31st July, 2009 - Nigel Slater: Kill The Pig

Can you imagine being marooned on a desert island with Nigel Slater?


Hello. I’m Nigel Slater – I’m your companion.


Oh. Good.


Look – I’ve found these coconuts and beetle larvae. And I think they’re in season. I know it’s a bit – well – gristly. But it’s so important to work with nature.


Is it?


Yeah. I’ve got an allotment you know. So I know about this stuff.


Really? Did you get those designer glasses from an aborigine then?


Don’t be silly. These are Armani. Hey – there might even be a TV series in this experience. “Nigel’s Robinson Crusoe Cuisine”. Hey. Yeah. I’m liking it. Lots of fish lightly baked in an oven of sand with fresh garden herbs. This is going to be fun.


Really? Do you think so?


What are you doing with that sharpened stick? Hey. Watch the jacket...

30th July, 2009 - Anthem For the Sartorially Challenged

I was at a great wee production of the David Mamet play "Glengarry Glenross" on Thursday. If you haven't seen the film, then I recommend it.

It has got me thinking about suits. The show is full of salesmen in their suits and ties. And the suits themselves and the way they are worn - some sharp, some down at heel, some careless - said almost as much about the characters as the dialogue at times.

Obviously I wear suits to work. And I am aware that I am not very good at it. I try. I honestly do. I look for shirts and ties that I think go together. I hang my jacket up. I get them dry cleaned sometimes. But somehow, I don't ever seem to get it right. Somehow, the only look I manage to pull off is: shabby and slightly harrassed middle-manager chic.

And I know that if Trinny and Suzannah ever come to see me, they woould purse their lips and tut a lot.Andthen they would shriek like the witches that they undoubtedly are: He looks like he picked them up in a bin.

29th July, 209 - Don't Waken The Beast

Here is one of my stupid superstitions.

I never make lists that include the number 13.

Rationally, I know that this is completely foolish. I know, in the left hand side of my brain, that it makes no difference whether you include a completely arbitrary numeral in a list. I know that, in point of fact, excluding the numeral is silly, because it makes the number of items inaccurate. And I know that is pointless.

But. You see. The right hand side of my brain knows that the left hand side of my brain is wrong about this on. The RHS has a secret knowledge. It knows that if I include the number 13 in the list, then it is likely to open a portal to one of hell’s darker corners. And minor demons will escape. And they will play havoc with my list. And will lead to failure, and disgrace, and possibly a major plague in Central Africa. And with those consequences, I am afraid it is just not worth the risk.

28th July, 2009 - Keep Taking The Tablets. Forever.

I am trying to fend off the cold just now by taking vitamin C tablets. I know, of course, that this is pointless. I know that all they give you is a placebo effect, and given I know that the only effect they have is a placebo one, I also know that the placebo effect will be negated by that knowledge. So – therefore – it is pointless to take the tablets.

Except, now that I have started to take them, I am afraid to stop. Because stopping them might actually have an adverse effect on my cold. So – if I stop taking them the symptoms might become worse.

Now, I know that these feelings are irrational, but given that the only effect is a placebo one, presumably there might also be an anti-placebo effect. And although I realise that, if I recognise that the effect is anti-placebo, I should therefore be immune, I do not entirely trust that.

So. I am still taking the tablets. Every morning. And I still have the cold. If anything it is slightly worse today.

27th July, 2009 - Girl Power

I see the Spice Girls are planning another re-union.

Oh good.

26th July, 2009 - Nigel Slater Devil's Spawn

Dear God.

Forgive Me.

I have been shouting at the telly again, and I fear I must do penance. But before You come down too hard on me, and smite me a bit, I should explain, that I was shouting at Simpering English Sleazeball Nigel Slater.

It’s like this Lord. When I come home from work and settle in front of the telly with my SMFO (Sad Meal For One) from Tescos, I want heartwarming banter from cheeky Ainsley or I want big Gordon swearing at some Minor Celebrities. I do not want to come home from work to be lectured by Nigel about the correct way to score a pumpkin. “Oooh aren’t these pumpkins from my allotment simply shouting Autumn goodness?” smarms Nigel. Whn, in fact, I know that media savvy Nigel would never have dirtied his lily-white fingers and risked dirtying the Apple Mac if there hadnb’t been a contract in it from Auntie.

Lord - You are infinitely wise, and must recognise that Nigel is one of the more cunning of the Devil’s henchmen.

25th July, 2009 - The Last Meal Before I Die

I have been buying The List magazine again in an effort to find things to do with the kids other than sitting them in front of C Beebies.I was looking at it tonight, and there’s a bit in it where they ask celebrities what was the best meal they ever had.

That is an easy one for me. If I ever become a celbrity, I will be able to answer that one swiftly. The best meal I have ever had was in a Spanish restaurant in the Red Light District in Amsterdam. It was a run down place with trestle tables, but it was jammed with locals – business men, hookers, staff from local bars – all crammed shoulder to shoulder because they knew that the food here was special.

