Jockeys of the Glacial Thoroughfares,

The minority SNP government are having trouble in passing their budget through parliament and rather than debating properly and making concessions as a minority government should expect to, they’ve gone public with their strop. The public will never hear the full story or know the extent of the negotiations but using my experience of watching The West Wing, I can draw a frivolous comparison and say that the politicians really have to work hard to achieve a compromise that is the best for the people, Josh Lyman and the cranky old senators always seem to manage it.

Of course, I’m in an unusual position within society so I don’t really experience some of the changes governments make. One clear change I have noticed this winter in the Kingdom of Fife is the lack of attention the SNP council have paid to treating icy roads. I don’t think it should be too difficult to read weather forecasts then incorporate a cautious margin for error in their gritting schedule. The roads this winter have been absolutely atrocious and I believe the change in attitude coincides with the new SNP regime in Fife Council. A few years ago, the council used to treat roads and pavements, these days, we are lucky if they treat a few of the roads. Quite often pedestrians have had to abandon the slippery pavement and walk on the roads because they are marginally less icy, I don’t blame the public for doing so but this introduces further dangers to the roads for drivers.

With the highly publicised prediction of a cold snap, there will be no excuses for poorly treated roads in the coming weeks.

Scraping Spurners Assuaging Ciphers,

Everyone is looking for a way to criticise the BBC. As I’ve said before, the BBC has all the best people; from Dick Strawbridge to Janice Long - they are worth paying a license fee for. I think the rest of the media realises this, they’re eager to knock the BBC’s reputation at every opportunity.

The furore over the decision not to broadcast the charity appeal on behalf of the Disasters Emergency Committee to benefit the victims of the conflict in Gaza is another example of the rest of the media attempting to discredit the BBC. Political opinions on the morality of Israel’s behaviour over the past month or so should be ignored when forming an opinion on whether the BBC’s refusal to broadcast any advert. I can not remember any similar broadcast on the BBC for aid to victims of war or natural disasters – the BBC has always stuck rigidly to its programme schedule with no adverts; exceptions are only made for the likes of party political broadcasts. The BBC could have handled the situation better by reminding people of this in their official statement, all this rubbish about impartiality fuelled the debate. The BBC run charity appeals like Comic Relief and spokespeople for charities often appear on news programmes, perhaps the DEC can send a spokesperson onto Breakfast with Bill and Sian, I think the BBC would agree to this, although I guess Tony Benn’s rant on News 24, where he gave out the charity’s address, has already pre-empted this step.

Secondly, would the broadcast of the tape result in any more money being raised and forwarded to civilian victims? Are the people who are currently aggravating and claiming to be upset by the BBC’s decision willing to donate to the charity appeal?

The media should now move on, the DEC have generated more publicity for this appeal than any advert on the television ever could, I wouldn’t be surprised if their PR department deliberately organised this controversy, the media’s contempt for the BBC would have been an easily usable tool.

Passive Agressive Butterflies Shelving Problems,

Despite having a list of new CDs literally as long as my arm, I'm always delighted to be recaptured by a song that already exists in my collection. That song is In Other Words by Ben Kweller.

He'll realise the only thing that's real is the kids who kid themselves and the demise of the beautiful.

Vitiating Briefers Dishonouring Mavens,

The heady thrust of the new working year catapulted me south. England is a foreign land of strange ways; for me, and most of Scotland, it exists only on the television and we never realise how lucky we are that this is the case.

As part of my project, I have to attend meetings of collaborators every few months, this usually involves presenting my most recent work. I have never feared oral presentations, in fact, this time, I wish I was required to give one; it would have made my time seem more worthwhile. I was only asked to present a poster summarising all past work. I did stress over the poster, printing an A0 size poster is surprisingly expensive; content, size of font, positioning of text and pictures – I deliberated over these for about a week, then I finally sent it to the printers and hoped they’d do a professional job.

We usually fly down to England, but this time, I was given a choice. I chose to take the train; the security checks at the airport are just too stressful when trying to catch a flight. Sometimes shoes have to be removed, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes a belt makes it through the metal screening apparatus, sometimes it doesn’t. I don’t even know what I have to do with a laptop, so I just leave it at home. Then once through, re-packing bags, re-filling pockets and, literally, re-dressing in under minutes is a task too difficult for the Krypton Factor, never mind an airport. Whereas on the train, a kitchen sink is not a problem. Wielding two bags and a poster, I left the wonderful Kingdom of Fife.

The journey to Nottingham was uneventful, all connections, at Embra and Sheffield, were made with time to spare. Leaving in the afternoon, I found the train to be quite empty until Leeds when we collected some teatime commuters, in this particular Virgin train, I was squashed, despite the fact that a normal sized person had chose to sit beside me. We both changed trains at Sheffield and were rid of each other. The final leg was on a desolate local service, it seemed such a waste to run the train at all. Having experienced the roads of this England place, I can’t understand why they leave their trains empty. The railroads seem a bit rickety between Embra and Newcastle but apart from this gripe, I can’t find a reason not to choose rail.

