scottsdad

First dose done. The set-up at the college was very slick. Arrived and got asked 2 questions - is this my first dose, and what was my age. Everyone under 40 was put in the Pfizer line, everyone over 40 in the AZ line. In and out in a few minutes, no worries. Not scientific at all but the under-40s line was the same length as the over-40s one.

Stop by (my favourite) the James Gang. The pianist on this song is Joe Walsh's mum, who was a classically trained concert pianist. He needed a bit of piano playing on the song and decided to ask her.

Have we found @Burning Barns ?

Get my jag at 2pm today.

I think there is something intangible missing from Labour these days, and it's energy. Nobody is enthusiastic about Labour. In the past they've had the Trade Union movement and New Labour provide the energy, but that all drained away years ago. Corbyn brought some energy back, but only amongst his fanbase. Who really is sitting up at night counting the days till a Starmer government? If IndyRef 2 happened tomorrow, could Labour really try to say to folk that a Labour government will be along shorty, so stay with the UK for solidarity?

I was pleasantly surprised this morning watching TV. There was a public health expert on and I was expecting the mantra again (cases, variants, keep us in lockdown). Instead he was pretty robust and was arguing against "catastrophising" every variant. He said there was too much hysteria based on little knowledge, and the "50% more transmissable" thing being bandied about is based on one tiny subset of data rather than all the data. That, and the vaccines work so go get a jag. Pleasing to hear, just sad I didn't catch his name.

Cases, variants, cases, variants, cases, variants. Don't bother with the news, folks. It'll have some public health jobby on repeating the mantra.

DC's Legends of Tomorrow back. A wonderfully bonkers show that is just a lot of fun. My favourite of the Arrowverse shows. Last week's baddie? Alien parasitic burger sauce that turned burger eaters into cannibal zombies. The burger sauce came from a giant bug that was flying about that they had to kill - just nuts, the whole show. Some past favourites of mine include the evil unicorn killing hippies at Woodstock, and Grodd (a hyperintelligent, telepathic gorilla) going back in time to kill a young Barack Obama (to "Make America Grodd Again")

Caught 5 minutes of a Paul Simon concert on TV the other night. He was doing a reggae version of Bridge Over Troubled Water. It was bloody awful. Firstly, he can't sing like Art Garfunkel. Secondly, reggae (like rap) makes songs worse.

100% agree. Now I am not saying the Rangers fans were well behaved, and in a normal year we'd have the folk on radio call ins and the like complaining about the language, fighting, urinating and so on. But now the moral high horse is even higher because Glasgow is still in level 3 and these people have caused it. Like a superspreader event even though it really wasn't. Radio Scotland this morning was full of calls like that.

The online system isn't great. Took me 5 days of constant checking to even find an appointment for me.

Jeezo, that looks like one of those levels in Football Manager where you choose an impossible scenario to take on. You know - your team are 15 points adrift at the bottom of the table with 8 games to go, save them from relegation. This is like that. A team of utter dross, a dysfunctional board, unhappy fan base - now go get promotion.

One from Brockville in the late 80s: Christmas Time Lager and Wine Falkirk FC are daein' fine With five past the Morton And four past Clydebank Falkirk FC aren't daein' bad

I was listening to the original Here Comes The Flood by Peter Gabriel today and brought this to mind. The original has heavy production on it, and Gabriel was reportedly unhappy with it and re-recorded it in a much stripped down version later on. Joe Walsh also re-recorded one of his own songs, Turn to Stone. A slow-ish version is on his Barnstorm album, but for his So, What? album he recorded a slightly faster version and released it as a single. So I thought this might make a thread - what other artists have re-recorded their own songs to make them different? There are also plenty of live versions of songs being different to the originals. Bruce Springsteen's live Born in the USA is well different to the album version. The Eagles acoustic Hotel California is class, but again a different twist on the original. What others are there?

Still the focus is on so-called "cases". This disease has bean near-eliminated as a threat to life and serious illness in Scotland. But because of increased levels of infections in some areas (amongst younger people who are really very unlikely to suffer badly or die) people's jobs and businesses remain at risk of extended lockdown. It is a joke. As for Devi etc. talking about a vacine-dodging variant, they're like the Daily Express doing their annual warning that winter will be the really bad with blizzards and icy blasts, deep snow and sub-zero temperatures. They're right every 7 or 8 years and can then point back and say "Told you so!". Those on Twitter saying talking up a mega-mutant that evades vaccines are doing so in case this actually happens. Then they'll be able to pull off the same thing and smother you in smugness. And if they're wrong? Who cares - the threat is perpetual.

I cannot stand Jeremy Vine. His whole show has morphed into an LBC type hysteria-fest. Smarmy git.

I was a PhD student in the School of Optometry (though my PhD was nothing to do with eyes). Every week we had a guest speaker come and give a talk to the department, either a scientist working on eyes or clinicians developing new techniques. Some of the talks, to this day, make me squeamish. One was from a clinician treating burns victims - specifically when the eyes had been burned. He was developing a form of contact lens that would protect the burned eyeball and stop it adhering to the eyelid (also burned) whilst the healing process started. The pictures he showed...even now I feel a bit ill, 20 years on. Another speaker put me off laser eye surgery for life. I don't need glasses, thankfully, but if I ever do Ill never get laser eye surgery. Having watched a video of it being done...ooft.

Right as always

Wednesday night: plan hatched. Thursday night:

Not sure about Wiki but a while back I think we were at 4 or 5. Labour, Respect, Workers Party for Britain, All 4 Unity. There might be others.

Michael B. Jordan in The Wire. Recently started re-watching it and it took me a couple of episodes to figure out who he was.

Andy Burnham on the BBC today saying this very thing. Infections are shooting up in Bolton, so he was arguing for concentrated vaccinations there, regardless of age. Think they'll get a tin ear from Boris though.

I had a similar issue. Was due to get mine this afternoon after getting my blue letter on Saturday, but wanted to rearrange as they wanted me to go to Alloa to get it. There are places closer to me that I can receive it. So I called up and there were no appointments at Falkirk, and they told me to keep trying. I went online, registered and checked the website twice a day. Yesterday afternoon (after 5 days of regular checking) an appointment in Falkirk appeared for Wednesday. The message is simple - keep trying and you can avoid Alloa.