

What is it and where does it come from? How does one generate more, if possible?

Oscar Wilde once said, "I can resist anything except temptation." But what does this mean? Is he saying it's okay to give in to cravings? Or is he just identifying that, like me, he has little will power? Or is he just making an amusing and clever comment, which starts off strong: "I can resist anything" and ends : "except temptation" which is of course the vehicle by which we are transported to what we want; a streetcar named Desire.

These days I find myself drifting along with a vague sense of impending doom. As if I'm in a rowing boat on a river heading for the top of a waterfall. I really should row. But it's just such a pleasant ride. The riverbanks are bustling with bunnies, the sun is sparkling on the water, the birds are singing, the fish are leaping over the prow. Ahh, it's so pleasant just to lie here with my feet up on the edge without a care in the world.

Wait, is that a faint splashing I can hear? Is that crashing crescendo getting louder? Hmf, it's still a long way off. I'll deal with that when it comes.

But hey, it's such a lovely ride. Sit here with me for a little while. Enjoy it.

Which brings me back to will power. How to get it? I could row if I wanted to, but I don't. 

The thought occurred to me not long ago that perhaps will power is a muscle, like physical power. You gain it by using it. And at the very least, things will get done in pursuit. If I install the loft ladder perhaps this will give me the strength to lay the insulation. If I force myself to dig the garden maybe I will gain the wherewithall to plant things. At the very least the loft ladder will be installed and the garden will be dug.

Then again there's the question of life. I was saddened recently to hear of the passing of Jerry Springer at 79. If someone so likeable, successful and famous can't cheat death, then what chance have the rest of us got? Sean Connery made it to 90. He definitely squeezed every last drop out of life.

So maybe the question shouldn't be : "Where does one get more willpower?" Perhaps it should be : "How can one live better?" And by better I mean longer, happier, and leaving the world a better place than how you found it.

But the irony is you really need willpower to live a longer, happier life which leaves the world a better place. Sitting on the sofa all day, every day, watching box sets and chowing down on mint Aeros is not going to cut it.

So, to summarize then. What have we learnt from this morning's musings? 

I guess, as with everything, it's balance. Balance the box sets and Aeros with jogging and carrots. Balance the lying in the boat trailing fingertips in the water with periods of frantic rowing. Balance the work with the joy.

Yin and yang, innit?

Yin without Yang is like Cheech without Chong

Maybe laziness is like fear. It's there to be overcome. It's not just about doing the things you want when you want. It's about wielding the savage sword of will power and smiting down your laziness with one fell swoop, thus washing the dishes and checking the tyre pressure of your car, not 'when you feel like it' but when it's appropriate.

As the winged goddess of victory once quoth, "Just do it." 

And as Larry the Cable Guy once quoth, "Git 'er done!"

Two Birds, One Dog

Another Sunday befalls us.

It occurs to me that if I take gardening gloves on my 7am walk with the dog and pick up a handful of garbage before each bin, and drop it in, my life on this earth is not entirely wasted.

A good feeling is born, which mingles with the dew and dawn, and makes the surrounding nature more aesthetically pleasing. Just a little each day, and oh, how much easier on the eyes is the undergrowth. 

A crushed Monster can gives way to new-born nettles. A plastic Golden Wonder wrapper makes way for baby trees. A rusting tin can from aeons before, somehow disgorged from the soil since yesterday, succumbs to human hand and creates a safe space for fresh, green, dew-drop laden blades of grass to reach for the carbon enriched air, and, by merely doing what it does, convert it, molecule by molecule, to oxygen.

What if we are just aliens on an alien planet with alien problems?

Overcrowding, pollution and over-consumption of food and raw materials. It must happen to every species in a confined space eventually.

But for the meanwhile, it truly feeds the soul to cast one's gaze around the nature-scape and find it litter-free, reminded not of humanity's foibles, but of Mother Earth's simple beauty.

Uncut Gems

Just a quickie as it's been a long time since my last post.

Having a puppy has completely changed my life priorities. It used to be : Write this! Achieve that! Play the next thing! Organise this! Now it's:

Doze on sofa with diminutive, furry life-form.

Damn.