The hotel was reasonably pleasant, a coat hook fell out of the wall under the weight of my jacket, but I can’t be blamed for this brand of workmanship. For unknown reasons, I had a twin room, choosing which of the two beds to sleep could have posed a threat to my sanity had my state of mind not been soothed by the woodland-themed décor. From small acorns, squirrels gain homes.

The meeting didn’t provide a great deal of new insight, I’ve always thought that we have our own niche within the collaboration that doesn’t interfere with the rest and that can’t be interfered with the rest. Only the bolshie nature of one of the collaborations most notorious partners livened the affair, mercifully, one of the collaboration’s most productive partners showed the gumption required to scorn him.

Dinner that evening was held in a hotel bar in a village on the outskirts of the city. The meal was not to my taste, it could only be described as traditional English (pub) food, there was no safe chicken or pasta choice. Eating at such a later hour never suits me and I’ve never believed in cooked vegetables, I’m a man for fresh salad. A carrot cooked is a carrot wasted. We left dinner earlier than the bulk of the party, because we had travelled there by taxi, I had no idea where it actually was, I assumed it was in the city centre and that we could easily find a taxi rank a few hundred yards or so outside. It was soon apparent that we were lost but it then took a while for me to realise that we were actually in a neighbouring village and probably unlikely to find a taxi rank. I’m not particularly comfortable walking about at night, I’m more confident in city centres but I find smaller towns a bit distressing, this is perhaps the opposite of how it should be. I decided that I should go into another hotel bar and ask for directions, the waiter of the empty dining room said that he wasn’t from the area and it was left to a stereotypical barfly to offer some vague pointers towards a bus station. At the bus station, two taxis sat, one sped off but the driver of the other extinguished his recently lit cigarette to take us to the hotel. I asked him about the football on the radio before scampering quickly away after finishing the journey and paying the fare to watch the end of the match. Burnley couldn’t fend off Spurs, their performance was to their credit but their eventual defeat will likely lead to a more competitive final.

The next morning, I planned to walk to the train station. I knew this would take about an hour, but I also knew I would need what Sean Batty would call ‘a weather window’ ( I missed Sean and all the Scottish TV news people, the East Midlands weatherman is too disconnected from meteorology). I thought I had that window but if I did it soon closed; the poster tube began to disintegrate in the rain and decorate my jacket and bags which rubbed against it My thigh began to twinge and ache and I really began to regret my disdain for the practice of taking taxis. I made the train with 1 minute to spare and my hair didn’t go curly as it tends to do when soaked by the rain.

The train journey in daylight is more pleasant than the uneventful journey outward journey. I chose to make three changes, the chance of walk around might have come in useful, however, the walk to the first train station of the days means that such chances now became necessities rather than small pleasures. In daylight, it was possible to see some of the things that England has – swollen rivers ripe for flooding, animals traipsing around waterlogged fields, power stations and quarries. Of course, there are a few other things: the crooked spire of Chesterfield and the bridges across the Tyne. The change at Sheffield station gave me an opportunity to admire their fountains and visit Marks & Spencer; the nimrod at the checkout decided to serve me despite having no change in his till, after a bill of £5.33, I gave him £10 note, so in his haste to speed along the queue, he started dishing out random amounts of change, I received £5.21. I am now 54p happier.

Embra station is coming up shortly, there, I’ll be surrounded by people who sound just like me and I won’t seem so self-conscious anymore. I’ve been gone for two days but it seems like a week. The poster was up for 40 minutes but it feels as if it cost me 2 weeks.

Crushers of the Opinions of the Pusillanimous,

Taking in some sunlight and moving the legs around a bit have been the main aims of the last few days. Ever since the policy of only living to the age stipulated in the Belle & Sebastian song was wiped out, I’ve decided to try living for as long as possible.

Yesterday, I escaped along the coastal path from Kirkcaldy to Kinghorn, the house was plagued with zany, misguided adventurers, and more than claustrophobic (this is an accepted if incorrect use of the adjective). The sun was high in the sky, but the walk was not so pleasant. Recent housing developments have increased the apparent height of the cliff and shrouded the path in darkness, particularly as the path is enclosed on one side by an old harbour wall, a harbour that was built in the 1880s but was never used, its appearance gives few clues to its history. I’d like to think that the path could be improved aesthetically, in a vaguely natural manner, in this area, as currently, remaining damp and dingy, the lives of small children are likely to be lost to the muddy puddles.

I always think that New Year’s Day leaves people void of activities, it’s not the same as Christmas, where outlets also closed, but people visit each other throughout the day, or Boxing Day, where people can shop, or New Year’s Day where people live normally until the evening. They resort to nature and as such, the queue to the Lomond Hills was overwhelming. Battalions of people surged up to the summits. East Lomond, the smaller of the two, was the hillock I conquered easily. Geese provided a memorable soundtrack.