Red Wine; Squid in Ink; Steak in a brandy sauce and sautéed potatoes.

24th July, 2009 - My Old Boy's Farcical iPod

I have been trying to phone my old man more regularly following his op. As I have mentioned recently in this blog, we do not ever talk about our feelings and emotions, but instead talk about work, music and technology.


At the moment we are talking extensively about i-Tunes. My Old Man has bought an i-Pod and is now busily downloading his entire CD collection. Unfortunately this means that he has been listening to some of his more dubious CDs and is threatening to download some copies for me. I live in perpetual fear of my dad’s pirated CD’s largely because he later asks mme what I think of them. In turn this means that I at least need to cast a cursory ear over Parky Picks Some Middle of the Road Pish to Send You Quietly Mad and Ivan Ribroff Sings Porgy and Bess in a Curious Russian Accent.

I am glad I currently have a cold and am unable to visit.

23rd July, 2009 - Running Man

I was chatting to one of my pals at a party recently. She has just completed the Amsterdam marathon ( and in a new personal best to boot). Even talking to her about it for 10 minutes or so left me panting for breath. But it did get me thinking of my one and only half marathon – the Great Scottish Run, which I reckon I must have done about 15 years ago now.


I remember surprisingly little about it now. Apart from the pain. And milling in the big crowd at the start, amongst people who were clearly much more seasoned runners than I was. People comparing their carb intake for the day; people wearing vests from other big runs; people who had PBs to beat. I felt rather amateurish (as no doubt I was) amongst these veterans.

22nd July, 2009 - Ask Yourself Punk: "Do You Feel Lucky?"

The best motto that I ever saw in a Fortune Cookie was opened my pal The Tennis Coach. It was:

“Keep your lucky number 2 close to you at all times.”

21st July, 2009 - Barber! Weave Your Subtle Magyk

I used to quite enjoy going to the hairdressers. If you go to Yours Faithfully in Hamilton, for a cut and blow dry there is a fair chance that you would get a pleasing scalp massage from Deirdre the trainee, a nice cup of coffee and a wee chat about the pluses and minuses of a self-catering apartment in Malaga with Liz, the girl who gets to cut the blokes’ hair.

These days though, it is less of a pleasure. Because, you see, getting your hair cut is one of the only times as a man that you have to st in front of a mirror and ponder your own face for half an hour. Women, of course, do this at least four times a day anyway, so the shock is less for them. But, as a bloke, you only do this about four times a year, so, the haircut is the point where you examine the reality of your own sagging and tired features.

Not even the cunning cut of Liz’s crimping shears will restore my lost youth. Not even a dapper point to my sideburns will return me to my prime. All that lies ahead is an ever smaller pile of ever whiter hair around the barber’s chair.

20th July, 2009

I am not pleased with the Laughing Boy.

In a casual remark, he mentioned that he is in the process of rating all of his i-pod tracks. He mentioned, in an off-handed way, that rating the tracks presents certain advantages: you can create Smart Playlists he said.

Smart Playlists. Smart Playlist?s???

He said it in a way that suggested that even the least knowledgeable i-Pod user in the universe knows what a Smart Playlist is.The subtext of his remark was: if you do not know what a Smart Playlist is, then you probably have a very small penis.

I am now rating all of the tracks on my i-Pod. I am halfway through albums beginning with the letter B.

19th July, 2009 - Off Day

I am irritable today. It is partly the cold. It is partly being up a bit too late last night following the Couch Potatoes' Part. It is partly having had the roundfaced boy whinging in my ear for a full hour. It is partly the fact that there is stuff all over the house following a much-needed attack on the attic by my Significant Other.

I have retreated to my little room, for I fear if I am forced to converse with anyone I might be forced to reach for the nearest blunt object and then bludgeon them repeatedly about the head with it until they are dead. When the police find me, I will say calmly to them, "It is not my fault. I am just having a bit of an off day. You know how it is boys."

18th July, 2009 - Toddlers In Germ Warfare Shock

The weans have given me another cold. Since they started nursery, we seem to have shared our little house with one rather nasty virus after another. It is a cozy symbiotic relationship: they get nice warm bodies to procreate in; we get to sneeze and shiver for a whole year.

It is making me wonder what is going on at nursery school. I suspect that the small people actually have a secret lab (which is probably entered through a concealed stairway under the sandpit). Down there, test tubes bubble and new strains of the common cold are brewed by four year olds in labcoats and oversize safetly glasses.

"Put me on the naughty spot would you daddy? Let's see how you like my new M1F7 strain! Mwahahahahaha. Pass the rusks Igor."

