The Sky

My eyesight is on the blink and the hearing is none too sound. I ask the dentist about the old choppers. ‘O your teeth are fine,’ says he, ‘it’s your gums I would worry about. You’ve got gum disease.’ A disease? I’m nae wanting nae disease. I get these stabs at the heart that have nothing to do with women. My right knee groans referee when I tackle too many stairs. I keep on wrenching something in my arm. The doc says that it’s tendonitis. An -itis? I’m nae wanting any -itis. He tells me to rest it. But it’s my right arm, says I, it’s my second most used muscle. He freezes a smile. Possibly the old ones are not all for the best, in this…Something flops through the letterbox.

There’s the NHS logo, that’ll be those test results. The envelope’s suspiciously plump. There’s a symptom that ‘is quite common’ that ‘may have many causes.’ But the reassuring words are undermined by the brief ‘urgent.’ There’s no doubt about it. It has started. I am dying.

But fifty-four and there’s so much more. I don’t want to leave, I like it here. I’m the guest that’ll outstay his welcome for as long as possible. But, come on, what’s the big surprise. Everyone’s life falls into this personal Niagara. All animals sicken and die. I am an animal. Therefore I will sicken and die. It’s sure. Sure as a syllogism.

I drink tea look out the window. Last night’s storm has gone and the sun is sparkling, turning everything bright with promise. I go out into the wide world in search of wonders.

Without thinking I head downhill, towards water, towards the river. Where else is there?

I swing in by the botanical garden, to the arboretum. The trees are wearing their reds and browns. Is this what paradise would be like? Then I think this doubtless is all there is. And here’s me, descended from billions of survivors, sitting here, surviving.

I start to harvest the plums, supposedly from Normandy. Robert the Bruce and his murdering cohorts were Normans, and I wonder if there’s a connection, as Bobby Bruce once trod around here. I see the medlar tree, and remember reading of its fruits. I go to explore. They are sharp and sweet. They’d do well stewed, or maybe wine. I start to gather them too. Then I fancy I hear a clamour of complaint from the surrounding birdlife. I consider that these fruits stay edible into deep winter and I leave them on the tree, leave them for the wild things. I, after all, have Sainsbury’s. Then I pass what I take to be a Rowan, but on closer inquiry, what I thought to be rowan berries are clusters of tiny apples. On tasting, yes, apples. I speculate that this must be an ancestor of the fruit we all know and love. I go out onto the Chanonry, and head for the river.

I pass St. Machar’s Cathedral with its twin spires stabbing at the heavens. I see that an ash tree, exhausted by its own weight, has fallen in last night’s storm. I urge myself to look out for the men that’ll come to clear it. Nothing burns better than ash. The tree has smashed into the graves below and I think, ‘even gravestones die.’ I like the line, resolve to remember it, and use it in some future poem or other.

I meet a friend who’s armed with a camera. His talk is full of otters and swallows and ospreys. The otters are called Oscar and Kate and I say I must look out for Oscar and Kate. After all, they now have names.

Today, I decide, will be a foraging day. So I head upstream to Grandholm Bridge, to the other side of the river, to an ancient garden where horseradish, apples, rasps, gooseberries and apples live. I pass the Wallace Tower and wish it back in town instead of Marks an’ Sparks. It looks lonely here, granite walls glowering over the river below.

I go down to the bank and meander along. I marvel at the miracle of sunlight, turning the water to champagne. The river flows deep and slow here, as though catching its breath before its last galloping rush to the sea. And there’s the swan that hangs about here. It’s said swans are monogamous. Has there been some tragedy or other? He takes fright and crescendos across the water, then, with a great yawn of wings, settles down once again. And I wonder if he ever he ever questions the point of his existence, here, all on his ownio. I say ‘he’ because he’s like me. I suppose.

My feet clatter over the old footbridge that once took the workers from Woodside over to Grandholm Mill. I remember seeing a photograph of them in their hundreds, all smiling. They must have been coming off shift. And I think about all those gone lives, and the gone mill, gone these twenty years, after the Soviet Union collapsed like a rotten tree, exhausted by its own weight. (The politburo wore Crombie coats).

