Si Clone blows while Rocky Reihill rolls!

Life support 1983

Just before the match guitarist Rocky Reihill rolled a spliff and did he share....did he? Simon bass crumbles under weight of Gav (drums) while dancin Al tries to surreptitiously sneak the joint out of Marks hand.

Life Support 1981-1986

Life Support 1985 the barn by turnhouse

Life Support 1982 St Andrews

Life support 1985

The last practice before Dundee

Life Support Baxter park dundee

Like the meadows festival in Edinburgh and t in the park in Glasgow this was a great afternoon in the Dundee sun! Issue #32 or #33 had the line ups

Delightful Deadbeat Christmas

No tree is ever complete without a bauble hanging from the ear of a deadbeat legend. The Elves keep moving the copies around the tree and Jackie always seems to find them!

Have a great Christmas!

Kondratieff waves to us

There's a lot to like about Kondratieff and his waves as we lurch into the deepest winter trough. The glorious computer age has come to a crashing end and civic unrest that saw its beginings in the late 60's to early 80's is on its way back as Capitalism tries to re-invent itself again. Its a remarkably well trodden path. The Russian Economist isn't celebrated in mainstream thinking for a number of reasons but I'm happy to indulge his theories as I plan my last few years of living, something Stalin prevented the good Nikolai. Saying that capitalism keeps reinventing itself wasn't a career move in 1938 when "You're Fired!" resulted in a brief stint in Siberia and then a firing squad. K-waves are Nikolai's legacy. 40-60 year cycles are apt for me as I approach 42 years mumbling on the subject. Through Y2K. 9/11 and then the 2007 crash. The bankers had already lost their way (or got so consumed by greed) the end of the boom times signalled the autumnal phase of the cycle would end soon and winter was coming. Winter is here. Covid is no great suprise as the trigger, but our economy built on sand has imploded. In the case of the UK, exiting Europe is merely an additional bit of hemlock to swallow. A look back to the roaring 20's being followed so quickly by the rise in Fascism, social unrest and genocide, its easy to challenge K-waves and talk about the genocide of the Tutsi or when Yugoslavia splintered after Tito. These however, it can easily be argued, were not part of the global capitlist cycle. The current environment, driven by social media, feels far more divisive. There's very little debate and to use the Spanish Civil War is instructive. You were either with the elected Socialist government or Franco the would be dictator. Religion was instrumental as well as some effective backing from his fellow fascists. I must ask a historian one day to tell me why Franco managed to keep Spain allegedly nuetral and didn't find himself going the same way a El Duce and Adolf. Back to the waves again and I'd argue much of Nikolai's attention is on US Capitalism and not so much European. I say this because the land mass was a virgin territory to the Capitalists. In Europe the vested interests make the market less pure. In the USA the disregard for the indigenous population ensured Capitalism was established in a purer form. Previous K-waves have been characterised by technical revolution, the steam engine 1830-1880's, steel (check out Carnegie et al- 1880's-1920s), planes trains and automobiles and more recently information processing 70's to now. I joked with my Dad that when you see the UK government spending £12 billion on a system of track and trace that failed, you know we have now lost control over the information age. What seemed like a great invention in the 70's as more and more people used calculators for tough sums people now seem to think they can believe in a computer and it will happen. I laugh at the thought of the meeting where somebody said, "We need an App", and everyone cried "Yes, great idea." It used to be "we need a solution" but now its "we need an app", as if the App will automatically be a solution. So with record numbers of old people has the cull been enough to lower the ongoing liability to society. In the UK we must be closing in on 200,000 which the bean counters in the treasury will be delighted by. I mentioned this in April 2020 when I saw the complete disregard for old people and with the collapse of care home residents, the care home sector crumbles too. I see this as the worst aspect of the K-wave winter. There's a generation of people known as millenials who will need to pay, notwithstanding the Covid-19 cull of older people, for a generation who will live to 100 in their droves. They will not just work into their 70's, they'll be obliged to work longer and for less. This inevitably has to create real tensions and Extinction Rebellion wont always be leading voice, an even more militant opposition to the climate emergency will emerge. Sat alongside this we have crypto currency coming on stream and being normalised. Financial markets need to evolve and they will. I wrote a piece on the new ways of capital raising, especially the ones that dont involve corporate bankers taking 1%-2% off the top. The new generation will not be happy with the tax dodging and assets can easily be taxed. I would think the most obvious way for the millenials to tax the wealth is through land and property taxes. They'll largely be renting still in their 40's. Buying property is still regarded highly in the UK but one prolonged depression in house prices is something that I do foresee. I think 2024 will see the imbalance in supply. Working from home is another genie out of the bottle. I think this fits beautifully into Kondratieff thinking. Houses are cheaper outside of huge metropolitan areas like London. It therefore makes sense if you can, to move to an area where you're living costs plummet and your quality rises. I'm going to wave my Kondratieff flag but I am happy to always remind everyone he was an economist. Remember, its great to get you thinking but dont believe every word! Think, what market you are in. Think, do you produce something of intrisic value. Think the next wave is a Tsunami. I dont often listen to much of the dialogue that takes place in parliaments, or even when the PM or FM are asked questions by an increasingly large number of inadequate, inarticulate journalists. I say this as I consider myself inarticulate and fairly inadequate but even I can string a sentence together and wouldn't ask the kind of question that brings twitter trolls out to defend me. When someone says its the FM job to answer questions however stupid, you know you've lost a moment of your life, unless you can convert it into a comedic, eh, um, moment. Screaming Lord Sutch would at least ask have you got your shoes on the wrong feet? Your left is point left and your right is ....ha ha made you look!! The idea that someone comes up with a question to trick a politician at an open press conference tells you all you need to know about the Winter season of Kondratieff waves. Quite simply Rome is burning and what comes next is a new bunch of rich and poor will fight with each other and the ones in the middle get squashed. They'll spend the next 40 years making up for the inadequacies of the indstitutions they've helped propogate and prosper. They'll realise they get it now and apologise. This for me is the nub of it. I think the K-waves represent the life of the species as it wrestles with political systems. We will undoubtedly find that money and the economy become less important in the next 40-60 years. Health and happiness will pop out of the ground and with it the Vegan approach that returned in the 70's and was re-released more recently as the re-branded Plant based diet. Our ancestors knew of it as the poor person diet. We couldn't afford meat or fish, but potatoes and greens were always abundant. As time went by the allotment diet was supplemented by fish and later still by mince. A plant based diet isn't new. A desire to have a plant based diet is new. Some would brand K-waves as learning. Some would say we forget what we learn in the winters, when we have booming springs and summers. In my life time that means we forget how many people died before unions succeeded in making the workplace safer duing the 70's and 80's. Jimmy tells a great story about the foreman in the engineering plant asking the 16 year old apprentice to hold his hands up. "How many fingers have you?" "10" says Jimmy curiously. "How many have I?" he asked Jimmy, "10" he says again. "Let's keep it that way". As the young Jim went round the plant at the start of his 7 year apprentice he counted the fingers on every hand. At 23 he finished his apprenticeship and was a qualified engineer. He had 10 fingers but the only otyher employee with full digits was the man he met on his first day. That's how dangerous it was between 1961-68. Mining 'accidents' were like the care home culls of 2020. They were not accidents in the 60's they were casualties of war. Unions in this country had a fantastic role to play and despite it getting harder since 1979 they've evolved. Like the political parties sometimes its just about landing a blow. If you're an Edinburgh team going to face a Glasgow team in a football final, you'll understand the idea. Upsets do happen but its getting harder to find representation for people to ensure those working people are protected. Towards the end of my career I had to explain to staff reps that their jobs was to preserve as many jobs as possible. It ended up in a Monty Pythonesque sketch as I on the management side tried to make less people redundant. One of the staff reps was quite keen on getting rid of some of the shit staff as he saw them. I tried to explain that if they were as bad as he articulated then they would be on disciplinaries or have been marked inadequate. They weren't. They were highly regarded by some people and not by others. The idea that somebody's face didn't fit was not for anyone to say, never mind the staff representative responsible to ask management to make them redundant. This was a sign of middle management's comfort that they could get the job of representing the staff and still settle petty scores. Yes K-wave winter is coming, complacency marks the end of summer. I do like the life cycle. When I started working at WoodMAc I was 15. I was always inventing new ways of doing things. Punk Rock had kicked off outside, Fire Engines, Cubs, Scars, Josef K all that wee band stuff in Edinburgh, I loved it. Gordon was playing the sax and everyone wanted a guy with a sax. One K wave was ending and another had begun. It would be another 2 years until I was doing economics at St Andrews. Before the boom from North Sea Oil came the blast, the last yelp from the punks. The new romantics appeared, the money poured into the digital revolution and what had been a space age became a video age. Everyone was a pop up celebrity. We all had our things to say. We all had our voices and some sounded silky. If Bowie was whacked out pf his head, he'd be 'its just David' and when he wasn't he was in touch with his K-wave. He saw the digital age so clearly and so early. Genius singer and perfomer but it was his vision that did it for me and old Nikolai Kondratieff. A few people get it. A few people spot the obvious, state the obvious and finally act on the obvious. People laugh about how water will be a big thing going forward. It is going to be massive by 2035 if not before. From crops to basic necessity, what the west advertise about Africa with charity appeals needs to look in the mirror. Its not good and as property moves continuously and quietly into fewer private hands some of those watering holes will start to dry up. I dont necessarily mean in Scotland, just generally around the globe. I love the irrigation systems of Northern Spain. The Grand Canal in Castille. Its a joy to walk through and I hope the community do own the rights. One thing is for sure water harvesting might be the winter of the 7th Kondratieff wave in 2070. When you look at culture its reflected in the waves. From politics to art, even drink/drug culture. Not every county started with revolution, unless they wanted freedom from the British. From the 18th century onwards you see reflections in the waves of human rights on the working populations but this is where there is also divergence. The abolishment of slavery was not a global epiphany. Many would argue now as with women the freedom has yet to be felt in many places. The rise in the political power of the working classes through unionisation and also the vote. The vote for women is an even more recent development which again is not a single global event. These therefore distort any analysis that boxes Kondratieff's assessment of capitalism reinventing itself every 40-60 years. In a 3 dimensional matrix through time across the globe these factors would I think, coalesce. The technical breakthroughs that cause massive shift in labour requirements mean even through the basic opportuntiy cost lens that labour is available to pursue other work. Or more to the point, high unemployment, depresses labour costs, creates starvation, politcal unrest and usually a revolution. Currently we are embarking on an era where our globalisation is resulting in a very destabilised planet. Mass migration from war zones as well as the economic migration that we've always seen. The difference now is more countries are pulling up the drawbridge as they have enough poor people and some 2nd and 3rd generation migrants come from opportunistic stock, I dont include myself! The real problem isn't to do with countries now as globalisation has now happened with the giant global tech firms regularly circumventing individual country's responses. Taxation is often raised in the media but its also natural that company employees will also find easy ways around immigration rules. In short if a company claims it needs van drivers they'll find a way around immigration or any other