17th July, 2009 - Dead Sheep In Formaldehyde

I have just been to the Artists' Rooms exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh. The highlight was undoubtedly the series of rooms with Damien Hurst's stuff in it. One of his famous works - the dead sheep preserved in a glass case - was the star of the show in a way. I stumbled into the room by accident really, and there she was: frozen in time - looking as if you could clap your hands and she would shake her head and gamble out of the door and out into the gallery gardens to graze.

It was just her and me in the white gallery room. There she hung, suspended in some preserving liquid, as she has hung for more than a decade now. Her, looking a little sadly at me from the lifeless eyes; and me looking a bit embarassed at having disturbed her.

It is an arresting work. People slag it off, and say that it isn't art. But it says more to me - or at least as much - as a 17th century painting of a skull, or decaying fruit. Our bodies are shells. There is a flame within us that animates them,  but sure as eggs is eggs, we will not burn forever. formaldehyde

16th July, 2009 - BNP

Like many of you I suspect, I have been watching Nick Griffin of the BNP on question time tonight. He seemed to me to have very large jowls, and is therefore worthy of my ridicule. I appreciate that many of you may accuse me of being jowlist for saying that, but - and I think you will find this too be an objectively verifiable fact - 99.99% of people in this country do not have great big wobbly jowls. Those of us in the jowless majority, find the infiltration of big jowly eejits to be disturbing.

Nevertheless, the lefties on the BBC have seen fit to allow jowly people onto question time. Disgusting I call it. Young people will have been watching this, and they will be influenced. I suspect some of them are, at this very minute, locked in the bathrooms of their suburban British houses, stretching their necks with dangerous apparatus, in an effort to emmulate Nick Griffin's disgusting wattle.

15th July, 2009 - Incendiary Incentives

When I was a student I worked my Summer holidays as a filing clerk in a branch office of one of the biggest firms of lawyers in Scotland. The firm was on the cutting edge of modern employment practise at the time and was a big believer in incentives as a means to improve performance at all levels in the organisation.

They even had incentives for filing clerks like me. The clerk who managed to have the clearest filing basket at the end of each month got a hundred quid. And this was back in the days when a hundred pounds could buy you every packet of Top Trumps ever published with enough change left over for a Pocketeer.

I was frustrated though. I never won. A filing clerk in Paisley won the prize for ten months running.

She was rumbled eventually though. It is easy to clear your basket if you simply set fire to its contents once a week.

14th July, 2009 - Look at my Space Wad!

I have been looking at the pictures of the new American rocket that will take us to the moon, and wondering whether I would like to be a space tourist. If I had the limitless billions of a Russian oil magnet – if I had turned the Accies into European Champions – if I had built a hospital in honour of my Great Aunt – if my money had become as meaningless as chocolate buttons – would I turn my eyes to the heavens and turn over my hard extorted cash to float weightless above the world?
I think I would. Not for the existential experience of feeling lone in the heavens; not for the spiritual revelation of seeing how fragile our little blue planet looks out their in the vast blackness.
Not for these reasons, no. But to make you realise that I was richer and better than you. Which is the only purpose of wealth surely?

13th July, 2009 - Righteous Fury!

I note that the tabloids are reporting the righteous “fury” of the general public over prisoners in our jails receiving massages. Quite right tabloids! Quite right general public! Quite right, outraged man on the Clapham Omnibus!

Of course – we should be locking them in their cells in conditions of barbarous oppression. We should be fuelling their feelings of oppression and rage. Certainly, we should not ever – ever – seek to find ways to calm and sooth them. We should not teach them that there are systems of relaxation and joy, that might ease their frustrations. We certainly should not be paying good money in the hope that we might provide them with some hope and respite and time to reflect.

They must pay for their crimes. It is a mark of civilisation, that we show no mercy to these people. They are less than human after all. Our lack of mercy shows how much we care.

I hope you share my fury.

12th July, 2009 - Steak Dinners and Vomit

I have just had a nice steak dinner with the wife. There is nothing like red meat and just enough Pinot Noir, to make you glad that you are safe in the warm and blanketed jail of matrimony. I am glad I am no longer on the dating scene.

My mate, The Advocate, once went on a date to a Cramps concert. It did not go well. He drank too much warm lager in the bar at The Barras. And he pogoed a bit too much. And then he was sick.

All over his date.

11th July, 2009 - I am the Guru; I am the Apeman; I am the Conveyancer

I have been reading The Beatles Anthology, an d have been feeling a bit jealous of their big trip to India to see the Maharishi. Off they went, with their little mop tops blowing in the breeze, to smole dope, and to meditate for eight hours a day. A big, hippy holiday, in the sun; the flies buzzing so much that Ringo couldn’t stand it. Their heads tripping from gazing inwards and thinking of – well – nothing really.

And out of nothing – out of sun and flies and heat and dreams came the White Album. A great big experiment – weirdness and novelty and – well – genius really.

