We can't be serious all the time. What follows is my latest selection of wholly accidental phone pictures, usually taken in the process of fumbling the phone into or out of my pocket. The descriptions probably say more about me than about the pictures, but I'll leave others to judge. 

"Without prejudice" mutters Bull-neck, apparently to himself, lost on his mission to pass through life unencumbered, even by clothes. The almost apologetic bolt from the blue makes no impression; if he so much as notices it, he gives no sign, but blunders on, looking forward and down. Always down. His early baseball cap years have taught him there is no sky, no stars. Now sure in this knowledge, he has no need to shade his eyes. There is no light.

The roof is long gone. The malting loft has crumbled and fallen onto the the stills below. Rats have ravaged the barley sacks and mice gleaned their leavings. Wind, rain and time have stolen the last vestige of brewing aroma, leaving instead danknes and mildew. But the gleam of copper, caught in a wet Hebridean sunbeam, still speaks of uisge beathe, the water of life, and of death. 

The Farm of Dragonhide

is where the lines are straight

and all that is green is painted.

Clapped out tankers pass for tractors

for nothing is sown, nothing grown

and nothing harvested.

Dragonhide Farm mattered once.

No-one remembers why.

And if I see you when the rowans are ripe, walking alone by the mill stream, will you remember two younger people, eager and a little scared, talking of blackbirds and finding new ways to hold hands by accident? Will you know me still, or see only a worn mask? And will you be wearing that purple mohair, the one that smelt of spilt guinness and Hartnell's 'In Love', the best a student could afford? 

This is the cavern and council of the shining ones. This is their forum. They are their own light. When they meet it is always in splendour. The golden ones are first among their kind, their radiance of a higher order. They do not speak in words. There is no need, as they come together in perfect agreement, and their will is done. They know us, know our ways, and wonder. 

This picture is a complete mystery - a fortuitous combination of colours and camera movement conspiring to create a highway crossing a red sandstone desert. It's one of my favourite random snaps. One I'd have been proud to have created deliberately. Suffice it to say it's indoors, in Doha. I've been to Nevada, but this wasn't it! 

Come buy, come buy! The shrouded dreamseller rattles his wares, with promises of a chemical future. Come buy! He needs your love, your, trust, your money, as all his own is gone. His face, too, is gone, with the last of his humanity, He who should have died, remains to kill. Come buy, come buy!

By now, if you've read this far, you probably think I'm quite mad. But I'm not. Not quite :)

Thank you for reading!