The Penny NEVER Drops

Its over 40 years since I wrote a song called the "Penny Drops.... as the mushroom rises" I always thought Penny Drops was the soundtrack to Trainspotting but that's because I missed chunks of the 80's and only saw the film in the 90's. Our Song was about love of the earth and political stupidity. The kind of stupidity that saw me scar a testicle by straddling an ashtray strewn table in the Tayside Bar.

A foreboding rhythm section saw the bass line soar before plummeting, a war dance to fill the floor. The loud speaker vocals and crashing chord guitar, its "E" of course, with a rippling A as the bass hit the high E The sky is blue The sun is shining A loud bang Alarm bells ring

Its 1979 and Labour have won a seat or two in Scotland, but crashed and burned in England and its not good. Mrs Thatcher has convinced enough people in a few hundred constituencies to change sides. We were a few years too late to sing songs that made Labour look bad. We didn't want Career Opportunities even if we sang about them. We had moved further into the void, but that void never included Thatcher. Look again Its not the same Sky has changed Blue is grey The Penny Drops as the mushroom rises......

Indeed it did. The penny did drop as the Tory flag was raised over Downing Street. The flag started getting raised in Scotland too, and it was a red one at first. Many of us got behind a flag of convenience and no suprise 40 years on we do the same again. "...There's no-one left nobody at home, said it wouldn' happen we never believed them I search for the people, but... I'm all alone.." We voted ....we lost....its all about the nuclear bomb that was our politics. We looked around, like a kid at the football who charged the opposing fans only to find themselves alone, out of step with the movement. Yes you can shout all you like, but when it comes to charging at fans, or paying more in taxes, or .....wanting to give the care workers a rise above the living wage never mind the minimum wage...I search for the people but I'm all alone.

My plane's away now Miles out of sight Should've been there Missed the flight I'm slip sliding away now. It doesn't matte what anyone will say, I've gone. I voted and others voted. I lost my love, by the factory wall. It was there in my hands, the love story, politics everything and it all went in that short period, oooooops! All alone Get the shakes All around World it bakes Yeah, shit happens and this was big shit. We fought on different fronts, some unkindly said different fonts, they were right and I lacked the humour. I couldn't see that others in the world were baking a cake and if you were part of the bakers then you got cakes for free. You just needed to know and want to join the bakers. Like the Titanic the bakery school was popular. Unlike the Titanic, as a mode of tavel, its still popular today. Penny Drops..... "My Hand's away now.. Reaching for the needle Cold on my Skin Warm in my mainline How predictable the collapse of resolve is. Even in a song I'm lamenting the fact that I cant be arsed. First door turncoat second door drugs. Ok, I'm not out of here, I'm just going into the happy room for a while. We were listening to a lot at the Velvet Underground Shop that day, obviously there was very little left on their shelves! shaking stops temporary comfort slipping away No effort Sounds like I never revisited these lines. Sounds like they were written at the end of the song when the had work, the heavy lifting had happened. Yeah, its true. I'm now blasted out of my tiny wee head and cant write any more any need to finish what I think is a love song to my last partner. A nonsense CND blast that puts the love of my life on the pedastle I saw them. And thats why the band was fun. We never had a little RED ROOSTER or pale BLUE eyes, no ALPHAVILLE, nor CANDSKIN, not even a U2 SKY. Nowadays we fight over whether its a Prescott. Have you had 2 JAGS or 2 JABS, but we can agree over a TURBO BOOSTER! The Penny Drops as the Mushroom Rises.....let's hope its not rising much longer Merry Christmas Al I always write too much so cut and paste my edits below....to cut and paste back in....or not A little satire and a lament for the country's and my own times. I'm going to indulge myself for the few not the many. There are a few who read this and the many that dont are lucky!

