tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6380888046027993502024-02-07T05:56:35.786-08:00freeforapoundtrying too hard to be funny.....Daniel http://www.blogger.com/profile/09968097898716840226noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-638088804602799350.post-61650676037099668962016-01-13T15:48:00.001-08:002016-01-15T03:48:52.660-08:00Sunshine on GovanWhen the result of the Referendum on Scottish Independence became official David Cameron telephoned her Majesty the Queen to inform her of the outcome. Such was her level of contentment at the confirmation of a no-vote her majesty was allegedly reduced to 'purring like a pussycat' - a response normally elicited by the royal rabbit. She was equally as enthused when the good people of Belize opted to keep her face on their money.<br />
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Most Better Together supporters celebrated the no vote with a content Tim Henman style fist pump. Others opted to dust off their Union Jacks and take to George Square for a good old fashioned riot - apparently getting the Referendum mixed up with the UEFA Cup Final.<br />
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Personally on the grey early-Autumnal day after the Referendum I marked the occasion by gloomily waiting in line for a consolatory, now discontinued, macaroni pie. While waiting<em> </em>I overheard two older people discuss their respective reasons for voting no; 1) "to teach these young people a lesson" and 2) "to remind these young people where they've come from". Granted in this particular provincial town in central Scotland young people knowing where they've come from would be considered quite the rarity, nevertheless it is this episode more than any other that sticks out as my abiding memory of the 19th of September. No amount of masquerading idiots on George Square could sum up the classically Scottish ideology these two old folkies articulated so perfectly. That's the way it was, that's the way it should be, that's the way it will be; complete, concrete, affirmation of the Status Quo. The faint smell of pish hanging in the air felt apt at the time - I'm not being ageist, I was in Greg's.<br />
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The Status Quo has however undoubtedly been rocked in the wake of the Referendum. There has been a shift in political voting habits, in the Scottish population's engagement with politics and their expectations of the people they elect to Parliament. Such was the level of global attention the Referendum attracted it is now engrained as a Scottish cultural curiosity. When I meet people from other countries the Referendum has climbed to the top of the ladder of those classically generic questions you get asked as a Scottish person, the answer to all of which is 'yes'.<br />
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The Referendum brought with it many firsts in Scotland. For the first time 16 and 17 year olds were given a vote. This was undoubtedly a huge boost for the Yes campaign, particularly in Dundee where the city's teenage population are famed for their inability to say no. The country was also exposed for the first time to a 'Scottish' version of John Barrowman. 'Big Tam the Shipyard Worker' was an inspired character act rolled out by Barrowan for the benefit of the Better Together campaign while simultaneously promoting his new musical 'Sunshine on Govan'. Barrowman's mastery of accents was really quite impressive, I can't wait to see his take on the Australian accent for the opening ceremony of the 2018 Commonwealth Games.<br />
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Most markedly the Referendum inspired political activism on a scale no one could have predicted. Whether it was on the streets, over the dinner table, during lunch breaks, on social media or in town and village halls, the Scottish people were immersed in the Independence debate.<br />
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The Yes campaign in particular utilised grassroots politics appealing to a large and previously politically-disengaged proportion of society. The message was one that talked up Scotland's potential and possibilities, forgoing the temptation to gripe about Westminster or foster any kind of anti-English sentiment and 'Braveheartesque' ideas of Nationalism. An Independent nuclear-free Scotland rejecting austerity, confident in itself and with a more representational government seemed like a no-brainer to me. Essentially the Yes campaign, from my perspective, was one fuelled by hope, hope for a more socially democratic, equal, and progressive nation.<br />
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The Better Together campaign, for their part, did a great job of bussing activists up from England.<br />
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*At this point I would like to make a disclaimer in case of any suggestion that this blog entry may be biased in any way. Let me assure readers this entry has been written in strict accordance with the BBC's guidelines on fairness and impartiality.<br />
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Better Together told us we were too small and too poor to go it alone. We'd lose the pound, be refused EU membership, businesses would leave and there would be uncertainty from everything from national security to mobile phone bills. If we needed an organ - we're Scottish, there's a good chance - we would no longer get it from English or Welsh donors. The oil would run out, and China would take back our f*cking pandas - or our 'non-f*cking pandas'.<br />
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The incessant negativity reminded me of being in primary two when our teacher Mrs Smart made a trip to a local farm more terrifying a prospect than getting lost in Jurassic Park. Mrs Smart, in a move not deserving of her name, decided to show the class a farm safety video to prepare us for our trip and I'd never seen anything more terrifying in my life. In the video foolhardy teenagers were being knocked off by the second thanks to their farmyard horseplay. Children were being crushed by tractor tyres, falling off trailers, getting limbs mangled in complicated machinery and finding themselves trapped in huge silos. If this wasn't terrifying enough for a class of six year olds to endure they threw in a ghost for good measure. The ghost would roam the farm repeatedly chanting 'never rest, never rest' apparently trying to warn the children and keep them safe, like a deranged version of Casper the friendly but f*cking terrifying ghost.<br />
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That video scared me so badly it's about the only memory I have of primary two other than getting my head stuck in a chair.<br />
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Still, Mrs Smart showing a class of six year olds a farm safety video apparently directed by George Romero wasn't as ill-judged a move as Better Together's now notorious, 'The Woman Who Made Up Her Mind' television advert. It was aimed at undecided female voters, albeit the kind of female voters Tyson Fury would consider his ideal woman. The advert's depiction of a wife and mother too busy to listen to 'that guy off of the telly' was a real home-run for feminism and provided us with some quite hilarious internet memes.<br />
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David Cameron, Ed Milliband, and Nick Clegg then gathered in séance towards the end of the campaign to resurrect an ancient Goelm reanimated for the purpose of saving the No vote. Every time Gordon Brown appeared on the television my immediate and natural reaction was to jump behind the couch. I kept thinking it was the ghost from the farm video coming back to haunt me. You can understand my consternation, an old man desperate for rest but called upon at the last minute to save the day, it's no wonder I was confused and scared.<br />
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It wasn't financial doom he was delivering this time however, but a last minute vow signed by the leaders of the three 'main' political parties promising more powers would be delivered to Scotland in the immediate aftermath of a no vote. It was all a bit vague and confusing, a transparent attempt to sit on the fence that was more like political purgatory than compromise, and of course like purgatory it turned out to be total and utter bollocks.<br />
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In the end the vow did just about enough to convince the Scottish people that a Tory Government and a war on Syria was worth sticking around for. Yes, it was a no. Ultimately the people of this country chose to stay in relationship for fear of something worse if they left as opposed to leaving one for something potentially better.<br />
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That's okay, understandable even, if undoubtedly defeatist. We stand alone as the country who opted to vote against our independence. Nevertheless I feel like I've learnt a valuable lesson in the year and a bit since the Referendum. I've forgone some of my own Independence and, under the tutelage of Better Together, I now know if my girlfriend ever wants to leave me all I have to do is undermine her confidence, threaten her way of life, and remove any notion of any kind of credible, peaceful, or content existence without me. That way she'll be mine forever, or at the very least the question will be 'settled for a generation'.<br />
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If the Independence question has been settled for a generation then it will be years before either of the Westminster Better Together parties has even the remotest chance of making the people of Scotland 'purr like pussycats'. Squealing like pigs perhaps more apt for the current administration, and if Scotland really are the swine in this analogy then David Cameron will take pleasure in shafting us. I'm going to need to stock up on consolatory pies. Which leads us to the question, would an Independent Scotland have allowed the discontinuation of the macaroni pie? The answer may haunt us for a generation. My heart really is broken.Daniel http://www.blogger.com/profile/09968097898716840226noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-638088804602799350.post-24487999676300958362014-12-10T16:10:00.000-08:002014-12-11T13:09:26.060-08:00If Looks Could Kill I'd be Dead by NowWhen I was thirteen years old and I had the house to myself I would often rummage around the back of my brother's cupboard looking to see if he'd added to his collection of FHM magazines. On one particular occasion while searching the 'top-shelf' of the cupboard I stopped suddenly in my tracks struck by a moment of pure clarity and inspiration. As I returned the 'pop edition' of the magazine back into the far reaches of the cupboard I was overcome by a desire far greater than Rachel from S-Club 7, a desire to take everything in my brother's room and place it inside the cupboard.<br />
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I set about taking the sheets off his bed, removing pillows from pillow cases, CD's from CD cases, clothes from the drawers, the television from the wall, the 'super-woofer' stereo with three disc changer, the stressed out Pepsi bottle, the bedside lamp, the curtains from the window, the posters and pictures on the walls, the mirror, beanbag, even his swivel chair, everything from golf clubs to underpants I shoved into the cupboard until is was like a coiled spring waiting to expel it's bulging content of utter shite and tat.<br />
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That was when the devastating reality of what I had done hit me. It was only weeks earlier I had a similar stroke of inspiration involving my brother. While he was contently watching the Really Wild Show in the living room I planned a quite cunning and clandestine attack on him, I waited on the other side of the living room door - coincidentally, in much the same manor a predator may patiently stalk their prey - and waited for him to vacate the room. When he eventually did so I smashed him over the back with the bamboo pot stand we kept in our hall.<br />
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It was a beautiful moment, he was completely unsuspecting. When I whacked him over the back with the bamboo stand I even managed to break it - the pot stand that is, not his back. While I lauded over my brother I suddenly became very aware of the imminent retribution he was about to seek.<br />
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Instinctively I made for the back door, making it just in time to lock myself out and more importantly him in. For hours I sat on the back door step waiting on mum to return from work while my brother stewed inside working himself into a state of frenzy. So eager was he for revenge at one point he even made an awfully transparent attempt at diplomacy.<br />
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Of course the fallout from both of these incidents was pretty brutal. The first was a simple beating, the second was a beating combined with me actually being made by my brother to move all of my own worldly possessions into my cupboard.<br />
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That's the beauty of thinking like a thirteen year old boy, the means justifies the end. It's a wonderfully reckless way of thinking. At no stage during my plant pot attack, or shoving everything into my brother's cupboard, did I consider the potential ramifications until it was either too late or I was too committed. It was thinking in this way that led to oven glove boxing matches, washing machine football, chop fights, and the freestyle harmonies and rap styling's of 'Bob Oxygen featuring Dr Pete Zelenzy' a duo that consisted of me and my mate Billy. Our first, and to date only, album was entitled...<br />
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He was on a desert island because no one wanted to speak to him - on account of his buggering stupid name.</div>
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Billy - Bob Oxygen - and I had loads of hits, and 'The Man With the Buggering Stupid Name' went platinum in Dingwall. It contained bangers such as 'Dog in the Mist', 'Cheese', and 'Everybody in the House is Gay', but by far our most popular hit was 'George' a song about being accosted by George Michael while defecating.<br />
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I'm not sure what my parents thought, I imagine it was quite disconcerting having a thirteen year old rapping about being approached by George Michael on the toilet. It must have been tough for them at that time as my brother and I were regularly launching assaults on each other. My attacks were far from unprovoked however, that f**ker had it coming, for years he had been excelling in being a wee dick.</div>
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There was one Easter our parents took us to Wynn Park in Inverness which is a fecking great park with a rope climbing frame, rowing-boats, and one of those wee trains I can never remember ever being small enough to actually ride. After a thoroughly enjoyable day at the park the time came for us to roll our eggs - when I've mentioned this to people in the past they have often furrowed their brow and looked at me as if I was describing some kind of pagan or masonic ritual, I genuinely thought egg-rolling was pretty common practice but if you're unaware I'll explain, egg-rolling is when you hard-boil an egg, decorate it, and roll it down a hill until it breaks, we did this every Easter when we were kids. Wynn Park has the perfect hill for egg-rolling. My parents positioned themselves at the bottom of the hill ready with the camera, and as my brother and I ascended he turned to me with a suggested alternative to rolling our eggs.<br />
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Our parents were, on the whole, pretty good at dealing with situations such as this. One of my mum's specialities was to give you enough rope to hang yourself with. It was a battle of wills and a battle of minds that more often than not landed me in double the amount of shit I had bargained for. There were many a school day I would return home to be greeted by my mum asking a familiar question.</div>
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I'd be left to take a stab in the dark and opt for the misdemeanour I felt she had the most chance of knowing about.</div>
