Merry Christmas!

Christmas has started

The tree is trimmed, the decorations are up and the food and booze has all been bought. The Blogs are ready for Christmas 2011.  Daughter Blog returned home from Aberdeen today so the family is back together - what could possibly spoil things?

In my "double-dip recession worried frame of mind" I spotted the introduction of Sainsnbury's finest "own label"wine earlier in the year. It is actually a pretty good value bottle of plonk, whether you go for the Shiraz or the Cabernet Sauvignon etc. So earlier this week when I saw they had brought out wine-boxes of the stuff I was in heaven! Two and a quarter litres of drinkable wine at a bargain price. For added value when you have drunk the wine you can take the silver bag out of the box, this is the bit that actually holds the wine, and blow it up to make a make-shift pillow. (This handy tip cones from living in Scotland and listening to local wisdom.)

I have been patting myself on the back for my vigilance in spotting this ace bargain all week.

Just ten minutes ago I opened the box of wine; (no small feat of engineering). It tasted like it should have been sprinkled on chips!!

As you can see Mrs Blog and Daughter Blog had the same reaction as me. Our one remaining hope is that Son-Blog will find a liking for it, failing which I will be drinking it all myself - can't waste booze! So if you are touring through the Borders of Scotland this week and see a middle-aged grump asleep on a silver pillow - it is me!

Advent Calendars

Mrs Blog works at a local coffee shop which also sells some of the finest chocolates in the world.  She splashed out with her hard won wages on an advent calendar purveyed by her employer. It is a series of boxes shaped like a Christmas tree. Each little box contains one of the world's finest chocolates.

With three of us in the house we take it in turns to open the calendar. I waited expectantly as Son Blog took the first one - a Latte Truffle. Then Mrs Blog discovered a soft Caramel. I could hardly wait for my turn. So on the appointed day I opened the box and bit into what I can only describe as a Cauliflower Truffle. Disgusting! I wonder if it some attempt to imitate Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Bean???

Xmas Trees

Today was the annual trip out to buy a Christmas tree.

To get us in the spirit Daughter-blog sang,
"O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree, your ornaments are history"

Then we spent a good twenty minutes in the rain (freshly arrived from Southampton) choosing the one good tree from a pretty sorry bunch. As is our tradition, we went for an eight foot tree to fit in our 6'6" high lounge. Also in keeping with tradition we gave absolutely no thought as to how we were going to get the damn thing in the car.

Fifteen minutes of pushing, shoving, swearing under breath and it finally made it (albeit with one end sticking out of the window.

Totally stressed we get the tree home without being arrested for driving with a dangerous load.

Then the dog-blog decides to have a mad spell and ran straight through the fairy lights we were half-way through putting on the tree.

The day was only saved by a trip to the coffee shop with daughter blog. There we met a neighbour who has a three year old daughter called Freya.
"What does she want for Christmas?" we asked.
"A Blue Cat!!!"
My troubles suddenly did not seem so bad!

The Spite Goblin works for FlyBe

So, a week ago I write a blog about the complete injustice of the FlyBe "rewards for all programme" and have the misfortune to fly with them again this week. In doing so I discover that the Spite Goblin (referred to in the very first post) actually is employed by them. The SG takes revenge against me, usually for things I have done wrong. This time I am innocent and can only conclude the SG is in the paid employ of Jim French the CEO of FlyBe.

Here is the tale. I arrived at Edinburgh airport yesterday morning for the 7.05 a.m. flight to Southampton. My plan was to have a day trip to Basingstoke, returning on the 18.35 flight that evening.

The 7.05 took off late and arrived twenty minutes behind schedule owing to the fact that the ground staff who work for FlyBe cannot count. The delay was entirely down to them waiting for a passenger which did not exist as a result of a sums-mistake. Nonetheless I get to the meeting in time, do all I have to do in Basingstoke and head off at about 16.00 to get back to Southampton.

The information board in the executive lounge said "Edinburgh Flight 773 - Relax and Wait" - this was at about 17.00. It also said exactly the same for the previous two flights. As I showed my boarding pass to the girl in the lounge she reminded me "We don't make announcements, please watch the board". No need to make announcements when the 14.35, 16.40 have not even taken off yet!

I wait and watch the information board steadily ratchet up lie after lie, saying "Next announcement in half an hour" again and again. Now to be fair there was the small issue of a hurricane passing through Scotland that afternoon.

Eventually they announce the earlier two flights are combined and taking off at 20.00, then they call my flight and said hurry to gate 8 - it is about to board. So hurricane over!

