Time After Time

I trimmed my beard this morning. Not the exactly the pinnacle of human achievement, I grant you. Nothing added to our collective understanding, no great secrets of the cosmos unveiled - quite possibly an activity of such extreme insignificance as to rank alongside knowing how to open a cereal packet without tearing the cardboard top, recalling how hard you laughed when Margaret Thatcher resigned, or being able to name any of the contestants on Strictly-Come-X-Factor-Idol-So You Think You Can Pick Your Nose?...

It was, however, significant to me, because I was starting to resemble the mutant offspring of Brian Blessed & a border collie...
...and finally felt I could allow myself the time to do the job (the electric-clipping bit's fast enough - it's the cleaning-up afterwards that takes so long...the tough little hairs seem to fly off everywhere, then cling determinedly to the damn basin. And then there are all those tricky bloodstains...).

You see, this whole single parent/musician lark seems to be placing more & more pressure on my time management lately. Some days simply to consist of a litany of mundane and menial domestic chores, half-an-hour plonking around (quietly) on something stringed (but only after I've got the kids in bed & dealt with the washing), finished off by cramming in as many of the on-line social & self-promotional obligations that are concomitant with the modern music business model as possible. (But infinitely preferable to scratching a bare existence out of infertile soil, without the comforts of electricity or running water, certainly. This is not intended, I hope, to be an exercise in self-pity).

Which is why the shaving just wasn't happening. Inessential, takes too long, so it can wait. As can, for instance, television. Not to mention the vast heap of literature, films, music, philosophy, politics, sport, blogs, twits, etc that I might have some passing curiosity in, the accumulated cultural detritus of the 'every artefact can be preserved forever' digital age.

Heck, I probably shouldn't even be writing this blog entry - do I really need to be doing this? Does anybody out there really want to be reading it? (Think I know the answer to that one already, cheers).

Seriously, though, I originally wanted to write stuff that might prove worthwhile-yet-amusing, that sometimes involved proper research - magazine-feature style, rather than occasional drips of solipsistic snivelling.

So here's the crux of the matter. For musicians (especially the annoyingly young ones - without families, mortgages, hearing loss, colostomy bags, etc), the temptation to waste whole screeds of time is enormous - after all, rehearsing/recording/gigging/touring often involve a great deal of waiting around, so why shouldn't we spend more of the rest of our time on stuff we want to do, huh? No reason at all...except we never have as much time as we fool ourselves into thinking.

You genuinely want to take your music seriously? (rather than simply use it as an excuse for ingesting recreational chemicals and magnifying your putative sex appeal)

Turn off the TV, (still the world's greatest black hole of time wastage, in spite of the challenge from social networking sites and YouTube), accept that "going down the pub" instead of re-stringing your guitar won't help you achieve your goals, and concentrate your efforts on making the most of the opportunities that come your way. You'll catch up on all those books & films eventually, when that arthritic hip has crimped your gigging style a touch...

Finally, speaking as someone who suffers sporadic bouts of insomnia (and occasionally has it forced upon him), I can't recommend trying to make the day last longer as a solution. Agreed, it's an obvious route to go down in an effort to fit everything in, but sleep deprivation only makes us (more) stupid and fat. Ok, that's maybe a slight simplification of the medical evidence (see below for details), but insufficient sleep does us no favours, even if it's only short-term. And don't get me started on trying to combat the effects with caffeine and/or cigarettes...or anything else...

Oh, and don't become a single parent. Trust me, that doesn't work out so well with the music thing either.

More grumpy-old-man witterings coming soon. Ish. If I have the time.


A few brief slices of sleep research:

"Less effective executive functioning after one night's sleep deprivation"
(Journal of Sleep Research, full article)

"Sleep deprivation doubles risks of obesity in children & adults"
(Warwick Medical School, press release & podcast)

"Can You Catch Up On Sleep?"
(NHS inform, research & article on its misrepresentation in media)

"Neurocognitive Consequences of Sleep Deprivation"
(Semin Neurol, abstract)

Relative effects on performance of sleep deprivation & alcohol
(Occupational & Environmental Medicine, abstract)

Have A Cigar

Afternoon.