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Far more effective than this however was my mum's, 'you're in serious shit when you get home' stare. This simple look would leave me paralytic with fear; to this day it sends a shiver down my spine. The stare was usually dished out when we were visiting granny and granda and my brother or I inadvertently disclosed something we weren't meant to, rendering the rest of the visit a terrifying countdown to the unavoidable shit-storm that awaited us on the car journey home. Often my mum would make bizarre threats of things not to mention to my grandparents before we visited them. One such threat I remember was not to announce to everyone in the room when I farted. I don't ever remember publically announcing flatulence, and it certainly never occurred to me when visiting my grandparents to say...<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">What my mum had actually done was offer up a great big fart carrot. The fact I had been forewarned not to tell my grandparents when I passed gas meant the urge to do so was almost unbearable. This kind of admonishment was consistent with my mum's thinking. Prior to visiting my grandparents she would have been going through a list of scenarios, visualising the sort of thing I was likely to say or do and felt compelled to pre-warn me against something I had no conscious knowledge of, or desire to do. My poor wee granny passed away never knowing the exact time and dates of my farts - except for when she smelled them of course.</span></span><br />
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Dad relied on a more traditional/old school means of discipline. He didn't have a stare but what he did have was an itchy hand. The 'itchy hand' was a simple pre-cursor to a spanking. If my brother or I were f*cking about to such an extent it warranted a spanking Dad would fire the 'itchy hand' warning shot. There was one dinner time where my brother was, as usual, excelling in being a wee dick, and so my dad offered him the appropriate warning.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">It's difficult to get across just how brave a move this was, even harder to portray the state of absolute bewilderment we were all in. There was a solid five seconds of palpable silence in which all of us waited on dad's reaction to my brother's boldness, and by extension his fate. When he started laughing, my brother knew he had been to the edge and back. It is the most dam impressive thing I have ever seen in my life.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Between mum's stare, and dad's itchy hand, the two of them could be really quite a formidable and intimidating duo. </span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Of course that never stopped us from lobbing eggs at them though.</span></span></div>
Daniel http://www.blogger.com/profile/09968097898716840226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-638088804602799350.post-31313957959643904132014-07-13T08:28:00.000-07:002014-07-14T11:33:30.919-07:00The Lion, The Beach, and The WankboxA few years ago I wrote a blog entitled 'My Dad's Lesbian Ex-Wife' which was admittedly a little misleading on account of the fact they weren't actually married only 'engaged to be'. But expect no such hyperbole this time round, I have promised a Lion, a Beach, and a Wankbox, and on this I will deliver - in keeping with the Narnia inspired title I should point out that when I say 'Wankbox' I don't mean just having a tug in the back of the cupboard, although if you're thirteen and you're reading this that's probably not a bad spot.<br />
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I came across the Wankbox in Montreal Canada where of course they call it 'le Wankbox' on account of the fact Montreal is in the French speaking province of Quebec. 'Le Wankbox', as I'm sure you can guess, operates on a fairly simple premise. Allow me to put it in context for you, perhaps in one of your weaker moments while going about your day-to-day business you have been struck by a sudden and quite uncontrollable urge for self-gratification. Well in such a case you might nip into the toilet or on-site portakabin like the filthy wee cretin you are, but if you were French-Canadian you'd just step into the box. Outside of an NCIS crime scene it's the single greatest concentration of jizz on the planet.<br />
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Montreal wouldn't strike you as an obvious setting for the Wankbox it's regarded by most in Canada as its cultural capital, the beating heart of French Canada with its striking architecture, plethora of concert halls, art galleries, restaurants, its wonderful night life and cosmopolitan inhabitants. I certainly wasn't struck by the need for a wank on my walk to the grand Basillica and if I did I wouldn't consider that shining beacon of dank self-deprecation to be my preferred spot, I'd go as far to say I'd probably rather have a wank in Oscar Pistorius's toilet than 'the Box'. Although I didn't actually frequent the Wankbox I can say with relative certainty that it's a pretty disgusting and unpleasant place. And that's the point, because a year later myself and my travelling companions on that Montreal trip arrived at a fustie, damp, crusty, filthy, crawling, 'Fritzlesque', hotel room in a certain Spanish resort. We all agreed that a night in the Box would be preferable to the week we faced in the hotel, and so it was our residence from that moment on was forever referred to as 'The Wankbox' - or 'el Wankbox' if you prefer.<br />
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You know that old saying 'every Wankbox has a silver lining' well for us it was the glorious, golden beach packed with the most beautiful girls the Mediterranean had to offer. The sheer volume of gorgeous girls was almost unnatural, every day we went to the beach expecting the previous day to have been a fluke and each day their ranks swelled. It certainly made the Wankbox more bearable. We had sunshine, inexpensive booze, beautiful women, and incredible nightlife. These things should have equated to success but when you're travelling with three pasty-white teuchters they are of course more likely to be the architects of your downfall.<br />
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Day four of the holiday was a biggie, new up-coming superstar DJ 'Avicii' was playing in one of the clubs; it was going to be a huge night. During the day everyone congregated on the beach making it the perfect place for the nightclub to promote their clubnights. They would send their club-reps out during the day to hand out flyers and invitations, huge, muscle bound, tanned, Abercrombie looking guys with perfectly chiselled good looks and aviators. They had the easiest job going convincing everyone to go to a party they all wanted to go to anyway. They strolled up and down the beach joining in games of football, paddleball and Frisbee stopping to talk with groups of girls and picking up numbers with a near 100% success rate. Every group on the beach, boys and girls, were invited. I wasn't so confident though. As the posse made their way towards me I turned to survey my travelling companions, one of whom was lying face-down in the sand surrounded by sixteen cans of Estrella, one was vomiting in the sea, and another was lying on a sun lounger at an advanced stage of 'Lobsteritis' - a condition that severely reddens Scottish skin when exposed to the sun.<br />
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We were the only people on the beach not to get an invite to 'da club' that evening.<br />
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The resort was full of Dutch and Spanish people which was good at first on account of how attractive they all were but in the end was a bit of a sticking point because we couldn't really speak to anyone. My interactions were restricted exclusively to my travelling companions most of whom were rarely in any condition to even make it out of the Wankbox. There was an upturn in fortunes on our penultimate night when we met a Hen Party from the North of England. They were great fun, and as we all got drinking and became friends we basically interposed ourselves into the group following them from bar to bar and jumping in all their photos. The Hen Party had a circus theme complete with some fantastic outfits, there were Ring Masters, Clowns, Acrobats, and of course a Circus Lion - who I was trying my very best to chat up.<br />
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One of the boys who was on this holiday is always particularly exuberant when it comes to fancy dress and on this evening he was deriving a lot of pleasure from acquiring as many different items of fancy dress as he could. By the end of the night he had enough make up and accessories on to resemble Boy George - if Boy George decided to run away and join the circus. Amongst his most prized possessions were the lion ears and claws he procured from the lioness I was still busily trying to chat up. Now what happened next depends on which of my friends you decide to ask. I'm not sure who to believe but as the boys left the club they encountered another gentleman who was apparently as equally vehement about fancy dress as my friend.<br />
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Account of Friend No. 1<br />
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I'm not sure why he was so opposed to giving the claws away, or why he valued them that bit more than the ears, but anyway here is the Account of Friend No. 2.<br />
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Like I say I don't know what to believe.<br />
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While my friends were being accosted on their way home by an angry Mr Ben, I was enjoying a romantic stroll down the beach with my lovely lioness. We walked, and frolicked, and waited for the glorious Mediterranean sun to rise. When we left the beach at silly o'clock in the morning and made our way back to her hotel we were greeted by quite the unwelcome welcome party.<br />
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It was quite an experience being shouted at by angry women dressed as circus performers and foreign police, but I suppose mishaps are inevitable on any 'boys holiday'. My advice to any young bucks embarking on a holiday with as equally irresponsible people as myself and my friends would be to buy insurance. I've been on three boys holidays during which time I've spent a total of six days in hospital, been robbed twice, gone missing for twenty four hours, and reached a disabling level of 'Lobsteritis'. <br />
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Thankfully I'm too old for the boys holiday these days, although in truth the boys holiday never really dies it just evolves into something as equally unpredictable and irresponsible, the 'Stag Doo'. All Stag Doo's are of course afforded the essential anonymity needed thanks to the age old rule of 'what happens on the stag stays on the stag'. This makes it impossible for me to disclose any sensitive stag information on this blog site - although like any good Ryan Gigg's super injunction who knows what will end up being on here in the future.<br />
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In the meantime I hope I have managed to deliver on my Lion, Beach, Wankbox promise, if the only reason you read this far was to find out more about my dad's lesbian ex-wife/fiancée then I apologise, here you are..... <a href="http://www.freeforapound.blogspot.co.uk/2011_04_01_archive.html" target="_blank">http://www.freeforapound.blogspot.co.uk/2011_04_01_archive.html</a><br />
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One last thing has occurred to me, maybe I'm completely wrong about the Wankbox, maybe it's purpose is for something completely different, I mean 'le Wankbox' that could mean anything couldn't it...???<br />
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Daniel http://www.blogger.com/profile/09968097898716840226noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-638088804602799350.post-90254467713045361252013-10-31T14:07:00.000-07:002013-10-31T16:06:27.710-07:00The Flamingo DiariesHave you ever received a strange birthday gift? Someone's named a star after you, donated in your name to charity, or, even worse, you've been forced to shop in Topman? This year I was left feeling fairly incredulous at my thoughtful if slightly perplexing gift of a rabies injection. Granted in a life or death situation, that situation being an attack by a rabid animal, this gift would potentially save my life, I say 'potentially' because in said event the injection doesn't actually prevent the infection or onset of rabies it just means you don't die immediately, it's a purely preventative measure - it's like wearing two condoms when shagging someone from Fife. Still at least I will always remember this year's birthday as the year my parents - mum - got me a rabies injection. For Christmas I'm getting an epipen.<br />
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My parents - mum - gave me the money for the injection on account of a trip to South America I made over the summer. In order to appease my parents - mum - I also got myself immunised for Hepatitis A and B, Yellow Fever and Polio, with an old fashioned tetanus boost and a shit load of malaria tablets to boot. I was so well immunised when I eventually landed in South America I was determined to get bitten by as many animals and share as many dirty needles as possible just to get my money's worth. And I hate injections; my friends are always teasing me for choosing to smoke my heroin.<br />
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Purchasing injections, Spanish lessons, travel insurance, and my base tan from 'Tanz' on Granton Road Edinburgh, left me in a fairly precarious financial state before I had even left the country, even my Lonely Planet guide 'South America on a Shoestring' cost me £22 - a little paradoxical I'm sure you'll agree. Still it was important to my parents - mum - that I was prepared for every eventuality. I did find it a little strange I was traveling to an inherently dangerous part of the world with some of the highest rates of violent crime and terrorism on the planet and my parents - mum's - greatest concern was that I carried enough plasters and savalon.<br />
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This was the first time I had ever undertaken anything like this before. I had travelled previously, two summers working and travelling in America and one summer inter-railing through Europe with an ex-girlfriend. Those trips taught me a valuable life lesson; travel may broaden your horizons but it does nothing for your bowels or liver. When I leave the safe haven of home and head out into the great beyond an even slight departure from my normal routine tends to turn me into a boarder-line alcoholic with bipolar bowels that switch from chronic constipation to devastating diohera. It pretty much limits your trip itinerary to drinking and shitting - and usually in that order. When I was in Ecuador I couldn't go on an excursion with some very attractive Dutch girls...<br />
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I had even greater reservations over my mental health. I suffered not so much foreboding or a fear of loneliness, my greatest concern was other people. That's why I hate hostels. The last time I stayed in a hostel I was welcomed by a perfect pile of hair on top of the plain white sheets that comprised my bedding, it looked like a pubic hair clitoris. Hygiene is a concern anytime I stay away from home but even pubey sheets aren't as worrying as the people who stay in hostels. When I stay in them I tend to get into arguments, sometimes altercations, usually over the issue of acceptable social etiquette. Maybe I'm 'square' but I don't think it is appropriate to shag your big fat German missus at four in the morning with the light on, use the toilet of a room you're not staying in at silly o'clock in the morning - I said 'if you're going to use someone else's toilet at least flush after yourself', he said 'there's a water shortage in California', I said 'go fuck yourself' - or cheat at beer pong.<br />
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Despite the concerns over my physical and mental wellbeing when I arrived at my first destination - Lima, capital city of Peru - I felt chipper, optimistic even. I was untouchable, and anything that did touch me I was immunised against. It didn't matter I was travelling alone. I was mature, street wise, and my Spanish was tip-top - this I based on my ability to follow the inflight movie, an old black and white film about a female matador avenging the death or her father, I thought she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, that was until I arrived in Colombia where all the girls look like female matador's avenging the death of their father, ie breathtakingly beautiful but also look like they could kick your c**t in. This sense of optimism barely made it out of the terminal door before I was reminded I wasn't streetwise or savvy at all. My first conversation in South America, perhaps unsurprisingly, was with a coke dealer, a coke dealer I tried to buy chewing gum off. He wasn't an obvious drug dealer - well, actually, he probably was - because he carried with him a tray of chewing gum and lollipops as a rouse to any watching policia.<br />
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I did find it a little strange they sold chewing gum by the gram in South America, he was f*cking delighted when I offered to buy fifteen grams.<br />
