Needling Chieftains of Mulching Whirligig,

This week has been full of extra-curricular chaos. I’ve enjoyed composing the report that I owe the world this week; maybe it’s because I’ve had a two week break and I’ve re-approached my work but I’m really enjoying the science. My first paper is due to be published very soon, I’m nonplussed at this, the writing, editing and peer review process left me disillusioned. I don’t believe I can face reading the paper of which I am the lead author again. My ideas and beliefs had be chopped, reformed and watered down like a packet of wafer thin ham on sale in a supermarket. Everyone has their own agenda and I am simply at the mercy of others.

On field, a dispute with my football team manager which was created when I questioned why he did not lambaste his poker buddy at the heart of the defence at all after a catalogue of blunders yet I was berated endlessly for just one. This settled itself down, or so I thought, it turned out that he had let it settle because I was needed in quantity, if not quality (to field a team, he required 11 friends). When I was deemed excess again, we seemed to be on speaking terms. I did not mind being an unused sub on a sunny day. An unprovoked snide remark about my skills at a training session brought about a typically arrogant retort from me. I, therefore, did not expect to even be named as a substitute for the next match, on Thursday, but surprisingly, I was. I remained unused and a 9-3 defeat ensued. My brother raged. The manager’s poker buddy was involved in at least 7 of the 9 goals conceded, these included a foul in the penalty area and scoring an own goal.

My brother is, or was, our best player. He has high standards; his old football manager was our father. We have an inherent sense of fairness and hard work ethic. My father could never be seen to favour his son, he appointed an assistant manager who would always make the decision on whether my brother would play. If my brother was selected to play, he had to perform or he’d be substituted hastily or else the management team would bare the wrath of other parents’ accusations of preferential treatment. He’s been booted from the team for criticising the toleration of the poor performances of the manager’s buddies or as the official statement goes, ‘undermining the management’. He’ll benefit from this, he’ll find a team who are run properly, and perform at a better level. I expect to be booted on Tuesday, after which I’ll be probably retire for a while. I tolerated the malpractice in our team because I had no other choice, I wasn’t always the victim (this may suggest I have no backbone but no one really has a voice), and the team are local. Travelling further a field to train and play may be too much for me.

Illness is rare for me, however, Friday brought about horrible symptoms but I went to work, I hoped that I’d soon recover and I’d be fine to go to dinner that evening. I knew by 10am that I’d be better back in bed. I stared at my screen and no words were typed, I hung on and on before pronouncing myself too ill to exist outside a duvet. It was the farewell dinner of a colleague that evening. I did not want to let him down; he had been good to me at various stages in my time there. Often I grew annoyed with some of his bungles but in truth, he’s the only one who came close to understanding my sense of humour and giving our environment a sense of Scottishness. I don’t often attend nights out, but I had made an effort for this one, I ironed a shirt and trousers. I packed my running shoes and swimming trunks – something to do immediately after work, in the time before dinner. I hope I did not cause offence. I’ve been on the wrong end of farewell dinner disappointment.

Desperadoes and Cut-throats of the Book Store Queue,

If I could imagine the perfect band, guitars (electric, acoustic and bass) and drums are the standard base layer and they’d be a given, some violin as expounded by My Latest Novel and others would be a must, a bit of Mick Cooke Belle & Sebastian trumpet might be nice, King Creosote-style accordion would be lovely, Ben Folds-type keys could help and I suppose a bit of cello could compliment the violins. The tunes would all be layered nicely, some would be thunderous and some would be gentle, there’d be waves of noisy guitars and they’d be sliced through with killer strings, trumpet or piano chords. I hope no one reports me to My Latest Novel but Broken Records might just be the closest thing to the ideal band I could imagine. I doubt there’s much chance of them teaming up with Sufjan Stevens soon, but on the plus side, there’s an equally small chance of them teaming up with The Zutons and adding some big, fat sax solos to their tunes.