Annie Lennox - Dave Stewart - Another Lovely Dundee Soiree

And a great piece in the Courier from Graham Strachan, @C_GStrachan under the nostalgia banner. It was more like Another Lovely Dundee Swallae and one that shakes the memory banks vigourously. I've written many times about how good that gig and afters was so its always a joy to read another interpreation. https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/past-times/2778321/eurythmics-in-dundee-rowdy-barracuda-gig-annie-lennox-will-never-forget/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=sharelink Hopefully the link works. If not check out Graham on twitter.

I've been looking for the tenuous Dundee angle on Deadbeat and media mogul sweetheart Succession's Logan Roy, played by one of Dundee's finest Brian Cox but that's taking fiction a bit too far. Not as far as Josephine Archer's character Tommy Carruthers, the infamous car turner...who promises to complete the saga by the 50th anniversary of Deadbeat....Brian is Josephine's choice to play the character of Tommy Carruthers if it makes it onto the big screen, some say making it onto the smaller screen of a Deadbeat side bar is ambition enough.... The news coming from Jose Archer about Tommy Turns Cars chapter 73 is...hmmm....exciting, hmmm amusing....well we've been waiting for a while but finally TC comes clean to Jose about his other businesses in the late 70's and 80's. Quite a little car turner he was in his late 20's! It seems the hill outside Castojeriz was all she needed to get him to cough up the breakfast beans....and yes Tommy turned more than cars.....its getting to be an Ealing comedy...

November Deadbeats - 1982 - 1985 - Fanzines, tapes and singles as the clocks go back

So many bands, so many years, tears and putting back the clocks! In OCtober when the clocks go back it should help us get out of bed easier, but for me it was just an excuse to have another 3 pints, roll another joint or find the pernod I'd hidden from the flatmates on my return from France. Jim, Si and I famously went to Paris and the year earlier I'd been lucky enough to go backstage to see the Clash after we'd met the road manager aloft the Eiffel Tower. A few fun size mars bars later he got us backstage passes for a sold out gig I thought we had no chance of getting into. Backstage the buffet was temendous. There were only 8 of us and as 4 of them were the band and they looked fucked after a 2 hour set, I ate my fill and left. Later, when Stu the roadie would tell us it was all sex'n'drugs'n sausage rolls after Aztec Camera at the Dundee Dance Factory, I got to embellish the story. My mum always said, never let the truth get in the way of a good story. So 13 November 1982, issue #5. Roddy and Campbell on the cover. Interview with Roddy inside. It was one of those nights you never forget. A great gig with my favourite single at the time, "Pillar to Post" ringing in my ears. "We could send letters" dripping off the end of every sentence as my pinkie tried to reach those chords. I never could play guitar. I could play the bit that created that sense of anticipation. Somehow, those 6 or 7 bits of strumming just before the chorus. Yep, my guitar prowess almost lasted 4 seconds. Our interview lasted nearer 40 minutes. Roddy was very generous with us. Let us talk nonsense and forget that we were supposed to listen to his answers and not interrupt. Worse still was when you felt you were advising George Best on how to dribble. Luckily no offence was taken and we said our thank yous and nashed off. It was our first interview and how lucky were we. November 1983 and it was Kirk Brandon on the cover of #19. The Invitation & Alarm were also interviewed and the brilliant Rutkowski sisters, Sunset Gun were reviewed.

The Bluebells and Hey! Elastica were playing the Queens Hall for a Radio 1 gig on October 22nd, Friends Again were releasing "State of Art" and one year down the line Roddy had moved to WEA who were about to re-release "Oblivious". It was action packed was #19, a five week issue from Oct 18-Nov 22 there are clear signs that the Deadbeat tape release was a tad time consuming. #19F was a free sheet. Had to advertise the Deadbeat tape.

#20 would be dated Nov 22 - Dec 20 while #21 just described itself as Dec-Jan 84. We need a rest and none was coming. The tape did well. We took it to A & R guys who were less receptive but I still love it. The Stawberry Tarts songs are epic and the missing link between Sparks and Franz Ferdinand is right there. Its the second track. Its superb and I listen to it at least once a week. "Walking in a straight line". Proper, aggressive, electric pop. Played with painted faces and feather boas to make TREX weep!

#28 had Twisted Nerve on the cover. Never understood why to be fair. I think I was so blasted that we hadn't put an issue out for a while and the guys gave me a picture I thought would print ok. it was November 1984. Caig had that great Robet Pant story from the service station. The one with the £50 note and the long queue. Ionic that old BIG LOG Robert should have a picket line form in a service station.

It was a strange time for me. I was still arguing with St Andrews Uni over whether I had a degree. It was a shabby dialogue with the Geology department over my pass in the first year exam, I'd done for the 4th time. I chose Geology because it was easy. Apparently if you went to lectures or field trips it was. Simon had proved it by passing 1st and 2nd year. My problems were that field trips coincided with Dance Factory days and so I never went on any. I also rarely attended lectures as it wasn't really my thing. When I finally got confirmation I'd passed it came with the barbed comment that I'd put my additional paper inside the back cover of my first paper, not the front cover. I decided that only in Geology would that be the triassic not the jurassic part of my answer paper. They liked to layer it on thick.

Back to the issue, #28, and I just noticed the back page was dedicated to the FRONT. A new venture, but without a location. The miners strike is really biting and TEST Dept get a mention. Also EMF offer to do some creative work, presumably for bands as it does mention covers. I need to read this afain I've no idea what was happening in 1984. Did I stay at your house? Please let me know! Deadbeat Tape 2 is advetsied as is a compilation album THE STAND. featuring All the CATS, Neon Barbs, Carole Jenner and Radio Cairo it gets a review. GETTING THE FEAR are interviewed as well as the Twisted Nerve. Roddy gets the usual mention, it is November after all. 1985 would come along a year later. Now I really dont know whats happening!! Its the last issue of Deadbeat, I just didn't know. Each day would go by and we'd print a couple of pages. It was a lot of analysis paralaysis. One to finish later! I need to read these issues if I'm going to have a chance to remember......ok where's the light switch....