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My rendezvous with the minty-fresh drug dealer or even the taxi driver who charged me the equivalent of a Peruvian mortgage payment wasn't a concern, my biggest worry of course was the hostel, my first South American hostel, which fulfilled all my pre-conceived anxieties. It was a hedonistic cesspool swarming with hippies who never got out of their pyjamas no matter what time of day it was. Within two minutes of arriving some Canadian girls asked if I wanted to hula-hoop and watch the sunset. Being a competent hula-hooper and avid fan of sunsets I agreed. So it was I watched my first sunset in South America while hula-hooping for the first time in fifteen years, I even taught some local primary school children how to hula-hoop - failing to notice the wee shite bags were simultaneously stealing my booze.<br />
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After the sunset we went to a flat party. Sitting nursing a beer I pondered how little time it had taken me to become engrossed with this eclectic group of Canadians, Americans and Israelis. As I sat contemplating all I had gone through to make it to this point, how far I had come, and the incredible journey that lay ahead of me, I began to panic, not through a sense of unease or nervousness but because it was at that moment I realised I had made the classically Scottish move of trapcing dog-shit all through the flat. Aware of the ticking social time bomb on the bottom of my shoe I made a clandestine move to the toilet and discarded it like a shitty Cinderella. I was devastated to find a lack of toilet paper, towels, or anything that could dislodge the ungodly amount of dog-shit from my shoe. The only available shit-flicking instrument was the toilet brush, which, after the sheer volume of excrement it had to displace, was left un-useable even after a thorough rinse under the flush of the toilet. Not wanting to finger bits of dog-shit down the plug hole or compromise the health of the guests in attendance by rinsing the toilet brush in the sink basin, I opted for the only option left available to me and lobbed it out the window..<br />
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They lived on the fourth floor.<br />
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Hula-hooping hippies and dog-shit you may think constitutes a pretty unsuccessful start to the trip, importanatly however it was on that first night I met an Aussie bloke with whom I would travel for the next twelve weeks. For the remainder of the trip we were like a Celtic-Antipodean Che Guevara and Alberto Granado - if Guevara and Granado went everywhere with a surfboard and frivolous use of the 'c-word'. Over the next twelve weeks we would explore five countries, visit cities dwarfed by smouldering volcanoes, trek through dense jungles, deserts, and endless salt flats, raft down Andean rivers, marvel at thousands of Flamingos', snorkel with sea-turtles, sea-lions and sharks, race one hundred year old tortoises, join in noisy football celebrations, salsa lessons, and never ending fiestas using ropey Spanish chat-up lines and travelling on even ropier buses, we would drink copious amounts of rum, visit ancient Inca and Mayan ruins, and live with Indigenous peoples, all the time picking up some of the best travelling companions you could hope to meet and getting higher than either of us had ever been in our lives - over 5000m in Bolivia.<br />
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When the time came to part ways my Australian soul-mate and I decided to 'mark' the occasion by taking the classically stupid move of getting matching tattoos - I still hadn't made use of my hepatitis injections. I'm not sure how Guevara and Granado decided to mark the end of their trip, but just imagine for a second how much more powerful the socialist revolutionary movement would have been if it was headed up by a man sporting a giant pink Flamingo tattoo. We opted for Flamingos because they are quintessentially South American animals: proud, colourful, flamboyant, social, just a little aggressive, and in no way camp - although I have to say when I was brandishing my Flamingo tattoo around Rio's gay district at silly o'clock in the morning while wearing a floral shirt and white cowboy hat it was difficult to reaffirm my heterosexuality.<br />
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South America took my breath away - and not just because so much of it is at altitude - it boasts unforgettable scenery, history and culture. Never before has somewhere struck such a cord with me, never have I felt such an affinity to somewhere that wasn't home. Since I've returned I feel more open-minded, altruistic and cultured - and my pals just can't get enough of it..<br />
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I've talked a lot about South America without really describing any of the things that I did when I was there. Despite this and the fact I've chosen to talk mainly about dog-shit and injections I can assure you I was actually there, it's just really hard to try and condense the trip of a lifetime into a single blog entry. I could write 1500 words alone just describing the view from machu picchu mountain. I can however sum-up the whole trip in one word with relative ease. Amazing. Quite simply it's the best thing I have ever done.<br />
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I left my heart in South America and one day soon I hope to go back and fetch it. In the mean time I'll practice my hip rotations - for hula hooping, obviously - flick through my photographs, and allow my bowels to recover in a country where you're allowed to flush toilet paper down the pan - it still just feels so decadent.<br />
<br />Daniel http://www.blogger.com/profile/09968097898716840226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-638088804602799350.post-32516291642134118782013-04-14T11:59:00.000-07:002013-04-16T12:11:18.556-07:00Brawling and LolingA lot of people seem to think heckling is what makes stand-up comedy unique, and in some perverse way appealing - because a meticulously rehearsed twenty minute set just wouldn't be the same without wistful and intelligent audience insights such as;<br />
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If you are one of those people who shout out in comedy clubs then you are obviously an arrogant, egotistical, megalomaniac. Your misguided belief that anyone actually gives a f*ck about what you think or what you have to say is completely unfounded - in fact the more I think about it the only real difference between you and the person you are heckling is that they have a microphone.<br />
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My mum has watched me performing only once, and on that occasion in what was a particularly supportive and appreciative room she was the only one to heckle me.<br />
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For those who are regular readers of my blog you will be aware there is a back story to this. My mum keeps trying to tell me I'm adopted, my dad - Akbar - assures me this is nonsense.<br />
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Usually heckles are just semi-conscious gargling noises, and, on one pleasant occasion, projectile vomit. I can say from experience that reacting to someone throwing up during your set is not easy. It's like vomiting while making love do you stop and acknowledge it or continue performing?<br />
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What really annoys me is the sheep-shagger thing. The level of ignorance is incredible, I have seen hecklers accuse <em>Aberdonian </em>comics of sheep shagging, which is ridiculous, Aberdonian's don't shag sheep, <em>that's just what woman from Aberdeen look like. </em>'Sheep-shagger' is a common heckle for comedians from rural areas so when it occurs you need to have an appropriate put down prepared.<br />
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Bringing the mothers into it isn't big or clever but then again neither are those people who consider 'sheep-shagger' a particularly humours heckle so it is at least a little justifiable. On most occasions I use this put-down it gets a good enough laugh, the heckler takes it in good grace, and we all move on - to my sheep shagging material. There was one occasion however..<br />
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If you're reading this and you find that response shocking then you obviously went to the school where no one says 'yer maw' - did you go to school with Will's and Harry? Everyone else should be familiar with the use of 'my maw's dead' as a standard retort, a disabling tactic used to try and put your adversary on the spot. Now I'm not sure if this guy's mother was in fact dead or not, but I do know he certainly wasn't the result of an immaculate conception - hence not affecting the jokes validity - and if she was dead he was probably the one who killed her. Either way, the fact I'd just insulted the local maniac in a room that resembled a BNP rally in a basement where gentlemen go to exchange videos, meant that I kind of killed the gig for myself at that point.<br />
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You meet some weird and wonderful people through comedy and travel to some weird and wonderful places - hello good people of 'Dove Holes' in the Peak District, I apologise for suggesting your village sounds like a synonym for anal sex. In the time I have been performing comedy I have met some bizarre people and found myself in some even more bizarre situations; I have gigged with a self-confessed Nazi-sympathiser, performed to one man in Glasgow, shared a bill with a male stripper selling sex toys, had a lady ask me if I wanted to go home and 'stay' with her daughter, witnessed a headline act singe his pubic hair on a table candle and put a crisp packet up his arse, gone on a gay bar crawl, had someone vomit and several fights break out during my set, and, on two separate occasions, been offered heroin - stand-up comedy is basically just like a night out back in Dingwall.<br />
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Throughout my short comedy adventure I have endured some horrible, haunting, sweat-inducing stage deaths more cringe-worthy than that time you called the teacher 'mum'. In this respect the gig that still keeps me awake at night took place in Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis and was for the islands 'Volunteer of the Year' awards ceremony. I came prepared with my best fifteen minutes which at that time involved some jokes about the Taliban, an a-z of female contraception, and a comparison between WWF wrestling and pornography. To my horror I had been billed as an after dinner speaker with 'a few words on volunteering'. The event was being hosted by the head-boy at the local High School and in attendance was a sizable proportion of the islands Free-Church community. So, I decided to dispense of all controversial material and dropped any swear words, I wanted however to remain a little tongue in cheek, this inevitably turned out to be more foot in mouth. I opted for the comedian's death of choice, death by one-liner.<br />
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At no stage did I mention volunteering - although I'm sure I wouldn't have been short on volunteers wanting to give me the Wicker Man treatment. That gig took at least five showers to get the smell of failure off.<br />
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On the whole audiences respect the barrier between the performer and themselves. Even when the comedian is so obviously dying on their arse, most audiences will allow them the opportunity to do so with what little dignity they have left intact. That's <em>most </em>audiences of course, there are those gigs where you just can't help ending up in a fist fight covered in jam and beer.<br />
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The true inspiration for this blog entry was a fundraiser I did for a bike club just before Christmas. It was perfectly pleasant until the compere started handing out raffle prizes. A group of local lads not associated with the club entered the raffle and were obviously delighted when they won a jar of rhubarb jam; other equally impressive prizes on offer that evening were a headband, a water bottle, a water bottle holder, a keyring, and a bottle of lube - for your bike chain, naturally. Perhaps it was the group's level of intoxication, or just their love of jam, but they were pretty excited about winning and increased the evening's joviality by lobbing the jam at each other. When a sizable portion of jam ended up on my face and person I politely suggested to the group that perhaps this was not the most suitable behaviour for a comedy club. They disagreed, insinuated I interfered with sheep, and threw their pints at me. At this point I felt I had exhausted diplomatic efforts and what ensued was chili con carnage. Drinks were thrown, along with punches, and a battle royal broke out between me and the jam loving, inbred, jakie-fuckwits.<br />
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The next morning I awoke with a swollen wrist - I had won the lube. Despite having a background in martial arts - I am lethal with a paintbrush - that altercation with the jam and beer throwing baw-bags was, to my recollection, the first time I managed to successfully hit someone. That is not to say I haven't been in my fair share of scuffles, most of which have been pretty farcical in nature.<br />
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When I was at university I managed to get in an altercation with two massive rugby guys in the weights room at the uni gym.<br />
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After that I had to change my exercise habits for fear of running into those roided up maniacs ever again. It wasn't all bad, if it wasn't for those guys chasing me with dumbbells I wouldn't be the dab-hand I am now at Pilates.<br />
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I was once held at knife point at Scotland's annual music festival/NED fest 'T-in the Park' thanks to some pretty garish attire I happened to be wearing at the time. <br />
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For those who don't know the history or politics of Rangers and Celtic just know that if they ever see each other out and about they tend to get stabby - the best way to stay safe is to assume all Glaswegian's are out to stab you.</div>
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It's not often you can say you've got a lot in common with Humpty Dumpty but I too have managed to get myself in trouble sitting on a wall.</div>
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Sometimes something as simple as ordering a beer can descend into violence, particularly if you're abroad and especially if you find yourself in one of America's 'agro-States'.</div>
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<br />
I'll never understand the animalistic, knuckle dragging nature of the alpha male who seeks out violence and confrontation. Stand-up comedy provides all the misogyny I need; stand-up isn't that far removed from a brawl, sometimes it feels like it is you versus the audience like you're somehow trying to 'win' the gig, and as I have alluded to in this blog often punching yourself repeatedly in the face would be more pleasant. But it isn't all gigs in Fritzil style basements to audiences of questionable personal hygiene and patience. Most of the time people don't vomit mid-set, and you are rarely accosted by jam lobbing lager louts. When it goes well it's great, really great; you know, like all those times you managed to have sex without vomiting.<br />
<br />Daniel http://www.blogger.com/profile/09968097898716840226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-638088804602799350.post-91045255831336569912012-11-01T12:50:00.000-07:002012-11-01T12:50:03.843-07:00Bitches, Ho's, and Scottish WidowsRemember those Scottish Widow adverts? A beautiful lassie wandering a desolate and picturesque Highland landscape in her black cloak and high heels, when she looked at the camera she gave you those 'come to bed if you're not dead' eyes.<br />
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I for one was glad her husband was deid.<br />
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That's probably not appropriate but how appropriate is it to advertise mortgages, loans and life insurance using sexy mourners? I've looked back at the adverts and she still has her wedding ring on in most of them - she definitely shouldn't be looking at me like that - they should re-name the company 'Sexy Scottish Widows' or at least 'Sexy Pensions, Investments, and Life Insurance'.<br />
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When I was 12 I fancied Blue Peter presenter Katie Hill, my brother also fancied her which was unfortunate for me because it meant that by default I wasn't allowed to. When the habitual Blue Peter viewing time came around my brother would start on a line of questioning that would always culminate with him kicking the shit out of me.<br />
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<br />
Hence how my first crush ended up being a woman who could not only show you a good time but could also look after your fiduciary needs - what 12 year old boy wouldn't be turned on by that?<br />
