Gretna

September 29th: Gretna

Going to see the Redz hammer the anvil at Mecca today. Been a strange week. Saw old family friend Willie Miller's funeral (there's actually more than just the one).

Sad but the way life is. A good East Kilbride booze up was held thereafter. Scottish culture. Excellent send off for Willie.

So Gretna, a place which has an importance in this Minks life. My Ma (Chrissie Watt MacLaughlin McSloy Duncan) died in 1995. She was still relatively young. Before that she had health scares. So she and Wattie senior (the rebel soul) went off to Gretna and got hitched without anyone even knowing (we always thought they were married - but no they were not). They had never done the deed despite being together at that point and having kids as far back as the mid fifties! There was something about what they did that I thought cool.

Family skeletons in the cupboard methinks - but it does explain one thing - why I can be a right bastard. Excellent.

Anyway - Gretna must be hammered this afternoon or questions about what's in the Pittodrie cupboard will be asked by all Dons fans.

C'mon ye Redzzzzzzzz

Prisoner

September 26th: Prisoner
This sentence, transforms light into shadow.
No future just the same as the past,
Killing the present and removing every hope.

Is it just me? Or from where I came?
And are you any better or worse, in the end?
Is it really to you all a game?

Trample, crush, squeeze me to death,
With false promise of hope
tailing off to despair.

Stick a matress against the wall
I'll throw myself at it
Rebound, and continue on....

Popartglory

September 24th: Popartglory is 6 today

Everywhere I go,
It doesn't seem to show,
That this faith I have in you,
Gets stronger.

Strangers talk in trains,
About kids injecting their veins,
But what practical difference,
Does this make?

Class culture strains,
Our politics and their aims,
Destroying our imagination

Gender, class and race underlining our conviction,
shouting out truthful expression.

I can see into your eyes, and they're tired,
Your sensual smile surrounds me, you're in everything I know
I need to get inside your head, feed my mind on your soul.

This is not some game, where real life feeling
Gets lost in some hyped-up, hyped-up name,
Make democratic art through aesthetic, aesthetic
Aesthetic and political interaction.

Raised consciousness brings gain,
Blissful ignorance stores pain
Strengthening solidarity hastens change,
Resolve ourselves, reflect in natural, natural glory

I can see into your eyes, and they're tired,
Your sensual smile surrounds me, you're in everything I know
I need to get inside your head, feed my mind on your soul.

Dig Yourself Deep

September 21st: Dig Yourself Deep
Recieved an e-mail from my chum John O'Neill this week. He said " we have actually got around to making a new record which is out on Cooking Vinyl the middle of next month. 14 songs clocking in at 31 mins! Punk rock!"

They are happy with it and that will do for me as they are quality. They play Glasgow Garage on 18th Oct and Liquid Rooms Edinburgh 8th Nov. John's son is starting Uni in Edinburgh at the end of the month. Bloody hell, time is passing so quick once again.

Looks like I am going to have some good music to keep me going over the autumn and winter months. Magic darts.

Go see them and buy this album, you know it makes sense.

France

September 18th: France

Zoot Allors, jings crivens help ma bob! Unlike most on the ball bloggers I am well late with this post due to a lot of strange but weirdly scary and exciting happenings to me Wattie D of late....more on those later.

Paris will simply stay in my memory forever. It was magic. From first till last the whole thing was a blast. 6:45 am fly to London - 10:30 fly to Paris with a plane full of Springbok rugby fans all over to see their team gub England (and we think we are dedicated).


Beer was dear in the French bars (about £7 a pint) cheaper at the auld alliance pub (4 Euros a time)the weather was great, the girls very pretty, the locals very good natured and friendly and the result fucking fantastic.


Oh and I told the dude fae Travis there was no way he was getting on the next Jasmines Album.



C'mon Scotland.

Love Lives Here

September 11th: Love Lives Here - An open letter to All

Dear All,

Where were you on Tuesday the 11th September 2001?

I was sick and couldn't drag myself out of bed that day. It lasted until the Friday. It was one of those nasty doses of flu. It was gastric and I was either sat on the pan trying to push the waste out of my system or rolling about in bed shivering, drenched in alternate hot and cold sweats. In between I thought I was hallucinating as I watched on the portable TV the events as they unfolded in America. I thought I was trapped in some nightmare that I couldn't get out of. What happened was unthinkable evil beyond comprehension. I felt ashamed to be ill and about feeling sorry for myself. I kept on wondering, do I believe in God?

