Living In The Future

When do we get our jet-packs? A collection of Space-Age magazine covers from the 1960s, courtesy of WellMedicated.

Poetry In Motion

“Black Jackets”

Thom Gunn.

In the silence that prolongs the span

Rawly of music when the record ends,

The red-haired boy who drove a van

In weekday overalls but, like his friends,

Wore motorcycle boots and jacket here

To suit the Sunday hangout he was in,

Heard, as he stretched back from his beer,

Leather creak softly round his neck and chin.

Before him on a coal-black sleeve

Remote exertion had lined, scratched and burned

Insignia that could not revive

The heroic fall or climb where they were earned.

On the other drinkers bent together,

Concocting selves for their impervious kit,

He saw it as no more than leather

Which, taut across the shoulders grown to it,

Sent through the dimness of a bar,

As sudden and anonymous hints of light

As those that shipping give, that are

Now flickers in the Bay, now lost in sight.

He stretched out like a cat, and rolled

The bitterish taste of beer upon his tongue,

And listened to a joke being told:

The present was the things he stayed among.

If it was only loss he wore,

He wore it to assert, with fierce devotion,

Complicity and nothing more.

He recollected his initiation,

And one especially of the rites.
For on his shoulders they had put tattoos:
The group's name on the left, The Knights,
And on the right the slogan Born to Lose.

Life In The Slow Lane

In Southeast Asia small capacity machines like this are pressed into service carrying staggering amounts of stuff. Speed isn’t important, just the ability to move produce and people from A to B, no matter how slowly. I have seen 2 adults, 2 kids and a dog on a C90 outfit loaded down with bags of rice higher than the riders head, and all at a stately 5-10 mph.

(Spotted while on holiday in Thailand)

Beer O'Clock

It's not five in the morning and I'm definitely not a saint

Tonight in the fridge there are a couple of 5 a.m. Saint ales from Scottish craft brewers BrewDog located in Ellon, Aberdeenshire. 

Xmas Decorations

(Spotted in a local store)

Great Wee Roads

“A Great Wee Road in my terminology just means a small road that isn’t a main route and which is fun to drive. Often it will be a short cut or at least an alternative route to the main road. It will virtually never be quicker than the main-road route but it will be a pleasure to drive, perhaps partly because it has less traffic, partly because it goes through lots of beautiful scenery and perhaps because it has lots of flowing curves, sudden dips, challenging hills and/or fast straights (though GWRs rarely have many of those). A GWR can be extremely slow – often way below the legal limit – and still be enormous fun, it can even be a single-track road, quite busy with traffic and so somewhat frustrating, and yet still be a hoot, and some roads only really become GWRs when it’s raining and you have to slow down.”

Excerpt from “Raw Spirit: In Search of the Perfect Dram”, by Iain Banks, which I’d recommend to anyone with a liking for irreverent humour and/or malt whisky.

Pistonhead

Beer suitable for Pistonheads everywhere

Waiting On A Bus

These “art deco” vans were made by Albion Trucks, Scotstoun in the 1930’s. The vans were what must have been a very distinctive yellow and green. Castlebank Dyeworks were a well-known Glasgow based cleaners and dyers who had branches across much of Central and West Scotland.

(Via: scotianostra)