I am going to ask for a sabbatical. I amn going to speak to the work and suggest that I will benefit from three months in a hut by the seaside in Southern India. When I come back, I will have found a new way to sell houses. I will return, bearded, with a strange but serene light in my eyes, and I will startle the Scottish legal world with my sparse but beautiful new title deeds.

10th July, 2009 - The Mexican Cup - He Only Eats Tortillas

I have invented a new game for the children. It is called “Mexican Cup”. What happens is that the tallest member of the family (ie Daddy) gets a plastic cup, which is – for the pusposes of the game – re-named “Mexican Cup”.

The Mexican cup then dances across the table cloth (propelled of course by daddy) whilst the whole family sings along to a Mexican flavoured song and /or chants “I am a Mexican Cup”. The smaller members of the family then attempt to place items of foodstuff in the Mexican Cup. The Mexican Cup resists these attempts shouting things like (and you must use a Mexican accent for this: “No! No! Do not feed me Cheerios! I am a Mexican Cup and I only eat tortillas! No – no nonononononono!”.

Inevitably, the children must successfully feed the cup items of European foodstuffs, and this will always leave the Mexican Cup in tears.

Ok – it’s not Buccaroo – but it is a laugh.

9th July, 2009 - The Running Man

I have been out running again. My dad’s recent heart surgery has caused me to re-assess my lifestyle. I have noted that there a several risk factors in my life that may need attention –

• I have not taken exercise since Easter 2004
• I eat my own bodyweight in cheese every week
• I have a job that makes me kick inanimate objects with frustration
• I only see sunlight for 3 hours between October and April each year

So – to combat all of this, I have been for a wee jog. The problem with running now, is that my mind remembers the way running used to be for me, when I was 26 and fit and training for a half marathon. My neural pathways for running were formed at that time, and my mind still instructs my body to run the same way. I feel like I should be able to run hills and intervals and sprints, even though I am now too old to and tired and unfit to do any of these things without the support of a dedicated crash team.

So. I am sore as I type this. Not just my legs. But my heart. My spirit. And my optimism. They have all taken a battering today. I am off to eat some cheese to cheer myself up.

 

8th July, 2009 - Waiting

The night before my dad’s open heart surgery was one of the most worrying of my life. I normally regard myself as reasonably level-headed, and I think I handle stress pretty well. Put me in n office where there’s fourteen house sales all settling on the same day, or a theatre where all the lights have blown thirty minutes before curtain up, and I think I am fairly able to soak it all up.

Not when it comes to waiting for the results of a loved-one having a big operation though apparently. Because, I not only snapped at my Significant Other in a quite reprehensible way, I also threw up. I think it must have been that fight or flight thing your body is trained for – the body wants all its energy for the fight, not for digesting food.

I intend to give my dad a right good slapping for putting me through all this worry. Once he;s better of course. But it will be worth the wait.

7th July, 2009 - I have a problem... with biscuits

I have a problem with biscuits.
It has taken me some time to get to the point where I can talk about it like this. But it feels good to get it out into the open. To come clean. To get it off my chest.
I used to think that I could control it. I used to kid myself that I could open a packet of Rich Tea (Rich Tea! Even typing the words makes me shiver with pleasure still) and just have one. What a fool I was though. Before I knew it I would be lying on the sofa with a distended belly, with nothing but a few crumbs and an empty packet to keep me company.
I know better now. I know that I cannot sleep in the house as a packet of Jaffa Cakes. I know that to have one Kit Kat Chunky is to open the floodgates to a festival of gluttony the like of which has not been seen since Roman times.

6th July, 2009 - You're Beautiful, It's True

Ooh. I really like what you’ve done with your hair tonight. It really suits you. I’ve been telling you for months that you should enter that beauty pageant. You are a dead cert for a tiara.

5th July, 2009 - Run Cheese Eater! Run!

I have been watching a film called District 13, which is an odd French thing about Free Running. Free Running – as you know – is that weird street sport thing where the participants run about in an aesthetically pleasing way in an urban setting. Thin and muscular men loop around lampposts and leap across rooftops in a way that says, “I am better and fitter than you, whitecollar 9 to 5 man. My life is infinitely better than yours. Women find me attractive. I am a free spirit. Whereas you – you – you are a worm. Your life is worthless.”

It has got me thinking though. If you can make running – a fundamentally normal thing – cool, by turning it into free running, then it opens up a number of interesting possibilities. Free snacking for example, where cool participants wearing backwards baseball caps turn up in unusual settings eating cheese and onion crisps.

4th July, 2009 - Don't You Dare Unpack

I got a row tonight from my Significant Other for emptying my suitcase. As I was unpacking, my spouse strolled in and said “You’re not unpacking that suitcase are you?”

Well.

I could hardly deny it could I? I was caught with my hands inside the luggage.