The earlier two flights duly board and take off - with fewer passengers than the plane can hold - I know I heard the girl at the despatch gate refer to it (this one could count!)

Then at 20.15 they cancel my flight due to adverse weather at Edinburgh!! having already cancelled the later flight this meant no way of getting home.

I legged it to the ticket desk where a surly mare ask me what I want. I explain that I am now stranded and cannot get home. She books me on the 12.40 the following day and expected me to wander off.

"I have nowhere to stay tonight and no luggage, what am I supposed to do?"

"Here is a list of hotels you can ring"

"Can I claim the costs back?"

"You can try! Next!"

I then hustled out side to where I knew there was a "Premier Inn" a five minute walk away, through it must be said, some pretty adverse rain with no umbrella.

Merry Christmas signs greet me as I go in bedraggled and thoroughly miffed. And in true Christmas tradition there was no room at the Inn!!!

A sleepless night in the sister hotel in Southampton centre next to the rail freight yard, which works noisily all night long, made a truly bad day turn into a truly awful night. Finally get home a full twenty fours later and felt compelled to update my blog.

If anyone reading this works for FlyBe please let them know I am happy to offer training on maths, customer service, communication skills, time-management and how to make announcements at airports, all at an exorbitant price of course!

Swiss Cooker Problems

Having been struggling all weekend to find a subject for a blog I was gifted the following by a skype to call to younger-sister-blog who lives in Switzerland.

She has three children, the youngest of which is Ben, who is not yet two years old. She runs a catering business from home and as a consequence makes extensive use of her cooker. Young Ben decided to sit on the ope oven door, mistaking it for a chair and ...broke it!

This left sister-blog with no means of finishing her cakes until the repair man turned up four days later.

With the oven door duly repaired she set about baking the cakes. Ben-blog realised he could reach the temperature dial and turned the setting up from 175 to 275C and from oven setting to gill setting. Fortunately sister-blog intervened in time.

Not to be out-done. budding Masterchef contestant Ben-blog, spotted the dials for the hob and turned it on. First thing sister blog knew was the smell of her cookery book, which was resting on the hob, giving off faint burning smells.

So, not even two years old and he is cooking the books! His Mum, sister blog is of course a Chartered Management Accountant!! 

Phone problems

My company supplied me with an HTC phone when I joined them last year. It had all mod cons such as Internet, email etc and also was supposed to work as a phone. Slight problem was that it muted randomly so that often my calls would end with someone saying "are you there?".

They fixed it with a patch and it continued to mute randomly so they sent me a replacement. The replacement was the exact same model but it had obviously been used (judging by the fingerprints on the touch screen and the scratches on the cover). It too, muted when I tried to use it as a phone, I rang the help desk and had this conversation,
"My phone is muting randomly"
"Which one have you got?"
"The HTC"
"Is it a new one?"
"No second hand"
After checking the serial number...
"Ah yes that one was sent back by the previous user"
"Why?"
"It didn't work"
Doh!
I get a replacement Nokia at my insistence. This decided to wipe out all my contacts for no reason last week. Not to worry I set about rebuilding my list.
One person I wanted to get hold of was my old mate and former colleague Steve who works at Pru.  I rang their switchboard ...
Press1 for new business, 2 for existing business etc. I waited and pushed "5" for all other enquiries.
Another menu with a list of options I pushed 4 for all other enquiries. And yet another menu which said please hold for all other queries. I held and spoke to Ross.
"Can I have your policy number?"
"No I am ringing to speak to Steve in your marketing department"
"I cannot transfer you"
"But he is in the same building as you!"
"Aye but I cannot transfer you, the best I can do is email him for you and tell him to ring you."
I avoided ranting and satisfied myself with giggling and hanging up.

Pru has at least improved since I worked there. I telephoned the switchboard number once having been in the head office one morning. I was directed to Mumbai to their call centre and had this conversation,
"Can I speak to Ian Abernethy?"
"No, there is no one with that name."
"He works in the head office in Stirling"
"No he is not listed so he does not work for us."
"Yes he does - I saw him in the office this morning!!"
"What department is he in?"
"Technical Support"
"No, we have not got a department called Technical Support!"
"YES,WE DO!"
"No we dont!"
"Can I speak to your manager please?"
"No I have not got one!"
"Can I speak to the person who interviewed you for the job?!!"
"No, there is no-one here!"
I drove back to Stirling and spoke to Ian who still worked there, and in a department called technical support.

I feel better for that.

