Beat Generation

Music shops have been inspiring Deadbeat since before it's birth.

Seeing free sheets in shops made us think we could do that. 44 years on and the music shop has become a venue.

Beat Generation has just arrived to inspire another generation. Sounds evolve and we absorb, even absolve as we get older and less tribal. I can dig the Dancing Queen again. It sits well in a mix with the Only Ones, monochrome set, Martha and the muffins. Echoes of the past indeed. Let's face it who wouldn't take a walk along action straza one more time. I was writing this song the other day and suddenly I'd gone and introduced a sinister and comedic Alex Harvey laugh, oh how he did laugh. 

The sound system in Beat Generation is so good you can already see the way ahead for the next 44 years of the record buying public. 

I'm only witness to part of the evolution, from the days of Groucho in Dundee, Goldrush in Perth, the Virgin superstores in Glasgow and Edinburgh etc etc we've evolved.

My first record was bought in the Record Exchange in clerk st. Later on Record Shak and Ripping Records further down the many named A701 to the south Bridge would sell Deadbeats among the 100,000's of tickets they'd sell each year for gigs. They must've sold several million in their time. What would they have given for a £3 booking fee.

Enough of the history, what of this new generation of beats. The chains have gone, now so many local record shops offer an array of old and new styles. I often sit on the bench in the meadows dedicated to the owner of Record Shak and think what a great job. Annually I pop in at Christmas time to Avalanche in the centre and buy a Deadbeat tee shirt and a few others from the selection. It reminds me of what you'd find in Cockburn Street in the 70's and 80's. It's an outstanding contribution to help Waverley market out of just being a brand name greasy spoon. Cockburn Street might've migrated itself into coffee bars and restaurants but there's still a few wee locals from back in the day jostling with the new clientele of 2026 Edinburgh.

I remember when I was working at my mum's place, the picnic basket, on Nicholson street she added Brie, date and apple, chicken and avocado, and sundry other conceptions to the 1985 menu at £1. I scoffed and said I'll sell more cheese and pickle at 25p. I was wrong. Issue29 had me advertising vegan pizzas but the damage was done. She was right, the tide had turned and she was selling out the brie every day.

Money was distorting our high street 40 years ago so it's great to see our communities evolve. Music communities as well as locals, with festivals filling the streets with visitors. I'm a regular Camino tourist in Spain another great dynamic community that changes every day week or month I go. It's all about community. 

I love looking back but looking forward is what the record shop is doing today.

Vinyl Villains appeared on the back of a 1985 Deadbeat. 

Opposite Sandy Bells in forest road is certainly an Irish bar now and that space has been many things to many people. What a history I don't have time to do it justice, only mention it once sold records too and before that gave out free oranges.

I had hoped to write a review of the gig in Glasgow at this stage but sadly I was ill. I'm told I missed a great show with Davy and Malcolm. Gutted I was. Great venue too the coffee bar on the southside putting on the post Creeping Bent production, with Stephen Pastel. 

So back to the music and another venue I watched another brother in. The Grassmarket really has become a buskers paradise. The Americans flock there for it's authentic music and listen to the music of their era. They lap it up and as they have passports are most assuringly more biddible. They tip £20 when the hat goes around the kind of figure I'd only dream of back in the day when we played la sorbonne or the jailhouse. If we put the hat around it would get nicked. Back in the day the Grassmarket folk singer gigs were usually interrupted by one or two angry pissed punters now it's very respectable.

To be fair the early 80's was very funny too when it wasn't tragic. The things people stole to flog for drugs was hysterical.

At the end of the 80's I was in a night club in Hulme,  Manchester bull rings. I was dancing and a stiletto heel had caught my leather jacket. I laughed and said "you've caught my coat in your shoe", to which my dance partner laughed and said "she's nicking it ya daft jock." Later on we were having a spliff in the bull rings watching the show. A guy came out a flat running with a telly under his arm. Next thing someone's chasing him. Ah, 1989 I don't really remember much but I can still picture that and the poll tax rally at Maine Road, but sadly not who played.

Drugs weren't cheap and it was quite mad. It was similar in the earlier part of the 80's too when the jacket wasn't too cheap either.

Great memories are something that always made me laugh with the Deadbeat Tapes when we were putting them together. So many bands reached the end of their teens and wrote nostalgic songs.

It's a crime and like my leather jacket a really funny crime. "Looking back on the days...." A great opening line and one Ritchie probably enjoys singing now with all the humour of, "fucks sake.... Did I really write that song on my 20th birthday".

