YOU KNOW WHEN YOU'VE BEEN GOOSED

"This is how it goes: not with a bang but a whimper. And with a whimper, Jack, I'm splittin'."

...and the longest days of the year drift in a fug. Dreary grey cloud, thick with rain, sour as three-week milk. It doesn't get dark at night - the sky never dips beyond mid blue. At the moment I still enjoy the miserable weather but really it's just the same as in Australia. The killer is monotony.

I've signed up with a temping agency in Inverness who send me out to drive vans for Lynx in Elgin or Inverness, map-reading and address queries or Not At Home or "Sign here and print your name, please." Strange memories wait on every corner: you can't go home again. The stressed man with crazy hair at the pharmacy at Raigmore - "I can't accept this, I won't take this, this needs to go somewhere else!" The door goes slam. "Fuuuuuuuuck!" screams Donnie at Lynx. "Fucking bastard fucking bastard fucking bastard fucking bastard fucking bastard!" He smashes the scanner off the desk in time with every word.

I've given up on looking for proper jobs since it occurred to me that I don't actually know what I'm looking for, or indeed what a proper job is. A career. I'd like to travel more, but any further journeys will have to be funded by work on the road - which is not, in itself, a bad thing. I harbour fantasies of a pub job in Fontainebleau where I boulder by day and pour beer every night. That's about the limit of my ambition, and way beyond the limit of my French.

We've won the pub quiz two weeks on the trot, although last week was an embarrassing victory. Eight of us won by half a point over a team of two, but Thursday was better - Jon, Ewan, Kate and myself earning a drink and a fiver each. Zinc - Nixon - Elton John. The tiny dancer in my hand.

Fantasy Cricket

This was written, over by over, between Andy 'My Friend Otto' Banks, Phil 'Dancing Phil' Powell and myself when the England-Windies game was rained off. I actually think it's a lot better than real cricket. Anyone who knows what they are talking about is welcome to add another over in the comments - this does not include Jeremy on account of him being Australian.

Over 1
WICKET! - Strauss claims his first golden duck of the series. At least he's consistent. Vaughan steps up like a graceful yet somehow mechanical and boring puppet. He pads a few away, one falls short and pitches up plumb for the slapping, but Vaughan defends, actually shouting, "Safety first!" as he does so. Cook rolls his eyes. Interesting email here from Thinky McGenius, "Wouldn't it make sense to have Collingwood as one-day captain?" Sounds like good advice to me - what do you think?

Over 2
OBO is reminded that test matches are supposed to last for five days, and when you lose a wicket to the first ball of the match, it’s worth thinking of the bigger picture rather than chasing every half-chance for runs. Vaughan once again demonstrates his astute captaincy by valuing the team rather than his own run rate. On the Collingwood issue, the general consensus in the inbox is that everyone seems to have forgotten that prior to the commonwealth bank series and the world cup, Mr Vaughan hadn’t played first class cricket for 18 months which is approximately the same amount of time since OBO last got laid. There are bound to be problems when you’re coming back from such a lay off. “Collingwood is a key bowler and batsmen and fielder in the one day side,” observes Mia Buttreaks. “Look what happened last time such a key man was made skipper, the last Ashes tour anyone?” Quite. On the field, Cook scores consecutive fours using his monobrow instead of his bat. Unorthodox!

Over 3
WICKET! - Vaughan falls. He's blocking the shot before it's even out of the bowler's hand and a bouncer ricochets of the shoulder of his bat into his grille, forcing metal to cut up his stupid face, and into silly point's diving hands. KP steps up, improving the run rate 200% by getting a sensible test rate of 2 an over rather than none. Very steady KP! Cook says something, causing the umpire to fall momentarily asleep. "What we need from a one-day captain is energy, belief in the team (rather than self-belief which I admit Vaughan has mistakenly in spades) and to lead by example. For me, Collingwood has proved he should at least be made Vice, if not full captain of the one-day side." Good words Mr. Iknoweverythingaboutcricket.