Air Miles - a carthartic blog

Just in case you missed it BA has merged its air miles programme with ILG following their merger. The headlines in the press said that users of BA miles would now have to pay taxes and surcharges when using the air miles. Twaddle! You have had to pay taxes with BA for years. Time for a rant...

I have over 330,000 BA miles which according to their blurb lets me fly my family to Hong Kong and back. Not so! They never release enough seats to let you take a family of four unless ...one of you goes first class, one business and two in economy. I tried booking a simple trip - Edinburgh to Paris - thinking the availability would be better. I was right! But...the taxes were more expensive than flying with Easyjet at their normal price. So perhaps you would think I would switch my allegiance to BMI?

I did. I have over 750,000 BMI miles. The same problem - no bloody seats anywhere you want to go. The best I can do is book Edinburgh to London, which given that is where I fly every bloody week with BMI, I really don't want to go there! So switch to another airline??

I did. FlyBe. Better know to frequent flyers as .. Fly Maybe. They say they have the most generous frequent flyer programme in the UK. Surely I would be on a winner here? I accumulated "Rewards for All" points for a year - fifty of them to be precise. Unlike BA and BMI they have to be used in 12 months or be lost. That means having flown with them fifty times the best I can get is about three return trips all in the UK or two European return trips. I thought "OK, lets take Mrs Blog for a weekend away". Alas...no availability - ON ANY ROUTE ANYWHERE. I even tried Glasgow to Barra in October thinking that surely there would be a spare seat, but no!

A total bloody rip off.

....and relax!

Language difficulties

Went to a dinner with friends on Friday night where a sequence of language difficulties began. Firstly Mrs-Blog's friend Jane, who is from Yorkshire, said she had seen a mutual friend Paul in cow pat. It only took a second to realise it was the accent and she actually meant to say "Car Park". Nonetheless, I was left with the image of Paul standing in cow poo having a conversation with Jane as if nothing was wrong.

Later, after a few glasses of wine, our host told us of his trip to Japan whilst working for a local textile company. The company was called Ballantynes. It would be difficult to think of a harder word for the Japanese hosts to get their tongues around, "Barrantynes" probably being the norm.

So a link with oriental difficulties and Yorkshire; it reminded me that the first non-UK restaurant in the Harry Ramsden chain was opened in Hong Kong. You would have thought they would have changed the name.

Mrs Blog is laughing

Three weeks ago Mrs Blog, without telling me, microwaved some Haddock to poach it. It took until yesterday for the microwave to recover. For nearly three weeks I have had to put up with rotten fishy smells every time I microwaved my porridge.


So, in order to to rectify the shortfall of fishy smells (which I truly detest) Mrs Blog bought salmon pate for lunch today. Son Blog spread a huge lump on his toast and, having noticed my distaste, waved it in my face. (Where did he learn to do things like that?). I was holding a doughnut in my hand at the time and as I recoiled the doughnut broke in half and flew across the room behind me. Straight in front of Muffin (Dog-Blog).

So Muffin tears off to another room to devour the unexpected treat, leaving me with half a doughnut and even more reason to hate fishy smells. Roll on Monday.

A Night Out

Last night was the first meeting for a while of a bunch of "Past it Round Tablers" known affectionately as the "Old Farts".  The plan was to have a point, go for a curry and have a few more drinks until pleasantly stewed.

We do not aspire to the giddy heights of the "Paddington Bear Club" - a group of City businessmen, who go out on a Friday evening with a label tied to their suit lapels giving their home address and the instruction,
"If found please put me in a taxi - there is twenty pounds in my pocket to pay the fare". They then drink until they are insensible. Not for us, we aim to have a pleasant, predictable evening out and a safe walk home.

Here we are going into the Prince of India, Me, Paul, Colin, David and David. The food and service was as good as ever but some confusion among the Old Farts about whether to have large or small Cobras.

So far so good. We then pay for the meal in readies and head for the door. Stopping en route at the cupboard where they have been safely keeping our coats. It was Paul who spotted him. The waiter, a young lad bent double hiding in the cupboard in Harry Potter fashion. He wasn't up to no good, he was texting someone, out of sight of the management. Truly wonderful! Thank you Rasheed for the entertainment and the material for the Blog!

Chutney Update

So, there I was, waiting expectantly all weekend for the Chutney Festival. Apparently there were going to be lots of jars of Chutney on display and the possibility that there may be a few available to taste. I only learned late on that there were going to be special events, including the highlight of the day, the Pumpkin Rolling Down the Hill. Given that this was all happening at Neidpath Castle, you can see that this was no gentle slope, but a proper hill.