“Err. Yes. I am unpacking it actually.”

She shook her head and left the room muttering something under her breath that I couldn’t quite catch, but which sounded something like “Typical. Unpacking his suitcase. What a prick.”

I am not sure exactly why this was the cause of matrimonial fireworks. I am bemused.

3rd July, 2009 - Kidnapped

I mentioned a while back that I am setting up some life insurance, so that if I shuffle off my mortal coil before my time, my loved ones can have a nice big party with lots of cakes and a fatted calf and stuff.

It has got me thinking. As I am an internationally famous blogger (I have one semi-regular reader from Mountain View in California according to sitemeter), I am beginning to think that I might well be a kidnapping target. As you all know, I make millions of dollars every year from these entries, because they are syndicated to several major daily newspapers in North America. Spielberg also bought the film rights to my largely unsuccessful series “40 Cups of Tea”.

I am a valuable asset and I suspect that international gangs of criminals now realise that, if they spirit me off, my regular readers (like you) would be distraught. Just think how depressing and valueless your life would be without me.

So, can I suggest you start saving? If you all put a little bit by each day, then there is a good chance you will all have enough money put by for a handsome ransom when the time comes.

2nd July, 2009 - Oooh. I Really Like Those!

Hey. Is that a new pair of shoes? I really like them. They suit you.

1st July, 2009 - Stop It! I Mean It! Now!

Here is my plea to all you smokers. Stop. Today. Just do it. If even one of you heeds me today I will be pleased beyond measure. Here is why.


I am just back from a visit to my old man in the heart/lung support unit at Aberdeen Royal, and every other bed in the place was occupied by smokers. Heart attacks; by-passes; stents. That is what awaits you, and it is frightening. I spent an hour and a half listening to the guy in the bed next to my dad coughing in agony – fluid in his lungs from the fags irritating him. Breathless and desperate.

We’ve all got to go some time, but not so early, and not necessarily so horribly.

Sorry to hector you, but you know I’m only doing it because I can’t afford to lose readers. By the way, your skin looks much clearer already now that you’ve stopped smoking. Well done. Keep up the good work.

30th June, 2009 - Brad Pitt: My Less Handsome Doppelganger

Here I am, nearly 1,000 blog entries in still waiting for the phone call to say that my blog entries are to be dramatised for film, with Brad Pitt playing  me. Or that I am to be serialised in The Observer.


Ah well. I do not do it for fame. (Although, if any of you have contacts in the publishing world, please please please give me a ring. I am cheap, and am willing to sleep with you for a weekly column in Bus Timetables of Eastern Europe Quarterly). No - I do it to entertain you - my two regular readers -  and also the guy from Queensland who checks in once a fortnight according to Sitemeter. G’day cobber – just remember "That isn't a blog: this is a blog".

29th June, 2009 - Oh SatNav Where Art Thou?

I have lost my satnav.


The laughing Gods have been playing chess with my life again, and have captured the Tom Tom, leaving me forever lost. I am likely over the next few days to veer off the M8 at Junction 23 and emerge several weeks later at the Pillars of Hercules after being lured off course by several attractive women with nice singing voices.

Please send friendly demi gods to rescue me.

28th June, 2009 - But Farrah Trousers Accentuate My Middle-Aged Spread...

I find myself thinking a bit too much about tattoos and camper vans these days. I am clearly continuing in my five year long midlife crisis.

I am aware that these days I should spend more time thinking about life insurance, Farrah trousers and the snooker results. But the truth is, my idle day dreams are more often about a large heart inked on my upper arm, and trundling through abandoned country roads in an old Volkswagen split screen.

I have also had a bit of an idea of a daft project, which I aim to start as soon as I have caught up on these blogs. I will need your help and assistance too. I know you are up for a laugh. We will have a lovely time together. More on this soon.

27th June, 2009 - Flinging Flans at the Bard

I’ve been listening to Lenny Henry on Radio 4 today, on a long drive back from St Andrews. He was chatting away about his recent experience playing Othello on the West End. I hadn’t realised that he had done a BA course on the Open University recently. He was apparently inspired by his mum’s death several years ago to take on projects that would have made her proud.


I felt a bit guilty when I heard that last bit. I am not sure if my mum would necessarily have been proud of my own endeavours. For example showing a profit of $83 at internet poker over a two year spell is not exactly something that I expect my mum to be waxing lyrical about to the massed ranks of the cherubim and seraphim. I also suspect that she would not be pleased about the state of my front garden.

I am resolved to be more like Lenny. But first... some poker!

26th June, 2009 - Sexy Jeanie, Hygiene Lady

I have been to the dental hygienist for my three monthly descale, polish and chiding. I hate the hygienist. Not because she is nasty. In fact she is very nice. And she is kind and takes care not to hurt me any more than is strictly necessary to ensure that I will have at least a few of my own yellowing teeth when the family ship me off to the nursing home in my latter years.