Over 4.
"Now these batsmen," says Geoff 'Two tins of Stella and a sleeveless vest, please' Boycott. "These batsmen don't want to score runs. That's not how you play cricket. How can you possibly hope to win a game if you score runs? They want to not get out, that's what they want. Look at me. I never got out. Not once, me. Concentrate on not getting out, and then maybe on day three or four, they can think about squaring their shoulders and looking for a quick single. But they don't want to score any runs, no." Alistair Cook unrolls his sleeping bag and opens a good book.

Over 5
Pietersen has gently played himself in by only taking 32 runs from his first 2 balls, but is then almost cleaned up by the third whilst scouting the crowd for a new missus after his current squeeze's career disappeared out of sight almost as quickly as "Ashes fever" did late in 2005.

Over 6
Cook appears to have got a pint from somewhere. Pietersen smacks ANOTHER for 6 as he casually chats up a female streaker. Umpire looks unhappy but refusing to take action. Vaughan shouts something from the pavilion, he looks cross, and more than a little drunk, it was something about, "I used to be good" I think but it's hard to tell through the slurring.

Over 7
With today's opponents still not identified, Cook's average will not suffer from this so far lacklustre display of sleeping and drinking whilst at the crease. In the press box, the debate about Flintoff's replacement for the India series rages on. Cook perks up to take a quick single from the final ball of the over thus denying KP the strike. He looks cross.

Over 8
Alistair Cook strikes a glorious cover drive while asleep. KP on the boundary colelcting telephone numbers. The ground is covered in pictures of Flintoff - the 'slightly retarded' pose. We have reports that Simon Jones is in an underground bunker shaving his head and body. He has guns and computers, but will not be able to take over the world just yet due to injuries to hip, shoulder, both knees, one ankle, three metatarsals, seventeen fingers and his penis.

Over 9
The Crowd are getting increasingly agitated with the nonchalance of the batting side and are just leaving en masse when - WICKET! - Cook run out! He was lighting his pipe and readjusting his flat cap when he mistook KP's shout of "One there" for the sound of a giraffe dying. The crowd return just in time to see future one-day captain Collingwood stride to the crease.

Over 10
Frankly, what a morning's cricket it's been. We've seen the end of Andrew Strauss' career, Michael Vaughan's intelligent captaincy and encouragement mistaken for drunken abuse and what the hell Cook was up to, we'll never know. Collingwood faces the first delivery from the still unidentified fielding team, forgets where he is and executes a terrific slip catch diving high to his left. Luckily the umpire signals no ball. The next raps Collingwood on the pads, Pietersen mistakenly takes this as a slight against Dickie Bird's good name and has to be persuaded from leaving the field in protest.

Over 11
The umpire has to be persuaded against leaving the field in protest at KP not leaving the field in protest. The fielding team light a spliff whilst England CC and the umpires sort out a sponsorship deal with Nike to provide more jumpers. Collingwood survives his appeal for LBW by disguising himself as a fourth stump and third bail. KP stands guard at the non-strikers end like a Rider from Rohan.

Squirrel goes nuts

I know what you're thinking - two blogs in one day?! Crazy talk! The world's gone mad, I tell ya - but I had to draw your attention to this excellent piece of news from Germany:

BERLIN (Reuters) - An aggressive squirrel attacked and injured three people in a German town before a 72-year-old pensioner dispatched the rampaging animal with his crutch.

The squirrel first ran into a house in the southern town of Passau, leapt from behind on a 70-year-old woman, and sank its teeth into her hand, a local police spokesman said on Thursday.

With the squirrel still hanging from her hand, the woman ran onto the street in panic, where she managed to shake it off.

The animal then entered a building site and jumped on a construction worker, injuring him on the hand and arm, before he managed to fight it off with a measuring pole.

"After that, the squirrel went into the 72-year-old man's garden and massively attacked him on the arms, hand and thigh," the spokesman said. "Then he killed it with his crutch."

The spokesman said experts thought the attack may have been linked to the mating season or because the squirrel was ill.

That's a hell of a catch, that Catch-22

Strange old thing, the sun. Whenever the clouds have cleared, the sunsets across the Black Isle are just as good as those over Ningaloo. Quietly, when no-one is looking, the sky turns red, and it is still a little light at midnight. But we're on the cusp of the solstice which means halfway to Christmas, I suppose. I always get bittersweet at this time of year, the mezzanine moment when the nights start to get longer.

