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???)

Goodbye Muffin

Muffin is our pet dog aged 11, a golden Labrador of very little brain. She moults incessantly, smells and occasionally rolls around in fox poo.

Understandable then that I wanted her nowhere near my new car. Dog hair on the seats and an awful smell when you have just forked out a fortune is not what you want.Mrs Blog had other ideas. She let the mutt loose in the new car without a word to me. Hoping that I would not notice the myriad telltale hairs floating in the car and stuck to the seats, mat, headrests etc.
This blog could have been titled "Mrs Blog needs a solicitor" but that would cost far more than a simple visit to the vet - after all Muffin has had a good innings!

Mrs Blog you have been warned.

Mrs Blog's Quandry

There I was resigned to the world's most boring diet - no cheese/bacon/chocolate thanks to the German doctor telling me I had high cholesterol; (and me making the mistake of telling Mrs Blog). Mrs Blog, worried as she was, added sausages, chips, white bread and a whole host of other goodies, to the list of banned substances.

After weeks of salads,vegetables and boredom comes the news of the Ecoli outbreak attributed to ......of all things  - salad!

So now Mrs Blog has to decide between the health threat of deadly salad, the risk of my arteries furring up like a kettle by eating all the yummy foods and my death by slow starvation.

We are having a barbecue tonight so I guess I will find out from the menu what choice has been made. 

Buttocks of Doom 2

Daughter-blog may be away but the impact of her buttocks of Doom iss still being felt. It seems she is using them, involuntarily, to communicate. Before you get carried away - it is achieved by leaving her phone switched on in her jeans pocket and then relying on touch screen technology and our telephone number being stored as the last number dialled.

Back blogging thanks to a trip to London and a hotel that only had white bread.

New car running well, work going OK, sun shining so I thought I would organise the guys for a drink to celebrate Martin's fiftieth birthday last night.
 Somehow this caught the attention of the Spite Goblin who turned up at the pub disguised as the Beer Sprite (see very first post in January).

It was a great evening - good chat and banter until the spite goblin/beer sprite made me follow the guys to the Crown Pub across the road. I had paced my beers all night and was at just the right level of intoxication to sleep well and wake up fresh as a daisy. Once in the Crown they (my mates) started on Jager-bombers - a glass of Jagermeister served in a half-pint glass of Red Bull which you have to down in one.

Next thing I know, I have had three of these foul concoctions one after the other. Is is a miracle that I can type. Woke up at 5.00 a.m.; really wide awake - thanks to the caffeine in a pint and a half of Red Bull; really hungover thanks to the Jagermiester, beer and 10 year old Macallan. Not sure who my friends are ......

Thanks guys!

WBDS

This is a public service message. There is a little known killer illness out there - "White Bread Deprivation Syndrome"

The name of this illness speaks for itself. I have it. Ever since I made the huge mistake of telling Mrs Blog about my cholesterol rating from the Doctor she has been looking out for my diet. So, not only am I missing out on cheese, bacon and chocolate (not to mention sausages), I just ate the last slice of white bread; so that means brown granary bread for months to come.

My fond hope is that Mrs Blog will read this post and realise the error of her ways. If not you might not be hearing from me for a while.

The Buttocks of Doom

Daughter-blog has returned again to Aberdeen but not before causing utter chaos in the Blog household. She managed to lean her backside against the washing machine and break it. I would be failing in my civic duty if I did not warn the people of Aberdeen of this serious threat to their well-being.

In fact daughter -blog is a serious threat to her own well-being. She was so prone to falling over as a child that she inspired me to comment once,-
"She is the only person I know who could turn walking from the Kitchen to the Dining room, into an extreme sport"

The oil industry

I saw physio Mark again this week. He was telling me about a trip he had when he worked for Rangers Football Club. It seems he was put in business class on a flight to the US and ended up sitting next to a woman who started chatting to him.
"What do you do for a living?" she asked.
"I'm in oil" replied Mark.
After this she came on pretty strong - no doubt convinced that she had found a multi-millionaire. After a while she delved a little deeper into his work and asked what aspect of oil he worked in.
"Massage oil" he said "I am a physiotherapist"
Conversations ends.