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Sex sells, simple as. I didn't subject myself to Blue Peter battle royals every other week day to watch that donk who presents the one show now. It's the same reason why 12 year old boys these days have such an encompassing and comprehensive knowledge of the English Premier League, Sky Sports news is like a 24 hour constantly repeated soft-porn channel.<br />
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Women have, and always will have, an incredible power over us. The black widow spider for example - this is a very tenuous attempt at linking to 'Scottish Widows' - derives its name from its bizarre mating habits. Once the female has mated with a male spider she will eat her sexual partner. It is the literal example of 'hump and dump' unless of course female spiders share the same attributes as their human counterparts and in fact do not defecate - my mum has always told me girls don't poo. This example of eight-legged man-eating can be found in human beings although usually with one-legged females and beatles. The fact the female spider is much larger and more poisonous makes no difference because, as I'm sure most girls can verify, male lovers tend to get particularly dozy post-coitus. That wee spider doesn't even realise he is being eaten until it's too late - and even then his biggest concern is that he tastes better than the other male spiders she has been with.<br />
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The fairer sex's approval is the greatest motivation for most of what we as edible males do. We are aware that only the most charming and confident spiders are chosen to be eaten and we'd much rather be eaten than considered unappealing - the surviving males can hardly boast about how many girls they've been with can they? <br />
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The journey on the path to self-improvement starts and ends with the approval of a girl. If you are the sort of serial procrastinator who watches hours of constantly repeated television, drinks lots of cups of tea, eats lots of biscuits, and takes showers just because you are bored - you probably pee sitting down as well - then yes you are pathetic; you probably know this already. But fear not, you are merely in a transitional period where you have given up trying to be Prime Minister to piss off the last person's approval you craved, and haven't quite summoned up the energy to go out and impress someone new buy being someone else - someone who doesn't pee in the shower. Soon you're going to start making origami ostriches, begin a low-carb diet, take an interest in art, culture, and loads of other stuff you're not necessarily interested in. <br />
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Remembering that love is the motivation for your self-improvement, the key thing is finding someone who you would be willing to change for. Contrary to popular belief 'da club' isn't always the best place to do this. Aside from the obvious obstacles of intoxication and the dramatic lowering of standards, in the unlikely event of you being allowed entry onto said premises your biggest problem is the standard and nature of the competing males. Tanned, well-dressed, sock-less, men operate in these venues and they utilise a very defensive strategy to try and entice the females. Quite simply these gentlemen will patrol the premises desperate for a chance to play the hero, only the slightest faux-pas in social etiquette is needed for fistycuffs to ensue. The issue for you being, that by this stage of the evening you are much more likely to besmirch a young lady's honour than do anything that would impress or interest her.<br />
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I have so many examples of this, I once got punched in the ear for telling a girl she had nice hair.<br />
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My suggestion would be to try and speak to a girl in the bar pre-nightclub. The more reserved and relaxed atmosphere means there is a greater chance of striking up a genuine conversation. Be careful though, try and consider the effect the company you keep can have on your chat-up attempts. Play the numbers game a small group of friends is required, no more than two or three. Go out with a standard 'wing man' and they are likely to get pissed off at you for making contact so early in the evening. Go with too large a group and you are likely to do something akin to the group mentality that follows gentlemen on a night out.<br />
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Apparently most folk meet their future spouse at work or university. This isn't particularly advantageous if you're anything like me and are a self-employed wanker - I mean this quite literally, I make my living through regular donations to the sperm bank - who did a university course where a large proportion of the female students were lesbians. Maybe you'll meet someone online - just be careful what you put down as your interests, mentioning your fondness for 'Orange Wednesdays' could result in an invite to go on a distasteful march in the east end of Glasgow. My favourite is 'uniform dating dot com' - if uniforms really are your thing why don't you just go out and get yourself arrested or hospitalised? 'Match dot com' is another good one where you are encouraged to sing to people at railways stations, what this has to do with the actual advertised service I have no idea but hey, maybe you will meet the love of your life reporting unattended luggage together?<br />
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While attempting to meet your significant other please try to maintain lucid mental health, don't go lobbing off your left ear to try and impress a prostitute - I learnt a lot at the Van Gogh museum. My mum's advise has always been to 'be yourself' but the fact she regularly describes me as a bit of an arsehole suggests she's sending out conflicting messages. So make the necessary improvements; go to the gym, to the theatre, invest in something, clean your shoes, find out what 'blanching' is, donate to charity, write a blog, shop in Sainsburys, just do whatever you need to do to ensure that next time you step out of that door you're less of a dickhead.<br />
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Unless of course you're with a girl who likes dickheads, in which case just keep doing what you're doing. Dickhead.Daniel http://www.blogger.com/profile/09968097898716840226noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-638088804602799350.post-2679013650633094682012-06-27T14:38:00.003-07:002012-06-28T12:19:02.461-07:00Being Middle Class is ClassAllow me to set the scene. The sun is shining and I am sat in picturesque Inverleith Park in Edinburgh. The model boat club members are tyring to avoid swans fed on organic, wholemeal bread, there are two games of cricket and a softball game being played, the catering van here is selling crepes, and people are actually 'picking up after themselves'. Perhaps I've chose the wrong place to 'shoot up' - although it's the Greg's I'm eating that seems to be getting the more disparaging looks.<br />
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It's a lot nicer than the park I used to live next to. There you would never see groups of people using cricket or baseball bats for their intended recreational purposes.<br />
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The differences between my current and previous EH residence is typical of the class divide you see all the time in Edinburgh. Okay it might not be 'favela' to 'Fettes', but I've definately moved to the better side of the tram works. It's only recently however I've been a victim of crime - turns out in Edinburgh you can't leave your football boots outside the front door to air.<br />
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I'm quite naive when it comes to stuff like this, being from the Highlands I'm not particularly security concious. At casa del Downie we safeguard our belongings by hididng the back door key underneath the wheelie bin, making it marginally less convenient for any potential burglars - and leaving us dangerously exposed on collection day. I remember a brief period of security paranoia when mum - obviously concerned about the foibles of our existing system - insisted we kept the key in a new camouflaged key holder. Ordered from a catalogue it was disguised as a grey rock which looked inconspicuous amongst the red chipie stones at our back step.<br />
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She's a worrier my mum. When we were in school my brother and I were instructed to sit in the middle of the bus, her reasoning being that if the bus was invololved in a head on collision the kids at the the front would be fucked, likewise if the bus was rear-ended it would be the kids at the back that would get it. She didn't like it when I pointed out the middle of the bus was the furthest from the exits. We talked about it and it was decided an aisle seat in the middle would provide the desired aisle access needed for a quick getaway, while also protecting from collisions from the front or behind - top decks were out of the question. On a seating plan the optimal seats are as follows.<br />
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The fact I now live in the big smoke obviously doesn't help things. To be honest I can't blame my mum for worrying. When I first moved to Edinburgh my flat was situated in an area of such socio-economic depression it would be prime real-estate for Olympic or Commonwealth re-generation, plus, conveniently enough, it was located adjacent to a methadone clinic. But despite the knife attacks, the car fires, and the prostitutes at the end of the road - who once asked me how my mum was, a case of mistaken identity, I hope - I was never concerned about living there, I was always confident that the wee 'jake baws' who ran about the place would rather rob houses where there was stuff actually worth stealing, i.e. none of the houses in close proximity. Even crack-dens could provide better offerings than my granny's old TV set and a freeview box. When two plain clothed detectives came to inquire about one of my neighbours, I was convinced they had come to bust me for not paying my TV licence.<br />
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The only time I was ever worried was when my American pals came to stay with me. I made them aware of the dangers that the local young team posed, but they didn't seem particularly bothered.<br />
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In reality Edinburgh isn't all that intimidating the only gun fire we get here is to let us know its lunchtime - and I'm pretty sure they just do it to scare tourists.<br />
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Perhaps we do lead a sheltered life in this country. I know my traumatic tales of personal torment such as the time I got my head stuck in a chair, or when i got locked in a potraloo, paled in comparison to my ex-girlfriend's anecdotes of being caught up in a bomb plot in Madrid, or a Columbian earthquake. It may not have been an earthquake but my pals did a good job recreating one while I was locked in there, and I've never been involved in an explosion that I didn't create myself. I remember we were in Madrid when she told me about the obviously harrowing, life affirming experience of witnessing an ETA bomb attack. As usual in these situations I managed to say the wrong thing.<br />
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In school the highlight of our summer was an agricultural event called the Black Isle show. It was never called off on account of a bomb scare but its eclectic mix of teuchters, minks, gypsies, and farmers meant that fireworks normally ensued, usually set to the soundtrack of a Robbie William's tribute act at the shows culmination dance. The best thing about the Black Isle Show was that a few of the girls would usually have cousins with them who were on their holidays or they were there with friends from different schools. It was a great opportunity for us to impress, usually by offering to pay the girls onto a ride - 'onto' not 'for ' - we would spend all the money we made from berry picking over the summer on buying tat and paying girls onto the attractions.<br />
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As the years progressed the vomit was less likely to induced by waltzers as it was by half a bottle of Grants - or a combination of the two at least. I served a decent amount of my drinking apprentiship at the shows but aside from locking me in a toilet, my friends and I didn't cause all that much carnage. There was one year when my pal got drunk and decided it would be a good idea to have a nap in the middle of the road which resulted in him getting, well, run-over.<br />
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So maybe we're not street wise in the Highlands but we don't need to be, we've only got one street, we're 'high street wise'. And its not like bestiality is the only law being broken, last time I was home my pal was complaining of opportunist thieves in the neighbouhood.<br />
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That's the standard of thief we have in the Highlands, if that car was left in the seemingly safe surroundings of Trinity Edinburgh it would be in the same place as my football boots. The only joy-ride a true Highlander is interested in are the ones at the Black Isle show.</div>
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As you climb life's social ladder you'll find yourself looking down less, probably because you no longer have to constantly scan the pavement for pitbull-mastif dogshit. I'll admit it is nicer living in leafy Trinity with the cricket players and touch rugby tournaments than next to the methadone clinic. But the more you have, the more you have to lose - I mean I have Sky now. When I'm king of the castle I'll be happy to have the walls, and the gun to let me know when lunch is. </div>Daniel http://www.blogger.com/profile/09968097898716840226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-638088804602799350.post-46992496630354966042012-01-09T13:04:00.000-08:002012-01-22T13:37:59.720-08:00Penguins, Ducks, and Sheep-StaggersOn my very first foray into the world of stand-up comedy, on the very first occasion I stood on a stage in front of paying customers, I told my very first joke, the first joke I had ever written - or written down at least - and it was about my hometown.<br />
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'You can take the man out of Dingwall, but you probably shouldn't'.</div>
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The next time someone asks you where you're from feel free to use this joke, just insert your town/village/caravan site - it works particularly well if you're from the isle of Man - and if people don't laugh just remember; a good one liner is much like an Andy Barrowman square ball in the 82nd minute of a Scottish Cup semi-final, it's all in the delivery.</div>
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My opening gambits usually revolve around my Highland hometown which tends to induce heckles about bestiality - fancy word for sheep shagging - which is ridiculous considering most folk in the Highlands are too religious to shag the sheep - not without marrying them first at least. Aside from bestiality many individuals first association with Dingwall is to its football club, Ross County, or the 'Staggies' as they're affectionately known. And on that fateful cherry popping evening in Glasgow one hearty County admirer stood up and shouted...</div>
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Which in a fervent Glaswegian accent sounded an awful lot like..<br />
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I was in Glasgow I'd prepared myself for a knife attack what I wasn't expecting was a heckle about Ross County. It turned out not to be an isolated incident either, since then I've had lots of audience members threaten to stab me.<br />
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In truth Ross County doesn't belong solely to Dingwall. The club's stadium, Victoria Park, is the only in Britain where the capacity of the stadium is larger than the town's population. Despite this the club is well supported with one of the highest average attendances in the Scottish first division. Ross County is the most Northerly professional club in Britain, the club's demographic of fans covers a geographical area larger than Belgium drawing from towns and villages such as Alness, Invergordon, Tain, Dornoch and further flung outreaches such as Lewis, Wick, Thurso, and Orkney. In a modern day Jacobite rebellion Victoria Park makes a fitting place for 'Bonnie Prince Adams' to raise his standard.<br />
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Despite our Northerly disposition please ensure the sat-nav takes you to Dingwall, not St Tropez, because apparently, according to Trovit property..<br />
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<em>Dingwall, the county town of Ross and Cromarty, situated a mere 14 miles from the 'city' - </em>pssssshhtttt - <em>of Inverness, has the sunniest climate of the County enjoying a milder micro climate.</em></div>