When, however, Mrs Blog tells me it is going to cost £10 to get in, EACH! we had a rethink.

I can only imagine what I missed with the Pumpkin.

Dr Computer helps out

As mentioned in previous blogs I am fortunate to number among my friends David "Dr Computer". Out for a beer with Dr and a couple of friends last night he shared his latest wisdom on passwords.

Use of lower and upper case? No.
Using alpha-numerical characters? No.
Regularly changing passwords? No.

His counsel was, that when asked to, "enter a password of eight characters" entering "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" did not work!

Thanks Doc.

We know how to live

The weekend is here and we (myself and Mrs Blog) have a whole two days to whatever we want. So we are going to the world famous (I jest), Peebles Chutney Festival. I cannot wait. Keep watching this space I will report back tomorrow!

Reginald D Hunter

Managed to find some leisure time last night to go and see Reginald D Hunter with Son-Blog. For those followers who need reminding of who Reginald D Hunter is check this out

Reg was at the Edinburgh Playhouse supported by an excellent Aussie called Steve Hughes - see this one

So Son-blog and I got there early and marvelled at the great seats we had. Fifteen minutes to go and we were thinking - this is going to be a great show!

Then it happened. The really big, really fat guy turns up.

At least he took the hat off! ( I am not joking about the hat either!)

Green Energy

Daughter-Blog was home for a visit this weekend. She was telling us about a new young man in her life called John, a post grad' engineer.

Apparently John is more than just a post-grad' enigineering student. He is an "award winning, post-grad' engineering student with distinction". (Nothing but the best the engineering world has to offer for my little girl).

It seems he picked up his award recently, so I asked Daughter-Blog about it.

"His work in the field of Wind Turbines was "revolutionary"."

Funny - I thought all turbines were "revolutionary"!

England lose at Rugby

I am hiding. I am at home and dare not venture out.

England lost miserably to France in the semi-final of the Rugby World Cup this morning. It was agonising to watch so many errors, turnovers, missed opportunities. Worse still, I cannot go out because almost everyone in Scotland will want to talk about the Rugby.

I cannot possibly go on holiday to France this year either. Probably the only place I can go is Australia - if teh ozzies kick off I can always remind them about the ashes.

Swimming is off for a while

Daughter Blog has featured more than most as a subject on these postings and for good reason. To recap, she is 20 and lives in a flat in Aberdeen, writes a food blog - linked to this one.

Three months ago I had to buy a new pair of swimming goggles.

My previous pair had, I thought, been victim to my ageing and lack of memory. I was convinced I must have left them at the local pool. On enquiring, the pool attendant checked and came back apologising that he could not find them. They were a decent pair so I figured that someone, a connoisseur of goggles, had lifted them. Ah well, the new pair were even better

Daughter Blog "Skyped" last night - full video and sound. Her camera revealed she was in the kitchen and was preparing her evening meal. Nothing unusual so far except she was chopping onions and wearing my "lost" swimming goggles! Apparently they stop your eyes watering when you chop onions.

October heatwave

So the UK is basking in temperatures of 26 degrees C. It is the hottest October since records began. Brightonians are sun-bathing on Brighton beach. Next thing will be the complaints,- no barbecue coal in the shops, no bikinis in the shops, no suntan lotion to be had for love nor money, hose-pipe bans and elderly people going down with heat-stroke.

Of course it does not apply to Scotland which is enjoying a continuation of the summer weather.

Daughter-blog misses the sea!

The title may not mean much to you until you are made aware of the fact that Daughter blog (aged 20) lives within a stone's throw of the sea in Aberdeen.

So what aspect of the sea is she missing you might be wondering. The rolling waves, the crashing surf, the soft sounds of the waves receding over the pebbles, the powerful storms that turn the sea an inky black?

No, none of these. All of them could be cured by simply walking ten minutes to the seaside.

Daughter blog went to the seaside last Saturday morning and picked up a stone to throw it into the sea ...and missed! :-)

Advancing years

Just saw a book on a book shelf, when I tried to read the title on the spine it was at a slant and sort of upside down. I read,

"Insure and cretin hope"

Strange title for a book? Of course it is my eyes going with the advancing years and it actually read,

" In sure and certain hope"

Chalet Guests

Sister-blog in Switzerland runs a business, part of which is a meet and greet service for people who have rented chalets in her village. She is the first port of call for complaints from any guests.Sometimes she gets a guest who is hell bent on complaining with the sole intention of looking for a refund. This one recently takes the biscuit.