If I did, I asked myself where the fuck was he that day? How could he let such a thing happen? Then it came to me that if he did exist he wasn't in New York City that day. He was out of town. He must have been looking in on events like all the rest of us because he is all seeing right?

Left to my own devices, I had to try and work out for myself via CNN and Sky why such a dreadful fate had come to pass on the people on the planes, in the buildings and on the ground. I wanted to bury my head under the duvet. So, I did, it became my personal and private sepulcher of continental quilt.

Entombed, I considered faith versus fanaticism. Christianity versus Islam. Decadent western society versus unadulterated scriptures and prophetic traditions. Who had what view of whom? Who was right and who was wrong? I couldn't come up with any answers. All these years further down the line, I still can't.

Apart from those that hijacked the planes, the people who died and were injured were innocent folks of different nationalities and different faiths. So it can't have been a religious thing no matter who tries to dress it up and whatever fit they try to put on it. People who are true to the Islamic faith are not evil and it was pure evil that made this happen. The dead don't care, they only wanted to live and it was their right to live. They were murdered and evil bastards carried it out. It wasn't done by a group with God on their side. It was proven to me that day that he surely doesn't exist but the weirdness of it all though is that in moments of despair, darkness, depression and most probably desperation I still talk to him in my head.

Stalin was an atheist and Pol Pot abolished religion but both of these fuckers were responsible for the deaths of many millions of innocents. No, this was not about religion that's an easy out; it was about good versus evil.

I had hoped that America and the rest of their allies would take stock and gather real evidence before lashing out. Don't get me wrong, something had to be done for the sake of the murdered and their families but they had to punish those that deserve to be punished. However, it seems to me the USA and her allies have gone for an eye for an eye with so many innocents in Iraq and Afghanistan being wiped out that the danger really is we are all most likely going to end up blind. Are you an optician God? It's Tuesday 11th September again in 2007, can you make it any better?

People will probably be pissed off at me and say, God does exist, look at the miracle escape stories that came from the events of the 11th September such as those who got out from Stairwell B and that this could only have been by God's good grace. They will say he allowed it to happen for reasons we can't understand. Others will say that he doesn't intervene because we have to undertake within our hearts to do his good will. Aye right!

I'm sorry but I find that type of view hard to reconcile. How can I spend any faith I have left in you? It seems to be one bad thing after another.

I’m left thinking that we take destiny in our own hands and have a choice about whether we do good or bad. It's about spiritual issues within our own hearts. We live in a catastrophic world where life is cheap for many and priceless for others. An imbalance like this will always cause hatred and leave a divide that allows evil to thrive

So c’mon big yin, tell me, what's in your heart? Because love lives here in mine.

Wattie.

Career Development Forum

September 10th:
Career Development Forum

This afternoon around 2:45, I have to sit in a room with my boss and the HR manager to receive feedback from the companies career development forum.

Cannae wait! Well, I can actually but there you go.

I am 42 years old, have a family to keep, a mortgage to pay and act as a hunter gatherer who ensures provision for three square meals a day on the table and in order to do so I have to earn a crust. Mrs. Mink does her bit too, I am not complaining here, just stating the bloody obvious.

The last thing I need in terms of work is feedback on my potential. But organisations do that don't they. Estimate your potential. How can you really do that when every individual has the ability to be unique and be so dynamically different to the next person? It baffles me. I don't know what to expect so I am going in expecting nothing. I have a feeling I won't be disappointed that way.

I went to one a while back and the guy said to me, "where do you see yourself in five years time" to which I replied "in your shoes". He wasnae happy. He said "well it's dead man's shoes, you might have to wait longer". That gave the game away for me. Flushed their bovine excreta right out so it did.

Truth is though, back in my days of youth I was interested in Career Development of a different kind. The year was 1986, Alan McGee took me to UCL in London to watch Felt. They were very good. He was developing us Jasmines and he was planning a trip to Scandinavia for the Minks along with Felt. Alan for all the stick he gets from various quarters does know what he's doing.

That night he introduced me to Edwyn Collins. He's a giant of a man. He shook my hand and said "awright mate" and that was it. Tell you what though, that was enough. He's ace. Given the health issues Edwyn has had, it's testament to the man that he's done a new batch of work.

