straight time. yule do.

And the weather forecast is thus:

freezing f@cking fog.

White snow, or not. Yellow. Slush. Or snot.

I have no idea why it is the case, but one of those few films I have watched ad infinitum is John Carpenter's "The Fog". It is not particularly a great film. Maybe not even close. I have long been an admirer of his one finger stabbing scores, but I don't think it's simply down to that alone either.

Not really. Not f@ckin' nearly.

"The origins of the Gorbals area date back to the 14th century, when it was a village - sometimes known as Bridgend - which grew up around what was then the River Clyde’s most westerly crossing point: a bridge completed in 1345 by Bishop William Rae of Glasgow, aided by Lady Lochow. "

Yes. At some none too remote point later - reputedly five years after the event - a leper colony was established by our Lady Lochow on the south side of that same bridge, directly in the heart of the Gorbals.

Hospital Street now marks the original site; a regenerated connivance replete with architectural tweeness and sculptural homage. Bow strung figureheads with outflung limbs.

Well. I have seen much worse.

Those scarecrows queuing up for methadone of a morning as I file my children off to school. Claiming the pavement in front of the pharmacy.I don't like rubbing shoulders. Their saliva drying on the walls of our poky wee lift. Body fluids on the buttons.

Or worse. Cold fog threading a discarded needle.

The elevators are poorly designed. They have to stand the stretcher upright when removing a corpse. The dead and the elderly, both, resemble Im-Ho-Tep on the last leg of a European vacation.

Still. Even then. I'd sooner step on the unburied truth laid out like a festering heel than curtsey round a blackened toe.
 
photograph by mary ellen mark.