First 30 minutes

There is no coffee machine 

There was a cafetierre as specified in the details. sister-blog went round within thirty minutes and lent them a coffee machine and gave them a packet of coffee filters to go with it.

First 2 hours

There are no curtains

There are shutters on all the chalet windows as per the details

There are no carpets

There is underfloor heating and the floors are polished pine as per the details

There are not enough dish-cloths

There were two but they wanted three, despite there being a dish washing machine which dries the dishes. sister-blog gave them an extra dish-cloth

and the piece de resistance......

The bed-side table does not have a drawer

There were ample cupboards and the details indicated a bedside table not a bed-side dresser.

We want a refund or an upgrade

They got neither.

Isn't is a shame that trip advisor does not allow establishments to rate the guests!!

Switzerland a funny place

Just back from a weekend in Switzerland. Sounds grand but I was in an official capacity being Godfather to nephew-blog-Ben. Flying into Geneva reminded me of my first trip there many years ago on business. I had a series of meetings in the centre of Geneva including a lunch in a charming restaurant.. Sipping a glass of wine I took in the surroundings and noticed movement outside the window. At first I doubted my sanity but after a second or two I could not deny that I was looking at an elephant.

Given that I was in the middle of a deep discussion with a guy called Cedric about the tax implications of UK non-residents investing in Swiss banks, it seemed inappropriate to say
"Cedric, is that an elephant out of the window?"
So I kept quiet.
Seconds later a second elephant went past, then a third, fourth, fifth. When the sixth elephant went past I was marvelling at the properties of Swiss wine and beginning to understand why almost none of it is exported.

Stuff the business

"Cedric is that an elephant out of the window?"

(Probably the most surreal question asked of a financial intermediary in the history of business.)

"Ah yes" he replied, "There is a circus in the town today".

As I sighed with relief I glanced out of the window again and saw the Geneva Municipal Street Cleaners - shovelling madly, keeping up appearances!

Kayaking

Last weekend we took a trip to the North West of Scotland to go sea kayaking with a group called Kayak Scotland. We, being me, Paul, Martin (Mad Dog, Duracell Bunny), Son-blog and Nephew-the-muscles-Harry.

No-one capsized, which given my track record with river kayaking was against the odds.
Me river kayaking,-

The plan had been to paddle to the Old Forge Inn, the most remote pub in Britain. However Hurricane Katia put paid to that so we paddled the coast around Arisaig and Loch Ailort. The hope was that we would see otters, seals or something of Scotland's wildlife. The nearest we got was a cow that decided to block the road while eating the grass off a verge.

Still Harry got a good workout.

Only the second and third joke

I had a racing snail. It got slower as it got older, so I removed its shell, thinking that it would be more streamlined and lighter. In fact it just got more sluggish!


And....
I once worked in an abattoir. The view was offal...just offal...



Mrs Blog gets gassed

Mrs Blog is a fan of my cooking, mostly. Today I offered her the chance to sample my ciabatta served with grilled Mozzarella, Parma ham, peppercorns, Basil and red chilli. We had all the fresh ingredients to hand except the red chilli. Not a problem, Mrs Blog keeps a supply of them in the freezer.

There I was assembling the ingredients and, being technically minded, knew how to defrost things in the microwave. In went the red chilli on "defrost" for three minutes. One minute later...BANG. The sound of an exploding chilli.

Not only did the damn thing explode, parts of it vapourised forming a highly toxic chilli-gas. There was Mrs Blog coughing her heart out, me coughing uncontrollably and neither of seeing the funny side of it!

Some days start badly and then go downhill

Woke up still suffering from the bad back that drove me to seek help from Mark the Physio yesterday. Following his advice I filled a hot water bottle, wrapped it in a towel and placed it strategically on the bed. Lying on top of it at just the right point would, I hoped, improve my aches, pains and problems. It was beginning to work when I reached for the cup of tea that I had next to the bed...and found a sock in it! Not an ordinary sock but a white sock from my gym kit, a super absorbent white sock! After fishing the damn thing out of my mug, there was only a quarter of my tea left.
Of course the hot water bottle has a leaky top so I cant even resort to going back to bed!

Extreme Haircuts

Having taken Mrs Blog's car to Kwik-Fit in Edinburgh for a new tyre I found I had a little time spare and went for a wander. Not far away was a sign saying "Turkish Barber". Being in need of a haircut and having planned to make my monthly trip to "Els" hairdressers in Peebles, after getting the new tyre, I thought I had struck gold. This was a time-saving blessing.

