Duncan Harley

This lockdown situation has involved lots of changes. Social distancing, millions furloughed or working from home and more millions immersed in some bizarre governmental inspired Churchillian rhetoric dating from the 1940’s. Hopefully this time around we shall not be fighting in France. Bright lights on the horizon such as Sturgeon suggest that there may be an opportunity here to re-purpose and re-focus and I hope she is both correct in this assumption and correctly listened to. Anyway, not only am I in lockdown, but as of last week I am in something termed shielded lockdown. What does this mean? Well, I am part of an alien group who should avoid all human contact whatsoever just in case. Not that I currently have the virus, although I suspect I may have already had it some weeks ago, but just that I may get it – but nobody knows. Hence the enhanced shielding. Plusses? An offer of a weekly food parcel and priority access to supermarket delivery slots. I may take the powers tha...

Boris got tough virus-wise on March 23, thirty days ago according to the Sun and same thirty days ago according to the Guardian. So that’s alright then. Thirty days to get used to lockdown and thirty days to find stuff to occupy the long days. No problem, I’ll write another book I thought. At maybe 2k words each day it should take at most forty days plus maybe another 10 days of formatting. Then add maybe ten editing days and ten more for subbing and more subbing. Trick with subbing of course is to spot grammar as well as spelling mistakes. Trick two – read it all backwards out loud from back to front. That’ll sort out the men from the buoys! Plus of course punctuation. Ok, make that eighty or so days. Or maybe 90 when you include proofing for accuracy, dates, timelines – we are talking non-fiction local history here! And, of course, the placing of images, creation of a cover plus some back-page. I could go on. Oh, and I need a willing graphic artist for that cover. The cover s...

I get sent the odd album along with a modicum of books to review. The books are easy. Dip in, test the flavour, form an opinion, make some comments and pen a few words. Over the years of course, I have reviewed everything from dire travelogues about Aberdonian suspension bridges – yes there are such things – to a quite splendid Dracula prequel with pretty much everything in between. And what a privilege. You never know what the postman will bring next though . A month or so ago, prior to all this virus stuff, I received a block-stream of music from Corrie @ Hanna Innes Communications. The likes of Hamish Napier was foremost amongst the mix alongside a recording of Time to Fly by David Foley and Jack Smedley. Hamish (review @: Aberdeen Voice.com ) I was a bit busy at the time and only got as far as Hamish. Today though, I had a wee listen to David and Jack. Glad I did. Alongside a welcome acoustic vibe, the album reeks of craftsmanship and reflects what the duo refer to...

I n March 2020 Aberdeen Performing Arts switched off the lights in its three iconic venues: His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen Music Hall and the Lemon Tree amid the COVID-19 outbreak. Shows were cancelled and staff put on furlough. Lockdown was about to strike and the theatre doors slammed shut on 17 th  March ironically on the very eve of a week long run of A Monster Calls. You couldn’t really make it up. Cancellations of Buddy Holly, Once and Billionaire Boy swiftly followed and a Scottish Opera run of The Gondoliers described in glowing terms as "Sunny, funny and with more ‘tra la la las’ per square inch than any other opera in the canon" was swiftly consigned to the bottom of the Grand Canal. But, as they say, the show must go on and today Aberdeen Performing Arts has announced a set of stay-at-home projects and initiatives designed to keep the North-east connected and engaged in arts and culture during this strange pandemic era. Titled We’re here for you, the...

Underneath the atlas - which I found yesterday upon the beach, I discovered a sodden Tom Stoppard script dating from 1977 or thereabouts. I have no idea how or even why it turned up on this distant shore. Signed by none other than Andre Previn it bears the inscription:  ‘To Tom and thank you for the lovely wirds. Hope you liked my wee tunes - your pal Andre xx.' The script of course is long and quite tortuous. In fact, it bears a date-stamp from another age and if truth be told there are lines which even Stoppard might now cringe at. But no matter, even BBC Garnet was eventually made to eat his own words. But back to 1977. The script concerns a Soviet dissident, Alexander Ivanov, who is imprisoned in a mental hospital from which he will not be released until he admits that his statements against the government were caused by a non-existent mental disorder. It’s the ultimate in denial and he shares a cell with a genuinely disturbed schizophrenic also called Ivano...

My first instinct regarding Man March’s philosophical abilities was in fact accurate. He is indeed a dull and uneducated savage. I set him several more philosophical problems and each time he answered me 57. Finally, I realised that I had completely overestimated my skills as an English as a foreign language teacher. His native name is in fact Fifty-seven-mobunga-usaba the 3rd. His family seemingly owned an ice production plant in Norway prior to the Minoan takeover and his grandmother headed up the Mark Cadbury Committee as CEO for the Proposed Invasion of Mars. I mean, you couldn’t make it up! What a complete fool I am and must be in his eyes also. I have told him that my own given name is Alexander and I  now hope that he will still be my friend despite the confusion in sharing our respective nomenclatures. In comparison to Fifty-seven-mobunga-usaba the 3 rd , Alexander Selkirk the 1 st must seem such a bland and unpromising label. As an aside, a tattered internation...

I am happy to report that Man March is much improved today. His mistreatment by those savages has left mental scars no doubt but his physical wounds were in fact minor. In fact, other than a fractured septum and some facial scratches he is generally fine and has even managed to exhibit what I can only take to be a smile. I must now attend to his broader education and, having begun to address his linguistic skills via a crash course in English as a foreign language, have also decided to educate him more widely with a view to developing his skills in critical thinking, analysis, clear writing, and some sustained but vital reflection on important philosophical problems, both contemporary and perennial, concerned with ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, language, logic, the natural and core social sciences, politics, aesthetics, and religion to name but a very few. To start with, I have set him a philosophical problem which few, if indeed any, European thinkers have been able...

Following the unfortunate parrot shooting, Man March and I have this day made our way around the headland where the wreck of my ship, or what lies left of it, sits broken upon the reef. The captain’s lifeless body – once strapped firmly to the aft-mast, has long been consigned to the deep and even the soggy remnants of the ship’s dog have been consumed by that unforgiving Pacific Ocean. I think his name was Rufus – the dog, not the captain and certainly not the ocean, but I am not entirely sure. Shipwrecks naturally have a habit of emptying both the mind and - dare I say it, the bladder. But unless you once experience them first hand, most of you my good readers, might doubt this as a fact and attribute my scribbles to some delusion brought on by some pandemic panic or other. Nonetheless, Man March and I today combed the foreshore in the hope of finding more in the way of handy tools and provisions with which to enhance our chances of survival. Perhaps some oranges, even a grapef...