It strikes me that with the release of his new album "Home Again" out next week on Heavenly, he's had his own wee Career Development Forum and gone for it. I can't wait to buy a copy and hear what's what. It might be an estimate of his potential but only for this moment in time as he continually develops new potential and fulfills it time and time again. I hope he never stops.

Earwig O

September 9th: Here we go, here we go, here we go

Tickets confirmed for Wednesday, flights booked, all we need is a good result in Paris and I'll be a very happy minker.

c'mon Scotland.

Tell God I'm Here

September 6th: Tell God I'm Here

One of the things in life that I never seem able to rectify is my ability to stop being a twat from time to time. I'm always saying to myself "Oh God, shouldnae have done/said that."

As the years pass by I find it really hard to be "sociable" or "fit in". I have wrote before about feeling I'm a mis-fit. The edges blur for me and there is no distinct compass point or map reference I can move towards where I ever feel that I am 'engaging' or 'interactive'. It could be the drink which I use as a shield of confidence. I veer off at tangents where I am definitely trying too hard or where I come across as a bit of a pain unable to hold a reasonable conversation. That's me, Wattie D, a mean young mother!

My sincerity may often be construed by others as blowing smoke up their arses but that is never my intent. I am sincere on that. If I like something I tend to go over the top about it or I really rail against it. As I get older I should allow myself to become more reasonable but it never seems to happen.

Years ago, Jeff Barratt head honcho at Heavenly Records played me a vhs video of Hurrah! They were excellent. You have to remember back in the day Hurrah were seen as something else from what they became. They attempted to cross over from this brilliant, fresh and full of youth early Kitchenware band to become stadium rockers with leather biker jackets and the "Tell God I'm Here" album which ultimately bagged them a Wembley support slot with U2 in the process.

They didn't break through to mainstream though. I'm nae sure why. I was obsessed by that album. Martin our bass player bought me it for my birthday because I wouldn't shut up about them.

When the Jasmines soundchecked I would often play "Sweet Sanity" to get my guitar set-up right. It was/is a genius riff and was my little nod of respect to them!

A lot of folk didn't get their attempt to move ahead. I loved them for going for it. We played with Hurrah! a few times. We used to share a few beers after the gigs with them and I was always intrigued by the raw energy Paul and Taffy displayed when playing their guitars. I also believe they wrote magic songs. Anyway, it never happened for them in the way they might have hoped. Towards the end, I watched them play in Aberdeen at the "Venue" where they petulantly played to a small crowd walking off after about three songs nae happy.

Invited backstage (along with most of the crowd I have to say, about twenty people) I told them I thought they were a disgrace for not playing a full set to the folks who had made an effort on their behalf. It didn't go down well but as I said I find it hard to be "sociable" or to "fit in". I'm sure it's not what they wanted to hear. Oh well, c'est la vie. If it had been 400 people I might have thought it was rock n'roll but as it was it just came across as naff and a slap in the face to those who believed in their magic.

They were a great band however and deserved better than they got. So did a lot of other bands. Such is life unfortunately. Perhaps somebody needed God to tell them that Hurrah! were there and were good. I don't think he was listening though.

Here's the video for Sweet Sanity.

Jane Tomlinson

September 4th: Jane Tomlinson

Jane Tomilnson was diagnosed a while back with an incurable form of cancer. She didn't give up, instead she went for it with the time she had left. She ran races, was a triathlete and raised loads of cash for worthwhile causes raising their awareness at the same time.

I am a moaning so and so at times.

When training a few years ago, I was whinging away, lacking motivation and feeling devoid of any will power and with no real desire to do anything about it. My mate Calum cut out a picture of her and pinned it on the wall beside my desk. He never said a thing but I got the message, went away and did something about it and felt better for doing so.

Then weirdly just this morning I looked at myself in the mirror and asked myself why had I got so fat? I then subsequently read the news feeds about Jane and thought that it's time for me to buy a new pair of running shoes and again shut the fuck up and get my finger out.

I ran the great north run when she was in the same field. She was a quality human being, a daughter, a wife, a mother and an inspiration.

Scolty

September 3rd: Scolty

The Newtonhill Minks were having a wee holiday break at our static in Feughside over the weekend and our attempts to keep young, agile, fit and healthy meant we took the dog and the bairn up Scolty hill near Banchory.

The wee one moaned all the way up and then said "it's nae bad actually" after she ascended the 299m overlooking bonnie Deeside whilst drinking her juice and scoffing the scran. The heather is in full bloom just now and was simply affa nice.