Tuesday, June 27. 2017
The Bushcraft Bothier - Four Day Solo Mountain Bike Adventure
A four day solo mountain bike adventure into wild and rural parts of Scotland, exploring bothies and places I'd never been to before...
Saturday, June 3. 2017
The Bushcraft Bothier - The Best Laid Plans
With all intentions to spend a solo overnighter at a little lean-to shelter I recently built in the woods, disappointment quickly set in upon discovering that someone had torn it down...
Thursday, May 11. 2017
The Bushcraft Bothier - Shelter Building
The first stages of me building a little lean-to shelter at my bug out location...
Wednesday, April 5. 2017
The Bushcraft Bothier - Wild Hammock Camp
An overnight wild hammock camp in the woods, followed by an afternoon in search of a future bug out location...
Sunday, March 19. 2017
The Bushcraft Bothier - Unfamiliar Territory
Here's my latest video upload: an overnight recce at a new location. Topics up for discussion include Death, Scottish Independence, Misanthropy, the 'Alone' series, and the imagined joy of seeing Piers Morgan and Katie Hopkins being hit by a double-decker bus.
Tuesday, February 28. 2017
Introducing The Bushcraft Bothier
I've decided to start video documenting my off-grid trips. Still much to learn with the filming and editing process - plus there's a few schoolboy errors in this episode - but the quality should improve with time and experience.
Here's a recent trip I took into the Scottish wilderness to spend a night at one of my favourite bothies...
Monday, January 9. 2017
Xmas Avoidance Strategy 2016
As someone who utterly despises everything and anything to do with the dreaded Retailmas, I once again took to the wilderness for the safe and sane option of blissful isolation...
Tuesday, March 1. 2016
Coming Soon: 'Magick Without Fear - The Gerald Suster Letters'
A sneak peak at a cover concept I have for Magick Without Fear - The Gerald Suster Letters which I hope to release before the summer 2016:
Sunday, February 28. 2016
Decentralisation: An Evolutionary Biologist's Standpoint
One thing that rarely gets expressed by the Corporate Controlled Media is that Scottish Nationalism is in essence Civic Nationalism, meaning that it is inclusive of different cultural backgrounds and that the only nationalistic element of it is the acceptance that Scotland is made up of people from all corners of the globe but needs its independence in order to survive and flourish. In order for a country to function as a successful decentralised organism it is imperative that it is able to generate its own wealth, use its own resources, and trade the excesses of these resources successfully with other decentralised organisms for the resources in which it lacks but requires for a healthy and fruitful society. It’s how biology has evolved over the millennia and decentralisation will happen to humans if we are to evolve. I found this video interview a year or so ago with an evolutionary biologist whilst researching something that was completely unrelated to politics. I was stunned by the common sense expressed regarding the importance of decentralisation within evolutionary biology, and the parallels between how the human body operates and the clear way in which the world as a global society needs to operate if we are to survive as a species...
Saturday, October 24. 2015
'Geriatric X' - A Work In Progress
Here's a sneak preview of a cover concept that I have for my current work in progress:
Friday, October 23. 2015
'Bothy Culture' Now Available On Kindle
My book, Bothy Culture, is now available to buy on Amazon Kindle. (Amazon book listing).
Sunday, May 11. 2014
Rooftop Revolutionaries
I've always been a sucker for a good doomy Black Sabbath-esque riff, especially when it's accompanied with powerful female vocals (the greatly underrated Sumo album by The Superjesus springs instantly to mind), but what makes Rooftop Revolutionaries unique is the air of political activism that is present at the forefront of all of the band's lyrics.
Amongst all the tasteless, wishy-washy, celebrity obsessed posturing of much of today's musicians, it is so refreshing to stumble upon a young rock band with a purpose other than to become famous and make a shitload of cash.
The following track 'Folk Devils' sealed the deal for me and I instantly bought their album Resolute from huge corrupt corporate retailer Amazon after hearing it (I haven't 'bought' an album in ages - unfortunately sometimes you gotta use The Man to get the message out I guess)...
Saturday, March 22. 2014
Time For An Off-Grid Excursion
Myself and good friend Dazbo (one of the true-life characters in my book Bothy Culture), are heading off-grid for a week-long bothy bagging cycle tour around the Scottish Central Highlands. As a result there will be no updates to media underground during that period.
