BSSG EDITORS CRACK – JULY 2020

Who would have ever thought it that the end of the World be so boring and depressing? Where is the nuclear explosion, the giant earthquake or invasion from Mars? All we get is some invisible force that brings communities to its knees and that includes the BSSG.They say it is a virus but it’s more than that. It has done to the World what terrorists failed to do. It seems to have crippled us far more than natural disasters. Fake news and rumours, (is there a difference?) are no defence. Let’s hope that reality finally kicks in and governments recognise the folly of their ways of cancelling funding for scientific research and make amends by giving science the money to cure politician’s ills!!!!!!! To all that clap in the right places then good for you and let’s not disappoint by continuing to boost people’s spirits by voting for the right government that recognises that boost is really linked to boosting the economy.

I am getting fed up seeing so many people out for a walk. People I have never seen before and no doubt once travel restrictions lifted will not see again. Weird isn’t it that when we are told not to do something, we go out of our way to prove we know better than those in authority! I am lucky in living close to a beach so my wife and I often stroll in the sand. During the last few months it’s been like a package holiday orgy where someone has misread the dimensions of social distance and got their metres and millimetres confused. On the subject of terminology of using the word “social” when referring to keeping a healthy distance from each other, why is this behaviour deemed “social”? Shouldn’t it be called “anti-social” On that note the idea of living in a “lock down” smells of being in prison which I guess for some such as convicted criminals would be accurate! Not me though. When I worked at Dounreay we often participated in emergencies exercises such as “lock downs”. I remember we were instructed not to stand or sit near windows in case we were cut by flying glass as a bullet form the enemy entered. I was actually more worried about being shot dead but then now I am retired life is easy, right?

The concept of working from home is somewhat alien for scientific glassblowers unless you have been excellent at your job and been promoted to senior management so all you do all day long is write risk assessments. If on the other hand you need to really do some glass work then placing a bench burner on the kitchen table might not be the most sensible thing. However haven’t bead makers been working from home for years? We should take a look at their approach and maybe adapt accordingly. No doubt some will be going to work and maybe by the time you read this, all will have returned to the so called new normal. Keeping ones distance from customers will I am sure be easy for most as a lot of us work on our own. Must be over twenty years ago since I had an assistant. Had loads of bosses though!

Thirty years ago I stared my own wee (Scottish term for small and nothing to do with bodily fluids!) business with Maureen my late wife. Called “Glass Creations” it is still going strong. Actually that’s a lie as the building is falling down and I am only working when I want to. It’s taken me over fifty years to graduate to these dizzy heights and was a hard graft. Thought a thirty year anniversary is something to celebrate so you can read more about how I did this later in this issue. Plenty of photographs so don’t worry that you have to wade through some deep and meaningful meanderings with not so subtle links to a poor man’s physiology. Just email if you do feel so inclined and I will see what I can make up!

Thought it a great idea if I had a new website as apparently my previous one could not be read on most devices such as tablets and smart phones. Although I could easily see it on my typewriter I was in the minority and goodness me I couldn’t survive like that. So, a website for me would be something that would document my glass life. Didn’t want it to sell my art through PayPal or credit card or coins with holes in. Just a place where photographs of my past work and activities could be safely viewed and perhaps kept once I have died. Actually the older I get the more effort I put into planning my afterlife. It’s exhausting I can tell you. So exhausting in fact that it might kill me! Looking back through old photographs I was struck by how emotional it all became. I have done some fantastic things and been a pretty good glassblower I feel.

I am writing this editorial on VE day and perhaps one day I will be writing something similar on VV day which of course translate to “Victory over Virus” day. Not to be confused with VW day as that would involve singing “She Loves You” to a load of insects. I won’t even discuss that infamous day where the initials are taken from the words “Veering Dangerously”, something I maybe accused of often.

I was warming up a large bulb when it shattered in a storm of splinters, very much to my annoyance. I blamed the bread rolls. For it was those that I popped into my local Co-Op for. The shop is nearby workshop so very handy. What wasn’t was the awkward queuing system which involved a game of human chess where we all patiently jostled for position trying to keep two metres apart. The staff were in control as they kept telling us so they must be. After twenty minutes of strange dancing with strange people I was allowed into the shop and greeted by arrows on the ground which directed me in exactly the opposite way form the bakery counter. Try as I might I could not fathom out any short cuts so took the scenic route through garden furniture, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, The Great Pyramids, second hand car sales, and the opticians. I need the latter as couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw three oldies rubbing shoulders at the magazine rack. Funny how we seem to focus on the detail and miss the big picture.

I have an old camera as a few know but I know how it works. Actually that’s a lie as there are buttons on there that confuse me. I do know however to zoom and use this a lot especially when photographing my wage slip! However it seems zoom as in “Zoom” means getting into contact with people that you would normally phone and hear their voice as they could hear yours. Apparently nowadays this is not enough to satisfy the sense starved population. We need to see who we are connecting with, in fact its compulsory that we see people not just hear them. If we don’t see anyone then it must be because they (or us) are dead! Maybe they just have better things to do today than answering a conference video call!