Jobhunting is not going well. I spent all of last week in a dedicated trawl of both specialised and general recruitment sites, sent away a grand total of two applications and came to realise that I don't actually want to work most of the things I'm looking for. I don't even know what I'm looking for. I met up with Jon Todman and his cronies for the Phoenix pubquiz. It's a good, hard quiz. We fell down a little on music and general knowledge but swept the board on A-Z and the Famous Scientist Anagrams. We came fourth in the end - with two points seperating the top four teams. After the quiz we wandered over to Hootananny's in time to catch a London band called Scanners. It was a short set, maybe only half an hour, but they were excellent. Two guys and two girls in the full-blown Shoreditch fashionista regalia knocking out searing rock'n'roll. They had that same intensity as Sleater-Kinney, fragile, electric. Check 'em out at http://www.myspace.com/scanners - especially LOWLIFE. After the gig Jon and I sat in his house drinking whisky and listening to music. I staggered home in the rain in his borrowed coat at half-past four and woke up at six-thirty in the living room, sitting upright in a chair with the fully-hooded coat still making blinkers and the tv plays static. It's light. Bed...

... and up to the Heathmount the next night, catching up with folk bound for Rock Ness - James, Anna, Baker, Nicky, Sanjay, Martyn, Andy, Barbara, Clare, Ruaridh. I was drinking orange squash in an effort to dilute my hangover. Andy and I had a hour-long debate about the role of public-funded radio which was a lot more interesting than it might sound.

That cricket net in London has wound me up in all sorts of trouble. One of the guys from Dad's am-dram group plays for the local Northern Counties Second XI. On his invitation I went along to a net, and wound up with games on both Saturday and Sunday. The Saturday game was for the First XI away to Huntly, who are one of the best teams in the league. Thanks to Rock Ness, our team was depleted to three First team regulars, two players from the seconds, me, four of the Juniors and Sandra, one of the juniors' mums. And we still nearly beat them... valiant defeat, soup, midges, haar. Sunday was less glorious but a similar story - playing in the cup for the Seconds, and seven Juniors to replace the desaparecidos. We lost. Miserable weather.


Since then I've been taking the dog for the odd walk (he nearly caught a duckling the other day - as if he'd actually know what to do with it), reading an Ian Rankin Rebus novel every day and listening to the new Modest Mouse record: We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank is even better than the excellent Good News For People Who Love Bad News. I drink coffee and work at the computer so I can listen to the Triple J request show with Rosie Beaton. I type up my notes from travelling. Late night I stay up to watch A History Of Violence, Serenity, Rosemary's Baby, Catch-22, Inside Man. We went to the movies to see At World's End, which is not nearly as execrable as Tim made out. It is hopelessly convoluted and riddled with pointless special effects but it also has Johnny Depp arguing with himself about peanuts.

Botswana! Iceland, Patagonia! Ivory Coast, New Orleans, Mexico... the Day Of The Dead festival.

Bluebells and daffodils

Just every now and then, I get caught up in songs. Although I'm not responsible for crimes against music like Gavin Nicol, who is entirely capable of listening to one song on repeat for days on end until you want to kill him, then the band, and then yourself. I hear Gav is going to Chamonix, though the reasons for this trip have been made vague by contradiction. The point of all of which is, a song by The Shins is caught in my head. It is called, by coincidence, 'Australia', and you can listen to it on http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=3225508, if you like. I don't much care for their other work, but this cuts me hard.

"You've been alone since you were 21
You haven't laughed since January..."

...wrapped up in a lovely little pop song.

London was OK, except for the last day where I was struck down by a hangover of truly epic proportions, the result of drinking 7.9% cider with Banks and Dancing Phil. It was one of those rare monsters that pulses stabbing pain through both sides of your head if you open your eyes. It was touch and go, for a while, until I had several paracetamol and two boiled eggs. And for a week I lived in the mistaken belief we were a day and a half ahead of the actual date. Tim and Alanna set me straight. I also had a couple of cricket nets which left me in well-earned agony, but sparked my interest in the game again. It was beaten out of me at Lancaster, and I didn't imagine it coming back. But cricket balls, much like carabiners, are objects of such tremendous, immediate tangibility that it is hard to resist them for long.