Adios bitches! May the madness commence!
Saturday, March 8. 2014
Get 20% Off My Book
This offer ends March 10th, so just use the coupon code 'SUPER20' when placing your order with the publisher (click image below).
Sunday, February 9. 2014
'Bothy Culture' Receives 5 Star Reviews
My book Bothy Culture has been getting some great reviews on Amazon. I guess people like brutal honesty and scathing social commentary. Here's some excerpts from a number of recent reviews...
Frisky Stixx: 'There are many laugh out loud moments especially as he describes the eclectic mix of people that choose to make the mammoth trek up to these remote spots.'
Poetry Maz: 'This has been the most refreshing piece of writing I've had the pleasure to devour in a long time.'
Graeme Henderson: 'His values are not for the faint of soul but I doubt there is anyone on this planet who would not agree with at least one of his points.'
C. G. Findlater: 'Very few people know what really motivates them and even fewer have the insight or the bravery to write about it.'
Stephen T. Lewis: 'Even if you never set forth into the wilds of Scotland this well-written book is worth a read for its counter-culture quirkiness alone.'
A big thank you to everyone who has reviewed the book to date. So far no mainstream media outlet (or local press for that matter) will touch it with a barge pole. Good! Clearly the burning bible on the back cover has created the exact reaction I was hoping for. (Amazon.co.uk book reviews).
Wednesday, December 11. 2013
'Bothy Culture' Now Available
A good friend of mine died today. He was a right cantankerous old bastard who never played by anyone's rules other than his own and didn't give a shit about what people thought of him. Needless to say we clicked as friends the first time that we met and I will sorely miss him.
So what better way to mark 11/12/13 than to make it the official release date of my book Bothy Culture. Given that I've been a little concerned about how this book might be received for its scathing social commentary, I figured it was time to take a leaf out of my late friend's own book and not give a flying fuck.
You can preview the book's foreword here, and if you choose to buy it then I hope it entertains, creates a few laughs but, most of all, inspires you to think.
RIP (ZAK) KIL.
Friday, November 29. 2013
We're Back... And There's A New Book In The Pipeline
First of all, my sincere apologies for the long hiatus here at media underground. All my free time recently has been spent putting the finishing touches to my new book, Bothy Culture, which is now complete and will be released soon.
It's been a long haul and a shit-load of work (in fact I'm now convinced I have OCD), but it's finally complete and I'm currently awaiting a proof copy as I write. It's not a huge book, coming in at 132 pages, but I'm extremely happy with the end result and hope it provokes, entertains and inspires - as well as creating a few laughs along the way.
Do not be put off by first impressions that this is a book about 'the outdoors'. It has been designed deliberately to look like that - to be a trojan horse, if you like - in order to dupe the average 'Outdoor Knobber' into buying it. If one takes the time to examine the back cover, you will see from the image and blurb that there's much more to it.
Basically the book comprises of fact, fiction, history and scathing social commentary about the current state of our society. In fact I foresee there appearing a significant amount of negative reviews on Amazon over the forthcoming months (concerning the book's content and occasional bad language), which is okay, as this would be a good indication that I've done my job properly.
So, regular updates to media underground will now resume and be sure to stay tuned for the book's official release date. In the meantime here's the front and back cover art as well as some other promotional material (click on the images to expand)...
Continue reading "We're Back... And There's A New Book In The Pipeline"
Thursday, June 13. 2013
Why I May Have Been Wrong About Twitter
I say "may have been wrong" as the jury is still out on this for me, but ever since Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield started using Twitter to promote the activities onboard the International Space Station, I now realise that certain social media services don't just have to be about idiots informing their friends about when they are watching TV, eating a kebab, or taking a dump. If the time invested in it outweights the intellectual return, then the account will be shut down without notice. I am hoping to be proven wrong on this however, and will happily admit so if I am.
Now sure, "noise" such as this does occur; in abundance - and unfortunately it is inevitable - but I'm beginning to think that if used intelligently (and with discrimination) social media such as this might have some value. Especially since a limit of 140 characters doesn't provide enough space to post anything other than a brief comment and a weblink to something outside the site that might be worth investing some time exploring.