I consider the endless thousands who have made a living on the Don. The mills, the weirs, the fishing. Here and there the remnants of all the forgotten work of the forgotten people. These cobbles, that wall. No-one now makes a living here, and life, abhorring the vacuum, has returned, now that the toxins have gone with the people. But some folk remain, with their dogs and binoculars, ambling along by the inevitable housing estate. I pass and they say ‘aye, aye,’ and ‘morning’ and ‘fine day.’ I muse about the green places and try to imagine folk saying ‘fit like’ to strangers on the city street.

I come to the old garden and I pick apples and horseradish. I will lament its destruction should the new bridge arrive. All this life flattened and paved and lawnified, for wildness isn’t ‘clean and tidy.’ Soon a tentacle of road will stretch here and there’ll be streams of cars and lorries and fumes and noise. Man keeps on coming back at ye, like the monster in the movie. Then I wander along the river bank to the nature reserve, where the deer and the fox and the rabbits live. They scurry and leap away from little old monster man me. For I too am part of men’s dominion that justifies that ill opinion that makes ye startle.

I stare down into the gloomy depths below the Brig o Balgownie, and think on alcoholic toxins. I nip to the supermarket and pick up a fizzy white vino. Then after rage-raging against the King Street traffic, pass the new planted trees and the Golf Links that was once the bed o the Don, centuries ago.

I walk along the path between the course and the beach. Just for five minutes you’re in the hairt o the highlands, yet bang in the city. I see a kestrel, hovering, hovering, hovering. Then it turns all gravity, and I think I hear a tiny scream. How short it can be, this life thing! ‘Sprung frae night in darkness lost.’ You’re nibbling away on some grass or other, then from the heavens, these claws, that beak. And I wonder if it was like that at the twin towers. Bored with this office, then, looking out the window, there’s an airplane heading right at ye.

And I head up the wee hill looking out o’er the Donmouth. I look at the miles up north towards Balmedie and south to the lighthouse. I take a blast o the sparkling wine, full o promise. A seal pops up his head and stares. ‘Eyes of Picasso.’ And I look at the seal and the people and their dogs and the seagulls. This is their day in the sun, mine too. And amid all this motion, thinking all things will die, watch the river turn to ocean, and the ocean turn to sky.

 Douglas Thomson

Mildly interesting video on youtube. Search 'third don crossing'

Deer Culling

Dougie’s Election 7

Deer Culling

One time I was meandering along in the Gairloch

on the west coast

through the usual sea of heather

when I came across  a fenced enclosure

(mebbe 40 acres)

With big signs saying:

EU BIOLOGICAL EXPERIMENT

You are free to enter

DO NOT ALLOW ENTRY TO DEER OR SHEEP

I then entered (carefully closing gate behind me)

what I can only describe as

a Garden of Eden

full of trees, bushes and flowers.

I said to myself

good god is this what Scotland would look like

without deer and sheep!

For, as is often said to us in natural history programmes,

the Scottish environment is largely man made

created by landowners down the generations

for the benefit of four species

sheep (profit, Highland Clearances and so on)

deer and grouse for the ‘sporting’ pleasures

of the idle rich

and finally

midges

For if you have a look at eighteenth century writing

Burns, Martin Martin et al

there are no references to the notorious, dreadful insect.

Even Dr Johnson,

travelling with Boswell through Scotland,

who complains about just about everything else

doesn’t mention the damned insect once

The midge is a product of our environmental ‘policy’

of the last two hundred years

We must re-forest Scotland

Our natural resources are far too important

To be left to the landed aristocracy

We must turn the Highlands into a huge National Park

(Think of the tourism!)

Get the hunting and shooting brigade out

and the biologists in.

This will entail either deer culling

or massive investment in fencing

as in the above experiment in the Gairloch

It’s up to us.

The Tullos tree planting scheme

is a GOOD THING

though it is a shame for the deer.

So why not protect the trees?

Cost cutting?

Bankers

Dougie's Election 6

On....The Bankers

There's a phrase we used to hear a lot

before the 2008 financial crash

bankers and city whizz kids

were described as

'wealth creators'

We don't hear it anymore.

It was as though the bankers were gods

(remember 'Masters of the Universe?')

Let there be wealth

and lo!

there was wealth

Of course we now realise just how dodgy

this kind of 'wealth creation' was.

Wealth is created by adding value

to simple commodities

The carpenter takes a few planks

and transforms them into a table

It's why Germany and China are relatively 'rich.'

They make stuff.

It's the classic Labour Theory of Value

which comes not from Karl Marx

But the philosophical darling of the right

Adam Smith.