I descended on The Liquid Room with a Kurt Vonnegut novel in hand, it’s the new fashion accessory that all the kids must have – it doesn’t have to be read, but everyone benefits from doing so, in time to miss the support band, Jesus H. Foxx, I’m sure that they’re good with their Pavement-esque tunes but it’s all the setting up that I find irksome and The Liquid Room isn’t a place that I like to spend any great length of time in.

The band came out to hearty calls from a healthy, mostly local audience. They played all their songs, they’re all online somewhere, either on MyArse or YerTube. A member of my class at yooni was indulging in some synchronised dancing with his partner throughout just 5 yards to my right, that is to say, 5 yards from a pillar near the stage. I was always going to be unlikely to approach and say. “Do you remember me?”, however, the prospect of interrupting his apparent hallucination of being at a Bay City Rollers concert made me even more so. I suppose their distinguished steps were one method of not staying affixed to the most sticky floor in the music industry at the end of the evening.

The band ended with their folk-punk showstopper, A Good Reason. The lighting work made for quite a spectacle; high frequency pulses of white light had an effect of creating a perfect rock flipbook of freeze frames for those who dared to look – the hypochondriac in me only allowed brief glimpses. Finally, latest single, The Slow Parade provided the perfect oscillatory relaxation to that event; it’s one of those great songs with a silence and a lovely recovery in the middle.

The band exited, the crowd lingered to chant, ‘One more tune.’ There was to be none but no one really left disappointed. They’re a relatively new band, perhaps they were out of songs, at a push, I suppose the crowd could have forced them to play a cover version, Since You’ve Been Gone by Rainbow would be my suggestion, but that’s my answer to everything, pop classics, Making Your Mind Up or Bye, Bye Baby might have suited my former colleague to my right.

I’ve wanted to see Broken Records for ages, and this is a strong contender for the best gig that I’ve ever been too, if it had been anywhere but The Liquid Room, it’d be the outright leader.

Biographers of Suffusing Farceurs,

There is nothing better from a reader’s point of view than finding an author with whom they are unacquainted with and then being compelled to read all their books. I am now going Kurt Vonnegut crazy. Of course, I read Slaughterhouse Five a while ago, then Jailbird on a whim, but it is only after reading Cat’s Cradle that I can truly rank him alongside my favourites like Iain Banks and Joseph Heller.

I often read books and whilst I find them enjoyable at the time, I wonder how they are going to end and I become a little disappointed because I feel as if the author has realised they’ve written x pages, they think they’ve over-stepped a limit and then they finish up abruptly and leave me unfulfilled. I can compare these books to episodes of The Bill, when I used to see episodes fairly often, many years ago, I used to think, ‘yes, you’ve caught the criminal within the 30 minute episode, but what will happen when this goes to court? What will the British justice system deliver? Will they just be back on the street to torment Tony Stamp next week?’

One of my two favourite books is Walking on Glass by Iain Banks; it’s so imaginative in structure and the plot is so neatly packaged, on review, it can be said that the author knew exactly where the book would end from the first word and could end it with the perfect incident. As it happens, or as it was meant to happen, this book ends on the absolutely perfect sentence, there are no loose storylines.

Cat’s Cradle is funny, sad, realistic, reflective and educational, these are all qualities that can be expected of a Kurt Vonnegut book. This one is the story of a journalist who sets out to write a biography of the man who was known as the ‘father of the atom bomb’.

The moral of the story is perhaps that we should always try to understand the complexities of the consequences of our every action. Even beliefs that are not actions in a physical realm has consequences.

This book can be finished almost as soon as it is started, it's just waiting to be read.

Crestfallen Dodos Breaking News,

The art of leaving a note is something I have yet to master. Ideally, I want to be read as flexible, nonchalant, informative and hard-working.

A short warning could be read as an order and I would seem too authoritarian or too lazy to carry out the task myself.

I end up composing lengthy, elegant letters to inform the recipient that they shouldn’t worry because I’ve taken a course of action. I worry about portraying myself as a gullible fool who will do all the work; I try hard to prevent myself offering to do more.

I write diligently in my lovely handwriting. I expend thought. I waste time.

I should write, “Job done. Watch out for the leaky roof. Don’t cause fires.”