I will, however, continue to steer well clear of Facebook. The fact that it is an egocentric closed loop system created for the purpose of aiding governments/corporations to data mine, predict trends, and influence the things we buy and the way we vote, is reason enough for me to leave it well alone.
In the meantime, for anyone interested, you can follow media underground on Twitter by clicking on the image below (I almost feel ashamed of myself for having succumbed to this after bitching about it for years):
Monday, April 8. 2013
The Witch Is Dead!
Woo hoo! Good riddance to bad rubbish! Thatcher has finally died from a stroke (a stroke of good luck). And not before time. Great news like this demands a celebration. Now stock up on coal and get ready to lob it at her hearse during the forthcoming state funeral!
Sunday, October 14. 2012
Air Force Manual 64-5
I'm currently reading Carrying The Fire by Apollo 11 Command Module Pilot (CMP) Michael Collins.
Carrying The Fire is probably one of the most fascinating and entertaining books I've ever read. Collins writes exceptionally well - his acid wit and dry sense of humour is an absolute joy - and he is by far my favourite astronaut of all time.
Being CMP on an Apollo mission seems like the perfect job to me, more so than taking a powered descent to the lunar surface, for one gets to spend plenty of time alone orbiting the moon - swinging round its far side and enjoying the tranquility of being out of communication with one's colleagues on the surface, as well as those back home at mission control on earth.
I love solitude.
In his book Collins talks about the survival training he underwent in the deserts of Reno and jungle of Panama. His bible on such trips was Air Force Manual 64-5 and he has many humorous anecdotes about its contents.
Curious about this manual I decided to seek it out online and it sure is an amusing and educational read. Armed with this, one could pretty much be thrown off a helicopter naked, anywhere on the planet, and still eventually come back home in one piece.
Air Force Manual 64-5, I think, will be my next online purchase, just so that I can bung it in my backback when I go on one of my extended trips off grid, just in case trouble brews.
Thank you, Lucky Mike, for the heads up. (DTIC pdf download).
Monday, October 8. 2012
The Entity - Channel 4 Documentary On Sleep Paralysis
Over the last few months I've been experiencing a lot of sleep paralysis which seems at the moment to be occuring almost on a weekly basis. My first experience of this happened a couple of years ago and was utterly terrifying since I came face to face with the archetypal 'Hat Man' that one often hears other sufferers of sleep paralysis talk about.
However recently the experience has become more enjoyable, in the sense that I am starting to experiment a little more with the phenomenon. The situation is usually the same, I wake up, find that I cannot move, realise that I am experiencing sleep paralysis, and when I try to force myself to move my body feels like it is numb or vibrating, accompanied by a sound similar to very loud feedback that one might expect to hear from a microphone that has been placed too close to an amplified speaker. Finally when I do manage to move I get an audible "pop" which concludes the entire event.
Something about this utterly fascinates me, and I am intrigued by the somewhat electrical/electronic feel of the whole occurence.
The following video is an interesting Channel 4 documentary on the matter entitled The Entity.
Friday, October 5. 2012
Media Underground Welcomes Back James Inman
Media Underground is glad to welcome back James Inman as one of our regular contributors. James used to write for us several years ago as a guest and he's been bugging me ever since to put a good team of contributors together (with him included) to restore Media Underground to its former glory.
There are many words one can use to describe the anomaly known as James Inman. ‘Stand-up Comic’ is one such phrase, ‘Rural Punk Gen-X Anti-Hero’ is another. One might also refer to him as a ‘Recurring Alcoholic’ or ‘Angry Middle-Aged Man’. Yet whatever James is he certainly loves to torture himself, and in so doing can occasionally manifest ‘Genius’. Author of the depressingly hilarious travel guide Greyhound Diary, James works the comedy circuit travelling state to state on the Greyhound bus. He is also one of the main characters in the fly-on-the-wall documentary The Unbookables.
If you've never heard of James Inman before, then the following video is a good place to start...
Happy Birthday Media Underground - 11 Today
Over the last few years Media Underground has slipped into what can only be described as a very unfortunate state of lethargy. The rise of social network sites - where no-one sees the internet as anything other than Facebook or Twitter - has in many ways contributed towards this feeling of pissing into the wind, as the population's attention span for anything other than a few lines of banal text is largely non-existent.