Since it's been a whole year since I launched my website on an unsuspecting (and mostly indifferent) world, I thought it only proper to provide anyone who might be interested in my musical endeavours with an 'annual report', to show how the whole thing's been meandering along - oh, and prove once and for all that I am not, in any conceivable way, like U2 (just in case there was any lingering confusion).

I won't be moving my assets to Holland to avoid tax.

I will never insult my fans' intelligence by suggesting the only reason they didn't go out and buy 20 million copies of my last album was because I had "made a work that is a bit challenging for people who have grown up on a diet of pop stars".

I am taller, and have considerably more hair than Bono.

Right, now that's taken care of, here are some extremely exciting statistics:

Site visits: 4,792

Track plays: 666

Downloads: 31

Sales: 22

Gross Revenue (ie pre-Bandcamp & PayPal fees): £110.47

So, not exactly setting the heather alight...or even warming a small patch of it just a little. Still, nae mind, eh? Insane fiscal benefits were never a serious consideration - although I must confess that being able to afford new strings was handy. Additionally, if I was a pop kid on a typical record company deal I might have seen about £10 of that revenue, if I was (very) lucky.

Thanks to everyone who has listened to my noises, immense gratitude to those who downloaded them, and who knows what the next 12 months may bring...?


p.s. As a wee comparison, over the same period 1,413 people visited this blog a total of 1,890 times, generating 2,456 page views. The most 'popular' page being December 2009's "State of Independence" (offering some better alternatives to the 'Simon Cowell vs. RATM' nonsense that was going on). My favourite search engine enquiries that (somehow) led people here: "why the fuss over heroes of Telemark?", "strompebukse fetish" (it's a Scandinavian thing, it would seem), and "braw neeps" (that'll teach me to suggest it as a comedy band name).

May all your turnips, indeed, be fine.

I Belong To Glasgow

Ah, dear old Glasgow – that unique Scottish metropolitan experience, where the average life expectancy is the shortest in the country, you can treat yourself to “authentic Indian tapas” (instead of that fake Indian tapas that's so prevalent everywhere else), and the road signs become increasingly-didactic the closer you get to its concrete-and-despair-clad outskirts: “Please use your seatbelt”, “Be a courteous driver”, “Dinnae pick yer nose or we’ll chib ye”.

[To be fair to the "tapas" - which apparently means "heat" in Sanskrit - folk, they might just be referring to the "essential energies" of the yogic tradition, a sense of deliberate self-discipline & austerity related to a higher purpose in life. Or not.]

Still, today I come to praise Glasgow (for once), rather than bury it - even if that does seem like the most merciful option from time to time. For one thing, the city certainly possesses some fine architecture:

and for another, it's home to the small-but-perfectly-formed "Strung Out Guitars":

tucked away in the railway arches of King's Court, in the south-easternmost corner of Glasgow's central 'Merchant City' area, Strung Out is a delightful haven of independent instrument expertise & fascinating second-hand gear...some of which was pleasantly familiar from my dim & ever-more-distant past hanging around the old Live Music shop in Edinburgh back in the mid-1980s.

A few Sundays ago (yes, I work on a geological time-scale), I happened to be in the vicinity with a couple of hours to use up, so after I'd wandered around taking photographs (occasionally endangering residents by standing on bins & other assorted street furniture to get a better view), and enjoying the sunshine (an incredibly rare commodity in those parts), I headed over to see what they were all about...

...and ended-up being handed a not-yet-on-display 1965 Martin D-18 acoustic to plonk around on - currently could be yours for £2399 (correct as of 20/09/10). Which was far too nice for me, but hey, I wasn't about to start complaining.

Anyway, suffice to say, with its fine assortment of noise-making equipment, and friendly (& extremely knowledgeable) staff - oh, and did I mention they're top-notch specialist instrument repairers, too? - Strung Out is all the reason you need to make the effort and drag yourself over to Glasgow sometime soon...just remember your potential lifespan, and obey the road signs, eh?

