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 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...

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...

Molly the parrot finally and irretrievably signed her death warrant today with her rendering of yet another unwarranted and unwanted joke and I must warn you that this is quite the most terrible parrot joke I have ever had the displeasure to stumble across on this deserted and god forsaken island. Even my new companion Man March seemed pleased at my action despite the fact that - at least as far as I am aware, he understands little or nothing about either the English language or syntax: ‘Squawk. After more than 40 years of marriage, a woman’s husband suddenly dies. Squawk Squawk For several months she sat alone in her house with the shades pulled and the doors locked. Finally she decided she needed to do something about her situation. The loneliness was killing her. Squawk Squawk. Squawk Squawk. She remembered that her husband had a friend who owned a nice pet store — a pet might be good company. So, Squawk Squawk, she dropped in one afternoon to look over the pet selection. S...

This fending for oneself in a tropical paradise is one thing, but I now need to keep track of time before it runs out or indeed, I go utterly and completely bonkers. For this purpose, I have erected a driftwood timber cross at the north end of the island to record the date of my arrival on this foreign shore. I will, if I am able, cut a single notch each day so as to record the passing of time prior to my rescue from this ghastly place of solitude. Today, in the absence of both bread and meat, I feasted on fermented coconuts. There is an abundance of them on the foreshore. In fact, so many that if one were not careful, they might well prove fatal since if one was to suffer even a glancing blow from a falling fruit, death might well result. Oddly, there is a warning sign advising of the danger. I may have eaten too many of them however since I imagined in my sleep that the Virgin Mary had delivered me from both this place and that my original sins – the gathering of slaves, were...

Eager for slave labour I foolishly embarked on a slave gathering voyage and now find myself shipwrecked and alone on a deserted island off the coast of Trinidad. It seems that I am the sole survivor of the venture and I must now seek both sustenance and shelter in this strange and foreign land. The wreck has so far yielded both gunpowder and food plus some fragments of timber from which I have constructed a rudimentary shelter. There was also a rifle and some barrels of rum. Both of which I shall put to good use. The island is quite lush but deserted and providentially has both water and goats in abundance. Fortunately, my journal floated ashore amongst the wreckage and over the coming days of isolation I am intent on recording my lonely struggle. I may well have been hallucinating, but I swear I saw a parrot amongst the treetops … this must surely be a good omen. Duncan Harley is a writer and blogger living in the Garioch. His books are available from Amazon. Just ...