Conan P.I. The Heart of Darkness.

Conan had arrived too late...whatever schemes both Unionist gangs had laid were now as dust.

The long hours sharing smoke filled rooms with the likes of AM2, sm753 and Rufus T. Firefly, deep below the dark and forbidding Scotsman building had-finally-had their effect.

The normally imperturbable librarian turned private investigator looked around in horror.

Smashed and overturned computers mingled inextricably with pizza boxes, empty crumpled cans...and the eviscerated bodies of several pony-tailed, middle aged men.

But one workstation remained.The only damage done seemed to be the broken chains hanging from the wall.It's soft drink cans were still in alphabetical order; the wastepaper basket stood upright, it's load of wadded kleenex intact.

The creature sheathed it's gory knife, and turned to face him.

Niko was no more...in his place was the Anti-Hero known as Union Jack the Ripper.

Conan P.I.

On the hunt for the mysterious subrosa, Conan made his way Leithwards.

If anyone knew about ladies of the night, it would be his friend Spook.He and his flatmate Bird kept a keen eye on the girls from their loft.

Suddenly gunfire rang out between two cars!

A chill went down Conan's spine...could the dreaded LibDems be making a move into Niko's turf?

Conan notices a reporter starting in recognition of one of the bodies.

Conan realised he wouldn't get the truth out of a Scotsman reporter...

...but other people would...

Conan, Private Investigator.

Investigating a ruthless gang involved in vote-rigging, fraud, gun running and politics, Conan P.I. finds himself at the local Labour party HQ.

Using a carelessly discarded pair of Union Jack boxer shorts, Conan rocked the guard to sleep, gently humming the Internationale...

Rifling through Niko's bedroom

Conan finds various leather garments.

A leather hood with a zip for the mouth is found.

Conan presumes Niko uses it in his heists.

A heavy plastic truncheon catches his eye.He finds a switch near its base, and flicks it on-then jumps in sudden fright as it buzzes and leaps out of his hand!

" A cattle prod of some sort" he thinks."It may come in handy, interrogating prisoners..."

Conan pushes the cattle prod down the front of his trousers.

Then-paydirt!

Walking stiff legged;

Darn! Who else could he ask what the mysterious syringe was?

Ted promised to look into the matter, made an excuse and ran to the mensroom, wrapping something around his arm.

A Dick! Conan was furious! He thought his blue suit, brown shoes and pink fedora was cutting edge!

His secretary looked up from Conan's trousers.

"Is that a gu-" "No time for chitchat, Miss Clara!" Said Conan.

Mr Thingummy.

So Niko's back where he belongs.

Is this incarnation more like the real Niko?

What do you think?

Mans best friend.After beer.

Subrosa kindly asked how I am on her blog; thankyou, I'm off for another four weeks.

The Doc said I'm to get out and exercise as much as possible, much to the delight of my dogs.

I'm spending much more time with them, and that's a good job for all of us.

I've had dogs all of my life, but the first twenty seven years of it I didn't like "Wee yappy dugs"; I grew up with a Golden Labrador called Paddy.

I had my shotgun licence at seventeen, and spent many a happy hour in the company of gundogs.

Then along came a Jack Russell puppy ambitiously named "Thunder"...I buried him under a tree in my garden eighteen years later...

That was it. No more dogs ever. It hurts too much.

Then, one summer we were having a barbie. A tiny explosion of hair, pink tongue and frenzied tail wagging, got under the fence heading straight for the smell of charred meat and beer.

Me, in other words.

Some time later, I reluctantly handed her back to a sullen teenaged girl with a face that would soor milk.

Puppies are such fun until you have to look after them...

My wife and daughter made enquiries.We got the puppy.

How I got three others is another story...

FREE BEER from it's bottles.

Mmmm...beer.


It's now thought that beer, and not bread, gave impetus to the first civilisations.


It's only with the rise of coffee houses, where business could be conducted in sobriety, that one part of society started looking down it's nose at the drinking habits of the other.And that part, of course, is the one with the wine cellars at home.


The nursery rhyme "Pop goes the weasel" is about excessive gin drinking in the mid eighteenth century.
Drunk for a penny, dead drunk for tuppence, clean straw for nothing.