One White Duck / 0^{10} = Nothing At All

Afternoon.

After virtually no deliberation whatsoever I have decided that, in honour of the current state of my bank account - and the level of political genius swilling around our delightful Lib-Con government - September shall henceforth be known as "Vacuity Month".

[ vacuity: noun (vacuities) 1 the state or quality of being vacuous. 2 a foolish thought or idea. 3 formal an empty space.
(from the Chambers on-line dictionary) ]

So let me invite you most cordially to celebrate the next 30 days of glorious emptiness by posting superficially-meaningful-yet-utterly vacuous statements, (i.e. precisely the kind of stuff that seems to get the most attention on Twitter, advertisements for mobile phones/cars/the latest gratuitous Apple iCack, and 'motivational' posters*), wherever and whenever seems appropriate.

Vacuity, after all, does have a long and noble history - for instance, in Wu Ch'eng-en's C16th Chinese classic "Monkey", the Monkey King is given the name "Aware-of-Vacuity" when he is accepted as a pupil by the Taoist immortal Patriarch Subodhi (chapter 1, page 18 in my copy).

Here then, without further ado, is my first 'Vacuity Of The Day':

"Inspiration can come at any moment, yet the leaf cannot drift upstream"

cheer up, there are only 29 more to go...


*when it comes to "motivation", I much prefer these.

Kiss Me, Honey, Honey, Kiss Me

Evening. Time to delve into my ancient history again, thanks to a ceilidh-related request from a fiddler friend. You see, many centuries ago, when I was wandering around various bits of the country with the WildGeese Ceilidh Band, playing the bass and waffling instructions (along with bad impressions & odd 'humour') into a microphone in an attempt to prevent any major injuries on the dance floor, there was one particular dance I used to call that seemed to offer all the participants (band included) more...amusement...than any other.

Now my good friend Jon asked if I could pass on the instructions, but I'd completely forgotten a couple of important things - firstly, which dark recess of a cupboard I'd "tidied" the book it originally came from into, and secondly, how I'd modified it (slightly) to allow for the level of both technical ability and alcoholic impairment found in your average ceilidh dancer.

You see, the "average" ceilidh is a very special thing. It will, almost inevitably, be a wedding. In a marquee. That's on a slope. And it shall bring together a wider range of experience, age, lack of willingness to participate (especially the blokes), and quantity of booze required to sufficiently overcome that aforementioned lack (again, blokes), than at any other species of public performance. I have no statistics to prove this, of course, but seeing as how I've done hundreds of wedding ceilidhs, I'm a self-proclaimed internet expert on the matter - so if you don't agree with me, then you're just like Hitler. Or Stalin. Whichever you prefer. Possibly Robert Mugabe if you're feeling a little more creative.

Anyway, at these events the caller has to cope with incredibly reluctant folk who've driven all the way up from East Grinstead, (had several rows over directions, arrived late, and are still angry because one of them got the drinks in damn quickly so they wouldn't have to drive back even though the other thought they'd agreed....), and have no clue what all this "Scotch dancing" nonsense is about, being thrown together with smug eejits from the Royal Scottish Country Prance (sic) Society, who find ceilidh dances so dreadfully simple and beneath them, so why, oh why can't the band just start because everyone will be able to follow what they're doing easily...and why has their request for the "Reel of the Auchterfistin Fish-manglers" (sets of 11 couples, arranged diagonally at the points of a decihedron, with only the spare ones in the middle dancing while the rest look on with artificial, synchronised-swimmer smiles and clap along) not been played yet?

Fortunately another delving session produced the goods - "Back In Step" (the dances) by 'The Occasionals', which if you click on the link, can, I believe, be obtained in exchange for money (hopefully that should prevent any potential unpleasantness surrounding copyright).

So here it is, for anyone wishing to partake - "The Russian Ballet". Better known (to the band), as "The Russian Snogging Dance" (for reasons which shall become obvious).