No. The reason I detest her is that she always ask me if I have been flossing, in a way which makes it absolutely clear that she knows perfectly well that I have not been flossing, but somehow she can’t bring herself to accuse me of this most heinous of dental crimes.

The truth is that I mean to floss. I am full of good flossing intentions. I recognise it, in theory, as a good idea. But in practice, when it comes to flossing time, dog-tired after a day of work and chasing after the weans, flossing takes on a difficulty well up there with neurosurgery.

I’m sorry Ms Hygienist. I am an interdental failure.

25th June, 2009 - Give Me a Right Good Servicing

The Southwaite Motorway Service Station may be the single most dispiriting place in Britain. I suspect that there are mortuaries with a more convivial atmosphere. I suspect that people who work in mortuaries go to the Southwaite Motorway Service Station if they feel that their life is getting a bit too jolly, and they need to suppress their mood lest they burst with joy.


We have lost our way. In our dash to get from A to B ever faster, ever more efficiently, we have lost our way. Because, wherever we are heading, and however quickly we long to be there, it is not worth spending half an hour in the gateway to Hades for it. I cannot believe that what we all really want in our dash from North to South is an overpriced burger, rack upon rack of pornographic magazines and a Ladbrokes franchise. Seriously – is that what the average commuter wants? A copy of Asian Babes and a fiver on the first scorer at the Leicester city game? Can’t we do better than this?

I am taking sandwiches next time. You will see me in a deck chair in a lay by reading a copy of Proust by the side of the M6. You will be jealous.

24th June, 2009 - I'm Alan B and I'm Mad as Hell

A group of secretaries at my work were crowded around the computer screen today looking at the YouTube clip that supposedly shows Michael Jackson’s ghost moonwalking across the corridor at Neverland.


If I come back as a ghost I am going to haunt people that skive off their work while watching YouTube. “Woooo” I will say, “Yoooooooour P45 is in the pooooooooooooost.”

23rd June, 2009 - Faux Pass

Here is a thing not to say, when you are seeing a client about their late mother’s estate:


“That’s fine – I can see you next Tuesday to sign the final accounts and we can get your own will signed at the same time. That way we can kill two birds with one stone.”

22nd June, 2009 - Tactical Voting: An Apology

I feel I want to get something off my chest. It is about the elections for School Captain in Primary 7. I was nominated to stand for the election you see. Me, one other boy and two girls.

And we had two votes each you see. St Johns Primary did not use the first past the post system for the most important decision in its democratic calendar. Rather it seemed to use some odd derivative of the Single Transferrable Vote. And it was that that played into my Machiavellian little hands.

Because – well – you see – I had noted that the rules said that if the Captain was a boy then the Vice Captain had to be a girl, and vice versa. And – so – this is difficult to admit after all these years – but I exercised some tactical voting. I had kind of worked out that, if I voted for the two girls, I had a better chance of getting elected, because the other bloke would be denied at least one crucial vote.

I was elected of course, but to this day, I still wonder if it was only by a single vote. I’m sorry Barry.

21st June, 2009 - Sheer bleeding luxury

I am just back from Blackpool. Which was highly enjoyable apart from our accommodation. It seems that our landlord’s idea of “luxury family accommodation” is a room the size of a Coco Pops packet, with a window that doesn’t open, overlooking a building site. That smells of stale bacon.


I am not generally one to moan about hotel rooms. I was, after all, the man who took my wife on honeymoon to a little hotel in Haarlem which didn’t so much overlook the railway, as straddle it. (Even now, I think that the thunder of a freight train passing so close that it dislodges your fillings, is the most romantic sound in the world). And I didn’t moan about that did I? Well. Not much anyway.

However, my experiences in Blackpool leave me considering an angry letter to that irritating bird off of Watchdog (you know – the one who clearly believes she is the risen Christ, but with nicer legs).

20th June, 2009 - Let's run off to the circus together

I have just been to the Tower Circus in Blackpool and it was utterly astonishing. Not astonishing in the way that we use the word now. Not astonishing in the way that Gordon Ramsay’s lemon cheesecake is astonishing. Not astonishing in the way that a house looks after Kim and Aggie have cleaned it. But astonishing in the way that quite literally takes your breath away as performers sail and soar through the air.


I cannot remember ever being at any event where my stomach actually lurched with a sense of danger. (Although I have been at a few where my stomach has lurched for other reasons. One amateur production of Viva Mexico springs immediately to mind). But here – the thrill was real. The physical risk was real. And the hair stood up on the back of my neck.

I appreciate, that as a regular reader of this blog, you are already used to an unusually high standard of entertainment, but even so, you could do worse than spend a day at the circus my friends.

19th June, 2009 - Pssst. Are you a lawyer?