I love the lyrics I love the music it brings me to the moment. In my case the moment was brilliant. I remember little as at my unfiltered best or worst. I have moments people tell me about, I have songs I wrote or sang, tapes and pictures of glorious gigs I clearly enjoyed. I don't have the imagery of my balls falling out of the gold lamet nappy in front of an unsuspecting fan. Not the smell of the flesh burning or me hitting the high notes quicker.

I don't remember, I just smile at my embarrassing moment and apologise for the poor people whose cigarettes I put out by accident.

My admiration is for the record shops and the venues. We showcased the TSB AKA Tayside Bar. In later years the irony that our golf sweep is called the TSB based on the Thistle Street Bar pleases me endlessly. Every week I feel I'm hitting this shot for Brian and the real TSB. The bar that launched a 1000 careers, albeit most were in drinking not music. The venue, the toasties, I never tire of praising the best bar I ever drunk in. I've drunk in 1000's of bars and I'm so lucky to have drunk there, so often at so many times of the day. Oh yes, I'm a drunk, I've a pulse and I am proud. People like Brian helped me through me life and now nostalgia has given way to LUKEATME. My apologies and back to the story about the record shops and music.

The magic of Haiti 0-1 Scotland

As I emerged from Swanys at 4:42am into the daylight this June morning I was wearing a smile and like my photo, a bleary-eyed glazed look.

Turning day into night and back into day is exactly what following Scotland is all about. 

I love "No Scotland no party", "super John Mcginn", "we're on our way from misery to happiness today(reverse as appropriate)", "yes sir, I can boogie", the great randomness of all our songs, while lurking in the subconscious lingers 'it's the hope that kills you', a sad lament that everyone knows the words for and they play the tune their way.

This morning I didn't have hope smashed I just had smug satisfaction that in the battle of the minnows we had not drawn with Iran, lost to England, Peru or Costa Rica, Don Masson didn't miss a penalty or Gary McAllister. Nobody to blame but ourselves and wur'selves deserved to bask in the warm morning glow. As I looked at the houses on blackford hill I rubbed my eyes. Can I believe what I'm seeing. They are so shiny, almost Trumpton Gold. Is it more fake gold, those iron pyrites. Naw, it's braw, a braw morning. Across the country all the accents in unison, from the trepidation of must win, to lucky bastards who cares. Maybe it's a sign. I got home and draw a line on the map. Yes Morocco in the distance. Tonight was about our first opening game win in 52 years. Our first win for a long time.

There were no sob stories, just quiet acknowledgement that we had survived, luck had shined on our collective wee nervous selves and won a wee battle. Haiti would be wondering where it all went wrong. The outstretched leg deflecting a scuffed shot will be replayed while the rum stained eyes look forward to a game with Brazil.

It's the world cup and the 2am kick off now seems like a great adventure. Ironically in losing to Haiti I wouldn't have been shocked to see a 1-0 win over Morocco.

I remember when they destroyed us 3-0. They used the ball better, quicker and the pace they played at was like my favourite Monochrome set tracks. Stop start, slow, fast, discombobulated journeys. The Morocco team that day seemed to spring into life and score in 5-10 seconds, then go back to sleep. Leighton seemed very unlucky or crap depending on your point of view. For me Morocco were one of those creatures that wait all day then pounces. Oh yeah, the patient fisherman, those Deerstalkers.

Nowadays Scotland have emerged into that counterattacking team. Concede possession, keep shape, try and disrupt, terrorise the opponents preferred passing lines. Then pounce panther like. Mctominay moves onto great spaces in this environment. He seemed suffocated in his role against Haiti as the out-Scotlanded Scotland.

We will see what happens on Friday and with another win we'll go into the Brazil match just needing a draw to top the group.

Aye, it's the hope that kills you.

Post script. With only 2 groups with pure diddly teams 3 points wont be enough last night Ecuador lost to Ivory Coast. That's another group where three teams will reach 3 points. 

A, ITHTHKY

After kicking the baw along the Camino in 2013....there were 39 people who signed in different languages, all those nationalities have been to the world cup since....and finally Scotland..... Never thought I'd live so long 

We all care about something

Attenborough at a 100 reminds us about species while we wrestle with language.

I'm in the Basque city of Durango. It's clear to me it's a huge place. The Basque language is alive. English is second while all versions of Spanish rank third.

Loyalty is a disruptive force. The sins of Franco have ruined Spain's chance of making amends. The Basque people contain slightly more fervent numbers than the Scots do. While the republicans in Scotland probably sway between 25-35% of the population the identity of the Basque feels stronger. Is this why the language of the tribe is so important?