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That's a bit like saying it's the 'coolest' town in Death Valley. I've yet to witness the residents of Balintore or Gairloch rushing to Dingwall to 'warm up'. Looking on the huddled home fans in Victoria Parks Jail End - named so because of the stands close proximity to the Sheriff Court, which comes in handy when hosting Raith Rovers fans - the scene resembles a colony of penguins on an Attenborough documentary rather than a Bounty advert.<br />
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Anyone who has ever been part of the jail end colony might agree that the often incomprehensible Dingwallian dialect resembles a Pingu sound-bite. Some lucky naturists might even have been fortunate enough to catch a rare slipping, sliding, flapping, performance from Gary McSwegan - although to be fair he was more of a donkey than a penguin. Now I may have stretched the penguin analogies a little far, but when it comes to comparisons with birded, beaked, buddies, there was one particular Highland derby when my uncle managed to take it to the next level.</div>
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Mo Johnston, Alfie Conn, Steven Pressley and Kenny Miller are a select group of players who have crossed a divide as old as football itself. A division between two teams separated by intense rivalry and religion, locked in a never ending battle for domination of the Scottish game. I'm talking of course about players who have played for both Celtic and Rangers. Players who have made headlines when deciding to change allegiances. In the Highlands Ross County and local rivals Inverness Caledonian Thistle swap players like cups of sugar, the divide between the two teams has been crossed more often than a Wayne Rooney spelling test, or a certain Polish ex-Celtic goalkeeper. For the last few Highland derbies Calley has fielded a number of ex-County players making the opposition lineup pretty easy to recite..</div>
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And despite the fact so many of County's players have crossed the Kessock Bridge to play down the ferry - Barry Wilson, Stuart Golabeck, Don MacMillan, Roy McBain, Nicky Walker, Richard Hastings, Gary McSwegan, Graham Bayne, Steven Hislop, John Rankin, Lionel Djebi-Zadi, Don Cowie, Andy Barrowman - it doesn't make them any less popular if they return to Victoria Park in Calley colours.<br />
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During one particular Highland Derby Calley full back Roy McBain was singled out for particularly abusive treatment. Every time he touched the ball my uncle would go through a bizarre ritual that involved flapping arms and snapping fingers. He was dancing around the Jail end shouting..<br />
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Despite my previous association with the polar South, and despite the fact one of Dingwall's pre-game drinking establishments is called the 'Mallard', this isn't how the Jail end chooses to express their dislike for a certain player. My uncle had got himself a little mixed up, what we were actually singing was...<br />
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The hand gestures were a little different as well.<br />
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Ross County is a football club at the heart of its community, as was evident when the team made it to the final of the 2010 Scottish Cup, the exodus from the Highlands on that day was like a repeat of the clearances. Personally I have been involved with the club since taking in my first ever game aged six years old. I played in the boys club, I worked and coached with County during my university years - the club even hosted an 'under achievers' meeting I attended when I was at school. Ross County has provided me with as many memories and moments as any mentally unstable family member dancing about the home end.<br />
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<ul>
<li>There was the announcements my friends and I would get Stadium announcer Ally MacKintosh to read out at half time.</li>
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<ul>
<li>There was the time my brother and I almost enticed a full scale riot after Calley fans started throwing bricks at our supporters bus thanks to our gestures out the back window.</li>
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<ul>
<li>There was the time I got pelted in the testicles from a stray shot - probably McSwegan's - and had to hobble home at half time while the St John's ambulance people pointed and laughed at me.</li>
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<ul>
<li>There was the time the police put my intoxicated pal on a bus back to Dingwall when he had actually travelled to the game from Edinburgh.</li>
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<ul>
<li>There was the time one of the boys got knocked out after some over-zealous celebrations at the Challenge Cup final.</li>
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<ul>
<li>There was the time when working for the club I managed to get lost giving primary school pupils a tour of the stadium.</li>
</ul>
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<li>There was the time we broke onto the pitch and had a game in our kilts on my eighteenth birthday party.</li>
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<li>There was the time when coaching for County I travelled to Orkney only to realise I'd forgotten to take any footballs.</li>
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<li>There was the time we told some English guys we didn't accept English notes when selling programmes outside Victoria Park before an Under-18's Scotland versus England game</li>
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<ul>
<li>There was the time we had our inflatable sheep confiscated at Easter Road.</li>
</ul>
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I apologise to any reader who may have expected an informative blog on an interesting, if slightly obscure, Scottish football team. You may have expected me to talk about my favourite players, - <em>Billy Ferris, Karim Boukrra</em> - my favourite moments, - <em>run to the Scottish Cup final 2010, 5-1 Victory against Calley in 2003 -</em> or some of the clubs successes<em> - Scottish Cup Finalists 2010, Second Division Champions 2007/8, Challenge Cup Winners 2011, 2007, Third Division Champions 1998/99</em> - the clubs history, - <em>formed in 1929 County played in the Highland league until being accepted into the Scottish Third Division in 1994</em> - or their attempts at developing the stadium, facilities and youth teams - <em>Victoria Park is home to the 'Highland Football Academy' which boasts some of the finest training facilities in Scotland and has already produced talented young players such as Gary MacKay-Steven.</em><br />
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It's almost inconceivable to think that Ross County and Inverness could potentially both be in Scottish footballs top flight a little over 17 years after their introduction into the Scottish Football League. We have something that's rare in Scottish football at the moment, a talented team, a forward thinking club and a set of supporters who appreciate their efforts. Flying high at the top of the Scottish first division - 3 points clear with two games in hand as I write this - and still basking in the success of their incredible 2010 Scottish cup run, Ross County are a club - hopefully - on the up.<br />
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2012 is the year of the Stag. Promotion is on the horizon. Don't like it..?? Then I'm gonnae stab ye. You heard me right.Daniel http://www.blogger.com/profile/09968097898716840226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-638088804602799350.post-21602281417306324742011-08-15T14:23:00.000-07:002011-08-15T14:23:54.833-07:00Stand Up for Sit Down DrinkingScotland is a country with amongst the highest rates of obesity, heroin use - I maintain that we must be the only country in the world with obese heroin addicts - and alcoholism in Europe. Only Finland are able to compete, although they don't seem to be too concerned; in fact Finland came third in a recent poll investigating standards of living, which means they must do a pretty good job presenting the positive side to over eating, drinking, and shooting up.<br />
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We however are not so optimistic in Scotland. The Scottish government have set out plans to fight our excessive drinking culture - which makes sense I suppose considering excessive drinking tends to result in fighting anyway - but they are missing the point, without a drinking culture in Scotland there would be no culture, drinking <em>is </em>our culture.<br />
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Consider our ancient traditions, heroes, and pastimes and you can't help but think our ancestors were pished when they conceived them. 'Tossing the Caber' for example is just the 15th century equivalent of stealing traffic cones.<br />
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The 'tossing of the caber' actually has it origins in bridge building. The caber would be thrown across a burn - Scottish word for stream - or river with the objective to have it land as straight and flat as possible in order to create a simple bridge. Which proves my point, only a drunk Scottish person would consider this a more appropriate method than just 'building a bridge'.<br />
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Capoeira is a Brazilian martial art which combines deadly strikes, kicks and punches with aesthetic dance and music. Capoeira originated in Brazil in the 17th century and claims to be the first to blend dance and martial arts; look at Highland dancing however and you'd have to say that we were at it centuries before them. My mum used to send me to highland dancing lessons - retribution for being born male - and the more I did Highland Dancing the more I realised it's just a series of hops and kicks designed to keep people away from you. It doesn't take a genius to work out that kneeing and kicking at waist height could have been potentially disabling to our kilt wearing ancestors. Perhaps it was a way for young Scottish woman to keep undesirables away from them.<br />
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Apparently the world's first recorded circumcision occurred just after Highland Dancers started dancing the 'Sword Dance'.<br />
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Consider for a second what life would be like without the ingenious inventions and revelations of drunk Scottish people. If Alexander Fleming wasn't a lazy bastard who couldn't be arshed washing up a mouldy petri dish we'd have no penicillin, millions would die, and Alexander Graham Bell only invented the phone so he could call his ex-girlfriend at silly o'clock at night.<br />
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Drunk phone calls always end in self-loathing in the foetal position - just me..?? Thankfully for Alexander Graham Bell texting came sometime later.<br />
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Golf is another favourite Scottish pastime. Devised in the links of Lothian and Fife as early as the 16th century, golf is a game so obviously invented by a Scotsman due to fact it is essentially a sport that revolves around a pub.<br />
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All great decisions by Scottish people have been made made when they were drunk. Do you really think Robert the Bruce would have taken on a 22,000 strong army at Bannockburn if he was sober..?? There's a story from the first day of battle which sums up the whole encounter. An English Knight spotted Bruce unarmoured, carrying only an axe, the Knight drew his lance and charged towards the Scottish King. Bruce hit the Knight so hard he broke his axe and the heavily armoured Knight's head in the process. Bruce expressed only regret at breaking his axe. This episode sums up the Scottish psyche, a Scotsman thinks he can take on anyone when he's drunk.<br />
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That, and we're quite handy with an axe.<br />
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Scottish people only make poor decisions when they're sober. Bonnie Prince Charlie's Jacobite army for example, conquered Edinburgh, defeated the heavily armed and outnumbered government army at Prestonpans, sacked Carlisle, and made for London making it as far as Derby. Their unprecedented success was only usurped when they began to sober up and started on a disastrous retreat back to Scotland.<br />
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Telling Scottish people not to get drunk is like telling water not to be wet. Whisky - aside from Susan Boyle - is after all our most famous export - and Susan Boyle is a clear and obvious illustration of how important alcohol is to the male population of West Lothian, how else are they supposed to make love to their woman..??<br />
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I've done a little travelling in my time and everywhere I have gone I've always encountered drunk people, our problem is that we're just a little more vocal than others. When you are abroad and people find out you are Scottish they expect you to be drunk. A few years ago a pal and I were staying in a hostel in Miami, we would sit out on the terrace most days at around four o'clock and have a few beers, the American boys thought this was pretty mental.<br />
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Our mates would probably have made fun of us for drinking Corona Light at four o'clock in the evening, horses for courses I suppose.<br />
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In my opinion there is a simple and obvious solution to the negative effects of our - and perhaps Finland's - drinking culture. When you are on holiday there is an air of sophistication, an enjoyable ambiance centred around the option of getting drunk while sitting down. The folk around you are drunk, you just don't notice them because they're <em>sitting down. </em>Perhaps if there was more seating on, or around the streets of our fair nation our country's binging habits could be more easily reversed.<br />
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</div><div style="text-align: left;">We've all been there, you have ended up lying in the gutter purely because there was nowhere suitable to sit - just me..??</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">So, I say raise a toast to our drinking culture, salute our excessive ancestors, and shoot down the drinking culture vultures. Nicola Sturgeon take note, chill out, sit down and crack open a beer. <br />
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Slange ava..!!</div>Daniel http://www.blogger.com/profile/09968097898716840226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-638088804602799350.post-13265248164127337912011-06-11T06:20:00.000-07:002011-06-16T14:28:38.508-07:00My Quarter Life CrisisApparently just before you are about to have a stroke you can smell burning toast - an urban myth most likely attributed to some unfortunate person who had a stroke while making their breakfast. So, I start everyday convinced I am losing brain function thanks to the new toaster at work, on which we have yet to find the optimal toast temperature.<br />
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I've mentioned in this blog several occasions where I thought I was having a stroke. So I'm not sure if the title of this entry necessarily negates my predicted life expectancy or if it is representative of my massive hypochondria. Either way I think it reflects an inner dialogue I've been having for a while now, 'what should I do with my life?'<br />
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And apparently I'm not the only one, there are millions of other twenty something's fearing the reaper, frightened they are wasting their lives. I read an article recently claiming people are having their mid-life crisis earlier. Soon kids will be breaking down during circle time contemplating whether to get a 'fixed rate', 'variable' or 'tracker' mortgage when they leave primary school. Not that I am thinking about mortgages - thanks to Wikipedia for mortgage types - no, no, no, my quarter life crisis runs more along the lines of 'do I want to be an International Film, or Rock star?' At least with old age I am starting to become a little more realistic, I no longer believe I'm going to play for Scotland - just manage them.<br />
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So what <em>should </em>I do with my life? I've had a few ideas.<br />
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1) Start a Business.<br />
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I like this idea because I would get to 'be my own boss'. The biggest issue however would be that I would 'be my own boss'. Aside from the fact my boss has no obvious talent, drive, or ambition, he is, on the whole, a bit of a wanker. Also the only busines ideas I have tend to involve chip shops, tanning salons and public houses - all of which are pretty plentiful in the part of the world I inhabit.<br />