Grrrrr. Life in the law is not all long lunches with a nice bottle of claret and the convivial company of blonde ladies from Whiflet. Sometimes, it can be stressful. Most of the stress – as I have mentioned to you before – is caused by other lawyers. There seems to be a particular breed of lawyer whose entire raison d’être is to score points against other lawyers.


I have made a list of their names. And before I retire, I am going to meet them, one by one in a dark lift. I will be wearing a balaclava, and I intend to beat them repeatedly about the head with stupid contracts that they have drafted. It will be a slow death for them, but all the more pleasurable for that.

18th June, 2009 - Thievery

For some reason today I have been thinking about the shoplifting exploits of my peer group. Some of my pals went through a teenage phase of petty thievery, which I guess a lot of kids must go through as part of their adolescent rebellious stage. I was far too nerdy and – to be frank about this – downright scared to take part in the activity. It was partly the thought of being lifted by the polis that frightened me, but to be honest the thought of my father finding out was considerably worse. The thought of dad receiving a call from Hamilton Police Office in the early hours was enough to strike terror into my young heart.


It is enough to strike terror into me even now.

So, I watched my friends’ larcenous antics with a certain degree of detachment. In some ways I admired them. They were kind of like Robin Hood. Except Robin Hood generally stole valuable stuff instead of Motley Cru singles and Dungeons and Dragons Rule books. Also, Robin Hood was generally aiming to help out those less fortunate than himself, rather than trying to enhance the size of his record collection.

The oddest thing any of my pals ever stole – and I shall protect his anonymity – was a box of blackberry pies from BHS. Forbidden fruit pies are the sweetest of all.

17th June, 2009 - Get Off the Roads Suckers!

My driving has changed considerably since the arrival of the Roundfaced People. I have never been the world’s best driver. Hand/eye co-ordination has never really been my thing. Whilst my friends were running up high scores playing Defender and Asteroids at the local amusements in our teenage years, I was still struggling with the door handle to the arcade. So, I was never really equipped with the skills that were likely to make Lewis Hamilton quake in his heavily sponsored racing boots.


Things have been made worse in recent years because of my eye operation. It’s not that my eyes don’t work now. In fact I can see quite well out of both of them. It’s just that they don’t work at quite the same time. Or at night.

In the old days, I didn’t let these things discourage me. I would whip around the country in my old Audi 90 (the only car I ever really loved – the others have all been mere dalliances). I had no real concept of mortality. But there is something about big eyes staring at you in the rear view mirror from the confines of a car seat that makes you feel a certain responsibility.

These days I am the slow guy in front holding you up. Keep your distance.

16th June, 2009 - Men are from Mars (but don't ask us to tell you about it)

I have been spending a bit of time with my old man in the hospital recently. A serious operation is a time when you reassess your priorities and relationship. We are men though, and of course, communicating our inner feelings involves a certain degree of circumnavigation.


Women, of course, suggest that men do not communicate their inner feelings to one another. That is not true. We just do it in a different way. For example, a woman will say “I love you dad”, which has the benefit of simplicity I grant you. However, we men do it a different way, what we do is talk about work and football for about an hour and a half, and then clumsily shake hands at the end of visiting hour.

It communicates the same thing, just in a different way.

15th June, 2009 - Blogging Under Difficult Circumstances

I have been typing these last few posts from the comfort of my home office. It is difficult to concentrate. In the last ten minutes or so the children have visited several times. So far, they have scattered a whole packet of raisins over the floor; broken my priceless Queen’s silver jubilee comedy cup (mugs that kneel down on little porcelain legs are hilarious to me); and battered a marble egg off my guitar.


It is a wonder that I am able to dash off such dazzling prose under these adverse circumstances. You are very lucky to have me entertaining you. Think of me as the Vera Linn of blogging. Whilst the bombs are dropping all around, I can still keep the home fires burning with my keystrokes of patriotism.

14th June, 2009 - How cool an uncle am I? (Answer: Not very)

It is my nephew’s birthday today. I haven’t got him a present yet because my weekend has bneen taken up with hospital visits, but I now need to turn my mind to what a seven year old boy in 2009 might like. I do not want to be the type of uncle whose parcels are dreaded. I am deeply insecure and want to be loved. Without the warm comfort blanket of popularity, I am nothing. I am much shallower than people give me credit for.


I am thinking a game for the Nintendo DS will strike the right note. Firstly, it suggests that I am au fait with youth culture – that I am down with da kidz as it were. Secondly – and this is vital – it is not a soft parcel. Soft parcels, when you are a small boy, are the absolute nadir of the gift world. Soft parcels clearly contain clothing, and there is no person in the world, except possibly nudists, who are less interested in gifts of clothing than small boys. The only exception to this is football strips, which are honorary hard parcels on account of their coolness.