HSUMITB

Almost everyday I try and do the Times Sudoku puzzle and more often than not I get distracted and to the word puzzle as well. Today you had to make at least 16 words of three letters or more and containing the letter U. Fine as far as it goes but you also needed to make at least one word using all the letters. Today the letters were the ones in the title of this posting. For the life of me all I could see no seven letter word except Bumshit and Shitbum for almost an hour before I got to Bismuth.

Weird people

Last night saw son-blog perform with the up and coming music sensation that is know as Armadillo. This is a seven-piece band that caused a stir in our local town two months ago when the local fuzz banned them from playing a gig AFTER they had already agreed to it! The reason given was lack of manpower to control the two hundred fans who might have had a drink or two. So having banned the gig they called in reserves to police the streets because there were two hundred fans wandering the streets with nothing to do but drink!!

Back to last night. Armadillo were playing first on the bill in support of Agitator and Stagger Rats at the pretty cool "Cabaret Voltaire" (known as CabVol) in Edinburgh's Blair Street.

Son-blog played the Saxalarm (See earlier post) and had a ball. Back stage one of the musicians from one of the other bands asked him if he knew anyone in Edinburgh who could sell him Ketamine! What an introduction to world of substance abuse - seventeen years old and he is supposed to know where to buy Horse-Tranquilisers on a Saturday night at 9.30 p.m.!! Still it gave me an idea for a blog...

Getting old

For the last fifteen years I have flown from Edinburgh airport to almost every destination in the UK. So much so that I consider air travel to be a specialist subject of mine.

"Yesterday though, it all went wrong. I arrived at the airport an hour before my flight to Southampton at 6.45 a.m.; went through security carefully picking our the shortest and quickest moving queue; bought my usual small cappuccino from my usual coffee bar; sat down with my laptop and sorted out a few emails and started on a report while I waited for the gate to be displayed. So far so good. When the gate was displayed I made my way there - gate 17 in the newer section of the airport. I sat by the gate and opened up my laptop and carried on with the report. After a while I checked the status of my flight and saw that it said "Final Call"

"Final Call" meant that I had missed the boarding announcement but no serious harm - you can still board when it shows "final call". When I went to the desk the lady from Servisair took my boarding pass and said "Sorry sir - this is the Norwich flight. The Southampton flight has closed".
"What? Why did you not make any announcements?" I replied
"We did sir - we made several asking for the last passenger to come to desk 17!"
"Ah!"
She then got on the radio to the dispatcher at the plane and ruined my day by getting them to send the bus back to gate 17 just for me. I had just thought I might get a much needed day at home and she spoiled it. Not only spoiled my day at home but guaranteed my ritual humiliation.
The bus turned up and on I got escorted by the lady from Servisair and under a baleful look from the driver that communicated "Spanner!!"
I got the same look from the pilot as I walked to the plane from the bus. Then once on the plane I faced the passengers who had, without exception, managed the relatively simple task of boarding far better than I had. My humiliation was completed by the "Walk of Shame" down the aisle - of course my seat was at the back of the plane because as a frequent flyer I have learned that it is the safest place to be.

My apologies to FlyBE, the passengers, Pilot, Co-pilot, Stewardesses, Dispatch team, Bus driver, Air Traffic Control and anyone who was trying to fly from Southampton to Edinburgh on the delayed inward bound flight.

Culinary Delights

Mrs Blog did a fine job last night preparing a great curry flavoured vegetable dish to go with chicken. (Not, alas the chicken stuffed with rocket of earlier blog fame).

However Mrs Blog declined this masterpiece, instead settling for a salad. But this was no ordinary salad - it contained shaved carrots! Which to my mind implies they needed a shave in the first place....

Hello Iran Again /سلام دوباره ايران

Somehow this site has become a sensation in Iran this month. Not being entirely sure who is reading it (they could be English speaking expats or more of the Iranian Secret police featured in the post of 21st March) - I thought I should welcome them in Persian/Farsi. If you are an Iranian reader please put up a comment to tell us who you are so that we can rule out the secret police...