The bankers are not wealth creators

but wealth expropriators

It's a form of embezzlement

as everyone with a bank account knows.

(e.g. the thievery of bank charges.)

It works by plundering the accumulated wealth

of previous generations

(privatisation)

And of future generations

(debt)

creating paper riches

creatively creamed off.

And now we all have to fill in

this black hole of debt

We, the real wealth creators.

Third Don Crossing

Dougie’s Election 5

On……Third Don Crossing

I was out walking one day

and as I was passing the Zoology Building

(near the new University Library)

I saw yet another traffic jam

There are often jams at this roundabout

usually heading towards King Street

but this time it was heading all the way up into Tillydrone

Later I learned that there had been

an accident on Great Northern Road

and the traffic had been re-routed through Tilly

‘That’ says I, ‘is the problem with the Third Don Crossing.’

The new bridge will deliver 1000s of cars to this point

it can’t go left to King Street

or go up Bedford Road

but must go up to St. Machar roundabout

creating what one commentator described as a

‘second Haudigan’

Thanks a lot.

The whole idea of the new crossing

comes from the

‘something must be done’ mindset

And fair enough

but this scheme simply won’t work

and even if it did

it isn’t fair

Woodside has already got more than its fair share of the city’s traffic

The Ring Road, the main road north, as well as the notorious Haudigan

Give us a break.

The traffic will go from St. Machar

up towards Cairncry to the Ring Road

completing a circuit

which will create an inner city M25

around – broadly- what we call ward 5

(Woodside, Hilton, Stockethill, Cornhill)

And,

as a great lover of the river Don,

plough through one of the most beautiful bits of meadowland

in the city

If I am elected,

I will do all in my power

To resist this bridge.

Two Eggs

Dougie's Election 4

Dougie on... Minimum Pricing of Alcohol

Two Eggs

I was at this health conference one time

there was a woman there

a heavy smoker.

Come coffee break time

She would shoot off outside

And she would chain smoke three of four cigarettes

Inhaling deeply and greedily

Before coming back to the meeting

Quickly gulping down some lukewarm coffee

She was a likable and chatty woman

Until it came to her pet hate

‘Junkies’

And she would go into rabid mode

Drug addicts were a social menace

in her part of the Glasgow she said.

And there’s no doubt drug addicts can give a lot of grief

To inner city folk

But to this woman

‘Junkies’ were the height of evil

After several rants during the course of the day

I’d had enough

And said to her ‘wait a minute

You’re obviously heavily addicted to nicotine

I’ll bet you any money you like

That you’ve done things for nicotine

That you’re not proud of

I could tell right away that I had

touched a nerve

‘I must admit you have a point’ says she

And she began to tell us all

The story of the Two Eggs

It was the day before pay day

And the cupboard was bare

The kids were due home from school

And there was nothing in for their supper

So she looks to see what there is

She’s down to basics

Half a jug of milk

Some flour

Sugar

Assorted jars of jam and honey and what not.

And so she says to herself

‘I’ll do pancakes’

And making a virtue out of necessity

Like mothers everywhere

Say ‘big treat tonight kids

Pancakes for supper’

And it would be

‘Hurray we like pancakes!’

The only problem was eggs

(An essential ingredient for pancakes)

And so she gathers together what coppers she has

And goes down to her local corner shop

And asks the grocer

if he can sell her two eggs.

Well, that’s an annoying thing for a grocer

After all, he’s left with

A useless box of four,

But she’s a regular customer

So he says

‘Aye, I’ll easy sell you two eggs’

And takes two out of the box

Puts them in a wee bag

And says ‘that’ll be thirty pence’

And says she

‘And twenty Embassy Regal Please’

So she’ll give her kids am inferior supper

Embarrass herself in the local shop

But she will not go without fags.

The moral of the story is

That for the addict, or substance abuser,

The pricing mechanism will not work

The money for the substance isn’t money

Money is for eggs and rent and kids stuff

The currency for the substance

Is, as a mate of mine puts it, ‘beer tokens’

And this currency will be found

To the detriment of other commodities

In the household budget.

Nor will minimum pricing affect the main problem

(Excessive carousing on the weekend)

One jot

‘Pre-loading’ has nothing to do with white cider

And everything to do with bottles of vodka.

There is also the possible unintended consequence

Of a return to what used to be ‘feeky drinking’

i.e. consuming the likes of

illegally distilled spirits, meths and glue

with all the ill health that entails.

