Nitty gritty

Incoming from one of those doctors I mentioned here.

Live Scottish Gritter Tracking!

(“Gritters”, for the uninitiated, being the lorries which go around spreading rock salt on snowy and icy roads, lowering the melting point of the slippy stuff, and therefore making the roads safer to drive on.)

Even better is the fact that some of the vehicles have comedy names, like the ones you see above. Sprinkles seems like a wholly inappropriate name for a 15-tonne monster throwing grit at anything in the vicinity.

So just as it should be.

Obviously, you need it to be wintery (like today) for the full benefit of the above site. You’re not going to see much happening on there in July.

The email also included some good wishes for my knee.
My knee is doing ok, thank you. Even after a short barefoot run (first one in 7 months) last night.
My feet are full of thorns though. Full. Wynberg Boys need to sort out their bottom

 

field.

Thanks Doc

Wee Day Out

Another Danny MacAskill video. And it’s every bit as all the other Danny MacAskill videos we’ve shared on here. Here’s Wee Day Out:

Some beautiful scenery, some memories from the music, and – following the edited version, some excellent and amusing outtakes.
Divine. Comedy.

Yep, even talent like that has to take a few goes at some of those stunts.

Oh Danny Boy

Danny MacAskill (you may remember him from such posts as Epecuén and Imaginate) is back, and this time, he’s in the Skye. The Isle of Skye to be exact.

Well, there we go. Fairly astonishing once again.
Scenery, cinematography, colours, skills – and this image:

Danny-Macaskill-03

Music this time is by Martyn Bennett – it’s called Blackbird. And do click on that link, because his story is hugely inspiring too.

Jimmy

Jimmy Somerville is Scottish and he has a new single coming out shortly (spoiler: it’s VERY  Jimmy Somerville). Also, Scotland is voting on independence today. Thus, it comes down to 6000 miles… to combine that fact and those two events and give you one of Jimmy’s old songs.

Given the renewed feuding over Hadrian’s Wall, I think Bronski Beat’s I Feel Love is right out. And so, I’m sticking with the No campaign, giving me a choice of The Communards’ 1986 Don’t Leave Me This Way or my final selection from 1987, Never Can Say Goodbye:

I have no idea which side of the referendum fence Jimmy is on, and quite honestly, I don’t really care. It scares me that so many people base their opinions on individuals who have no more idea of what is going on than Joe McSoap. A good example is Andy Murray, chucking out his sickening, anti-UK rhetoric from his mansion in Surrey, England: especially irritating since he doesn’t live in Scotland and so can’t vote anyway. Lest we forget, he’s a tennis player, not a political analyst.

It’s suddenly all got rather silly:

twit

And rather nasty:

yes

Bridges are being burned (not literally – yet) left, right and centre and it’s very clear that things aren’t ever going to be the same again, no matter what the outcome of the vote today.

If anything ever called for going home, watching the footy and drinking a large brandy, today was probably it.

“Massive trouble ahead”

As the Scottish Independence Referendum approaches, I’ve been keeping my distance, watching from the back seat. It’s not my shout, of course, but it will obviously have repercussions on my native homeland. Namely, that if the ‘Yes’ campaign wins, we’ll have to bail them out when things go horribly wrong (as they inevitably will) in the next few decades.

With a binary vote and with things being so tight, these tweets from Simon Schama could be worryingly prophetic:

And while the “other” 50% might also feel alienated if the no vote wins this week, the status quo prevails. Yes, they can be disappointed or annoyed that nothing changes, but nothing changes. If the yes vote wins, everything changes, despite half the population not wanting it to.

Interesting times ahead.