But I do recall a time when I enjoyed the writing process. I think it happened just before I realised I hated the editing process.

It's a beautiful Easter Sunday morning here, with brightness refracting through dew drops and sunlight licking the underside of leaves. A discarded kid's bicycle lies half on the road. Neighbours are out walking and glow at the pup, who rolls over at the slightest sign of attention.

Rather than hide away upstairs playing Apex last night I stayed downstairs with the pup on my lap and flicked through films on the fire-stick. After successfully avoiding the western remake (yee-haw!) of 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo' with Daniel Craig, I settled upon a 2019 film for which Adam Sandler (I wanna Grow Old With You) won an Independent Spirit Award For Best Male Lead, Uncut Gems. 

Uncut Gems (2019)

I was only going to watch half as it was getting late, but something about the film kept me up. Things seemed to be going from bad to worse for the poor guy and I had to find out if he could make it. Such a great performance from Adam Sandler, who we're so used to seeing in comedies. According to Wikipedia, career-defining.

I can't reveal too much about the film: I just recommend you view it for yourself. It's a transformation. Rated 15 there is a lot of strong language, so if you're going to be watching something with family I might suggest Murder Mystery 2 (rated 12), which is also a pretty good and recent film of Sandler's (and Jennifer Aniston's!) film which my son and I enjoyed.

Murder Mystery 2 (2023)

Well, I suppose I should get back to my adulting responsibilities, such as pottering in the garden not getting much done and trying to remember where I left my memory.

Thanks for reading.

A New Arrival

Been a while since my last confession. Probably because I've been putting all my interesting life events into my monthly newsletters. 

We got an eight week old puppy on the 28th of January which has completely changed our lives and disrupted all patterns and positive habits I'd set up. Gone are the early writing mornings. Absent is the tri-weekly exercise regime. Suspiciously elsewhere are the healthy eating philosophy and one coffee-a-day rule. The daily guitar grind has dried up. Office is a mess. Don't know where anything is.

It's all gone, in the words of Aristotle, "These feta pies taste weird."

But "Use it or lose it" they say so here I am. They also say "Early to bed, early to rise..." but how am I supposed to unwind after a hard day with two hours of action-packed first-person shooter Apex Legends, trying to take out and/or hide from 50 other players bent on my immediate destruction and go to bed early at the same time? Impossible.

You see my problem.

Film Review : Flight 2012 Denzel Washington

Flight is a 2012 film starring Denzel Washington with fantastic cameos from John Goodman, directed by Robert Zemeckis, and written by John Gatlins, loosely inspired by the true story of Alaska Airlines Flight 261.

I began writing this review on 4th December, which is quite a while ago now, as I got side-tracked by the fact that this was inspired by a true story. While reading the Wikipedia article of Alaska Airlines Flight 261, I almost filled my pants - and I don't mean with popcorn - as I came to terms with the thought of being in a commercial airliner that had just plummeted a ridiculous amount of altitude in a fraction of a second and the only recourse left to the pilots was to TURN THE PLANE UPSIDE DOWN.

This actually happened.

I'm so glad that due to concerns about the emissions caused by air travel I have vowed to never fly again, because if I hadn't, after watching this film I would vow to never fly again again. Now I have two concurrent vows.

But back to the film itself. For some reason I came at it with the assumption that it was a huge conspiracy and someone on the plane was to be assassinated for some reason. Which might have actually made it a better film. But halfway through it became clear the pilot was in no fit shape to even consider conducting an investigation due to his life-altering drinking problem.

I was like, Jeez, come on Denzel, get it together man, you've got a mystery to solve. Someone on that plane was meant to die, and why and by whom, and you can't even stay off the booze long enough to walk straight let alone check the passenger list.

Eventually I had to concede that there was no conspiracy and that no-one on the plane was meant to die and the battle with alcohol was the story.

And then I was reminded that sometimes good people make mistakes, and imperfect humans save lives.

Part of the reason to find out how much of the film was true to life was to unearth whether all the stuff about the pilot being an alcoholic relying on cocaine to get himself fit enough to fly was accurate. But there is no mention of this in the Wikipedia article.

