Sinister: The phone is dead... another finger won't hurt; in fact, it makes the phone look like the diminutive bakelite moulded communications device it occassionally tries to be

[Gordon]

SCENERY

Today at lunchtime was another 40 minutes by the side of the river. A
couple of lovers were sat upon the rock from which I had, yesterday,
made some sketches of the stone and the water, attempting to calculate
how the movement, liquidity and varying focal depths might be rendered
using a black biro on cheap writing paper. I made more attempts today,
from a different spot. A (most probably retired) gentleman manouvered
past me towards, as it later turned out for him, the wrong way as I
sketched from a timber platform suspended around the base of a classical
folly called St. Bernard's Well:  erected, " at the sole expense of
Francis Garden, Esq. of Troupe, one of the senators of the College of
Justice" in 1789.
Of the manouvering, the cyclist remarked that the excercise, given the
tight dimensional constraints, would be achievable with me remaining in
the seated position 'because we have time'. Farther downstream, a young
woman sat in the lotus position on a bench, singing to herself.
The results of my sketching are, of course, that of an amateur of scant
practice. However, I've found the process of looking and hearing in the
riverine environment strangely related to, but like a soothingly
differentiated form of the manipulation of all the setting-out computer
aided design plotfiles and their associated cross-referenced files
(three levels; two sheets per level; 3 reference files per sheet) to be
dealt with before and after these lunchtimes. Complexity is a tormenting
fascination.

PICNICS

Picnic. 'A fashionable entertainment' enthuses the Shorter Oxford
English Dictionary. The word lies between 'Pickwickian' and 'Picoid',
which means 'like woodpeckers'. How bucolic.
However, the fashion these days is for the artificial landscape:
concrete jungles and... that vista of polished timber known as the
bowling alley.
The latter is to be found, Edinburgh-wise,
in Fountainbridge:
http://www.bowluk.co.uk/CentreDetails.asp?Centre=Edinburgh%20Megabowl&Location=Edinburgh

There's a link to a map there, too.

The suggestion is as follows: I thought maybe whoever might like to,
could go bowling there starting, say, at 2pm on the 15th September,
2001, beacause Mister 'Breams' Jeremy is coming to visit
from far away, and he seems like a really nice sorta guy. 15th is a
Saturday, btw, and, so, hopefully, many lovely people
will chalk it onto their personal blackboards. Even if you're decidedly
unlovely, you're still really, really welcome. It's not stopping yours
truly, after all... but don't let that put you off :). Buses go
there from the centre of town (it's within walking distance too, if you
know where you're going). Unfortunately, the private jets will have to
be left at the airport so... book that limo now.
Had we done the picnic a few days ago, we'd have been able to celebrate
Sean Connerysh' 71st birthday in his birthplace.
Fountainbridge is exactly like all the glamorous settings from the Bond
movies, given sufficient imagination. I suppose if you were to nick one
of the local's DB5's, though, it would have the kind of manually
operated ejector seat known as a shove out the door sideways rather than
a rocket-propelled exit upwards. Q, unfortunately, is no longer around
to advise upon the possibility of customisations.

... And, erm, if no one says they're going to come I suggest we gate
crash Harry's flatwarming party in Glasgow instead. Please E-mail me
with complaints, comments, alternative suggestions or whatever takes
your fancy at present 'cause, to be honest, I'm a bit lost as to where
to go from this initial suggestion:)

MUSIC

Miss Llew (guys are supposed to namecheck Llew like the girls are
supposed to namecheck Chu) would probably be horrified if I attempted to
purchase Hefner's 'Dead Media' from Amazon so, any other suggestions? I
want this song that has 'Peppermint' in the title: here was me thinking
Hefner did dirges and Peelie plays this terribly cute, slightly
melancholy number of theirs, with analogue bleeps and squirts and a bit
like, eek! Yazoo. Or Maybe not: I only heard it once, whilst doing
something else, i.e. chatting on #sini.

This week's CD recommendation:
EMI presents the magic of RONNIE RONALDE
[thanking 'Rich' Richard for remembering the name off the Peelie show,
with assistance from an electromagnetic recording]
he was a massive star of light entertainment and ... whistles... a lot.
One imagines James Bond at 5am in the late forties on his Milk float in
Fountainbridge (he used to be a milkman, did our Shonne). Whistling.
Picoid stylee.

LONG POST

This does seem like a long post. I'm still not really sure if long posts
are good, because they took ages to write; or bad, because they presume
one will spend ages reading it.

OTHER PEOPLE

I recently read Dimitra and Dahling posts at breakfast, which were
lovely. I wrote a post in response which I knew I wouldn't sent and I
didn't, but your posts gave me cause to think, even if I can't remember
exactly what, at the moment. Pinefox seems to be in a cabal involving
real people like 'Mr. Moore' 'Trousers' and a guy living, vicariously,
one might add, in the 'Saracen's Head'.. oh yes.. 'Mr. Miller' alongside
the likes of Molly Bloom and literary fictions mingled, to disarming
effect, with literary facts. Rob from the sea and another Llew post,
something from Velocity; Mandee's Chandler... it's well, 1400 or so
people...

OTHER FICTIONAL PEOPLE

Ms. Francine Euro-Mark was a collector of letters. Having spent the
greatest part of her...

If I go on any more you might think I'm meaning something, which
wouldn't do at all:)

Gordon

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