Fortunately, we don't give up easily, and to celebrate the site's 11th birthday we have returned to the fold with a small team of dedicated contributors with a willingness to stick it to 'the man' with more emphasis placed on social commentary and vitriolic opinion.
You will not find us on Facebook. You will not find us on Twitter. You will not find us on MySpace, Bebo, Google+, Pinterest, Reddit, or any other fleeting corporate run fad that offers you meaningless social interaction in exchange for personal information that is being used for the purposes of personalised advertising at best, and social profiling at worst.
You will only find us in the underground where we retain our initial promise of never advertising anything and only promoting the things we like and find of interest.
It is our plan to add to our team of contributors over the coming months - if you have what it takes and like what we do then please feel free to submit an example of your writing and we may get you on board.
Sunday, September 23. 2012
Media Underground Welcomes The Sergeant Matron
Here at media underground, it is with pleasure that we welcome new contributor Stephen Lewis to the site. Stephen (or the 'Sergeant Matron' as he is often referred to) is some kind of bizarre human hybrid prototype with a keen eye for everything that is fucked up with the planet.
Author of Boots On The Line: Walking 1000 Miles Of Britain's Dismantled Railways, The Matron spends much of his free time either wandering around seriously remote parts of rural Scotland for extended periods, smoking peculiar and unusual tobacco blends out of one of his vast collection of briar pipes (a pastime that he's somehow managed to get me interested in), or rallying against corporate corruption wherever it rears its ugly head.
A staunch atheist and anti-royalist, we are delighted to have him onboard and look forward to his perfectly sane take on the ills of the 21st century.
Tuesday, July 12. 2011
The Occultist Who Took On Murdoch's Empire
With all the current sordid revelations emerging concerning the appalling criminal practices conducted by Rupert Murdoch's News International, I am reminded of an account my late friend and mentor, Gerald Suster, gave about the deceitful way in which a News Of The World "journalist" ruined his career back in 1989.
Suster, who was working at the time as a history teacher at Boarzell College in Sussex, had been approached by a NOTW hack called Chris Blythe about his life-long interests in the occult and, most notably, his book The Legacy Of The Beast - The Life, Work & Influence Of Aleister Crowley (which had just made the front cover of Publisher's Weekly).
What transpired back then is very much comparable to the kind of practices that we are hearing about today, and whilst there were no mobile phones around to get hacked into back then, it is clear that the methods and motivation News International employ to get a sensationalist story have changed very little in the last twenty-odd years.
In the Autumn 1996 edition of Talking Stick magazine, Gerald gave an account of how a News Of The World article cost him his job, home and salary in the blink of an eye.
For those of you who still doubt the level that Murdoch and his ilk will stoop to in order to line their pockets and manipulate public perception, I have scanned in the relevant documentation here for your own scrutiny.
Devil Teacher - News Of The World (April 16th 1989)
Gerald Suster's Own Account - Talking Stick (Autumn 1996)
High Court Of Justice Documentation (October 18th 1991)
Looking over this material again today, and viewing it in the context of recent events, I am reminded of the final interview that dramatist and playright Dennis Potter gave to Melvyn Bragg just before his death in 1994.
He said: "As a writer, you will know that one of the favourite fantasy plots is where a character is told: you've got three months to live (which is what I was told) - who would you kill? I call my cancer - the main one in the pancreas - Rupert, because Murdoch is the one. I've got too much writing to do, and I haven't got the energy, but I would shoot the bugger if I could. There is no one person more responsible for the pollution of what was already a fairly polluted press, and the pollution of the British press is an important part of the pollution of British political life, and it's an important part of the cynicism and misperception of our realities that is destroying so much of our political discourse."
Friday, June 10. 2011
The Future Is Paraffin
I just invested in another Aladdin Blue Flame Paraffin Heater. So the power companies can fire up the price of gas and electricity all they goddamned want. Come the winter, they ain't getting a penny extra out of me. In fact I hope there's a major power cut and gas shortage! With all the paraffinalia I've amounted over the last few years, I'll be the warmest, most illuminated, smuggest bastard in town.
So take note, things are gonna get grim. But the future is bright. The future is paraffin!
Check this fascinating documentary about a guy lighting his Primus 5 Classic Stove. Trust me, every bit of this is fascinating, and the money shot at the end is well worth the wait...