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2) Devise an innovative, exciting product I could display on Dragons Den.<br />
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The only issue I can envisage with this is the fact I would need to find a business partner to work the Thunder Machine.<br />
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3) Write a Children's Book.<br />
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I started writing a Children's Book, however my fondness for bad language and scenes of a violent and sexual nature mean it's now just, a 'book'.<br />
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4) Pursue a career in comedy.<br />
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If I do decide to follow this line of work, and you see me in a years time, please remember it's just a pound I'm asking for.<br />
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My dream job when I was in primary school was to write songs for Bon Jovi - after listening to 'Thank You for Loving Me' I feel I may have grown out of the role. My brother was always been a little more realistic, when he was young he wanted to be a minister, a PE teaching Minister who played football professionally. He had the three professions at the top of the sex offenders list well covered.<br />
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I'm jealous of people who know exactly what they want from life, who have vision, ambition and drive from an early age. Aside from penning power ballads for Bon Jovi I've never really know what I wanted to do. I had a brief spell where I wanted to be a vet. My mum told me that the fact that I ran away from wasps, and was scared of almost ever creature I encountered meant this career choice was unlikely to work out. In hindsight I think it was an easier way for her to get me off the vet idea without having to just come out and say I wasn't clever enough.<br />
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It obviously isn't necessarily a 'crisis' to have thoughts of self-improvement, I just need to remind myself I'm the king of procrastination. My dream is to do very little and get paid lots for doing it - so naturally I've applied to FIFA. And like any good SNP manifesto, all these well-meaning ideas will ultimately result in a return to the comfortable status quo with a distinct lack of Independence.<br />
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I never used to be this bitter and pessimistic, there was a time when the glass was half full - although a glass can never actually be half empty, the 'empty' glass is comprised of 50% water and 50% air meaning it is never truly empty - I used to have lots of unique ideas when I was younger.<br />
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'You Won't Go Back Once You've Been Smacked'. That was the tag line, I even devised an advertising campaign for my aftershave where attractive male models tried to score 'Smack' off their dealers.<br />
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This is actually the culmination of two ideas. I've been thinking that perhaps lockets would be a more suitable flavour of condom considering they start off hard boiled then go all gooey after you've sooked them for a while. <br />
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'Vigrin Condom's' makes sense, they do everything else. I was on a train recently and was flicking through a Virgin Holiday brochure, I noticed in the brochure the Kids holiday club was called 'V-Kids Club' and I wondered why isn't it called 'Virgin Kids Club?' But then I suppose that would attract a completely different type of traveller.<br />
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Why is it only Communists Dictators should enjoy such luxury..? It's time see-through coffins hit the mainstream.<br />
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They probably already have these in Japan. Finally you can enjoy urinating in the shower guilt free. I'm currently working on a version for girls.<br />
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The entrepreneurial spirit was knocked out of me for good during an unfortunate incident involving a chip shop in secondary school. I have been victim of a number of injustices in my time - I was told I couldn't play the bagpipes in primary school purely because there wasn't enough of them, the music teacher then proceeded to throw a chair at me when I complained, true story - but this particular incident has left me as emotionally scarred as actually eating from the chip shop in question would.<br />
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A new chippy opening comprises a fairly significant event in Dingwall, so in an attempt to ensure the students of Dingwall Academy were aware of the opening of the new culinary centre of their universe students were challenged to come up with a name for the new chip shop. Whoever could come up with the best name would win £100 in vouchers, get the first fish supper served in the shop for free, and get their name and photo in the paper. Not bad. Since my 1999 'Shinty Player of the Year' accolade - an award kept within my family from 1996 to 2000, the only blip being 1997, the year my brother was eligible to win -I had experienced a bit of dry run on the success front. I put my creative brain cells to good work and came up with a name I thought was pretty snappy and original with a good chance of winning.<br />
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Now I'm not suggesting I should have won the competition - I should have won the competition - but being forced to watch my best mate being paraded at assemblies and buying a new golf bag with his winnings was tough take, considering his pathetic effort.<br />
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<div align="center">'Mr Fish'</div><div align="center"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"></div>Mr Fish is a bigger injustice than O'Bamma winning the Nobel peace prize for 'writing a book'. I'd have happily buried my pal in a see-through coffin after Fishgate.<br />
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I'll admit that see-through coffins are unlikely to be snapped up by the mourning masses, and Duncan Banatyne is probably not interested in investing in Shower Urinals or 'Smack' Aftershave - I've yet to hear back from Richard Branson regarding the Virgin Condoms. Still, it all seems more likely than actually landing a full-time, permanent position in this current economic climate. So maybe I will end up being an International Superstar.....I think I can smell toast burning.Daniel http://www.blogger.com/profile/09968097898716840226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-638088804602799350.post-45422550663166979912011-04-05T11:50:00.000-07:002011-04-05T12:45:32.007-07:00My Dad's Lesbian Ex-WifeNo, the title of this blog is not inspired by a 'Friends' storyline, it's based on <em>almost </em>true life. My old man didn't have a lesbian ex-wife; he was in fact denied the chance to marry his lesbian sweetheart. It was only only a couple of years ago I learnt he was engaged at the ripe old age of sixteen to a young lassie who later - so he claims - went on to become a lesbian. In the twenty odd years since she came out of the closet my dad has managed to keep this story firmly within it. I don't blame him. He must have known that given this delicious gossip my brother and I would indulge in childish teasing along the lines of, "haha...you turned her gay dad..!!"<br />
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Which we did.<br />
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Once I'd finished teasing - if I'm honest I haven't - I started to think, it couldn't have been easy being caught up in a broken engagement, even if it was at the tender age of sixteen to a lesbian. When your future wife turns out to be gay it must be like getting hit in the bollocks, as painful as it is you have to accept that to those around you it's actually quite funny. But breakups, any break up, especially at sixteen years old, are horrible. Usually - for one person at least - a 'breakup' often results in a 'breakdown'.<br />
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Not that a broken heart is anything new for a Scotsman. Thanks to our sedentary lifestyle and horrendous diet we have amongst the highest rates of heart disease in Europe - when my girlfriend recently split up with me I though I was suffering from a broken heart...I was actually having a stroke.<br />
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I've not had contact with a few of my ex-girlfriends for a while, but, as far as I'm aware, none of them later turned to homosexuality. I have however been dumped more often than Andy Murray's coaching staff, and I'm willing to admit that some - in fact most - of these have actually been quite funny.<br />
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A few of my breakups have been 'mutual' but this is a false economy, they were only mutual in as much as I agreed they were dumping me and there was nothing I could do about it. My first came as early as primary one. My girlfriend at the time, Lynn, was more than a girlfriend, she was also my wife. We had a beautiful ceremony in the playground at lunchtime. Everything was perfect until my best mate, and my best man, decided he also had designs on Lynn. Soon we were engaged in a Tommy Sheridan style love triangle - when I say 'Tommy Sheridan style' I should point out we were five years old and the only swinging taking place was at the park. When I told my mum about my girlfriend - and her boyfriend - she advised me to confront Lynn and tell her she had a decision to make it was either me or my best mate Judas, sorry Gary.<br />
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Apparently Lynn wasn't into emotionally needy five year olds, and she got half of my stuff in the divorce. Still, I like to think that to this day she regrets choosing Gary over me.<br />
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When you reach early puperty you obviously crave more attention from the opposite sex. The only problem is you've spent thirteen years ignoring girls - unless you live in Dundee, at which point you'd be considering antenatal classes or childcare options - and have no point of access into the female world. What's needed is a dating diplomat, an agent who can orchestrate deals, source potential interest and maximise you eligable status. For me this invaluable source was my cousin Aimee. She managed to pull off some impressive Downie deals, deals that were all the more unlikely due to an unfavourable reputation I had acquired amongst the first year female population after I dumped a girl because she changed her name - as if being in the 'witness protection programme' wasn't hard enough. The fact my older brother was a dick didn't help things either - his name isn't Richard he's just a dick - older siblings would always advise their younger sisters against dating a Downie.<br />
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Aimee's biggest coup came when we were thirteen. I was still suffering the effects of 'namegate' however despite this Aimee had somehow managed to convince one of the hottest girls in first year to agree to go out with me. I was delighted when she phoned me with the good news.<br />
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Not my longest relationship admittingly but I'd still say it was one of my best. I suppose there was some deals that even Aimee couldn't close.<br />
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The worst breakups are the one's you're not expecting. They are often the pinnacle of a particularly rubbish day or week. I had such a breakup when I was sixteen years old. I was watching our local team take on bitter rivals Inverness Caledonian Thistle - shit team with a shit name. It was half time and we were being beaten convincingly, so in an attempt to cheer myself up I got my Nokia 3310 out ready for a game of 'Snake 2' when the following text came through...<br />
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Somebody told me recently that moving house is supposed to be as stressful as a breakup, well unless you're moving out as the result of a breakup, or you're moving into the Fritzil household, that's a load of bollocks. But then perhaps I'm only saying that because of my Roma-Gypsy/Native American background.<br />
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Surely moving wigwam isn't as stressful as the deleting of messages, the cancelling of plans, holidays, not to mention the cards, photos, and letters kept in a safe place like propaganda you once believed but now have no idea what to do with. My recently ex-girlfriend was - and still is - a world class artist. Looking at the drawings and paintings she once drew out of affection has been heart-wrenching. It is only now I can finally empathise with English football fans, because everytime I set my eyes on the portrait of Maradona she gave me as a Christmas present I get the sickening feeling of hurt, disappointment, heartbreak and 'what could have beens' - this actually reminds me of a 'Maradona incident' I had while attending a party with my girlfriend. I was the only Scotsman at a party in England and decided it would be a good idea to get stupidly drunk and sing Maradona songs, (to the tune of the Hockey Coakey), <em>"...You put your left hand in, you do the Maradona and you score a goal, he put the English out, out, out....Ohhhh Diego Maradona, Ohhh Diego Maradona..."</em><br />
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And that was after I drank the hosts rather sizeable whisky collection, I was probably lucky to have survived that particular incident to be perfectly honest.<br />
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I suppose I shouldn't expect any sympathy from English football fans at the demise of my relationship, but I'd like to take the opportunity to apologise for drinking a twenty year old botte of malt and singing inflamatory football songs. While I'm at it I should also appologise for 'outing' my old man, offending anyone in the gay community and for dumping my first girlfriend purely because she changed her name.<br />
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For those of you just out of a relationship or going through a breakup I hope your breakup is a 'breakup' and not a 'breakdown'. I'm sure you'll take absolutely no comfort when I say 'there's plenty more fish in the sea', and besides, going by recent fishing quotas that's just not the case anyway.Daniel http://www.blogger.com/profile/09968097898716840226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-638088804602799350.post-91926685723662233072011-03-12T14:54:00.000-08:002011-03-13T14:00:07.815-07:00"Lawyer, Lawyer"I've always had an interest in the law, mainly breaking it - I hold my hands up, I sent Neil Lennon a nail bomb. It was in an email so isn't likely to cause all that much damage, although lets face it a nail bomb could only really improve Neil Lennon's appearance; they should call it a 'Neil bomb'. When I was young I thought I would grow up to be a lawyer. My mum supported my decision but I knew she thought it was a phase, there had been a few potential career paths offered up to this point, such as my vet phase, my song writer phase, my RAF phase, my guitar, drums and chanter phases. It was time to ditch the vision of the drum, guitar, bagpipe playing rock and roll RAF vet, and settle down to learn the law.<br />
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I studied intensely, mainly by watching Jim Carrey's memorable performance in 'Lawyer, Lawyer' - sorry 'Liar, Liar'. I decided to take Jim's erratic, unpredictable style and wild interpretations of the law into the classroom. I faced one simple problem. I had no one to defend, and, outside of court cases involving Gary Glitter or Michael Jackson, thirteen year olds aren't usually allowed in courtrooms. So I went for the next best thing, the venue of many a miscarriage of justice, the classroom.<br />
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My mandate was simple. I would defend my proletariat brethren against the bourgeois faculty - embodied in this case by our entirely innocent and likeable French teacher whose only crime was to try and teach a class of absolute donks how to speak, read and write in French. I should point out that I was not responsible for Mrs Warde's breakdown. My role as 'classroom lawyer' meant I merely defended those that were. I'm not sure if that makes me accountable? I'll ask Saddam Husseins's lawyer - Giovanni Di Stefano, who, by all accounts, seems like a stand up bloke...despite being arrested for major fraud last month and defending other loveable characters such as Gary Glitter, Harold Shipman and Ian Brady.<br />
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I worked on a 'no-win-no-fee' basis - which worked out well because all my clients were skint and I rarely won a case - with all costs recovered from the other side - which ironically resulted in me defending a pupil for attempting to steal from the teacher. A typical session would go like this..<br />