Having aid this, the worst present I ever got was a hard parcel. It was a mustard spoon. My mother had an odd sense of humour at times. She also knew what she was doing. I love that mustard spoon now.

13th June, 2009 - Homeless

A few entries back, I mentioned my guilt dilemma about whether I should give to a beggar or not. For some reason (maybe it was just writing about it) I can’t get the bloke out of my head. He was painfully young and pale and sad-looking. You can’t help wondering about the chain of events that took him to that point.


I have a pal that works in the local job centre who works with the long-term unemployed, and she says that the thing she notices with the people that she works with is that they all seem to have had significant tragedy in their lives. And usually not just one event – it’s often three or four significant kicks in the teeth, one after the other. Death of a spouse, followed by illness, followed by loss of job. And so on. And so on.Until stability breaks down, and your life falls into a spiral of despair.

I suppose we all like to think that we’re resilient, but I suspect that we are all only a few links in the chain from sitting in the street. Stability, I think, is tenuous.

12th June, 2009 - My First Artistic Expression

I took the kids to an art class at the Museum of Modern Art today. If any of you have kids I recommend it (Saturdays from about 10 I think) – it’s really well organised by very happy volunteers who inspire the youngsters to think about art. It is a fairly midlle class affair (Tarquin - come here - you've got pain au chocolat all over your new Gap hoodie. Honestly!) but the kids seem to enjoy it.


It got me thinking about what my own first artistic expression was. I can remember – and it must be one of my earliest memories – painting at playgroup. So I must have been 3 or 4. It is odd. I can see the paper up on the easel. It was coarse grainy paper – like blotting paper – and I am fairly sure it was torn off a roll. And I can remember pretty clearly the wooden handled brush and the noise it made on the paper. Scratchy. The paint being absorbed by the coarse paper. It must have been a big thing at the time. The memory has lasted nearly forty years.

11th June, 2009 - Watchdog, Witches and Bad Karma

I do not generally get angry very easily. I am generally fairly even-tempered, and am often to be found in a state of karmic balance, where I am the universe and the universe is me.  However, once a week I get very irate. It is when I watch “Watchdog” on the telly.


“Watchdog” is a consumer programme where irate people who have been duped by conmen and rogue traders write in, and then the culprits are then entrapped by the journalist working on the show and are made to look like cretins. Now that's entertainment.

The difficulty for me is that I generally get far more annoyed about the banal content of the programme than I do about the culprits. The programme seems to have the habit of getting incredibly upset about matters that seem utterly trivial. Today, for example, we had a ten minute segment about a guy who claims to rid people’s houses of evil spirits. The journalist who was working on the piece had set the house up so that there were ghostly noises and so on, so that the guy looked like a moron.

And then – then!!!! – they casually mention that the guy isn’t actually charging the people who have the haunted house any money. He does this for a hobby. There’s great television for you eh? A guy who believes in evil spirits, helps out other people who believe they have a problem with evil spirits for nothing. How terrible. Call the police. Set him up on national TV. Hang draw and quarter him, and stick the witch’s head on a pike staff at Tower Bridge for all to see.

Honestly.

10th June, 2009 - Loose Language May Result In You Being Swatted

You know when people say “I wish I had been a fly on the wall for that conversation”? That seems to me a bit of a perverse wish. It seems to me that there is a significant problem, in that flies do not appear to me to speak English. Therefore, if you were a fly on the wall listening to the conversation you would be just as much in the dark. Presumably, to flies, we humans just make an irritating buzzing sound. Imagine how frustrating it would be to wish you were a fly on the wall for a conversation, then to discover your dream had come true, but that you still couldn’t understand what they were saying.


Plus, on top of that, you would be a fly. Instead of a human being with a nice car and a good DVD collection of Schwarzenegger movies, you would be an insect which likes feeding on excrement and lays its eggs in the bodies of decomposing animals.

Please think before you use clichés in the future people.

9th June, 2009 - Odd Moustache!

I had a bit of an odd nightmare last night. I think it is probably because of all the green tea I have been drinking.


I had come back from work, and I was brushing my teeth to go to bed when I noticed that my moustache was a bit wonky. Now, I don’t actually have a moustache outside the realms of REM sleep, but this didn’t occur to me in the dream. The problem was that my moustache had been trimmed differently on each side of my face. The left hand side was a long affair of the style favoured by Polish trade union leaders and physics teachers in the early 80s. But the other side had been cut more closely, so that in profile, from the right, I looked like Hitler.

I remember very clearly thinking in the dream that I had just got back from work, and it seemed very likely that my clients would have noticed.

8th June, 2009 - Less Caffeine. An Update.

Green tea tastes a bit like dishwater.

7th June, 2009 - Less Caffeine?

After yesterday’s blog I have decided I ought to be more careful about my beverages. I am now drinking green tea at least once every other day. I am drinking it after 7pm though. So I don’t have to cut out any of the coffee.