Jim Salisbury legendary manager of Life Support was 60 last week

Deadbeat were trying to catch up with him but he was 'aff tae his mammees' in Blackpool. She has a 90th after all and that takes precedence. Jim's association with the band started early on when he offered Si the dining room to sleep in. Si had always been a big old unit so the lack of a bed posed no comfort issues and the floor became his. Most students rarely had use for a dining room, or at least most of the ones we knew. Latterly I would realise there had been plenty who considered a flat without a dining room a squat. Well what did we know. Jim was a very good driver, in all conditions. Rain, wind, snow even sunshine, he always hit the ball from left to right and pretty much mastered crossing the traffic too. I remember him driving a van down the Perth to Dundee dual carraigeway. The bonnet flipped up and he perfomed a majestic slider from left to right. Blinded as he was by the metal curtain in front of his windscreen he was armed only by his memory of the road ahead, the side windows and the youthful yelps of passengers. "You're approaching the hard shoulder, you're on it, you're going over the kerb, you're on it again, you're sliding across the outside lane, that's the crash barrier!" Jim was blessed with one of the greatest drivers tips. If you want to slow a car down, you take your foot off the accelerator. Most people think its the brake but if you stop accelerating a bit earlier, it leads to better braking. Ask Si the next time he's accelerating towards the stop sign! Jim's slider took on a will of its own. Jim had a car. That's why he became our manager. A lovely wee Hibs-mobile. Well, it was green. One day on the Dairsie bypass a wheel passed him. He glanced over and said that nearly hit us as it overtook the green VW beetle. Next thing, Jim slides over to the other side of the road. Yes, a wee left to right slider, on three wheels. Oh the fun we had in the days when MOTs could be bought for pennies! Jim drove us to gigs but he wasn't a roadie. He'd reverse the van to the nearest point, then he'd admire our strength. With one arm against the van and another on a wee cigarellio, he'd smile at our endeavours. That's it Simon, loosen off those fingers. Grip it and rip it. Well done Mark, good that you're carry a micophone and an extra packet of strings. What that? oh its rizla. Yes good, I'll be through soon once I've locked the van! One day that we all remember like it was yesterday. It was probably 1984. It was Galashiels and the famous club known as JJJ's. We were booked to do an afternoon slot and an evening one. We did the afternoon slot. It took us over 2 hours. The Saturday racing was on and the locals kept asking us to "shut the fuck up". We were happy to let Mark re-tune his guitar every song and Jim always enjoyed the chance to give us some feedback. He did. It was candid. He said we weren't playing any worse than normal but turning it down was probably wise. He also reminded us that we only had a 40 minute set and were booked for 2 lots of 90 minutes. The gaps for the racing should therefore grow. Good advice from the teacher. Gratefully received. The JJJ's manager saw us start on schedule at 2pm. When he came back at 4pm he said to Jim are you guys still playing. Jim said it was the third encore. It was going down well so he hoped these old guys would come back in the evening. Mr JJJ said "Doubt it. Young team came in the evening." Jim nodded sagely. "That's good, another audience to buy the single. We've sold a couple already." The evening came and went. A tough crowd. The manager saw the whole set. He was now out of his head. Jim and him argued over the money. We filled up the van. The manager said we were shit. Jim argued we'd been brilliant in the afternoon and that perhaps energy levels had dropped and the band had tired a bit. Money wrangles grew worse. Jim asked is that all the gear in the van. We said yes. He went back to haggling. We went back to the van, shattered. Jim appeared clutching notes. "DRIVE DRIVE DRIVE" and off we drove as Mr JJJ came running out of the club after us. Jim lent a hand to the songwriting penning many a good tune, not least, "I've been walking in rain". A colourful song that discusses the merits of rainwear and on a spiritual level how "seems like things will never be the same". The metaphor of the rain being one of life's hardships that we tumble through or trudge lonely along in. As if we're walking in the cloud line. The darkness that envelopes us as we walk in that cloud. How there seems no end, but worse still, when you turn aound you cant even see when it began. During the early parts of the lockdown, I was reminded of this 80's classic. Back then it seemed the fog in our time was the political situation. There were parts that were personal but what made the tune so good was it was happy. Like one of the dark altered images stalking songs, this was a jolly wee tune about darkness. The darkness doesn't go away but sometimes we learn how to embrace it, accept it and then sing about it. As years went by we would meet up to get slaughtered regularly and sing songs that only we knew as classics. We bought a card. It did the birthdays. It stayed in its wrapping paper. It never got posted. It had a small note. We drunk some beer, we've smoked some gear, we've scored spectacular goals We've played our gowf, drunk in our howff, even played from rabbit holes Dominoes we've played, caravans we've stayed, we've watched some superbowls But Brexit came and to our shame, stole our butchers and Bacon Rolls So raise a glass to Jimbo, happy 60th!

Movember SIPPS

It's not just about the moustache. Movember is also a good time to move your final salary pension scheme to a sipp.

I am not a professional and therefore this is not advice. What I do know is that the gap between rich and poor continues to widen. In December interest rates will may go up. Politically this corupt bunch may not want to stall their Brexit bounce, often called a dead cat bounce. If they start moving up transferring from a final salary pension scheme to a sipp will be less beneficial.

There are two main reasons why a SIPP has been so popular in the last few years.

With annuity rates being so high the transfer value of a pension becomes relatively huge.

Basically 20-25 times the pension value.

Ok, what am I talking about ?

If you are 40+ you may have had a pension with an employer in the past called a final salary scheme, if so, that's what I'm talking about.

In my case it wasn't a bank but from 78-89 I worked in WM the place that printed the first Deadbeat. After university I got a full time job so I was in the pension from 86-90.

I left it alone and after many takeovers it became the RBS pension fund. They were due to pay me £1400 a year when I left in 1990 and by 2017 it was nearly £5000. It went up every year, roughly inflation to save getting too anal.

I asked for a transfer value. This is the value they believe it's worth to them to get me off the books. I'm joking, but the real calculation is not too far away. The real calculation is the cost of buying an annuity to cover it.

The first years I asked it wasn't too much so I left it alone. The main reason was interest rates were higher. The game got more interesting when interest rates plummeted. When I was 51 they offered a transfer value of £104,000 but as the pension started at 60 I thought even my life expectancy was better than that.

There are two main reasons cited for moving to a SIPP,  portability and life expectancy. 

As readers know, my Deadbeat days are being remembered by reading the copy. I was very drunk. By the time I reached 40 I was a very high functioning alcoholic whereas now I merely have early onset through drinking too much. In short my life expectancy is shorter than most in the pension fund.

When you die your pension tends to die with you or can go on to your spouse at half the rate. These final salary schemes used to be well funded but when Gordon Brown and the Tory Blair stopped the tax credits on dividends they were raiding the pension funds in a way Maxwell or the Banks used to. It was the safety net the poor had and although many of the rich benefitted having a final salary scheme ensured public sector workers as well as clerks in an office had a paid up retirement plan.

I've never voted Tory until 1997 when I did so by mistake. I'm still disgusted by what they did. They clearly thought they were taxing the rich, but they were killing off the final salary scheme. Battering 100,000 rich bastards with the hard work of 10,000,000 poorer ones is the Tory way. Just look at how we will pay for the furlough.

I digress. The second reason cited by advocates of the SIPP is flexibility. This is because when you die, your pot of cash goes to your beneficiary.

Back to my example. I knocked back £104,000 and took £130,000. My basic believe was that I wanted an amount that would last me until I was 80. If I see 80 there'll be a stewards enquiry. If I die late 60's Jackie gets the cash.

My own circumstances of partner being 10 years older also has a massive impact. If she was 10 years younger then I'd probably not have transferred it as even a half pension for another 30 years is worth a fortune.

If I thought interest rates we're going to stay low as long as they have have, I would've waited until this year. That's where the gamble is. Like a good joke it's all about the timing.