Music - anything with a heavy 2-big-beats-in't-bar feel that can start slow & speed up. Russian, if you've got it, but there's no point being too bothered about it. They'll be too drunk to care.
Sets of 3 - (1 man & 2 women, 2 women & 1 man, 3 men, 2 wolverines & George Osborne, whatever. A mixture, ideally)

Each set of 3 stands in a line, "odd-one-out" in the middle of the trio, facing anti-clockwise ("widdershins", if you will), and holding hands. Which is nice.

First 4 bars: Starting on the left foot (not that it really matters), march forward for 3 steps, and kick the right foot out in front while shouting "Hoi!" loudly, in as guttural a cod-East European manner as possible. Then march backwards for another 3 steps and kick/"Hoi!" again. We used to start the dance at "Soviet State Funeral" pace, (the ones where the guy's secretly been dead for months, but the corpse had finally become so tatty they couldn't keep propping it up at military parades any longer), which seemed to work pretty well.

Next 8 bars: An intricate little manoeuvre officially known as "Double Arches" - aka "going under the sweaty armpits". (8 bars should allow plenty of time for this, but once the dance speeds up, it can get...interesting). The middle person raises their left arm, thus making an arch (with their left-hand partner's right arm). The right-hand partner now heads over to & through this arch, followed by the middle person - who turns underneath their own left arm - and back to their original position. The key to this is to keep holding hands - although if the middle person uses too tight a grip they can end up in what closely resembles a very painful Jiu Jitsu restraint position. Not nice at all.

Fairly obviously, the middle person now raises their right arm, allowing the left-hand partner to scoot through that arch & back to their place. Hopefully people haven't neglected their personal hygiene on the day.

Last 4 bars: Middle person turns & snogs (at last - here's the gravy) the person on their left, turns and snogs the person on their right, then walks forward to join a different pair of 'outside' partners - calling something like "Kiss! Kiss! Forward, two, three, aaand..." helps to prevent over-lingerers slowing the whole thing down with too much tongue-entangling at this point. All of which means, if you've done your job properly & you've got a fair mixture of trios on the floor to start with...oh yes. The slow dawning of realisation on the part of those who may, perhaps, not be entirely secure in their sexuality is priceless. Oddly enough, this discomfiture is almost always confined to the blokes...

....and there you have it. Not earth-shattering, not ground-breaking, but a simple wee bit o' fun. Repeat until they can't keep up with the band, or something of that order.

Sometimes I miss it. I really do. Ach, well.

Bastille Day

Sometimes I feel like the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, I'm running so late for almost everything. Still, after more than 2 years of very sporadic recording, I've finally got something that just about passes for an album of music available on-line for the world to embrace - or, quite possibly ignore, but hey, ya gotta stay optimistic.

Yes, that's right, competitively priced at only £3 - well, George Osborne's already started spreading the pain around all those with less than a quarter of the average income of his personal friends, and the market for 'instrumental music that doesn't fit into any easily-defined genre' isn't exactly buoyant (bouzoukis haven't quite captured the public imagination...yet) - "the mourning tree" was released into the wild this week. (On the 14th, to be exact, which happens to be my mother's birthday. Oh, and something happened in France a while back...probably involved bicycles).

Of course, this means that I'm now into the unpleasant and self-esteem-devouring next phase - trying to persuade people that paying for music is, (in this case anyway), an excellent idea, and that my particular offerings merit both their attention & a little credit card action, too. Sadly, this can feel as if I'm primarily tapping-up my friends for cash, although at least they'd be getting 11 tracks of "landscapes and portraits of longed-for places and much-missed people" in return. (I know, I know, but how would you describe it? Alternative suggestions welcomed).

Striking the right balance is especially tricky. I could take a 'complete honesty' approach, and let folk know that without some small financial encouragement, continuing with the pleasant fiction that I'm still a "serious" musician (rather than simply a full-time single parent who's just trying to stay sane) won't be possible, what with the price of bass strings and other such minor necessities.