...of course they could be tracking this blog because it mentioned Osama Bin Laden last week!! In which case it may be that the secret police in Iran (and possibly elsewhere) have search engines programmed to look for key words which they then investigate. In which case I may have just hit on a way to get my blog more hits than any other....

Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, Terrorist, WMD, Jihad, Al Jazeera, Kalashnikov, M16, Cell.....

I will let you know how it goes!

You know who you are!

This will be a short post to protect the innocent and not so innocent.

The title says it all

Sunday Shopping

Sunday and the day of rest. Fat chance - Mrs Blog is after a day out shopping. I should be grateful since the outlay will be quite small - a mere £1, which compared to some shopping trips is a blessing.
Why, then, am I not grateful? Because she wants to go out and buy - Manure!
Yep - we are going Poo Shopping!!


(Afternoon update)

Mrs Blog cancelled the poo-shopping thank goodness. It turns our that manure contains everything you need to start weeds running rampant in the garden.

Just what you want at the end of a long hard week at work is to sit quietly with a beer and relax in your own home. This is precisely what I did not get.

It was a long hard week - it involved a full day course with my boss and a dozen others learning how to be less Nazi-like in our managerial style. The company wants us to be more personally responsible for actions and to develop our people. I bought into it and so did my boss. There was a point when I worried that he might actually have walked away thinking that the best way to get more out of your people was to be a really extreme Nazi. I will have to wait and see.

The relaxing with a beer went out of the window when son-blog turned up with a gang of  his friends. You have never seen a chocolate swiss roll pass from existence to oblivion faster. They ended up in the garden with sticks doing some kind of Ninja practice session. So immediately any chance of enjoying my beer in the garden was out of the window. More than that I was on tenterhooks waiting for one of them to come rushing in bleeding profusely



Today is daughter-blog's birthday - Happy Birthday Daughter-Blog. She is staying with friend-Heather who makes the most fantastic Chilli Jam.


Heather is an American studying at the "Centre for Modern Thought" in Aberdeen. She is a great ambassador for the US because she has a truly British sense of humour/humor. This was ably demonstrated when I asked her why there was a centre for studying a thought (singular) and really, with all those clever people, could they not study more than one? She has since taken up the implied challenge and is seeking to widen the curriculum whilst seeing the funny side.

Osama Bin Laden

This one is a serious post.

So OBL is dead and the general view in our press is that this was a good thing. We have, however, stepped over a mark as society.

The facts seem to be agreed,-

• The Americans went in to Pakistan to specifically assinate OBL
• They did not telll the Pakistani authorities
• OBL was unarmed
• OBL was shot in the head

All this might seem justified to rid the world of a "bad guy" who admitted master-minding the killing of thousands of people, however, it also sets a very dangerous moral precedent insofaras,-

• A foreign power carried out a military operation in another country without permission
• The operation was an execution
• There was no trial
• There was no UN resolution sanctioning an execution or assassination
• The ends are seen to justify the means

How long before some despot, dictator, lunatic ruler/regime decide to copy the Americans? After the "war on terror" being used  by Bush as an excuse to invade Afghanistan etc we saw Putin use the same reason for attacking his own people. More recently we heard Gadaffi suggest that he was fighting Al Qaeda whilst killing his own people.

Perhaps we need to stop and think?

Back Again

Been a bit busy lately and failed to post a number of times so I thought I should give a brief update on what you have been missing - which is really not a lot!

Last week son-blog dealt with a "Giant Spider" in the bath to prevent Mrs Blog having a fit. But then blew it by telling her it was 7.30 a.m. - she dashed about thinking she had overslept until she saw it was actually 6.30 a..m

Daughter- blog returned from a trip to Whitby. Among the photos she had was one of a display cabinet filled with religious memorabilia - statues of Mary and rosaries and so forth. One item that stood out in the shot was a bugle.
"Look" I said to her "The Trumpet of Jesus"
"Really!?" she replied (thirty seconds before the embarrassed blush started).


And then sadly we bade farewell to daughter-blog as she returned to Aberdeen with Mrs Blog driving her car with a boot full of cookery books.

Aberdeen is having a Rock Festival today - "Wow, what a cool city!" Alas no - it is a festival of Granite!!