Hogarth's Gin Lane is a condemnation of it; his lesser known Beer St shows prosperous tradesmen all contentedly quaffing large tankards of ale; a pawnbroker in his ramshackle premises is handed a half pint.


In the mid to late ninteenth century it was religion and the Teetotallers.


The licensing laws were introduced during the First World War to stop munitions workers coming back drunk at lunchtime, or coming to work in the morning with a hangover.


The factory owners, of course, had their clubs which did not need a licence.

Imagine it in Germany? Time mein Herren bitte...oi you with the Chaplin moustache!Stop organising armed rebellion, drink up and get out.


There were complaints recently about the large supermarket chains selling beer cheaper than water.

I thought that reflected more on the idiots who bought the water myself...


So the next time you cross the road to avoid a schemie/chav/pikey/ned with his bottle of cider or Buckie, know that you are just the latest in a long line of people who have felt superior to him and his ilk, all through the ages.

And be thankful that your straw is cleaner than his.

Alas poor Niko...

It looks like Friday the thirteenth was a long good Friday too far for Niko.

So long then Niko, and thanks for all the fishy posts.

By the way, is that Spook in the shower with you there?

Art is either plagiarism or revolution.

Grok put the last finishing touches to the reindeer's hoof, stood back and viewed his painting with a critical eye.

Urak, who had been intent on painting outlines of his hand got up and stood beside him.

"Wow." He said admiringly. "It's like it's in the cave with us."

"Hmm..." He said, stroking his beard.He looked around carefully."Is it a bit...stuckist?" He whispered.

Grok flinched at the name.Also looking around, he licked his lips and replied. "I don't think so..."

"Remember when they picketed Tate's cave?" Spoke Grok, more confidence in his voice.

"Dressed in that horrible warpaint..." He shuddered. "White faces and reindeer's noses...still gives me nightmares...fucking clowns."

Urak nodded. "I mean what's wrong with a hut you can paddle down a river in? Seems bloody useful to me."

"Or a handy bed in the cave, if you fancy forty winks?"

Grok shrugged."Poor Damien, he was so proud of that big fish."

"And the sheep!" Exclaimed Urak.

"Oh, remember the mammoth? He had to split it down the middle to get it through the door!" He exclaimed."And then he said it was on purpose!"

Wiping tears of laughter from his eyes, Grok said "Are you hungry? I think Damien's doing a barbie with the other bits."

M.A.D.

Grok and Urak stood on the shore of the loch, staring a the bizarre sight floating there.

On a raft in the middle of the loch was a contraption that resembled a huge bow on its side, lashed to a ramshackle construction of logs. The projectile loaded on the bric-a-brac bricole was twice as long as a man; it ended in three sharpened prongs, like a fish spear.

"What's it for?" asked Urak, confident that his friend would impart total enlightenment.

"It's to stop the Flatlanders".

Urak nodded, satisfied.

"Bastard Flatlanders. What were they trying to do anyway?"

Grok scratched his beard. "Er...it wasn't what they were going to do...um it was to stop them from doing it if they ever wanted to."

Urak scratched his beard also. "Eh?"

"They had these Elks...have you seen them? Huge fucking antlers. Dangerous bastards."

"Aye..."Urak was scratching his head now "But..."

Grok was getting irritated."Aye right we've got the mammoths, yes okay!"

He took a deep breath. "We needed an edge, something that would neutralise their elks..."

"Ah" said Urak, looking out at the loch.

"So it's a Weapon of Moose Destruction..."

They made a desolation and called it a Union benefit.

I've been thinking about the views of two other bloggers, Young AMW and auld Nick himsel Nikostratos.

Niko hates the Tories and thinks of the SNP as basically them with kilts on.

AMW is quite right wing, but is too young to remember the time when a certain Tory ravaged Scotland like a twinset and pearl clad Atilla, so time for a history lesson young yin, you're no in Falkirk noo.

*****************

When I was a very young man, the village that I had grown up in was in the process of becoming a town.

Situated on a transport nexus outside the Capital, it had many employers, either within its borders, or a couple of miles away.