The Turk welcomed me in and sat me down straight away in the chair - no queues. The day just got better and better.

After a pretty decent haircut (dare i say much better than El?) he went for the trimmer again.

"Mmmm" I mused, "He must be tidying things up, very professional of him."

I was completely unprepared for the fact that he then attacked my nostrils in qucik succession! The last time anything like that had happened to them I was 14 and I got my brand new Boots battery operated razor stuck. My great day had jsut taken a downturn. It could not surely get any worse?

Bring on the wooden pole, about the length of a wooden spoon ,wrapped at one end with some kind of cloth. The Turk dipped the cloth end into a bottle of purple liquid. Before I could ask if it was Methylated spirit (which it was!), he lit it, and started attacking my ears with the flames!

So my bad day got a whole lot bloody worse! How ears and the smell of buring hair to add tomy woes.

Never mind though, Kwik Fit put a smile on my face by telling me I had four illegal tyres but I could at least drive home safely with all the new ones they put on!!!

Riots

I have been away for a couple of days to the Isle of Man. As such, I missed the news of the riots in Edinburgh this week.

Quiz Night

The quiz team were out last night competing bravely in the local pub quiz. The team name "..and in third place" was slightly optimistic as we finished fourth. Questions and answers are hotly debated by the team until the loudest voice wins or the rest of the team get bored and give up arguing. This technique means that each of us take it in turns to do two things; first we talk everybody else out of a correct answer; second we give up arguing when we know what the right answer is. This allows us the opportunity to recriminate each other whilst simultaneously feeling that we have the moral high ground. Such fun!

To put a smile on yuor face...

 

Puns for Educated Minds The fattest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian. She was only a whiskey maker, but he loved her still. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class, because it was a weapon of math disruption. No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart. Two silk worms had a race.  They ended up in a tie. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall.  The police are looking into it. Time flies like an arrow.  Fruit flies like a banana. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.   I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger.  Then it hit me. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said:  'Keep off the Grass.' The midget fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large. The soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran. A backward poet writes inverse. In a democracy it's your vote that counts.  In feudalism it's your count that votes. When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion. If you jumped off the bridge in Paris, you'd be in Seine. Two fish swim into a concrete wall.  One turns to the other and says 'Dam!' Two hydrogen atoms meet.  One says, 'I've lost my electron.'  The other says 'Are you sure?'  The first replies, 'Yes, I'm positive.' Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocaine during a root canal? His goal:  transcend dental medication. There was the person who sent ten puns to friends, with the hope that at least one of the puns would make them laugh.  No pun in ten did.             --

Follow by Email

In case you have not spotted it yet, there is now an easy to spot "follow by email" facility.

After months of trying to stop a blue text on a blue background the problem has been solved and just in case you still can't find it ...

You may need to check your spam filters.

Coffee and Cars

Had a call from David - Blog-friend and follower this morning. Agreed to meet for a coffee at the previously featured "Cocoa Black" coffee shop and chocolate emporium. This would have been impossible a month ago with high cholesterol but the "new me" can cope with shelves of chocolate gateaux.

David was telling me that he is waiting on his new car - specifically with a sunroof....but we live in Scotland!

You Tube First

Being a middle aged bloke, getting techy is not my strength. However, sometimes needs must and and you find you can stretch yourself. Hence the attached clip from You Tube.

If you close your eyes - you struggle to hear that it is a saxophone. Only 816 hits on this video - seems a shame so I am plugging it!

om

Destiny not coincidence!

In the week of a blog telling that Daughter-Blog is now working in a shop called Lush, we visited her in the Furry-boots city* where she resides. On leaving to come home she asks me to take a huge bag full of empty beer and wine bottles home to dispose of. As a loving father I have complied and chucked them in the recycling bin, the locals are now having a collection for me to go into rehab!(see shame of recycling post)


*Furry-boots city is Aberdeen, where they all go round saying furry-boots yer from?

Coincidence or Destiny?

I post a blog on wine consumption and the perils of disposing of the bottles and Daughter-Blog starts a new job on the same day at a shop called .... Lush!

The shame of recycling

We enjoy a glass of wine in our house....quite regularly. We are also conscious of our social responsibilities, which means we regularly recycle the bottles that the wine comes in. That is the cause of a problem.