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I was often removed for contempt of court. I was a worse excuse for a defence lawyer than Tommy Sheridan. Not that my clients complained. Nine times out of ten by defending them I in turn got myself into far more trouble than they could have managed themselves. Eventually a letter was sent home to my parents.<br />
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That was a difficult one to explain. I was back to having no idea what I wanted to do when I left school - which would be sooner rather than later if I didn't give up my advocate roll in the classroom. When you're a teenager people seem to always ask where you see yourself in ten years, where you think your talents lie, what it is you want to accomplish with your life. When prompted you're expected to deliver a pre-prepared, eloquent answer that demonstrates just how well rounded an individual you are. When my mother and I bumped into an old couple she knew I had such an answer prepared.<br />
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How was I supposed to know he was a retired minister?<br />
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My art teacher thought I should go to art school - 'performing arts' school. He was one of those brilliant teachers who believed class clownism was an expression of free will, a necessary part of childhood to be nurtured and encouraged. He was my favourite teacher - and art, as I'm sure you've guessed, was easily my poorest subject. One time I was drawing a portrait of my mate, I asked him to adopt the pose of Rodin's 'The Thinker' and would take any deviations from this pose seriously.<br />
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After he posed like that for three consecutive art lessons I was ready to reveal my finished portrait.<br />
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He went mental! Mr Houston was particularly bothered I'd portrayed my pal as a witch on a broomstick, he even displayed my drawing on his wall, my shit picture of a witch stayed up there for a whole year!<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">The only time I remember Mr Houston getting angry about anything was when he arrived late to class one day. I had taken the opportunity to post a message on the blackboard.. </span><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Now, I'm fairly sure Mr Houston wasn't familiar with the 'I Know What You Did' movie franchise, which makes you think, what <strong><em>did </em></strong>he do the previous summer<strong><em>..??</em></strong></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">School is supposed to prepare you for the world of work, but I've yet to encounter a boss who'll let me dick about to the extent Mr Houston used to, and, when I did make attempts at acting out a potential future career for myself, I was immediately reprimanded.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">School never did prepare me that well for the world of work - which would explain why I'm still there. I never did get around to working out a life plan, setting goals, or finding out where my talents lie. And, like every other disillusioned individual with no clue which career path to take, I settled into a career in teaching.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I've yet to encounter any classroom lawyers in my teaching career, but if I do, I'll be sure to point them in the direction of the nearest performing arts school!</div>Daniel http://www.blogger.com/profile/09968097898716840226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-638088804602799350.post-30708513304887572652011-01-21T12:35:00.000-08:002011-01-22T10:43:34.934-08:00Anglo-Celtic-Spanish - But We Manage<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">Linguistic confusion, differences, and the crossing of wires is a common occurrence when you're Scottish and you're in a relationship with an Anglo-Spanish senorita.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Natural, I suppose, when you’re covering three very different cultures in one relationship. However, as many of us know, the crossing of wires can often result in some wee 'jake baw' running off with your car, or your house burning down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> But </span>occasionally, a moment comes in a relationship that’s so perfect you have to thank the good lord for granting your existence at that precise moment to be witness to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such a moment came in my relationship when my girlfriend phoned me recently and asked “Daniel, what’s a jobby?” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">Never has the crossing of cultural wires been more perfect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She had never heard of a jobby and was none the wiser when I explained it involved 'dropping the kids off at the pool'.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Moments such as these normally present an opportunity to expose her more gullible side - this Christmas I managed to convince her that in Scotland we like to deep fry our advent calendars.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">As it turned out I was never likely to pull the wool over her eyes and convince her a jobby was anything other than, a jobby. Her enquiry was made after watching an episode of 'Come Dine With Me' where one particular diner commented on the appearance, consistency, smell -and possibly taste - of their food as being that of a 'jobby'. Unsurprising then that it didn't take her long to translate 'jobby' and arrive at its equivalent in English.</span></span><br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">But without the assistance of a horrible starter my significant other would never have known what a jobby was. This got me thinking, I'd used that particular word many times in our conversations and she never once enquired about its meaning.</span></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPa6oXN1hqH8P-4RJCpAwh2P2tnzOf6lmMyQhszGmXR-GdORmVdcIvXVGUNkPsciiaGoX24yn4W0irsqUQfkYpxKGyK1_QCnxuxw9OzZ2mG7eF8ZSpGtrZOKrajEhyphenhyphenQe2h4d6EhMQME9g/s1600/having+a+jobby.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" s5="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPa6oXN1hqH8P-4RJCpAwh2P2tnzOf6lmMyQhszGmXR-GdORmVdcIvXVGUNkPsciiaGoX24yn4W0irsqUQfkYpxKGyK1_QCnxuxw9OzZ2mG7eF8ZSpGtrZOKrajEhyphenhyphenQe2h4d6EhMQME9g/s320/having+a+jobby.bmp" width="320" /></a></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My mum always said she couldn't comprehend my girlfriend's ability to tolerate me. It seems clear now. She doesn't understand half of what I'm saying - either that or the more likely explanation that she's just not listening.</span><br />
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What's worse is I remember sharing with her a particularly humorous anecdote involving jobbies, and she seemed to laugh in all the right places, either through ignorance or pity. It would be wrong of me to continue blogging without sharing my jobby anecdote, so here it is...</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">When I was in school I - like most people in Dingwall - had a part time job working in a call centre selling train tickets. Customers would phone us looking to purchase train journeys and while we were on the phone we had to try and squeeze - for want of a better word - the word 'jobby' 'jobby jabber' or simply 'jabber' into the call.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">a typical call would go like this..</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><strong><em>"Good evening you're through to jabber how can I help you?".... "Can I confirm you are looking to travel on the 4th of jabber between Birmingham and Newcastle?".... "How many jobbies are jabbing?"... "Are you the named credit or debit card jabber?" ... "Please hold while I jab those jobbies for you"... "Are there any other jobbies you'd like me to jab for you this evening?"... "Thank you for jabbing with Virgin Trains".</em></strong></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">The record was 36 jabs in one call. You would be surprised at how few customers picked up on the jobby references, and those that did, and weren't best pleased, we would happily transfer to Customer Relations, which also doubled up as the Dingwall Chinese.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSUEBrFRj9exKMBqh3f93OdVWxGUg8beLAq7gxVijs8tlieRhCS5_F-TlOBZJdRbacmIvnAw2V788rrcqJ3oqhZlnITmLrgNBm8P7Ge8XYtrL-peFmKIo9JTJuTBXt7z1RJhccMmz46sE/s1600/Dingwall+Chinese.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" s5="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSUEBrFRj9exKMBqh3f93OdVWxGUg8beLAq7gxVijs8tlieRhCS5_F-TlOBZJdRbacmIvnAw2V788rrcqJ3oqhZlnITmLrgNBm8P7Ge8XYtrL-peFmKIo9JTJuTBXt7z1RJhccMmz46sE/s320/Dingwall+Chinese.bmp" width="320" /></a></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">Linguistic misconceptions occur relatively frequently between my girlfriend and I - she couldn't decide if my uncle was Irish or the unfortunate victim of a recent stroke. But at least we're speaking - close to - the same language. It is a different story altogether when you are meeting relatives who speak a completely different language and have no comprehension of English. So, in an attempt to break down - or marginally dent - these cultural barriers, I set myself the challenge of learning the native language of my other half.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">Now my Spanish is at a very, very basic level. This however doesn't stop my girlfriend abandoning me in public places, or leaving me high and dry in conversations with family members.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><br />
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I'm not Stephen Hawking, I don't have a languages programme I can just plug into. When you don't speak another language, or don't speak it well, you tend to just say yes to everything in the misguided belief that by doing so the person approaching you will just magically disappear. This never works. I was almost arrested for agreeing to buy cocaine off a guy standing on a street corner - again my girlfriends fault for leaving me unattended.<br />
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For Scottish people, Spanish pronunciation is surprisingly easy to pick up. Many words in Spanish sound similar to Scottish pronunciations, there are lots of rolling r's and 'ch' sounds - like the 'ch' in 'loch'. When I first started learning Spanish my girlfriend was particularly proud of my ability to roll my r's. She would ask me to say my favourite r' rolling Spanish word - 'perrito caliente' - over and over again in front of family members to prove to them just how perfect my pronunciation was. They must have thought I was mentally unstable walking the streets of Madrid constantly shouting....<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwauZT0Ock1pzB6NIQRw08OOEjTjnHGbMirCklHaHw3ZjSkek9O8-MThBEAUrwaQiSN2xjYlB-z_lT0nolg7CttmikhQUaXtVRLV0f7ZVKeFWYZxuV8aSlTt_oq4E99A2DGW5OAysBYl4/s1600/perrito+caliente.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" s5="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwauZT0Ock1pzB6NIQRw08OOEjTjnHGbMirCklHaHw3ZjSkek9O8-MThBEAUrwaQiSN2xjYlB-z_lT0nolg7CttmikhQUaXtVRLV0f7ZVKeFWYZxuV8aSlTt_oq4E99A2DGW5OAysBYl4/s320/perrito+caliente.bmp" width="320" /></a></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">If it's language that divides us then it must be love that brings us together - and if you love your languages then your sorted. My mother always told me that my perfect woman would be one that doesn't speak English, but as it turns out, in Dingwall we were never speaking English in the first place!<br />
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Para mi novia guapisima.....te quiero mucho...!!! </div>Daniel http://www.blogger.com/profile/09968097898716840226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-638088804602799350.post-70931786123846059232010-12-23T05:21:00.000-08:002010-12-24T10:17:24.765-08:00'Xmas' is Christmas for Dyslexic Kids<span lang="EN-GB">The minister who carried out the services and assemblies at our school was a pretty intense character, he was mad about Jesus - which is what you would expect from a minister I suppose. At the Christmas assembly he would tell us never to spell Christmas 'Xmas' as it takes the 'Christ' out of Christmas - presumably this is how Jews and Muslims spell Christmas then? Most of us - particularly the dyslexic kids - never even noticed the 'Christ' in Christmas.<br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">So, thanks to the Minister at our primary school, I now always spell Christmas; <strong><u>CHRIST</u></strong>mas.<br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">When reciting prayers he would stand at the front of the hall with his arms spread out like Jesus on the cross, or like Kate Winslet at the front - bow - of the Titanic. I know this because my friend and I would dare each other to open our eyes during prayers, not much of a dare I know, I don't know what we expected to happen...</span></span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">The run up to Christmas was our teacher’s golden opportunity to administer pointless 'busy work'. We would spend days making countless Christmas Cards, completing Dot-to-Dots and playing endless games of 'Heads Down Thumbs Up" and 'Hide the Keys'. One year we even made an advent calendar on the last week of term - which wasn't as pointless an exercise as it may seem. All the chocolates in my calendar were usually consumed less than a week into December.<br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">Christmas Cards were big business in primary school. And, as with everything, my brother and I would turn it into a competition...</span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">Not receiving a card from the girl you like on Valentines Day is pretty devastating. It's even worse if you don’t get one at Christmas time, because every other kid in the class – and even the teacher - gets one. The good thing about being a jilted nine-year-old is you demand answers...</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">Why did so many parents 'suggest' their children didn't befriend me? Spreading rumours about scabie outbreaks is how you communicate your feelings when you're nine years old :(</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB">I was never one for making Cards. My lack of patience meant most of my Christmas Cards just tended to be excessive amounts of glitter. Card making was laid to rest aged twelve after the realisation I had the artistic ability of a four year old. In secondary school our art class was set a homework task, we had to choose an everyday household item and return with a drawing of it. My drawing of a toaster was commended as being a "wonderful picture of a handbag" by my art teacher. Thanks Mr Houston!<br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">Although I retired my card making skills I have, to this day, maintained the age old practice - handed down to me by my mother - of talking shite. When I first met my art obsessed girlfriend I was able to convince her I had a keen eye for, and interest in, art - and that I was a bit of an artist myself. This attempt to impress her backfired. Not only did I almost die of a boredom stroke at the National Gallery of Scotland, but now every Birthday, Christmas, and Valentines Day is celebrated with us exchanging home made cards. Last years Glitter, Snowflakes and Word-art attempt was so poor I managed to convince her the kids in my special needs class made it for me.<br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">So here is some advice for fellow card-makers operating at my level of expertise<br />
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<span lang="EN-GB"></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<ul><li>Stick to simple shapes. A triangle and square will produce a simple, but aesthetically pleasing, Christmas tree...</li>
</ul><br />
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<ul><li>Card design doesn’t get any simpler than the Christmas Present. Just colour in a square or rectangle - try and stay in the lines...</li>
</ul><br />
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<ul><li>Two Circles - one bigger than the other - placed on top of each other will produce your basic snowman shape..</li>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Birthdays can be more challenging. Again the advice is the same, stick to simple, easy to draw - or trace - shapes.<br />
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<span lang="EN-GB"></span></span><br />
<ul><li>An oval shape will give you a pretty convincing balloon...</li>
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<span lang="EN-GB">(A word of advice, avoid leaving your balloon blank or colouring yellow, as it may end up looking like a light bulb).<br />
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<ul><li>The Christmas present design can be reproduced for birthdays simply by changing colour schemes...</li>
