Brewers of the Meteorological Ale,

I killed a greenfinch on the way home on Friday’s escape from work. The dead bird came home with me stuck in the grill of the car. What was I meant to do about that? ‘Get a brush’, he tells me. And leave it in the street? ‘The cats will get it.’, he replied. I wouldn’t have been so sad if it had been some other type of bird, which is wrong.

Saturdays have become strangely free. I did nothing and went nowhere, partly because of the rain. I tried to take advantage of “weather windows” to hang washing out to dry. My wardrobe has become rejuvenated due to my work. The Met Office website, to which I am addicted, warned of 30-80mm rainfall over 48hours. I’d like a dramatic storm and not slow, persistent stuff.

The BBC coverage of Glastonberry has been a disgrace. For such a huge festival – the biggest, they tell us – they are certainly making it seem quite narrow in scope. I don’t envy anyone going to T in the Park in a few weeks time, the line-up is just identical. I do fancy the Connect festival in September, but I would have to lose my duffer instinct first.

Dehydrated, I became after Sunday morning football. 2 to 3 litres are required to solve this.

I went along to Kirkcaldy just before another weather window closed, I walked along to see the seals. They have such varied coats; it’s quite interesting. The adults don’t do much; the pups are quite amusing in their play.

I watched some Mr Bean, two episodes that I hadn’t ever seen, on Paramount 2. I wonder if Bean would be broadcast these days. Some aspects are non-PC and in the over-sanitised land of TV, scenes like a sketch of a man shooting a light bulb from his bed with a pellet gun just because he couldn’t be bothered walking over to the switch would likely be vetoed. Not many programmes have a better theme tune than Mr Bean either.

Forgetful Musicologists,

I planned all week to attend the gig of Strike the Colours in Embra.

I planned all day to attend the gig of Strike the Colours in Embra.

I had dinner and somehow forgot what I was going to do this evening. I ended up staring at spreadsheets.

Strike the Colours are the band of Jenny Reeve. They have a song on the Ballads of the Book compilation. Jenny Reeve was part of the Reindeer Section and has worked with Malcolm Middleton and Arab Strap. I'll order up her new CD to make up for my nincompoopery.

Indulgent Scribes Resting Wrongfully,

I decided to have a day off to visit Embra on Tuesday. It was finally time for me not to have to think about molecules and relieve stress by wasting money on things that I have no longer have space to store.

I was pleased to see that Kirkcaldy railway station now has a much larger car park that can accommodate travellers throughout the day. Before, too many people were missing trains whilst trying to find somewhere to park and then been tempted into driving all the way to Embra.

I stood in the vestibule area despite there being ample seats. Windows in these old rickety GNER trains can be opened in the vestibules. I’ve never liked GNER; their rolling stock is horrible; dated and dirty.

The people of Embra are much better than those of Dundee, those of Dundee refuse to swerve and expect people to move for them, they have very few manners. There were few charity muggers or sales people on the street, in fact, in a role reversal; I approached one of these signature collectors. He was shocked. I had to sign his petition against the scrapping of the Embra tram project. I know petitions are useless but I believe in trams, many other people do, the SNP doesn’t. Trams whizzing about the city would be much better than dirty, noisy buses. They looked alright in Nottingham.

The SNP are also hoping to axe plans for a rail link to the airport which was voted for by the previous parliament. Perhaps the SNP are right to query the merits of this project. The current rail system between Embra and the north has a line that runs right past the end of the airport runway, I think it would make sense to build a new railway station on this line rather than build a new independent rail link.

I picked up a programme for the Fringe festival, but I don’t feel as enthused by stand-up comedy as I have been in previous years. In this current mood, I can’t imagine anyone making me laugh. The process of booking a ticket and expecting to laugh within a designated interval is highly artificial. The best comedy is spontaneous and at the minute, for me, best found in everyday shenanigans.

I bought loads of cheap junk and some sneakers that I may come to accept in future weeks. I was home by lunchtime. I took some junk to the recycling point. I processed some results from the lab. I played football but was not good enough to make up for the lack of technique and fitness of my team-mates.

Stalkers of the Dedicated Experimentalist,

Everything is moving so fast. I just want to catch some news and learn something. I feel starved of information.

It’s only a PhD and not a real job. In many respects, I’m my own boss, and I’m a terrible boss. By the time that I’ve come home and had dinner, I feel ready for bed. I feel like I have loads to do at work, I have my own experiments to do, I have reports to write, I have to hang around overlooking the other PhD student’s experiments so that I can learn how to do that kind and I’ve also been appointed as a potential expert on some other instrument accordingly I have to be trained (the current post-doctorate expert will be leaving and no one else knows how to man the instrument). I am probably a great hindrance to the other PhD student; my unique brand of comedy only entertains me.

There was a football tournament at work, I didn’t plan to be involved but I was swallowed up. The standard was markedly grim. I was teamed up with duffers. Two players on my team wore spectacles; I wear spectacles but at least I remove them to play sport. I think many of my co-workers seemed surprised that I was actually quite decent (by that, I mean probably the best player in attendance – it was that grim), no one expected much of me, probably because I wear spectacles and don’t say much. Anyway, I managed to direct the duffers to one victory and helped them to avoid overly heavy defeats in their other matches.