I've no idea. I'm asking myself why does Attenborough matter keeping the language of chimps alive when it's all about an alpha male.

On the streets of permanent division I keep wondering why our survivalist natures leave us to go it, relatively, alone. We are so easily picked off without the tribe. Check the history of the average victim of the puma, lion, tiger....etc.

The history is not good. They are extinct. There's an argument to say their species survives due to faster breeding than bleeding.

Can you choose between a species or a language. Can you choose between one set of a species. Can you bin all the aspiring alpha males at birth to watch how society changes. Can we watch how the matriarch runs things. So many questions from the animal kingdom and yet so few real parallels.

Every day's a school day for me and I love trying to learn a new language so let's go and smile.....

Eskerrik Asko 

As a post script I like to think about which Zoo I'm living in. Am I in the tourist zoo, a curious species that wanders into your town and looks at you or the visitor to a zoo. Am I wandering into the wild to see how the locals live. Or am I just a humble bum who limps from town to town gauping, grasping and looking grateful.

Breakfast was superb for only €3.40

So the decline of a language or a culture is ok if breakfast is cheap. Hmmm, now that's a thought. The evolution or should I just say evolution is everything. It may not be everything good, it just is evolution.

Did lord mandelson use his influence in 2008 to start the sale of world pay in 2010

Nobody will know except those involved. Knowing little about Mandy I'd not be able to comment. I'd leave that to Prescott who once associated him with a Scorpion. Poor Scorpio I thought. Prescott famously lent his name during COVID in the great Jag versus Jab debate. If you had had your second inoculation it was regarded as a Prescott in reference to his 2 Jags.

I have written extensive nonsense on this blog about how the UK government made a mess of the banking crisis and how brown and darling compounded the errors of Fred Goodwin. Capitals for those with the modestly streetwise Brains and lower case for those puppets. 

These people I've possibly been harsh about. They were pathetic clowns in a game that they lost. I still believe they had a culpaple role in that game. They sought an office they couldn't be more ill equipped to handle. They could've asked 300,000 people for advice who would've advised them better. Sadly they didn't.

If pressure was put on them nothing could be simpler than to use a lifeline and call a friend. Ah, but how do we choose our friends.

When you look back to the situation where world pay was removed from the RBS everyone I knew in the city thought it a scandal.

The infamous £20bn art heist from Barnes, the 1920's Philadelphian art owner reminds me that what we own can be easily removed. It can take time but there are ways.

WorldPay was one of the winners as the dot com era separated the wheat from the chaff. For those who don't know it's facilitates payments, think card machine versus cash. Most people understand that the book, the bank statement, the folding cash are casualties of the internet age. Even dealing slips in stockbrokers were automated. As one of the members of a firm who did the first internet trade in the 1990's, we understood the technical shift. The dot on bubble in 2000 was quite clearly labelled. What we never realised was how quickly the written word would replace conversation. Texts via any network have replaced talking on the phone or in person. From my days studying non verbal communication this loss is huge for our species.

What I know is that Gordon Brown dumped the gold and then was prime minister when World Pay was dumped. Thatcher was advised privatisation was good, sale of council houses was good and selling all the family silver. I don't blame brown for selling the gold as the silver had gone. I blame him for not using it to build new council houses. To build new assets. He instead continues to use PFI a transfer of public money to the private sector. We all understand how the game Monopoly works. Once you own everything the rents will go up until the winner prevails.

What is curious for me is how the mercurial Mandy mercilously in his machevellian way, coercive to the core, got at them so easily. I think that's why Brown is raging and wants him stripped of his peerage. Let's face it, who likes having egg on their face. After 15 years it may be a bit smelly.

How much Mandy influenced the circumstances to ensure a sale will never be known. Why would anyone in the EC say I was coerced or encouraged. I was the one who voted for making sure it was a condition of sale.

It was a fire sale Brown and Darling probably became complicit. They were under terrible pressure following their stupidity, of which, I wrote about way back in the day. 

One day you hope the truth prevails but I know only one thing. They know they truth and live happily with it.

In numbers Worldpay was sold for £2bn when it was worth £4bn. Crunching the numbers back then you could tell they were in a dominant position in a dynamic growing market. Automation was going through the gears and financial automation was accelerating exponentially.

10 years later it was sold for $43bn and after some asset stripping and another 7 years, it was sold for $23bn.