I've not explained this very well but have you have got a final salary scheme asking for a transfer value is merely an enquiry. Your pension fund send these out all the time and it is not an application or an obligation. 

One pal from the post room found his 30 years were worth £800,000 as opposed to a pension of £22,000. His only problem was he nearly drank himself to death in the first year!!

For some it is like a pools sorry lottery win. Even if you have a small pension it may still be worth making the move.

Start by asking for a benefit statement from your employer and or ex employer. I only had 2. 

I moved the RBS one at £130,000 and I bought a mix of bonds, investment trusts and other shite. Greggs have been a great performer.

I once asked Alastair Darling in to the office as he was our local MP. I showed him around and said if I could do anything for our staff it would be to do the old Marx thing and get them to own the factors of production. Give them the company for free over a number of years. That we would probably open a single company  SIPP and give them some shares every year. If Labour could legislate for that then the workers would soon own their own companies and we wouldn't need to re-nationalise as the railway workers would own the trains etc. He said they didn't like share ownership after Maxwell and then in government did everything to encourage the privatisations while raiding the pension funds of the unions workers and the few rich people who weren't already offshore how fucking naive. 

I digress. We had one shot at the balancing out society after Thatcher and they all went over to the other side of the ship, taking us down with them.

This is why it's important that people get fair value from their pensions. Most people will not know how sleight of hand works. How the poorer in society are encouraged to glance of their shoulder at the poorest while the richest snaffle a few more Ten Bob notes off the table.

It drives me aff ma fucking trolley. I digress. 

There was a campaign in the 90's to get everyone to consolidate their pensions. It was called mis-selling later. What it did was to manufacture an issue so a solution could be manufactured.

They say that the service industry could replace manufacturing in this country but they were lying. Manufacturing still exists, but it's manufacturing or fabrication of nothing. Every time you'll notice somebody takes 3%, there's slicing all the way. Even in transferring your own pension to a SIPP you'll pay a tax of 2-3%, it's called advice, but even if you've already decided, you need to pay it. 

Half of that advice money goes into the pot for funding failed pension funds. The rest into the lucrative business of transferring funds.

Take my post room pal. He transferred £800,000. £24,000 was taken away but he still had £776,000. Fucking loads, as he said. As a rich person he was delighted to pay extra tax!  £12,000 goes into that pot and the other £12,000 went to the firm who typed the letter for him. What a great game to be in. Your customer says thank you for your help and tips you £12,000!

Ha ha the game just rolls on but even paying that money it may still be very worthwhile. 

You may have to fund your children or neighbours, so regard the pot not as your pension, not even you and your partner's, this is the family pot, your community pot. This is the wee stash of cash above the kettle. The miners are unlikely to go on strike again but when the nurses do, you've some cash for their jar! The SIPP ja should be invested but as the latest stock market crash is due 2022/23 get the cash and put it in the jar! 

Keep it safe and keep spreading the joy. What a great thought, we could do a crowd funding SIPP and buy a venue, recording studio and community hub....get our local tennis club to fill out the lottery funding forms then building the studio and venue on the end of the hut.....what joy.

Tick tock get your copy fast!

The Sacred Angels - out now

The Sacred Angels - the perfect start to the Christmas climate countdown

https://thesacredangels.bandcamp.com/album/peace-at-christmas-time-cold-christmas?s=03 

Order your vinyl copies now and send them to your friends this Christmas!

The first release by the sacred angels for 30+ years and it's nearly 40 years since that Pop Wallpaper Flexi disc came out in #17.

All the Christmas sounds are there so forget sober October, get back on the batter and start to get in the part mood !!

Tick tock, tick tock, here come the bells.....

Jose's economic epiphany

Jose turned to Tommy as another tired looking Pellegrino put his washing on the line and said

" I had an epiphany about my my will today.

I decided that it should reflect my spending so I've completely changed it.

They were sitting as the sun streamed down in the first bar in Itero de la Vega drenching themselves in Estella.

I really like the Pataka restaurant back home. I probably spend 5% of my money there every month so I have given them 5% in my will and get them to feed someone on me. Do a lucky dip for their regulars!

"Oops," she laughed as the Pellegrino dropped their clean shorts on the dirt path.

I play my golf at prestonfield and I enjoy my lunch with the lob wedge lassies on Tuesday and Friday. I spent 10% of my money there last year so I am leaving them 10% in my will to sponsor a woman who will eat, drink and be merry on me.

I suddenly realised that these were the people who matter to me. When I am gone on I will no longer be going. I have created a standing order from my estate which will pay exactly what I used to spend each month.

I am going to continue to pay my rent to the retirement home. This is 14% of my monthly expenditure and I hope it helps them to continue you to provide the excellent accommodation that I lived in.

Next up is swanys. I probably spend 16% of my monthly expenditure there. It's a great pub full of fantastic people and the odd bullet you have to dodge but nobody ever bothers me and I just sit and read my book enjoying the wine.

"That's half sorted then" laughed Tommy, "next I'm sure you'll help those university and school kids you used to teach. Or is a teacher...."

"Yes, I'm not sure yet. Hopefully by the time we get to Fromista I'll have a plan" she cackled back, enjoying the moment.

Did you meet the French lady from the fashion shop, she was amazing. There was a big climate meeting in Lille and she launched a new brand called CE. It was short for climate emergency. She had the C as a clock face with the time at 25 past one and the E interwoven with a Ziggy Stadust lightning flash. She made a fortune. She was at a board meeting, a year earlier, and the folk around the table were asking what they could do, mostly the marketing guys, to look more green. She said we could stop selling so much product and make the garments last a bit longer, like they used to. They laughed at her. She explained how lowering demand wouldn't be easy but if they stopped marketing and used the resources to make better product that lasted longer, they could re-establish the brand as a lifestyle and lifetime option. Swim upstream with higher margins. She'd spoken in the past with the designers and manufacturing about undestanding each others briefs. They had a weekend away. In that conversation she had got both to imagine that every season we would get the clothes we'd sold back to remodel and re-use. A fascinating stoy. How to still have fashion on a desert island or post apocalypse. I laughed and she agreed. They looked at how garments could be tapered, seams could be let out and in, how to benefit fom the excess material, how to move it and stitching lines that would allow such flexibility while still being operational and stunning on the models. It was a great success, so much so that every year designers got placements in the manufacturing and vice versa. "Sounds right down my street Jose", said Tommy. "What happened to the marketing guys?" "They're still there! She left that boad meeting and set up the brand from scratch and had product on the shelves in under a year. 2 months before the conference in Lille her shops and brand exploded onto the scene. Whether you were a protester on a ship or a kid going to school the logo was everywhere. French TV picked it up from Social Media. She was on the national news and became quite a cult figure. She said to me how strange it felt. She was just following her conviction of doing a little. She'd read about a dairy farmer who was using the heat generated from her cows to grow tomatoes and cucumbers. For her, disaster meant opportunity. You just had to look. It was looking back into that meeting that got her thinking. She knew she couldn't take the boad with her so she set up from scratch. So many people say less is more but so few do it. The dairy farmer has 20% less cows and makes more from tomatoes and cucumbers being so profitable out of season. I mentioned you with your solar air conditioning units and lawnmowers. How you only need lawnmowers when the sun is out and the gass is growing! Versatility in your thinking. She said the best thing about scaling back is most large operations need retrenchment. They grow unwieldly. She had so many manufacturers around the world and designers that poaching a few for this project had been a joy! She loved being able to gift the staff the company. Every employee and customer received shares and over 4 years she had diluted her own 95% down to under 50%. She wasn't naive enough to think it would remain independent but hoped it would at least continue for 10-15 years. Long enough for her to do another 10-15 caminos!