And now I'm back at home; the first plan was to see everyone in Edinburgh and Glasgow before coming back, but plans change, and - mostly for reasons of poverty - I've come straight to Inverness. I spent most of the train journey north of Edinburgh looking for rocks. Mum and Dad are well; the dog is all growed up, and we have a new kitten who embraces every new experience with almost lethal curiosity. The top third of the lawn has been staked with a gigantic trellis that should make croquet interesting, and we spent most of this afternoon digging up the old herb bed and using the mud to make, "A mound, you know, like a croissant". There will be bluebells and daffodils, sooner or later.

The revised plan, the second plan is to stay here while job-hunting for work in Edinburgh or Glasgow. I'm not especially fussy which. It means much time on the internet, and on every new form I tackle the dreary issue of rewriting my camera assistant CV for a job in an industry that is radically different in both attitude and application. I've applied for a post with the RSPB in Glasgow that looks like it would be good for me; moreover I'm facing up to the hard fact that all of the few jobs I'm qualified for - other than camera assisting - have preposterous titles concluding with 'officer', and I think again about Subway advertising for 'Sandwich artists' and I feel shame, shame. Media & Communications Officer; Press Relations Officer: substitute 'officer' for 'assistant' and you might hit the mark. I think the switch must have been orchestrated at a national level to generate staff motivation without giving a payrise. Bullshit parlance, a modern condition, punching above your weight. Tired again, always... I miss some things in Australia but it was the right time to leave. I haven't had any regrets, yet. Delaying the inevitable.

Wouldn't it be great if you could vote to napalm the Big Brother house? Wouldn't that be something? I'd watch that fucking special. And I think someone needs to feed acid to Avril Lavigne. Either kind. And they should bring back Crystal Maze. Banks and I once discussed in some depth the need to up the ante of punishments on Crystal Maze... electrifying the water in Atlantis zone, maybe, or using real guillotines in Aztec. Deep, deep inside Futuristic zone:

“Now Tracy, this is a physical game. But if the bell sounds three times, then the door will lock and the room will implode to the size of an orange.”
“What about me?”
“You’ll be inside.”
“Inside the orange?”
“Umm... yes.”
“So what size will I be?”
“Well, smaller than the orange, Tracy.”
“Oh. OK. I see the rope, and the bells, and the crystal, but where’s the orange?”

Click – whoosh. Goodbye Tracy! Too much television. I have a bad habit of flicking channels late at night until I'm too tired to focus. The upshot is that you can catch the tailend of excellent movies such as American Ninja 2: The Confrontation or Leprechaun 4: Space Platoon.

I've finished Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72; it's tremendous. I've started Travels With The Flea by Jim Perrin, and there is a stack of books queued up on the windowsill, read and to be read, the results of unpacking rucksack and room. I found my small map of the world, and I looked at the places I have been and the places I want to go, if I can ever twist my brain into the right shapes to enjoy them. I've been rereading my notes from my trip around Europe last year, while working on Trick Of The Mind... Jesus, no. The year before that. That would have been take-twenty-four... but there was nothing very happy about Vienna, about Monaco, about Venice, where the pigeons cluster on first-floor railings or skulk alone on mossy posts. I ripped them all apart. The hordes of tourists, or the worthless rich fuckers with expensive cars and trophy wives in cocktail lounges, the diners in street cafes, the orchestras competing for tips in the Plaza Saint Marco. I remember that American woman, the twist in her hair as she yelled at the band while they rested and shared a smoke.
“How much? How much for some more songs?”
“Madam, we cannot…”
“C’mon, how much son?”
“Madam, the first violin has gone…”
“Fuck the first violin, you’ll play better without him. Come on, how much?”

The fat joggers by the Danube, pointlessly soft porn in the hotel rooms, bins for dog shit, bins for drink cans, boulderers on bridges before I knew what bouldering was, drinking with Coops and Jenny in the hotel pool at 6am. Or in Mauritius, those long tunnels in endless sugar cane but almost hysterical on the plane home.

Too much time on autopilot and youll lose your sense of wonder, your sense of spite, and both are important. I'd like to feel settled anywhere for longer than three months.



"All you need is one more Saturday..."