First to go was the small Naval base.It didn't employ that many civilian workers, but of course the pubs, clubs, cafes and taxi firms took a hit.

The Victualling yard which supplied it wasn't affected-yet- as it still supplied the larger base across the Firth.

Next was the whisky bottling plant, where I had worked for five years, three of them as a shop steward.

Owned by Distillers, they wanted to put all their eggs into two very large automated plants.

Tam Dalyell found out about this plan on his Old Etonian grapevine, and informed the union.

I'll always remember the bool in the mooth exec that came from London.

I had asked him if the bottling hall actually made a profit. He had the grace to look mildly uncomfortable when he answered; yes, but...er...not enough...

Over three hundred jobs were lost, mine and one of my sisters amongst them.

Then it was the turn of the two large electronics plants . One shut down entirely, the other's printed circuit division went; Malaysia could make them much cheaper, thanks to miniscule labour costs.

Guess who lost his job again?

The large Naval base closed, perplexing many of the workers there, as there was nowhere else suitable to service the Navy's nuclear fleet.

Fife voted Labour. Hampshire voted Tory.Guess which Naval base stayed open.

When that went, so did the vittling store that served it.

The area had two distilleries in the nineteenth century. Around them grew the industries that serviced them. The farmers sold barley to be malted, the distilleries sold the drained mash back for animal feed. Pig and chicken farms grew up, then slaughterhouses.The distilleries closed down, but the bottling plant and a maltings remained on their sites.

Once the maltings closed, the feed costs soared. No more pig and chicken industries.

So now the area I live in is more or less a dormitory town.

The Tories attitude to Scotland in the eighties was much like an ancient Chinese Emperor faced with a problem.

Famine struck in three provinces.The Emperor's answer was to strip all remaining foodstuffs from two of the provinces, and send it to the remaining one.

The logic being that he would have one very grateful, loyal province...and the others would no longer be a problem...

In conclusion?

Niko, if the Tories get in at Westminster, they will think only of their powerbase again; but this time there will be a Scottish Parliament to oppose them.

Let's hope that Parliament is full of of MSPs who don't take their orders from London.

AMW, in an independent Scotland there wil be room for a right wing party.

It won't be the Conservative and Unionist Party though...

Going Fishing

Grok and Urak were walking out of the settlement one morning, going fishing.

Grok was carrying a fishing spear, a pole, a net and some hooks, Urak had the rest of the gear.

"How much further?"

he grumbled, starting to sweat under the weight of the large pot of freshly brewed beer.

They passed Brownlie, proudly lugging a full bucket homewards, and hurriedly refused his offer of a drink.

"Why didn't you tell him it was the cow mammoths he was to milk?" Said Urak.

"Where's the fun in that?" Grinned Grok evilly.

They reached the fence, and as usual Tavish was firmly astride it.When asked if he wanted to come he hummed and hawed for so long they left him to it.

They were not long out of the settlement when they became aware they were being followed.

Fooks and Steerpike*Murphy were lurking in some bushes.

"Can we come?" Whined Fooks his eyes greedily gazing at the beer.

"You can come, if you carry the gear."Said Urak sternly, piling it on.

"But you; you are fucking useless at outwitting Salmon, sling yer hook!"

Steerpike slunk off, humiliated again...

*Thanks Monty.

*****************

Round the campfire later that night, while Fooks snored away, his arms tightly round the empty pot, Grok said

"Fancy a piece of Sturgeon?"

"Not half" said Urak, smiling.

A post, somewhere.

About time I did a post.

Just been to the Doc, off for another three weeks at least, so there should be no lack of time...

I've written a few things, saved them, then thought "what a load of crap!" and then deleted them all...but I'm going to post this stream of consciousness drivel, whatever.

As for Grok and Urak, there are a few ideas kicking about, but there is only so much you can do with a stone age hunter gatherer pair as a metaphor for twenty-first century Scottish politics!

[I'm pretty sure I have totally mystified a few American visitors;-)]

Some good personal news; I'm a grandfather. Again.

One last, but not least, thing; thanks to all the people who have commented on here.

Their encouragement kept this blog-and me-going.