Chrissie Hynde @ Queen's Hall

Chrissie Hynde has style and that voice lends itself affectionately to her dip into the Bob Dylan back catalogue.

She couldn't resist the obvious Ray Davies song and of course Stop your Sobbing brought the house down.

We'd been listening to a laid back Chrissie like she'd come to tea ahead of new year when all of a sudden, bang, back to 1982 and what a sensation.

Chrissie's voice is so distinct that if she sings it, you immediately think it was a Pretenders song, not written a decade before them. It was a further dip back in time for the eloquent chanteuse as she delivered in French a beautiful song, I'm guessing Nat King Cole, I must look it up.

It does make me chuckle when the songs are 50 or 60 years old, does 10 years really matter.

Not to us we were on our 30th anniversary waltz and mrsjacmac was leading the dancing in our pew!

The venue was fantastic, probably less than 500 people in a socially distanced very safe Queen's Hall and how good it was to be met at the door, ushered to our seats or the bar. How short were the queues, how civilised the service and how clean the toilets were. Well done to you all.

If there is a model to show how well you can do things, I mused, it's right here. There's been a lot of stuff written about covid decimating the hospitality, venue and performance industry so I will only say it was brilliant to see all the performers, staff and punters moving and grooving as we slide effortlessly back into first gear. 

First on stage were Kami and James, The Rails, combining to get us in the mood before a civilised intermission, retreat to the bar, and the effortless trip to the toilet for the prostate generation I belong to!

Thank you Chrissie

Thank you Queen's Hall

Roll on del Amitri!

Jose says Tommy turns cars the trilogy explained as Tommy gets another wee pat on the heid...."do you boys no get it yet......"

Jose turns Tommy's magical dream into a reality where even Margaret comes out of the 80's smelling of rosies.

Its the compelling tale of a little boy who always did well told by the woman who knew him best. The wonderful way Josephine takes Tommy and turns his car turning business into the engineer supremo who transforms the industrial landscape is phenomenal. 

All of the time patting the wee boy on the head and telling him well done. Jose's control of Tommy with soft brush strokes let's him roam on his long leash and still be called in for his dinner.

In the 1960's Tommy gets a job turning cars in people's driveways on the Barnton Road in Edinburgh and within 3 years he's got a van and a platoon of students working for him throughout the city, reversing cars onto main roads at 4am and reversing them back into the driveway. Its £5 a week, at its peak Tommy is turning 30,000 cars.

He designs a plate for turning them based on a skateboard prototype and with an engineering pal James from the inch in South Edinburgh, they manufacture the 'H', which quickly becomes the "ITCH" and is sold throughout the UK. A tiny turn table that can sit on your driveway and once the car drives aboard it can rotate 180 degrees. James' load bearing skills ensured that when they demoed it using a tank and Tommy's 5 year old daughter Linda, it was the star of the 1974 UK car show.

In 1975 they had scratched that itch, sold 800,000 of the H in the UK and commenced sales abroad. James and Tommy spent the rest of the year counting their money and opening up plants around the country recycling several steel and car plants that had been closing. By 1978 they had sold over 100 million worldwide, manufacturing them all in the UK. They would manufacture both wind and wave turbines, solar panels, greenhouses, lithium and cadmium batteries latterly.

Tommy was inspired by his work force. During the early days his proudest achievement included buying all his students bikes and then giving them the company vans which many used to cart gear to gigs during the early punk days which led him into the music business but that's another story.

When Margaret Thatcher was elected in 1979, Tommy was invited into the inner circle and was asked to help out in the heavy industries coal and steel. He immediately went to the unions and sought their counsel. The mines had various lifespans some had 5-10 years of workable coal deposits and some had 50 years but Tommy wanted to talk about the communities and longevity. What happened when a mine closed and what could we do now to mitigate it. They hatched a plan that seemed simple. There were a number of studies suggesting that deep mines produced tremendous heat and so capitalising on that heat they approached a pal of Jimmy's, Sheila, who had been working on heat exchangers. The art of moving heat from underground to the house. Sheila identified a row of miners cottages and fed them all with hot water and heat from the mine underneath using her dark art of free heat exchangers. Within 6 months the prototype had been rolled out to three mining villages in Midlothian and each was given an Olympic outdoor pool with the water heated via the heat exchangers. 

There followed the next challenge, a city. Edinburgh was surrounded by coal fields and plenty underneath. By 1983 hot water and heating was being provided free of charge and Thatcher and the Tories received a landslide in the election. By 1987 the whole of the UK had benefitted and another landslide saw Margaret become the longest serving prime minister of the century. Her industrial policy had transformed the UK's heavy industries without a single job loss.

Tommy turned his attention to his other businesses during the 90's, led by his 3 daughters who had started them. They were all different but uniquely community based. From greenhouses, green gyms, raves in his factories and a major record label Tommy watched a the girls diversified from farming to the leisure sector. Tommy had seen leisure as key as early as 1981 when he moved all his staff to a 21 hour week at rates commensurate with the old 40 hour week. 

Edinburgh came calling again and he designed the spoke and wheel system for electric vehicles we see today. The tram model had been suggested but Tommy identified locations for park and ride and you could hire an electric scooter or car for minimal cost. All charging stations had solar and wind turbines providing the power to the latest battery technology. Electric power was now free and nobody died in the mines. The massive cycleways and bus routes constructed had used the tram template route but provided free electric bikes, cars and buses instead. The routes were seamless in allowing all forms of traffic to flow.

In 2000 he'd been invited along to parliament to discuss the Olympic bid. By this stage Tommy's free parks, pools and gyms for under 16's had caught fire. Many Olympians had started out in a TC inspired pool or gym. During the meeting there was a leak and rain poured onto the parliamentary table. Tommy leaned back and laughed. You've got your legacy right there. He had known for years the Houses of Parliament were not fit for purpose and with the 2012 Olympics coming to London there was the perfect opportunity to construct something that would become the Grandmother of all Parliaments. The Olympic Stadium and village would provide, accomodation, security, media, access and infrastructure for the 21st  not the 18th century. The politicians had a lot of trouble at first thinking 'shiny new' might not work but Tommy won the day and the  HP museum was born at Westminster. Meantime the 50,000 fans in the new debating chamber could see and hear their politicians. It was like a throw back to Athens said Tommy when asked to comment on the opening of parliament in 2013.

Simon Vaughn Alexander Kettles - take a bow! 59 at last

https://youtu.be/BlH-I3VPBq4 Readers of this column will know Simon still plays with Carbona Not Glue and S.A.L.T. Previously after chucking Life Support to one side he found solace with Donna, Sharon, Nick & Barney in The BEAUTIFUL SUIT, latterly the Ruby Suit with band changes etc but as we all know, life goes on and so does the music. Nobody appreciates more than Simon how being in Rock'n'Roll in his 50's has changed him.....but not as much as next year will - so enjoy it wee man, you deserve it!