That might come across as ever-so-slightly desperate, however, which never goes down well. It's a fine line.

Anyway. There it is, "the mourning tree" is done and hoping to find some friendly ears. All I can do is invite y'all to come over, give it a listen, and see what you think...

Cheers,

Andy

Into The Lens

Afternoon. Well, I've finally got some new music out there - "the older we get" is a fretless bass-driven, (heavily ECM-influenced..?), track that's intended to follow-on from my earlier "the more like ourselves we become". Apologies if using the first part of the aphorism as a title seems a little back-to-front - it just came out that way. Possibly this reveals something deep & meaningful about the state of my parenthood-addled mind. Or not.

Oh, and if that wasn't enticing enough already (!), it also features some occasional tinkly noises courtesy of my fancy new Roland SRX-11 "Complete Piano" board (big thanks to Dave & Will at Red Dog in Edinburgh for invaluable assistance & incredible customer service).

Anyway, even if no-one thinks much of the music, hopefully at least folk might like what I was trying to do with the artwork, aka "mucking about with some photographs what I took" - and I'll be inflicting a description of the whole D.I.Y., no-budget process on the world right here later this week...child-free time permitting, naturally.

Cheers.

There's No Way Out Of Here

This is a small, inadequate apology for the lack of posting in these parts in a very long while.

Sorry.

There won't, I'm afraid, be anything appearing until well after the Easter 'holidays', when my schedule returns to something akin to normality, and I might get enough of my brain back to allow rational thought to begin again.

Currently, my tedious single-parenthood means I only have the space after both monkeys have gone to bed in which to do...everything. Typing nonsense about subjects that aren't going to change anybody's life doesn't exactly figure too high on the list of stuff that needs to be done, either.

There are, of course, so many things going on presently which are extremely noteworthy - Papal obfuscations & evasions, the UK general election (aka grand lying & airbrushing contest), giant clouds of Icelandic volcanic ash - but there are far more interesting & informed folk than I producing vast screeds of information on such matters already. Trying to add to it would simply be superfluous.

Anyway, apologies again for the long unexplained silence. Some service may resume eventually.

In the meantime, here's a photograph of myself from 1995, which looks (& feels) like a very long time ago indeed, and proves conclusively that I've never had any sense of style whatsoever...

Don't Bring Me Down

Since tomorrow (at the time of writing, Sunday, the 14th of February, 2010. When you happen to be reading this, who knows? Not that it'll make much difference - like so many of us, it doesn't improve with age), happens to be the annual "International Day Of Kitsch Tat And Misery", and with my current singleton status unlikely to change any time soon, I thought I'd take a wee stab at cheering myself up by focussing on some of the simple things in life that I like, enjoy, appreciate, etc.

Following on from last week's "positive negative" campaign for non-voters, I came up with a small personal challenge, which I can thoroughly recommend if you're particularly bored, or just trying to avoid work...the latter being something I find far too easy to do (I should be bouzouki-ing my fingers to the bone right now, for instance, rather than write this ephemera).

Give yourself one minute (nae cheating) to write down/type out a list of "things you like" (and nae cheating by selective editing after you've finished to make yourself look better, like some politician appearing on Desert Island Discs, either). Then, if you're like me (oh dear) be surprised at all the stuff that didn't make it onto the list as the final seconds rushed away.

Oh, and there were a couple of other rules, too - no vague, woolly abstracts like "committing yourself to the cause of world peace" (or indeed, "world low-intensity conflict" if you're an arms dealer..unlikely, admittedly, but...). That's all great and lovely (not so much if it's the 'arms dealer' scenario), but could you be a little bit more specific, please? Name your favourite pro-peace (or war) organisation(s) instead, ok? And I consciously avoided anything to do with "lurve", since however much I may enjoy "snuggling" (a lot, since you didn't ask), there isn't any going-on around here, and this was meant to be about 'happiness'. No specific musicians, bands, or genres of music either, because thinking about that topic would have sabotaged my already-limited brain and prevented it from considering anything else.