And it will be extremely wasteful

At the present time, alcohol is like any other commodity

Come the sell by date it gets sold off cut price.

With minimum pricing

Why buy the old stuff?

So out in the skip it will go.

The price of drink is already a rip off

- By European standards

Food inflation is high

As are transport and communication costs

While incomes stay stubbornly low

Give us a break here!

On the other hand

It has to be admitted that white cider

(And other cheap drink)

Is dreadful stuff

And minimum pricing will eliminate it from the market

Why not buy something half way decent

If it’s the same price?

One thing’s for sure

If minimum pricing is introduced

There’ll be a lot more folk

Trying to buy the likes of

Two Eggs.

scots whahavering

Dougie's election 1

Scots Whavering

I am not proud to be Scottish. I am not proud to be British, European, or proud to have white skin. I’m scarcely proud to be a human being, nasty, brutish and cruel species that we are.

I am not patriotic. The dying embers of what little patriotism I have left briefly bursts into flame when the Scottish football team takes to the field, but in general flag waving tartanry leaves me cold. I will not kill or die for my country. Any reference to Willie Wallace or the Duke of Wellington moves me to tears of laughter.

I don’t even know what a country is. The map of Europe has been drawn and re-drawn so often that the concept of country is a very nebulous one indeed. In any case, multi-national corporations and finance sweep across national boundaries with the indifference of the wind. Mass migration and modern communications have increasingly diluted national characteristics. And when I hear talk of an independent country I’m all at sea (so to speak.) It’s all Greek to me.

This might give the impression that I am therefore a shoe-in for a No vote in the proposed referendum. Not a bit of it. I’m all for it.

It’s got nothing to do with the Bannockburn versus cost-benefit analysis arguments we’re to hear (endlessly) over the next two years.

Firstly, Scotland is a country like any other (far older than most) and deserves a seat at the tables of the United Nations and European Union, just as the Denmarks and Slovenias do. I don’t accept the argument that Scotland has more punch as part of the United Kingdom. We’ve had more than enough of British punching.

Secondly, please spare us these dreadful Tory Governments. I have some sympathy for the view that we will be ‘abandoning’ northern and urban England to the sorry fate of permanent Conservative rule, and I know that I have more in common with the Geodie or Scouse everyman than that yon birkie ca’d a lord wha struts and stares about his estate annihilating the wildlife. But an independent Scotland might spur them on to forms of devolution of their own. All forms of de-Westminstering are a good thing.

Lastly, I love this corner of northern Europe we call Scotland. Its landscape, literature and history are things I have explored all my life. Scotland should rise and be a notion again.

I accept that all this is confused and contradictory. This is hardly surprising. I am, after all, a Scotsman.

Edit

Experience

Experience

Just asked somebody to vote for me

Says I’ll get number 2 Vote

But not number 1, because

‘You don’t have enough experience.’

First objection is, of course

Can’t get elected without having experience

Can’t get experience without getting elected

But the main objection is

EXPERIENCE IS THE PROBLEM

Experience of incompetence

Experience of broon nosing big business

Experience of following the party line

Experience of cowardice

It’s inexperience that we want

I do have lots of experience in….

ASKING QUESTIONS

Dougie’s Election 3

Dougie on UNION TERRACE GARDENS

I met an old mate the other day

Hadn’t seen him for ages

We talked about this and that

And, of course, the other

We got round to Union Terrace Gardens

My mate is an alternative kind of guy

And I just assumed

(Careful with assumptions)

That he’d been a No voter in the referendum

Not at all

He’d voted Yes

Puzzled, I asked

Why?

‘Union Terrace is totally run down’

Quo he

‘Something’s got to be done about it,

It’s a crumbling bit of Victoriana’

My answer was that ALL are agreed

That something should be done

That all sides of the debate begin

With ‘something must be done’

But why the Ian Wood plan?

But I’ve got to take my hat off to the Yes campaign

(I voted No by the way)

They managed

(whether purposefully I don’t know)

To present the debate as

(1) The Ian Wood Plan

Or

(2) Leaving it as it is

Brilliant

Of course

The whole thing isn’t over

We remain a city divided

The Alice in Wonderland economics of TIF funding

Might still vanish down the rabbit hole

And there may well be a surprise or two

Down the road

Not least the result of the local elections!

But one thing the No campaign has to do

Is gain some ground

On the ’something must be done’ front