Go on a nicking spree Hit the wrong guy

Yes KB loved nicking a good line for the line teasers and this easy one was hardly worth typing as everyone knows it, but in the same issue, "you said you'd stand by me in the middle of chapter 3" must've been the easiest that week. "I met you in a telephone booth, 4 years ago" however, is one nobody was likely to get. I could hazard a guess at "there's a space in sky where his plane used to fly".

Yes, "I know it starts to fashion and a trifle uncool", but issue #9 is where I'm currently doing my dementia test. I figure if I keep doing them I'll know when I stop getting them right I'll head to the docs. "I could be the driver an articulated lorry" has me stumped though. I'm off to find the answer!

Nightmare, that was easy, although in my defence I think there was a wee typo.

I quite fancied trying to get them all into a sentence as the public gets what the public wants and so why not I thought as I looked in the mirror and mused "your hair is beautiful - ah tonight"......

6/10.....try harder next time 

Early onset dementia in left handers

It comes as no surprise that the atrophy of the brain should attack left handers first.

In the early development of the brain, left handers brains develop with the focus on their left-handedness just as a right-hander would focus on the development of the skills centres of their brain.

Living in a right-handed world left-handers learn to become more ambidextrous. This is a great advantage learning to catch with both hands is a recognized trait and playing sport right-handed is often a consequence of economical bias. Let's face it who's going to buy a left handed set of golf clubs when there's a right-handed set of handmedoons.

While the brain develops, the left hander then starts to use and develop the skills centres in the brain that the right handers use,  constructing bridges with these wonderful neurons in their own brains.

Many studies have shown natural thinking for the left hander looks like lateral thinking to the right hander because the brains been developed in a different way.

Sadly however it's can be like the hare and the tortoise. Keeping the brain functioning at this level is not always easy and so left handers are more prone to early onset dementia.

The reason seems quite simple to me. There are areas of the left handed brain that stop functioning and this atrophy starts a sequence of events. Having developed in childhood these areas are discarded in later life effectively boxes in the attic. Some people have dry attics but not all attics are the same.

Boxes in the attic can often just stay there but they can get eaten by mice, in left handers they seem to go mouldy more often and the little bits of brain that like middle age muscle, starts to atrophy, in left handers there is more to go off and so they do.

I'm not confused by left handers early onset but I would like to know why the boxes in the attic don't always go mouldy. I presume as with Covid-19 some people are more prone than others. 

As I approach 60 I'm aware a few of my boxes have gone missing! My abilities have declined at a rapid rate recently and understanding it has made it less of a challenge. Whereas I juggled 50 plates in my working life I never noticed dropping 10, now I juggle 2 and I watch them both crashing to the floor. It's very funny but also advisable to stop juggling before I run out of plates.

One of my greatest strengths now is sleeping. I never forget to do it and I can do it for long periods. I have also become more binary. I like writing but I'm really just a blether. I've neither the vocabulary or the creative skills to make it interesting, but I do like to blether, crossing the border into slavering after the second glass of wine. I think this is why I took so well to the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. The life is very simple. You get up and you walk. You feed yourself on the way and then you arrive at your home for the night. You wash, feed yourself again, drink some wine, blether a bit, snore in a dorm and repeat. Over a month it is compelling. Some might think I'm describing it like nurse kratchit and indeed it feels as wonderful as some drugs do.

If I have missed anything during lockdown it has been wandering through tapas bars in Burgos or Leon, lunching in Lorca, or living in Cardenuela del Rio pico, Eirexe, etc or climbing the hills to mont del perdon or O'Cebriero. I'll be fascinated to find out how my directional sense is bearing up. I always called intuition the sixth sense and I am very intuitive, but it is something that has declined lately.

When driving the other day I made a wrong turn. It wasn't a major disaster in our journey but it was in my own journey. I knew it wasn't the turning I wanted but my intuition didn't stop me. It's a journey I've made 15-20 times and I know it's the third turn off not the first. Unfortunately it wasn't a coded message but a stark slap in the face with a right handed croquet mallet.

I've been trying to get involved in trials for a while and how ironic the call would come through when we were driving!

I'll keep you posted if I remember.

I thought it was the Sun until I saw the yellow brick road to recovery!

No Sunshine in Leith this  morning as the Scotsman finally shifted from it's 80's independence stance to jingoistic wee, "good to see you back Ma'am", ever so 'umble, and another stale warning about economic woe, while lurking in the corner is the reason why independence as a notion has raised from fanciful to real.

The UK prime minister was happy to see bodies piling up in the street.

Draw breath and think about that. It's not just a random outburst of frustration about a situation over which he has no control. He has control over the lockdown and his alternatives he has assessed. He genuinely wanted to let the bodies pile up in the streets because he wanted to say, like all the wee boys with all the wee toys everything's ok Mum, honest. 

This is the only reason why the independence vote will get that 5%, they need to get it over the line. Some people think it's toys out the pram, this union since 1707 or whenever, has largely been a great success. The truth is that legacy of our colonial past is perhaps not the success and that the union was perhaps the reason that it was perpetuated. England has voted and they have made it clear. I think on Brexit and on how they wish to run the country they are largely singing from the same hymm sheet. We sing a different song and for 40 years I've tried to help, with my vote and paying taxes, the UK to become a better democracy, in my opinion. It is quite clear my opinion is out of step with the rest of the country and so it seems perfectly reasonable that this union is at an end, for me, no drama. We will enjoy our friendly rivalries but more importantly thrive as competition is everything to some parts of the economy. There is nothing more galvanising than separation to get behind a common cause. This will therefore be better for England Wales Northern Ireland and Scotland. Greater specialisation will take place as Scotland becomes a rural backwater selling premium products not dubious discounted dross. Our Education needs investment not more political shenanigans. Time for politicians on all sides to listen. Maybe independence will get them all to draw breath and move on 

During the pandemic firms have gone to the wall but others swam upstream taking the opportunity to sell less but charge more. Placing the emphasis on quality and putting a spark back into ingenuity is perhaps a pipe dream but as the red wall collapsed in England the wee smarties repainted them and the yellow brick road to recovery is here to stay 

Jose Archer - Tosantos approaching villambistia

"Do you know Tommy I love Tosantos. Even more than I loved Belorado. And you know I loved Santo Domingo de la Calzadas even more than I loved Azofra. This Camino thing is hauntingly mysterious. This love inside me I thought it burst out on the first night but it's like a lava flow. The love is setting hard wherever we go and yet there's always more wherever we arrive."

"You're just a love machine" said Tommy cackling. "I feel the same, but not quite your skill with the words"

They had just walked through a field of sunflowers in late September. The sunflowers bowed their heads to the huffing and puffing pellegrinos as they marched by, fair pecking  in Tommy's case. Pilgrims had drawn smiley faces on their big seeded heads. No surface was untouched by the pilgrim graffiti which would make its way into the food chain then due course.

What's that on the hill Tommy in the rocks. It's like a shrine built into the hillside.

Tommy looked at his half empty  beer then up to the shrine. 