Anyway, here's my 'honest & genuine' little list, in exactly the (dis)order in which it issued forth:

My kids, Bergen, rowing boats, hills, trees, flowers, Edinburgh, running, lifting, bouzoukis, bass guitars, chocolate, Puddledub Pork, castles, Norse sagas, history!, David Hume, John Muir, Richard Dawkins, my friends, red wine, Port Ellen, whisky, rugby, dogs, Keswick.

No idea why I typed an exclamation mark after "history", and yes, starting with "my kids" might seem a little contrived, but that's just what came out. Surprising, maybe, after the way the little beggars had been behaving today...

A few brief, but possibly necessary, explanations: "Puddledub Pork" are producers of delicious bacon and the fantastic "Auchtertool Originals" sausages; "running" is probably a reaction to my knee cartilage injury/surgery last year (I don't run up hills these days, just after my kids, but it's a great feeling - trying to do some "lifting" again though, albeit very carefully, and with a lot lighter weights than in years past); I'd been discussing John Muir and what an incredible life he'd had with my older monkey earlier; "Port Ellen" is, for me, the finest malt whisky ever produced; "Bergen" is a wonderful place, albeit expensive; finally, sorry, but I haven't a clue how "flowers" got in there, but "bicycles" didn't. Or "photography", for that matter, which is something I really enjoy (however mediocre the results may be).

Like I said, give it a try yourself - hopefully your results will make as little sense as mine.

Still, for what it's worth, thought I might as well finish by entering into the St. Valentine's Day spirit...

For Sale: Scottish bloke, medium-size, 1969 version. Single parent, reasonable condition for age (although some visible deterioration). Fully domesticated, comes with 2 "boisterous & energetic" children. 7 previous owners (some more careful than others). Might suit lady of similar vintage capable of tolerating fondness for hills, prog rock, & alleged sense of humour. Offers in the region of "Will work for food".

Power To The People

Every time we have an election in this country, I do the same tiresome, irritating thing - urge people to go out and VOTE. Participate. Stand up, shuffle off down to the nearest primary school (or wherever the voting station happens to be), and be counted - unless you're using a postal ballot, where past evidence suggests you may already have been counted several times, or not at all (it's electoral roulette, without quite so much misplaced optimism, excitement, or slim chance of any financial gain...unless someone offers you hard cash for your ballot paper). Even if you're in the safest of safe seats for a party whose policies you despise but you have no realistic chance of removing - please, please, vote. I know, the election itself is still up to three months away, but I thought I'd give myself plenty of time to get the message out this year.

It's not that I particularly mind who you vote for (ok, honestly, I'd much rather you didn't support any flagrant bigots, or the Conservatives, or...), and it's not as if there isn't a wider choice than ever before. There are parties for almost everyone these days - from the religious "we adore our supernatural invisible friend who loves and knows what's best for everyone, but homosexuality is bad", to the xenophobic "we love our country - or how it was in a mythical 1950's that never actually existed, but foreigners (and homosexuals, come to think of it) are bad", via the ridiculous George Galloway-esque "We are all Hamas now! Even though they say both certain foreigners and homosexuals are bad, oh, and violently repress anyone who disagrees with them...but..errr...they hate America, and they're being oppressed too, so..err.." crowd.

[Perhaps one day there'll even be a post-modernist party who regard all political views as equally valid, so espouse everything (and nothing) simultaneously - yes, you're right, Tony Blair came perilously close, and Obama is sailing in the same direction - and regard elections in a reflexive manner, with the voters 'meta-reactions' towards policy decisions being interpreted through the medium of a shin-kicking contest....?]

It's undeniable that, under the UK's shamefully unrepresentative current system, in most parliamentary seats only a couple of parties stand a genuine chance of winning, so a vote for a 'minority' party might seem to be a waste of time - although that's not necessarily the whole story, since even if voter support is not translated directly into seats, it can mean increased media coverage, membership, financial support,etc,etc which would benefit your cause of choice (lost or otherwise) in the future. Plus a vote for the "Rainbow Unity Old Folks' Legalise Guinea-Pig Eating, Ban Nude Cricket Coalition" is at least standing up for something you believe in, so you can feel good about yourself in a slightly smug way.