The bail out shares are often quoted as belonging to the "government", it misrepresentation. These were our shares, we the tax payers shares. They were ours, we paid increased taxes because of it. Just like COVID we've had an austerity that we are supposed to grin and bear. Some of us didn't return from those wars. We never even knew we were in a war. It was an economic war. We were electing politicians but it was the unelected ones who were running the show.

They quietly did their job in the background. Their job was to be a sleeper. A sleeper for a financial power not for a foreign state.

They succeeded and we lost. Sometimes you just have to get over it.

When the current UK government finally agreed to release the cash to the miners to pay their pensioners I laughed.

They're mostly dead, so now the only beneficiaries will be paying 40%-50% tax on this money that was part of the, was it £20bn?, held back pending some nonsense.

Hats off. I'll give you the £20bn on the basis I get £10bn back. How funny is this as a way to increase the projected tax take this year and into the future.

The coming weeks and months will doubtless reveal a little about WorldPay but what about the poor children, the girls, the victims. Many shouted and nobody listened. Shouted all you like but it's just me too nonsense the establishment launched back. Just like the post office scandal. Do I need to mention more manipulative malevolent bastards.

This isn't a conspiracy theory this is just what happened. Remember when the police, not just policeman, check his WhatsApp, brutally kidnapped and killed the girl in London. There was a vigil for her. The police had three jobs of public disturbance to deal with that week and somehow it was the women who were dealt with most severely. We need to remember Sarah Everard I never forget. Like every man woman and child should. Whenever I'm on the Camino I light a lot of candles. We need to keep these voices heard and attrocities remembered. 

The pedalo invasion

Back in the 80s many people talked about "getting on your bike" but that's not what my pals did. 

Many of them did pedal but they didn't pedal their bikes.

We was part of the Scottish invasion, we were part of the migrant crisis as my pals from Berlin told me.

We answered the call. Trainspotting covered what some Hibs supporters were up to but the others ventured off shore. They left Granton in their pedalo fleets. Pedalling perilously out of the firth of forth with nothing more than a few tinnies, pilchards, special and lager. It's a long distance to Germany we laughed.

Today it seems ridiculous but 40 years ago it seemed like we were reliving history. With every splash we felt the freedom from a frightening regime. Thatcher was sending her boats to the south Atlantic and we were launching our invasion in search of lunch.

People were starving as unemployment spared. We didn't have the benefit of the wondrous welfare state. The queen hadn't opened her 1000th food bank. We had homes but our rental sector was shrinking. They were being sold and put children couldn't hope to get one. The age went up and up, the points went higher and with that, your 25 year old child's desire would soon expire.

I knew the pedalo promised something our politicians couldn't offer. Norman Tebbits was almost right. We'd all got on our bikes and cycled around the country. We'd searched every corner. There was no work. The council houses were being sold. We thought they will need to build new ones. We kept holding fast, we kept believing but there was no new building.

We were fit, with families to feed. We fled in our fifties, out five hundreds, our five hundred thousands. We took to the water. Deacon Blue sang about our march in a song called Dignity.

We pedalled until we reach the shore. We got work. We sent cash home. Some of us earned so much we could fly home. We flew home to partners who had never been abroad. How do you describe a workplace. It was work. We had work. 

Free Markets & Movement in 2026

Many economists talk about free movement they usually mean capital and very rarely mean labour.

Most people recognise that freedom of movement allows labour to move to where the jobs are and results in cities or concentrations of population approximate to where there is work.

The free market theories become unstuck regularly and fans of Adam Smith are often confused or bemused about the moral fibre of ruthless opportunistic individuals.

Sadly those people need to wake up and smell the roses. Give opportunity to all, make it a competition and you'll produce winners and losers.

In the middle is the prize money executives.

When the prize money is all or nothing, you have a society in decay.

In ancient cities it breeds collapse.

Whether you choose Almunecar as your point of reference or Babylon.....will I go on.....do you remember what happened at hanging rock 1000 years before, or atapuerca millions of years before that?

Oh please, can we move the conversation on. It's about the smiles, hugs and love in the room.

It's about the music that inspires us not the shite that drags us down.

It's about the art of conversation and the pictures in the pub.

It's the lives we been lucky to know and the people we have touched.

Thank you for those moments, I'll cherish them every day.

Thanks for having the strength to believe in a better way.

Most of the song is CF...G, all my songs are....

Look after each other, it's going to get very messy.

The diminution of the age related tax free allowance

Also known as the how the old got poor.

It was well recognised during "austerity" as they liked to call it that those who lived long enough to get a pension should not get it tax free.

Signing up to the triple lock whilst removing any age related tax free allowance has ensured pensions are now taxable.