Yes it looks like a temple of some description or maybe it's a tomb. Would you like another he said sensing an opportunity to not climb a hill.

No I might just have a look up there.

Tommy picked up his sticks as if to stand up and walk but then turned to the table and started drumming with them.

"Well if you don't mind, I'll just stay down here, rest my feet and have another beer." He sang then sank back into his chair with a laugh. 

"Oh you've got away with words now." Josephine joined him in an exhausting embrace. The warmth and laughter soaked through them as their bond solidified. A pilgrim took their picture, cementing it in time. Big Tommy on the chair and wee Jose towering over him, powerfully standing and nurturing simultaneously. An image they were both oblivious to. The pilgrim knew it, here was someone who would get this other person to Santiago, the mythical Kingdom. 

"It was beautiful Tommy. One day I'll bring you back here and make you walk up that hill. But in the meantime here's the pictures."  She handed over her phone. Tommy finished his beer and started flicking through them.

"Looks really good" he smiled

"Yes, it was, now finish that beer. You'll get another in Villambistia, it's a full 40 minutes away. This section is methadone heaven for you." Jose chided in comical fashion. 

"Buen Camino" Tommy shouted at the rest of the beer garden pilgrims as he downed his beer and donned his pack.

"Buen Camino" the courtyard chorus replied.

My top 10 momentous moments -which aren't as I only have 4 or 5 and forget them

I often laugh at the most momentous moments in my life which I have ignored and other people find fascinating.... So I am now documenting them that should kill all fascination.

In no particular order but largely they relate to my youth.

When I was six I had to do a jobby on a potty for three days because I swallowed a thruppenny bit. This taught me how long the bowel took to process metal. It's also taught me about the strength of the acid in your intestines and stomach as the coin was very shiny when it finally emerged. I don't recommend children turn themselves into human slot machines as they could read this instead. I didn't become a doctor or a biologist in fact the closest I get is having an allotment.

When I am on the Camino walking across to Santiago or wherever I choose to end I bump into people regularly that I feel so at home with. I've never been a fan of "like-minded" people but it is true that on the Camino that are very many people like me. Mad as hatters and relaxed in their madness. I've just forgotten the memorable moment that I always forget, so will fill it in later. As I say this memorable  moments section is full of momentous moments that I disregard all the time as I forget them.

I had a wonderful chat with the treasury minister Angela Knight after her speech at the Mansion House in London in 1997. I basically said that her speech writers were rubbish and that this new system called Crest was a fantastic electronic system which was going to make the market far more secure resilient and would put London ahead of its peers in the world financial industry. It would enable London to move to immediate settlement thereby removing risk completely. If a firm does not have open positions then they could go bust and nobody would notice in the marketplace. Some years later when MF global went bust and it took a few years to unwind all the positions, it demonstrated that the market still had an appetite for risk despite there being mechanisms that removed them. You can install a lift to the top of a mountain but people would still walk. What I always forget is my Rangers supporting mate Tom grabbing me or as he used to say hauling me off the cabinet minister.

I was kicked down the slope when leaving Easter road after Hibs very Rangers game. Your opinion bastards was shouted as the foot went into my back that propelled me down the slope as I exited the old East terracing. In those days fans were segregated using the top tier and the lower tier. This segregation plan came unstuck when they both had to use the same staircase. This particular range is fun to say that the I should use the grass. It reinforced the belief that Catholics had tried to perpetuate in my youth of victimhood. We were all Jock Tamson's victims. I however did not become a priest later in life nor did I bother going to church again. I decided that all that stuff was fairy tales and what was real was the foot that connected with my back and nearly killed me.

When I was 26 I felt fated to commit suicide. Having been married for 18 months I decided on the eve of my 26th birthday to get divorced. I have had suicidal thoughts for many years leading up to this point but was lucky enough to go out with a girl whose brother had the same name as me and had committed suicide when he was 26. She read me the riot act about suicide and I never mentioned it again to her. In fact one of the reasons why we split up was I felt I would let her down one day and that hurt me more than anything. 26 years therefore goes down as being a momentous occasion as I survived it. There was one night in particular when I was living on the 21st floor of a barbican Terra in London. The railings around the balcony were waist high and one night in a fit of pique I left all the doors open and went to sleep saying if I sleep walk and die it was fated. I never had the confidence to kill myself, as troubled as I was there clearly was something in my core that kept me living. I have tried drinking myself to death for the guts of my 58 years and have given it a really good go. I do occasionally still home suicidal thoughts or thoughts about not living. After my mom's funeral I joked with my pal about how "You don't need to commit suicide when death is on its way, naturally" which was a massive stress release for me. Life has been one long continuous struggle trying to do the right thing and watching so many wrong things. I think it is the eye for detail which sees the imperfections and at my worst I am haunted by them. 

I went to the White House Christmas parties when I was 9 & 10. I ran around like a wee daftie searching for the green room. It was pat nixon who gave me a Christmas present and I always tell people it was a tape recorder. I have also puked up on the front steps of said White House but that was on another occasion. I am very blase about all this because it never really left a great impression on me. That is why it makes it onto this list. It is something that others might find curious and I find tedious but as I get older and have fewer stories to tell it is retrieved from the archives.

Well that's five to start us off.

My Deadbeat moments are well documented here so for a ock'n'oll story, (my keyboad has a sticky r) I have two to choose from. They are both Clash moments. I saw the Clash in Paris in 1981 at the Mogado. Mogador if the R is not sticky. The Beat and the Selector were supporting and it was a great night. It was the first time I got in to see a real band for FREE and going backstage to enjoy the buffet was icing on the cake. The free bevvy was the candles. We got backstage passes because we were lucky enough to meet the road manager aloft the Eiffel Tour!I threw him some funsize Mars Bars and we got talking. It got better when he started winding us up about being the tour manager. "Oh yes he was" I said to my mate. We turned up at the door and gave our names, more in hope than expectation, and suddenly we're in a sell out gig with backstage passes. My mate left after "Washington Bullets" and so I went home alone via a few beers and 27 canapes backstage where the band needed help with the food. Fat Al never needed a second invitation. He arrived in Scotland with an appetite, being almost 10lbs at birth. That appetite served him well at 19! I'd get to me Joe and Paul later at the end of Deadbeat when they were in Edinburgh and looking to play at La Sorbonne. As Neil the bassist of the band booked that night said, "we'd hired a van, so we needed paid, and they'd only pay, if we dumped the Clash to play." I turned it into a Life Support song a few weeks later, it worked a treat.

Bella

I meant old napper Tandy yesterday while I was out walking and he took me by the hand to what I can only describe as a banksy.

It was like a banksy meats Guernica.

The scene was Bella Houston Park in Glasgow and it had been painted red white and blue with all the ranger supporters who had turned out to celebrate their clubs victory in the league.

It was a fantastic piece of lockdown socially distant art. The fans Had clearly sought to paint the park blue.

In the corner of the painting stands the famous george square statue with the cone on it. It is also painted green on one side and blue on the other side. In the painting we see mostly the blue side And of course the wondrous cone which stands above all to demonstrate the comedy genius of this Great divide.

I stood at this painting for hours as its social history reached into my core.

I love a good painting.