Usually by this point, too many people I know will have trotted out the old (and demonstrably false)"don't vote - it only encourages them", or "it doesn't matter who you vote for, all politicians are the same" clichés, or variations on those themes. These arguments are, I'm afraid to have to say, a load of bollocks.

Not realising that there are significant differences between the (three or four, depending on where you live) major parties in the UK, is simply an admission of personal ignorance. If, for instance, you haven't spotted yet that David Cameron and chums are, underneath the overly-smoothed exterior, really only a twinset-and-pearls away from Thatcherism (and all that that entails), then you haven't been paying any attention. There's an election campaign heading our way rapidly, and a host of easily-accessible sources of reasonably reliable information (not Wikimpedimentia, please) available. Who knows, there's the remote possibility that a substantive argument might even be put forward in one of the televised debates...but don't get your hopes up, it's pretty unlikely. So not acknowledging/understanding the variations between the species is not a reasonable position. The variations might not be as great as you personally would prefer, but that's not the same thing, and as previously mentioned, there are lots of other choices on the electoral menu.

Deciding not to vote at all isn't an especially clever choice either. All that "not voting" achieves is to make it easier for politicians to ignore you, and for bigots like Nick Griffin to gain power. In the European Parliament elections, the BNP didn't increase its vote, but a large number of (predominantly) Labour voters went off in a huff, and by not bothering to vote at all, allowed the bigots to take the victory. If these disaffected-but-lazy Labourites had gone out and registered a 'protest vote' for *any* other party, the BNP wouldn't have had a sufficient share of the votes cast to be elected. Some achievement. Hope the "non voters" in the north of England are properly proud of themselves.

After centuries of struggle for representation, where people suffered enormously for the right to vote, I find it depressing that so many people today simply don't bother, even though there are so many options to vote positively for, and voting is so easy to do. We no longer have the spectacle of women chained to railings, desperately fighting against legal prejudice, suffering forcible feeding in prisons - merely for the right to have their say. Here in Dunfermline, admittedly, at certain hours of the weekend, you can witness women leaning on railings, struggling not to vomit while shouting incoherently into the mobile phones that they're too drunk to operate...but that's another issue - possibly they're just canvassing on behalf of the "Too stoshious tae stand fer onyhing..'cept maybe that Brad Pitt, ye ken? He's gorgeous!" party? Who knows...

What "not voting" also fails to do at all is "send them a message", which is something else folk have used to justify their idleness/apathy. (Rain affecting turnout is, frankly, pathetic).

So here's an idea. A little challenge to the apathetic...

If you don't think voting does any good, if you don't like any of the myriad political views on offer - start your own campaign.

Launch a group with a simple aim - to encourage people to make a minimal effort on election day, head over to their local polling stations, and write NO in nice, clear capital letters on the ballot paper.

It would be extremely easy (and cost nothing) to organise this on a massive scale, thanks to the internet - set-up the Facebook Group, Bebo, MySpace, etc. Twitter away merrily. Blog your progress. Co-ordinate your efforts and send press releases via email. The media are always hungry for stories - remember what happened with the Simon Cowell/Rage Against The Machine business at Christmas? Well, that could be you saying NO on the BBC Breakfast sofa this time...what more incentive do you need?

If you gathered enough support, if the number of NO papers was in, say, only in the tens of thousands, then you might just get the politicians' attention. Plenty of them are sitting on small enough majorities to be nervous, and an orchestrated campaign like that could make all the difference...

I did mention you could achieve all that for free, didn't I? Good. Just checking.

So please, in this next election, whoever, whatever you support, exercise the right your great-great-great-great grandparents most likely were denied...and vote. It's a hard-won privilege, which too many of us forget all too easily.