No Beatcroft Social, but some short chunks of audio and a Spotify playlist
Apologies…
First, apologies – there’s no Beatcroft Social this week, either on 60 North Radio or on Mixcloud. I do have a new two-hour playlist on Spotify which you’re welcome to peruse and bend your ears towards, should you feel the need. It features the excellent Waxahatchee, who were in Glasgow this week; the original version of a song currently being murdered on the much-vaunted TV show The Bear, and Quicksilver Messenger Service – from 1968. I’ve just ordered the Happy Trails CD. All the Beatcroft Socials thus far are available on the 60 North archive here.
I’m reviewing my online activities at the moment and looking at how best to use this platform, Substack, and what I can do in terms of audio. At the moment I’m veering towards speech-based stuff, as well as a much-delayed documentary about Del Amitri’s first trip to the USA in 1986. I’ll keep you posted.
It’s only fair to say that what with my celebrant activities, now including weddings as well as funerals, work as a councillor, cook and bottle-washer, traveller to see weans and grandweans, book writing and now a major text-based commission I can’t talk about yet, resources of time and energy are shrinking. It’s being retired that does it.
However, I intend to continue with this newsletter, and it will include rants, considered essays, pictures, poems and songs. As well as links to music I’m particularly fond of.
Like this, for example. It’s by Louis Crosland, is unreleased but will be out in some form soon. I think it’s great. Produced by Rod Jones from Idlewild.
Louis Crosland – It All Leads Back To You
In addition, read on for a new poetic reaction to the current obsession with abandoning ‘ultra-processed food’, featuring an appearance by the legendary figure from the pages of the late lamented comic The Victor, Alf Tupper, the Tough of the Track. Who trained on fish suppers and steak pies. Seems appropriate given the issues with diet over in Paris…you can read and/or listen me reading it.
…and there’s a song, featuring my fairly new Ovation 12-string guitar and a heartfelt plea I’m sure many will empathise with. Sometimes all anyone wants to do is read books. A book. As in one made of paper and cardboard, with proper pages you actually turn. again, listen or, well, read.
(Sometimes I just get sick of screens…are we entering an analogue resurgence? Physical objects to impart information and entertainment? Real musicians in the corner of our living rooms? More soon…)
A Wholly Healthy Scottish diet
(Sponsored by Alf Tupper, the Tough of the Track)
Away with parsley, radishes and rocket!
I have the money in my pocket
To buy organic healthiness galore
To live forever, though my Scots heart be sore
And aches for fat, salt, highly processed foods
That do my soul naught but the greatest good
Ye fascists of the gut, please hear my cry
There’s more to life than living not to die
For instance, pies…
Pastry , gluten heavy, made with butter
No almond or oat milk spread: words never uttered
In this my house of lard and blue cap milk
Or gold, for cream must always have its place
Begone, macrobiotic, come lactose!
I am intolerant of those and such as those
Who, devoid of diagnosis, claim they thrive
On pickiness and pride; are they truly alive?
They barely survive
For them, no mutton or Melton Mowbray pie
Preferably battered and thoroughly deep fried
Nor burgers, smashed and topped with yellow cheese
Made by Americans fermenting axle grease
No corned beef, processed peas or luncheon meat
No doughnuts, filled with jam so very sweet
Divinity in all its glory will appear
We boil sugar into tablet here
To banish fear
Begone then, lentils,other than in soup
Boiled with a smoked ham hough, lest you be duped
By stock cubes, labelled vegan, a grievous fault
Devoid of love, and gluten, fat and salt
Come biscuits, coated with chocolate, thick and cheap
Cheese made from cows, or milk removed from sheep
And should this diet thicken arteries like mine
Statins and aspirins, washed down with tonic wine
Will do me fine
For without bridies, Empire biscuits, sultana scones
All true Scottish spirit will be gone
It’s also safer, bugs just vanish
All risk of infection can be banished
By salt, heat, fat – well, more or less
Industrial processing is best
Bring me baked beans with sausages in a tin
On toasted pan bread. Butter soaking in
That’s where life begins
Scotland’s future lies in what we once ate
Let’s not abandon what used to make us great
A proper diet is what our sportsmen lack
Listen to The Victor’s Tough of the Track
Forgotten genius Alfred Tupper
Who won the Olympics running on fish suppers
Made in Scotland, a symbol tried and true
Deep fried and soaking in Irn Bru
Nothing and no-one else will do.
I Just Want to Read Books
I don’t want to go to the party
I don’t want to go to the ball
I don’t want to dance all night
I don’t want to dance at all
I don’t want to go to the movies
I don’t want to watch TV
A takeaway tikka masala
And a paperback’s enough for me
Just a little look
Inside a library was all it took
I was hooked
My world shook
My goose was absolutely cooked
I just want to read books
I just want to read books
Theatre’s not for me
I couldn’t sit through a play
They make you stay there for hours
Won’t let you get away
Just give me the script
And if there’s violence and sex
I can skip those bits
I prefer good text
I don’t like football, I don’t swim, I don’t bet
I don’t want to talk to anyone I haven’t met
And most of those I have I honestly regret
Including everyone I haven’t spoken to yet
I just want to read books
I just want to read books
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