They always have been but we're largely lower than the tax free allowance. Now they are higher.

What a cruel twist of political fate that pensioners decided which government got elected and both shafted them.

That's one thing the politicians agreed on. 

Get their vote.....😘

The demise of leg up capitalism, ok it's last stage capitalism

Pinpointing when ladder up replaced leg up capitalism is difficult. Choosing an exact date is impossible.

The conclusion is it was a gentle generational shift commencing during the 80's. Restoring the natural order of keeping the riff raff at arms length wasn't easy. It's been a challenge. The battle raged across many industries as legal ducks were put in a row. Fixing the patriotic flags to the mast and managing them into the ground, from wars via Olympics to national grieving. The marketing was magnificent. Devastating the manufacturing industry and replacing it with service jobs from finance, fashion to marketing and tourism. Selling everything from the fabric of the nation, the bricks and mortar of our national wealth to information superhighway dreams. We had the unlimited oil revenues. We were a major player.

We talked about children having their own PC at school and how advanced those children would be. By the year 2000 every kid would have an iPad and jotters would, well, get their jotters. Teachers, well they'd never had it so good.

Silicon Glen was about to be nationalised to provide universal free laptops to the nations politicians, hospitals, schools, even households.

We were sold a dummy and we took it. Misdirected by the politicians and the trusted TV screens. Instead of free fibre we all pay service fees (aka taxes) for WiFi, for phones and still pay an additional income taxes to fix the pot holes left by these service providers. The market allows you to shop around the marketing people make sure we don't try too hard. They're highly skilled having honed those skills selling double glazing or timeshare in the 80' & 90's. 

They are the epitome of the ladder up generation of grifters.

Even now I find it stupendous that political commentators don't understand how living standards can crumble while economic growth could double.

We don't all rise with the tsunami of economic growth. Some of us drown quicker.

In the case of communication (phones / WiFi) it is easy to see the GDP growth of the service sectors and how it impacts on the poorest.

Wages at the lower end are not keeping pace with property costs. With a rising number of our nation's people sliding further into poverty what the poorest spend their money on needs our focus.

If it is rent then how far away from Hoover ville are we.

I wrote over 10 years ago about property increasingly becoming an investment class that parents were using to both get the leg up for the children while inadvertently pulling the ladder up too. It really accelerated during the 90's and the pedal went to the metal this millennium. All of it fuelled by the Thatcher/Blair bung to a chosen few. Some put the figure at 10% and I'd say yeah possibly more but 5 million well chosen people easily earn you a landslide. 1 million was probably enough for Starmer.

We talk (occasionally build) affordable housing but how can it ever be without radical intervention. That ship has sailed. Is the only saviour housing associations. Surely there has to be a solution for those working in housing associations too. This is where my brain goes off on one. How can my treatment be delivered by qualified radiographers on £24000, when 4 times their wages buys nothing but a camper van. Why can a qualified member of the NHS not receive a government backed 0.00% loan to buy a house. Just like the banks who tied their staff with low cost mortgages. Come on government, it's not inflationary to improve your staff's lot. Save the NHS, give them houses.q

The macro is they can't afford to buy unless they get a huge subsidy, rise or live a longer way from work and then we are back into greenhouse gases.

When the Olympics legacy was being discussed I remember listening to the voices of Josephine and Tommy C. They both talked about the Olympic legacy in terms of a modern mini city.

When you walk around Stratford and that area of East London you can see aspects of what succeeded and where the ambition was thwarted or just lacking. From the new parliament, a working hub for local and national government to the provision of hospitals, housing and education.

The whole area could have become a technological Mecca. Even now it represents an opportunity to reset our climate chaos focus.

The truth is there before our eyes. We will keep pretending that growth is the answer when in fact we might want to consider surviving. We talk about prospering but we should be discussing ways of surviving. I feel like Cassandra all the time. I'm not a prophet of doom, or someone with a vision. I'm merely a guy who has played chess before. I can see a check mate coming. I didn't start the game but I'm part of the endgame.

If AI is the answer riddle me this. If you ask AI how much damage to the environment AI will do as it acquired the ingredients and power it needs, how will it answer.

Hmmm.

Do we really need more power or learn to need less. I have given family members and friends money my whole life. Did they ever stop needing more. I always naively believed that once out of a hole you wouldn't volunteer to go back into it. I am naive.

Digression is my thought process. As I lose focus I calm down. Ah, that was cathartic.

My next post will be on an investment trust I want to create for those who will likely find it difficult to get on the property ladder. Sliding ladder on way down investment trust-SLOWDIT.