Religion is ludicrous.
Here's a picture of me with some of my favourite bears:





Left to right, Thor, Jesus, Buddha, Zeus and Saraswati. I wonder what I could call the next bear I get...

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I simply cannot believe that the moronic SNP/Scottish Executive have come up with the lamest new marketing slogan for Scotland. Brace yourself:


WELCOME TO SCOTLAND


I kid you not.
£250000 for that one.
What a load of crap.

There are times when I am beguiled into thinking that glasgow isn't really as bad as it often seems. Such as last night when I ventured out to hear a new piece by my composer friend and colleague, Ross Campbell (an excellent sextet in a surprisingly neo-romantic idiom). It was icy cold - around -5 degrees - and the moon was bright. Under these circumstances, the university buildings seemed magical:









Now, given that I was wearing my fur coat against the cold, I was somewhat expecting attention from the nedscum who stalk the streets of the city. What I was not expecting was to have two neds in sportswear and baseball caps, clutching cans of cheap lager crossing the road to compliment me on the thing!

All my joy was sapped today when witnessing a carfull of the fuckwits miss hitting a woman by millimetres as they shot a red light, to then laugh at her for protesting. I'm pleased to say that the woman and her friend noted down the number and made a phone call. I hope it was to the police. Not that they would bother about ned activity.

Saw this horrid thing at the barras market:





And this in a shop window...





I seem to recall that the same company tried to get the word "McJobs" pulled from the dictionary. Even if they had succeded, this sign would still be a lie.

What an excellent weekend. Dingo was here and we went to Whitby for a break, to recharge and relax and to do a bit of research for a piece of work I'm making. It was really good to get away and to get out of the usual "glasgow-Brighton" routine of things. We set off on Friday at lunchtime and got there about 4.30pm. Our B&B was brilliant: run by a completely nuts woman, as can be seen from her taste in decor:





(Notice the decapitated Spanish Lady doll half way down the left-hand picture!)

She was, however, good "nuts"! Excellent fun, chatty but not intrusive and considerate.

On Saturday, we spent ages in the Whitby Museum, a museum which, until very recently, was in private ownership (though open to the public) and with an excellent collection of local fossils and strange things, such as the leech-powered "Tempest Prognosticator":





In which leeches generate an electric current which is measured to determine whether or not there is going to be a storm. We also found this, which I don't believe is the thing's real name:





A bird named to - surely? - make schoolboys giggle. There are SO many interesting things in this museum and it is really just another of those Victorian cabinets of curiosities which I love so much. We spent 4 hours in there. After we came out, it was off to the Abbey to wander about there:





There are loads more pictures of the Abbey and of the Museum on my Flickr pages.

The day was capped very nicely by an absolutely first-rate wood-baked pizza!
Could have done without the incessant shagging of the couple in the room above us. Also could have done without the fire alarm they set off by smoking in a non-smoking hotel. (They claimed it was the kettle, but the landlady knew better, of course!)

Sunday was horrible. We woke to more shagging from the couple above and rain blowing against the windows from outside. It was bitterly cold and wet so we abandoned plans to stay till evening and went north to Saltburn, where I wanted to see the funicular railway, the first in the UK but it was shut. Not only that, but it was too cold to even walk about so we had a warming coffee (and a delicious Yorkshire curd cheesecake) and set off on our return. In the evening, it was that time again when the christmas lights in glasgow are turned on. Uncle Clive has worked hard again to ensure that the neds get something fun to pull down and vandalise: they were not disappointed this year and managed to completely collapse a model stag before the lights were finished.
We enjoyed ourselves, being backstage and getting the best view of the fireworks! That followed by dinner in Ichiban made for an excellent evening.

Back to the usual routine this morning.
Pah!

I've had a dreadful cold over the last few days, which developed into conjunctivitis over Wednesday and Thursday. Today it's moved down into my chest and I feel that an early night is what is needed to shift it completely.

Further to yesterday's post, I was at an event this morning where the deputy Provost (mayor) of Glasgow actually apologised for being a bit drunk... what hope is there?

I should also thank the couple of people who have pointed out:

that there is an irony in glasgow getting the games as we have the fattest population in the world outside the US;

that there will be no problem for the competitors to get sportswear as that is the only type of clothing you can buy in glasgow;

that the value of my flat will go up as most of the sports facilities are being built around me.

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Been working some more with the Damascus steel. I made this ring from steel, silver, vegetable ivory and an old-cut garnet:





Vegetable ivory is bizarre stuff: it is incredibly tough, probably more so than animal ivory, and looks like a small coconut. I'm going to cut some slices during the week and try out basic scrimshaw work using the engraving techniques I learned over the summer.

# posted by Dauvit

What a mistake.
What a HUGE mistake.

Why did the Commonwealth Games Committee decide to award the next Commonwealth Games to miserable, violent, bleak, ned-ridden, vomit-splashed, dirty, run-down glasgow? A town masquerading as a "city", racist to the core, corrupt at its heart and culturally barren. It beggars belief.

Many things spring to mind:

Wonder how many visitors to the games will be stabbed?

Wonder how many racist assaults there will be during the games?

Wonder how much the councillors will manage to scam out of this to line their own pockets?

Wonder how much of my council tax will be squandered on window-dressing only the bits that the competitors see?

Abuja may have its problems but they are nowhere near as bad as the problems here. As one of the Nigerian officials pointed out, glasgow is startlingly more corrupt and violent than his city: some people might be surprised at this; I am not.

# posted by Dauvit