I have become obsessed with mammoth punts when playing football. I must irrationally whoosh the ball (and man) at random intervals. This resulted in a wonder goal on Friday night. I’ve played too much football this week: 330 minutes – about the only thing that I’ve done except work and sleep.

Saturday was anarchy. It was anarchy in Sainsbury’s in the morning. It was anarchy in Dundee in the afternoon. I do not care for anarchy but we need food, I need new footwear and Father required a gift for Father’s Day. Everyone in Dundee thinks they are in The View.

I played football on Sunday morning after watching Art Attack with Sir Neil Buchanan. In the afternoon, I walked to East Wemyss; I had to take advantage of “the weather window” – it’s to be rain all week. In the evening, it was F1 and La Liga.

Acceptors of the Yapping Burden,

It was finally nice to see some sunlight today after many voluntarily long days in the lab.

Thursday night brought thunderstorms. I was playing football during some of the earlier ones. During the match, I replied to other players when asked why I chose to use one ball instead of another to take a goal kick, "The other ball is far away". My words seemed out of place. I should have said, "The ither baw is for awa'", but from me, that would have sounded "brutal".

The later episode of thunderstorms must have been hugely intense as there was much debris scattered across the roads in the morning; roads were closed as a result and I had to divert through a small village, which I have never visited before. I introduced them to My Latest Novel. The village must be for the wealthy elite who work but who don’t fancy living in St Andrews; I don’t fancy St Andrews – too much stewdents and tourists.

Thankfully, the Kingdom recovered and I could wear shorts again. Where there’s sun, there’s bogtrotting and where there’s bogtrotting, there’s the Fife Coastal Path. I’d eventually like to cover every section of this monstrosity. Beforehand I would not have labelled it as such but today, I realised what a con it is.

Due to the potential haar on the eastern coast, the short section between Kinghorn and Burntisland was the destination. Within Kinghorn, the coastal path signs were unclear; they seemed to be either suggesting that walkers should head up a cliffside golf course or along the main road. After a mile along the main road, and after becoming tired of being inland, it was decided to make way to the shore, this was possible via a dingy, dog excrement- and nettle-strewn alley between a row of conifers and a caravan park.

The beach between Kinghorn and Burntisland is dry and sandy near Kinghorn. It’s rather expansive when the tide is out, as was discovered, towards Burtisland, the beach doesn’t really dry out, even if the tide has fully receded, thus the choice of route between Kinghorn and Burntisland is stark – inland along a main road or wading along a shoreline. On a warm day and in proper attire, wading is through a thin layer of water is alright. However, the Fife Coastal Path is not really a route that was specifically designed for walkers, the Fife Coastal Path is only a series of stumps and signposts that point walkers around a series of pre-existing, and not always relaxing and picturesque, tracks and roads.

I drank a can of Sprite in Burntisland, it reminded me that I don’t really like fizzy juice.

Once home, I was also reminded that my favourite dinosaur was the stegosaurus. What kind of person likes the stegosaurus best?

Real Madrid only managed to draw with Real Zaragoza whilst Barcelona did the same versus Espanyol. This means that Real Madrid will almost certainly win the best football league competition in the world. I will be pleased if Barcelona doesn’t triumph because I dislike Ronaldinho immensely. His behaviour on the occasions that Celtic has faced them disgusted me and was not fitting of the player many call the best in the world. He put in many dirty tackles, he dived and most unsportsmanly, he spent much of the games trying to have our players booked and sent off. Ronaldinho will never be a great in my opinion.

Imitators of the Inerudite Manglers,

Springwatch with Bill Oddity is captivating. I hadn’t taken much notice of previous Springwatch or Autumnwatch series but I find this compulsive viewing. The quality of the action is amazing and the range of wildlife they have focussed on in week one is commendable. The kingfishers on the river are so striking, that blue plumage is just terrific. To be given access, or at least reminded of, to some of the rarer, yet less celebrated, species like corncrakes, hen harriers and shelducks is a privilege. Even the numerous starlings and sparrows are not taken for granted; such care should help to develop awareness and interest in our local environment. If I were a teacher, Springwatch is the kind of programme that I’d encourage the children to watch, it’s entertaining and informative, but informative in a way that one might be urged to discover more. Today, I saw a yellowhammer; I noted that it had been some time since I had last done so; I also observed some ringed plovers.

I worry about how intrusive the BBC is in the making of Springwatch. I worry about any disturbance they cause. Of course, the BBC are behaving properly and they’ll have taken every measure possible to limit destruction but it doesn’t stop me thinking about this and whether it’s right that we should be peeping into the lives of animals and making surveillance cameras part of their habitat. Obviously, this is the downside we must bear for such wonderful footage.

Over on Channel 4, there is no upside to filming the lives of animals. I saw a few minutes of Big Brendan after Springwatch had finished on Wednesday. It was the interview montage of some girl who was going into the house. She was some middle class drama stewdent who claimed to be a rock’n’roller. She said something like, “there’s a new movement taking over Britiain, and it’s indie.” This annoyed me, it’s people like her who are ruining indie for the rest of us. Indie exists but too many things are labelled so when they aren’t at all. The debate over what it is would be long and hard. The mass produced image currently available on the High Street also ruins it. If we’re not in the band, is there any point? One thing is certain – we can’t all be indie.