Sunday, May 22. 2011
Apocalypse Not Now
Friday, April 22. 2011
Going Underground
If you visit here often you've probably noticed it's been real quiet for a while.
I mean, it's not like there's nothing going on in the world that can't be commented on, it's just that I've stopped caring and have come to the conclusion that it's impossible to determine exactly what's really taking place since all media is propaganda in one form or another.
That's what the internet has become. That's what people have created. It's gotten old and dull to me.
Basically, the web is saturated in so much shit, and bombards you with so much unverifiable information, that I no longer care or take any interest.
The world is going to hell in a hand basket, and quite frankly, it's pointless highlighting the obvious when nothing I say or do here will change anything anyway. So my advice is to look after No.1, detach yourself from all of it, and go spend some time with the people you love and care about.
These days it's all Facebook and Twitter and everyone has something to say but little of it worth taking an interest in. In other words, it's all about ego and displaying how popular you are and who you're connected to.
I tire of people's self-centredness real quick!
If you want to network socially with people then have a barbeque, or go to the pub and interact with people in person. Maybe grow some vegetables, enjoy a nice meal together, or embark on a project with like-minded individuals. In other words, quit wasting your time online, that's what everyone is doing and it's unimaginative to be like everyone else.
If you're unhappy about the political environment, or pissed at the current financial meltdown, then take to the streets.
Join a protest group, throw a brick through a window, or take a dump on the floor of your local financial institution. Blogging about it will achieve nothing but taking action will send a clear message.
The era of the browser is over for me. The Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) that we've all come to accept as "the internet" is dead. The future of the internet lies perhaps in the old protocols and most definitely in more modern ones such as BitTorrent.
Perhaps the rediscovery and use of protocols like Telnet or FTP is where Media Underground will go in the future, reopening long forgotten communication portals and doing so with the latest technology.
This site has never been about popularity, or advertising, or making money. Media Underground was setup primarily for the exchange of information and at its peak a few years ago, it achieved that and more. But times change and methods need to be readjusted.
It's time the underground went underground.
If you have any ideas about how we go about this then email me before I quit using IMAP, POP3 and SMTP as well (due to the constant influx of spam-saturated bullshit).
Humanity ruins everything that becomes popular. Email and browser-based interactions are now highly inefficient, clogged up, and deeply uninspiring.
The modern internet is about selling you products, and I don't like products.
The modern internet is about selling you as a product, and I don't want to be prostituted.
The modern internet is about popularity, and I despise popularity.
So, let's move forward. If we're going to continue we need to distance ourselves from the methods that everyone else is using.
Let's become unpopular. Let's go underground.
Wednesday, August 4. 2010
Sleep Paralysis: Manifestation Of The Shadow People
A couple of nights ago I experienced what is commonly known as sleep paralysis. I've had a minor occurrence of it before, but on this occasion I found myself overcome with a feeling of intense terror. This coupled with what looked like a tall dark figure that appeared to be breaking into reality through one of the corners of my room next to the door. The figure was gaunt and somewhat Nospheratu-like in stature with what looked like a wide-brimmed had on it's head. I couldn't make out its features but my ears were filled with a pulsating sound and my body seemed to be vibrating as though I was somehow being phased out of reality, beamed up, or probed by some kind of scanner.
The terror that I felt wasn't so much due to the feeling of an evil presence in the room, but I got the impression that this thing was highly intelligent, had an agenda and that it regarded me as little more than an insect that stood in its way. All the while I couldn't move a single muscle.
"As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods" as Shakespeare put it, and eventually after several minutes my girlfriend shook me out of it because I was "howling like a terrified animal," she said.
It happened twice more that night but on the last two occasions I managed to get myself out of it by realising that this was merely sleep paralysis. After each occasion my waking perceptions were filled with mild hallucinations and the experience instantly made me think that these symptoms could be synonymous with the alien abduction experience.
Now, I don't for one minute think that this was anything other than an exceptional case of sleep paralysis as defined by modern psychology, however, the archetypes of the Shadow People and, in particular, "The Hat Man" intrigues me considerably.
Here's an interesting ten part interview with Professor David J. Hufford, author of the provocative study The Terror That Comes In The Night. (YouTube video stream).