The problem is that the bloody great containers that we have for recycling the bottles, make an almighty noise when you throw the bottles in, as they smash and the sound echoes and amplifies. This means, living as we do in a small town, that every body knows we have been drinking. We tend to save up the bottles to make the trip worthwhile, this means that anyone within a mile radius of the recycling container probably thinks we are suffering with a drink problem in our house. No-one cares that we have non-wine bottles in the consignment.

So what are the options?

1. Don't recycle, and become a social leper
2. Carry on as we are and put up with the sympathetic smiles
3. Wear camouflage clothing when recycling
4. Only recycle on dark moonless nights
5. Use a variety of recycling centres in other towns where we are not known
6. Bury the bottles in the back garden

Any other suggestions gratefully received, hic!

Pensions update

My rant on pensions was woefully short and therefore lacking in a few details , for which I apologise.

To set the record straight and keep the peace with at least one follower...

For the public sector I (and probably many others) do not include the following - armed forces personnel, nurses, doctors and other emergency services all of whom are hugely valuable and worth every penny.

In fact we would probably prefer to see them paid more and get better pensions than they do.

My rant a few weeks ago was aimed squarely at the pen-pushing-window-licking-monkeys who achieve nothing and take forever to do it. The nearest this gets to the armed forces and emergency services is the MOD who have managed to squander billions and with no-one taking the fall for it.

Cholesterol check

Had the results of my updated cholesterol check (see bacon cheese and chocolate May 2011).

All in order (back down to 5.0) so I am off to celebrate with a double bacon cheeseburger, chips and chocolate cake. Then an early starter breakfast at Little Chef "The home of the British Heart Attack".

If I survive, I will have porridge for breakfast just to make sure I don't slip back in to bad old ways.

Bloody Blog

I get a few free minutes to re-design my blog and end up wasting hours trying to get the "Follow by email" header to show up where people can see it. If anyone knows how to do it please leave a comment with instructions.

Hope you like the new template - just got plain bored with the old one

My employers have finally sorted my endless It problems and given me a brand spanking new IPad 2. It is simply brilliant! I may even be able to blog during the week whilst away on work in the exotic locations of Basingstoke, Bristol, Birmingham and elsewhere.

On holiday for a wee while so no new posts until I get back - unless I take my IPad with me....

The last post entitled "Censorship" deliberately had no text - I thought I was being cleverly satirical but apparently not.

PS the spell check I just ran thinks Basingstoke should be Bassoonists.

Censorship

Running

At last! After nearly a year I am back running. Or at least I have managed to run every day for five consecutive days without injury. However, it is not all good news. I was overtaken by an eighty-five year old man with a walking stick, but it is a start.

But then he did have "go-faster stripes" on his walking stick.

No more chilli jam!

Disaster has befallen us here in Scotland. The maker and supplier of the world's best Chilli Jam is leaving. Tomorrow is the last day in the UK for Happy Heather - chum, student of a modern thought (yes just the one), ambassador for the United States, friend of daughter-blog and all round good egg.

H H you will be missed by all Chilli Jam addicts. Farewell and bon chance.

Keeo in touch and keeping reading the Blog.

Mrs Blog's Complaint

Mrs Blog works part-time in a coffee shop. A very nice, up-market coffee shop. Yesterday she received her first complaint.
When I heard, I was astounded,
"Mrs Blog makes perfect coffees" I thought "Who on earth could possibly find fault?"
She explained that a family of well-to-do types had pitched up and the mother had asked what an iced coffee was.
"A scoop of ice-cream, two ice cubes and a shot of coffee" replied Mrs Blog.
"Sounds delicious" said the well-to-do mother.
The daughter also opted for one.
Five minutes later the mother was back.
"My daughter didn't like the iced coffee."
"Oh" said Mrs Blog
"It was too cold!"

Proof of this story is in the complaint book at Cocoa Black Coffee Shop, Cuddy Bridge, Peebles.

Another serious one

I did not plan to write a serious post for a while; events in the Netherlands have changed that. Though not well reported here the Dutch government has banned the slaughter of animals according to the rituals of Halal and Kosher. These are practices dictated by the religions of Islam and Judaism respectively. The argument appears to have been that the rights of religions are subservient to the will of the people - in this case the issue of cruelty to animals versus the right to practice ones faith according to long established rules.

On its own you may agree with the Dutch position. From what I can see they have not gone as far as banning the importation of animals or animal products that have been slaughtered according to Halal or Kosher rules somewhere else. If true , this is at least inconsistent.