So you're watching the film and the end is approaching and you're thinking, okay Denzel, you've stayed sober for eight days leading up to the trial. You can do this. Just stay on the wagon one more night. Eight more hours. Then you can pretend you're the hero we all want to believe.

And then it all goes tits up and I'm crying like a motherf*^$er.

Verdict: Must watch. But not on a plane.

Billy Connolly - Windswept & Interesting

Great. Fascinating. Funny. Tragic. Heartwarming. Insightful. Memorable.

Some of the words to describe Billy Connolly's autobiography.

I first discovered Billy on an 18 rated VHS tape in my parents' TV cabinet when I was 15 or so. He was wearing a white and black striped suit and doing stand up, possibly at the Albert Hall. It was the funniest stuff I'd ever seen. His stories were rude, rambling, hilarious and familiar. Hairy guy with a beard from Glasgow. You've probably seen him. He cracked me up. Royally.

I've had a lot of love for the man over the years, and I've enjoyed seeing his success go from strength to strength. I watched a movie with him and Liam Neeson in it recently without his beard, where they both play Scottish ex-miners down on their luck, The Big Man (1990), and it's always a pleasure to see him pop up on screen, with some of his Parkinson interviews the most golden. But his standup routines were always the best. Have a look at the episode with Kenny Everett below.

So when I saw his autobiography I snapped it up alongside Bob Mortimer's unsure of how it would turnout. I had a feeling he'd mellowed with age and become soft, living the life of Riley over in the States. But that's not really the case.

It's like a long letter from Billy to you. A long rambling, winding, detailed, funny, terrible, honest trip down memory lane. Feels like he's telling you stuff over a pint.

A lot of it has been told before on stage and in interviews, perhaps about 8 or 9%, but you forgive him that, because after all, he is a living legend, and he's been to hell and back, and he deserves a good life, and he's written you this wonderful, long, personal letter.

Hats aff tae the Big Yin!

A Day

Well, it's been a surprisingly good day.

Came to without much difficulty after a sober, not so late Friday night.

Son is recovering from covid therefore no school, so no rush to finish homework or get ready.

Took car to garage due to unpleasant rattling underneath floor and dropped it in at 9am saying hi to the guys.

Dropped a couple of Archers into the charity shop.

Went for coffee in the old cafe and did some proof-reading of The Luminari, chuckling despite myself at bits I'd forgotten writing.

Got a call halfway down my cup that car was already fixed.

Went back to pick it up (bumping into fellow West Lothian Writer and Film-maker Susi J Smith outside said charity shop) and they said a heat shield had come undone possibly due to going through water too fast (which I do recall doing). Didn't charge me.

Drove to car park behind Scotmid, kindly manoeuvring out the way of another car, the driver of which gave me an appreciative wave. Car no longer rattling.

Purchased some bread rolls and cartons of OJ.

Went for a walk around the graveyard of the old overgrown Kirk with my camera, but ultimately felt it was wrong to take any photos.

Thought about life and death, permanence and longevity, and counted my lucky stars I'd made it to 47, as back in the 1800s it didn't seem a given, or today.

Walked back to car where I put the seat back, wound down the windows, turned up the volume and listened to some Kaiser Chiefs asking me why I was so sad and reassuring me that sex makes everything better while proofreading more Luminari.

Drove home with unrattling car.

Actioned new edits on Luminari and scrolled social media until lunch.

Made myself a couple of rolls, a pot of tea and consumed while reading more of Billy Connolly's excellent autobiography, 'Windswept and Interesting'.

Prepared for lesson and went out for walk.

Narrowly avoided being roped into buying alcohol for underagers at the garage. Continued my stroll imagining what I'd do if I'd been confronted with a knife.

Had a nice good lesson.

Got an absurdly high after-buzz. Smashed out a few folk songs loudly on harmonica and guitar without realising wife had gone to bed.

Chatted briefly with son's friend through his earphones while in middle of Switch gameplay.

Powered by the hunger, came downstairs and made several hummus on crackers with sliced mini toms.

Continued amending blinds, now finished the whole right hand side.

Sat down with a cup of green tea and wrote this.

Got movie night and possibly a glass of wine to look forward to.

It's good to be alive.