Now that the precedent has been set, how long before the Dutch government decide to legislate against men-only priests in Roman Catholic or Orthodox Churches? There are dozens of ways in which this precedent is disturbing because it sets the state as controller over religious belief and freedom.

In the past we have seen many moral precedents in Holland end up on the statute books in many other European states over time. I really hope that this is not one of them.

There are few followers in Holland - it would be good to hear what you think.

My new message

I have decided to change my mobile phone message on my voicemail. Henceforth it will say
"Thanks for calling , I am sorry I cannot take your call right now. Please leave a message and someone from the News of the World will ring you back shortly!"

Burning Bridges

Daughter-blog, who must have run out of moeny, is back home for a few days. Last night she decided to impart some wisdom with the quote "May the bridges Iburn, light the way". All I could think of was Jeff Bridges being arrested for homicide and arson!

Serious post on pensions

This post might well bore the backside of anyone outside the UK. Then again it might bore the backside of just about anyone in the UK as well! Nonetheless - the blogsite is called "drivel and wisdom" and it is time to rebalance. There has been too much drivel lately, both on this site and in the debate on UK public sector pensions.

We had a national strike of public sector workers this week, complaining about having to work longer and pay more into their "gold-plated" pensions. On the face of it you want to sympathise. However being in the private sector I have seen my pension eroded in terms of my retirement date and my contributions (I have to pay more and more in to get the same benefit). The argument from civil servants has been, for many years, that their pensions are a compensation for lower incomes than the private sector.

Here are some facts from the Office of National Statistics.

In 2010 the median weekly income in the public sector was £554
The median weekly income for the private sector was .........£473!

(The "median" is used as a more accurate measure than a simple average)

A difference of over £4,000 per annum in favour of public sector workers. My sympathies are now a little stretched!

Why are the government choosing to take action on the cost of public sector pensions?

Because the current cost of them will rise from £21 bn to £80 bn over the next forty years - to put that in context - ten years ago the cost was 1.5% of UK GDP. If nothing is done that will rise 2.0% of GDP.

In the last five years the contributions made by empoloyers in the private sector to pension schemes fell by more than ten per cent.

I am going on stike next week, a one-man-band strike, protesting about how much I have to pay in taxes to let other people have a better retirement, higher income and who make no contribution to our economic success!

Come the revolution brother....

All comments gratefully received!!

Misunderstandings

Been away a lot in the Isle of Man lately and nearly overlooked this story.

Mrs Blog was preparing a salad, (yum :-( ), full of low cholesterol stuff like watercress, pea shoots, lettuce and the like. Then she hit me from left field with,
"Would you like courgette ribbons?"
As a bloke, salad is pretty girlie food to be begin with, but courgette ribbons??

Here they are

Strawberry Problems

Living in Scotland presents a few challenges for the intrepid gardener. Our climate is damp and sunlight can be hard to come by. So it was with great delight that Mrs Blog showed me her prize strawberry plants had actually got a few green strawberries on them a few weeks ago. Well done Mrs Blog.

The plants sit on a dry stone wall in the garden, clearly visible from the kitchen window.This afternoon I was n a work call at home and saw Mrs Blog run past my window at a speed that would threaten Oussain Bolt. I finished the call and went outside to see what had happened.

The blackbirds had eaten all the strawberries - no jam for us this year!

Heat Sausage

What has my life come to?
I  find the most interesting thing to write about today is the "heat sausage". It has vaguely "Carry On"/"Benny Hill" undertones to it. It is, however, an elongated bag filled with tiny beads, (see diagram)

You put the sausage in a microwave for 5 mins to heat it up and then wrap it around any tired, injured, aching muscles. Last night I used it on a sore calf and ten minutes later it was fine. All of this a top tip from Mark the physio

I promise I am going to try and get out more. .

Midges

This is the first post in response to reader demand.

Living in Scotland can be problematic at this time of year and especially living anywhere near a river or loch. The cause of the problem is the Midge -  a domestic form of biting insect illustrated below.

The Midge might look pretty harmless but it gangs up with thousands and sometimes millions of it's relatives and bites you to death. These little buggers make you itch for days and leave nasty little red marks behind as a memento. The only known way to deal with them is Avon Skin So Soft - it is not an insect repellent but a moisturising lotion. It does not deter the little so and so's it kills them. Which means that you walk around covered in little black specks that were once healthy midges and are now dead ones and you smell somewhat camp! Like I said - problematic.

Midgy Facts
There are fifteen varieties of midges
Only five varieties bite
It is only ever the female of the species that bites (sound familiar guys???)