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<ul><li>If you are three or four years into your relationship and you feel you have over-used many of these designs, the best thing to do is to go for the simple 'Happy Birthday' message, making it large enough so there is no need for any other pictures or designs.</li>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br />
When I was young I would try and make Christmas Day happen at Christmas three o'clock in the morning. The only difference these days are that three o'clock in the morning tends to be when I stagger in from my Christmas Eve piss up. But on the whole Christmas traditions have remained unchanged in the Downie household. Christmas morning wouldn't be Christmas morning if my mum wasn't constantly reminding us we can 'put things back' before we've even had the chance to open them. Apparently the Three Wise Men gained their status as learned men, and great gift givers, by holding onto receipts.<br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">Another of my mums favourites is to tell us exactly how much each item cost - although the true price can be reached by taking the quoted number and halving it - and reminding us of how spoilt we are...</span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">F***ing Live Aid. I was always made to feel guilty when opening presents. If the poor people in Africa wanted one of my presents they could have the orange that was always in my stocking - as if dressing fruit up as a gift was going to persuade me to eat more of it!<br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">Much in the same way a smack addict on a particularly bad come down may ponder whether the previous evenings high was really worth it, after our Christmas Dinner I often find myself postulating "was that really worth it" when I am left contemplating the insurmountable number of dishes left for me to clean. The dishes are supposed to be a shared responsibility split between my brother and I. Every year however he disappears to the toilet at the opportune moment reappearing just in time to ‘dry’ – the dishes that is. This annual bowel movement is as predictable as Christmas dinner itself.<br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB">But despite my mother’s guilt trips, my brothers bowel movements, and my crippling Christmas Day hangover, I wouldn’t change any of our Christmas day traditions, the Status Quo is good for Christmas.<br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">So before the Con-Dems attempt to cutback and cancel Christmas, let me take this opportunity to say Merry Christmas and thank you for taking the time to read the ridiculous nonesense I post on here. </span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB">And a Happy 'Xmas' to my dyslexic cousin Andy.<br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">I'm off for a nap now!!</span></span></span></span></span>Daniel http://www.blogger.com/profile/09968097898716840226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-638088804602799350.post-18037225172297725122010-12-02T14:09:00.000-08:002010-12-03T08:24:29.378-08:00Soap Births can Lead to Infertility<span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB">Soaps and the bible are, in many ways, similar. They both have drawn out stories concluding in some vague message of morality dressed up with lots of car crashes - less so in the Old Testament - weddings, births, deaths, adultery, and burning bushes - hollyoaks STD storyline. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB">The danger comes when people start to take these things literally and they begin to impact on everyday lives. Point and case; my mum is soap religious. Most of her little nuggets of information or points of reference are either influenced by, or lifted directly from, the world of soap – see previous blog entry. This has inevitably meant that soap storylines have affected my existence to the extent I forget which memories are my own, and which are soap fabrications. A tad dramatic perhaps, melodramatic even, but more than occasionally soap stories have an affect on my own day to day existence.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">The outcome of every soap storyline seems to be the same; Car crash - can't have kids, Shot - can't have kids, Fire - can't have kids, Animal Attack - can't have kids, Blood Transfusion - can't have kids, Abortion - can't have that kid or any future kids, Kidnapped - can't have kids, Stabbed - can't have kids, Heart Attack - can't have kids, Adopted - you find out you're someone else's kid because your adoptive parents were involved in one of the aforementioned.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">Pro-creation is important to me, so I have recently been weighing up the pros and cons of having my man matter frozen. I have suffered years of psychological abuse at the hands of my mother, and I would hate to miss out on the opportunity to mentally damage my own children because of some freak accident like falling off a horse - this was how Libby's husband Drew died in Neighbours. I'm not certain but I'm fairly sure he lost the ability to have kids in the split second before he died.<br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">I'm surprised I've made it to this stage in life with my fertility still in tact. Granted I haven't had an abortion, been stabbed, had a blood transfusion or a heart attack, but I have been involved in quite a few accidents/mishaps regarding my mangleberries. I'm not going to lower the tone of this already low-brow blog by going into these in any detail - most involve balls colliding with balls - but the bottom line is, when a man has his reproductive organs compromised <strong>IT HURTS!</strong><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">If, for examples sake, you were watching a game of football and you happened to be struck in the testicles by a projectile object travelling at 70mph - in front of 2000 people - that would be a very painful experience. However despite your crippling, sickening pain, you would also have to accept that what has happened to you is – to those who witnessed it – inherently funny. </span></span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB">If there happened to be a crew of St John’s ambulance people who witnessed your unfortunate accident, they would almost certainly assist you and ask if you needed any medical treatment - oxygen perhaps? Would they bollocks. They’d be pointing and laughing like every other cold-hearted prick and you’d be left hunched over like Quasimodo walking into a cold head wind. You might be left to hobble home at half time, unable to cope with every painful vibration served up by the bus journey. </span></span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB">When you arrived home your old granny might suggest you remedate the injured area by applying some common household butter. Because apparently back in the day our fighting GI Jocks would take machine gun fire to the bollocks and shrug it off after applying some butter - that would explain why it was rationed during the war.</span></span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB">I am apprehensive about the effect having my reproductive material frozen will have when it comes to conceiving a child. As a teacher I can only assume that the majority of children in recent times have been conceived through the means of artificial insemination. Most pupils can’t seem to comprehend simple instructions, are uncoordinated and incapable of following simple movement patterns. Why? I don’t know exactly, but I’m guessing it’s because their brains are still defrosting.<br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">Kids are like i-pods, they come in different shapes, sizes, colours, and-most-importantly, memory capacities – also they don’t work as well once they’ve been dropped. </span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB">This seems an appropriate time to introduce my idea for a Scottish version of the i-pod; the <i>‘Aye-Pod’</i>. </span></span></span></span></span><br />
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</div><span lang="EN-GB">Teaching children requires unfathomable amounts of patience. I run a martial arts class and sometimes you need the patience of Abu Hamza opening a jam jar to teach them anything.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">It’s ironic that the only bank to survive unscathed and actually improve its income during the collapse of the banks is.....<strong>the sperm bank</strong>. Unemployment has forced many gentlemen to donate for fiduciary gain. And lets face it you may as well be getting paid for what you’re doing during the day anyway, it’s a bit like being self-employed.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB">But maybe having my man stuff frozen isn’t the best course of action. Scientists, in spite of their research and development, seem to have resorted to simply freezing stuff; eggs, sperm, organs, limbs and all other manor of horrible shit in the freezers at Iceland. Just because Libby, Dan, Susan, Marco, Jane, Becky, Steve, Monica and Chandler can’t have kids, doesn’t mean that it's going to happen to me. <br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">And besides, I don’t think there’s enough room in our freezer anyway.</span></span></span>Daniel http://www.blogger.com/profile/09968097898716840226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-638088804602799350.post-91812837417007391802010-11-13T13:42:00.000-08:002010-11-13T13:42:35.405-08:00The Competitive Nature of Everything<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span lang="EN-GB">On Friday afternoons when I came home from school my mum would always insist that I did my homework as soon as I got in the door, that way I’d have the rest of the weekend to myself. She had a point. My suggestion of not doing the homework at all would achieve the same thing, however this point of view rarely prevailed. If I had to do it then I suppose it was best to get it done and out of the way. I can only assume that my parents had similar feelings towards childbirth. Have two children, 1 year and 8 months apart, watch them grow up, fly the nest, then relax and enjoy early retirement; who knows maybe one of them will be incredibly successful and fund a lavish early retirement??<br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB">Unlikely. It's £523 a week for the care-home in Dingwall - I thought I better phone early in case there’s a waiting list. <br />
<br />
There are disadvantages in starting a family early in life - from the perspective of the child that is - you see as the child it could be years before you're able to get your hands on the fruit of your parents labour-a-nice-wee-inheritance-package. And with this generation the first expected to die earlier than their parents, it might never happen :-(<br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB">If my mother could have foreseen the untold misery my brother and I would cause her, with our constant fighting and demand for attention, she surely would have thought twice about a second child. She took a risk my mother; she gambled for a girl. She had conceived a devil child and witnessed through my brother how much of a f**king nightmare boys could be. She wanted a wee girl, and I know this because for the past 23 years she’s never forgiven me for being a boy (even if I am as camp as a tent).<br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB">The truth is - like Prince Harry - <strong>I am adopted</strong>. The woman I though of, and many of you know as, my mother, is not my biological mother. I don’t know my real<i> </i>mum’s name, she is known to me simply as, <b>‘the woman in the caravan’</b>.<br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB">Many years ago my ‘mother’ was taking a leisurely stroll through a caravan park when she - still had the use of her legs - stumbled upon me as an infant sleeping underneath a caravan. I was made to sleep with the dogs because there was no room inside on account of my 12 brothers and sisters. My real mum hated me, and my real dad had just been laid off from his job as a janitor, so my mum, pained by compassion, offered to buy me and free me from my terrible existance. <br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">This gypsy nativity story that has been told to me since the age of, well since I can remember......... </span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br />
I believed in Santa, and that robins were his messengers, that Santa could get into our house despite the fact we lived in a bungalow and didn't have a chimney, that he could carry all those presents in a sleigh with flying reindeer - even the year when our main present was a pool table - I believed everything about Santa - I believed in the tooth fairy, I was convinced WWF wrestling was real, I believed my brother when he told me the Loch Ness monster ate the Easter Bunny, and my dad every April Fool’s day when he said Eoin Jess signed for Rangers, so why wouldn't I believe my mum when she threatened to send me to a horrible woman and an unemployed janitor who lived in a caravan park.....??<br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">It’s not easy tracking down your biological parents when they are travelling folk. Like native Americans following the buffalo herds; my family has tended to migrate with the janitor work.<br />
<br />
<em>*A little side-note is needed here, for liable purposes. It is not the intention of this blog entry to offend anyone in the travelling community. Many of my brother’s girlfriends were gypsies.*</em><br />
<br />
With my (step) brother and I being so close in age there was always a lot of fighting, arguing and competitiveness. So much so we would compile and update lists of activities that we could beat, or were better than, the other person at. It was important these lists were agreed on and evenly balanced. A sub-list would then be compiled of activities where we considered each other to be of equal ability; it was in these activities we would compete to decide who was the best.<br />
<br />
The following is a list of activities where I am better/can beat my brother at:<br />
<br />
<ul><li>Taekwondo (a Korean martial art/excuse for my brother and I to beat the shit out of each other)</li>
<li>Sprinting</li>
<li>Jumping</li>
<li>Spelling</li>
<li>Cooking</li>
<li>Tennis</li>
<li>Long Distance Running</li>
</ul><br />
The following is a list of activities my brother is better/can beat me at:<br />
<br />
<ul><li>Football</li>
<li>Badminton</li>
<li>Bench-Press</li>
<li>Throwing</li>
<li>Maths</li>
<li>Darts</li>
<li>Parking</li>
</ul><br />
The following is a sub-list of activities we consider ourselves to be evenly matched:<br />
<ul><li>Golf</li>
<li>Pool/Snooker</li>
<li>Swimming</li>
</ul><br />
<span lang="EN-GB">These lists often threw up points of contention, for example, anyone who has witnessed my brother playing football would question how it is possible for anyone to play as badly. This unfortunately is a sad reflection of my own footballing prowess - I'm not very good.<br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB">Competitiveness tended to reach a head during Wimbledon when my brother and I would dust off our rackets - purchased by mum from a car boot sale and used through the rest of the year to pelt stones with – head onto the street and have a game of tennis. Matches rarely lasted more than a minute......<br />
<br />
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</span></span></span><span lang="EN-GB">With the benefit of hindsight it was probably inevitable that playing tennis on the street with no net and using drains as court markings was always going to cause controversy. However in truth it didn’t matter what activity we were playing, the outcome was usually the same.........<br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">My brother and I are most likely a good example of why there <i><strong>is</strong> </i>something wrong with a little competition. However at this stage of your lives I am sure most of you have realised life is just one-big-competition. I’m just not sure who’s list it’s on.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB">PS. Eoin Jess was an Aberdeen player who played for the club back when they were still decent - he then had a second spell when they were shite - he was worshiped by the Downie children. His signing for Rangers would have meant a level of unpopularity on a Nick Clegg level. <br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">PPS. My mother - despite my best attempts - still has the use of her legs (except when she's pished)</span></span></span></span></span><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
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</div><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"></span></span></span></span>Daniel http://www.blogger.com/profile/09968097898716840226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-638088804602799350.post-18837759156424410322010-11-04T13:35:00.000-07:002010-11-05T12:45:32.663-07:00Crossing the Minch Inch-by-Inch<span lang="EN-GB">Perhaps it’s natural for somewhere as remote as the isle of Lewis that the journey to it’s shores is an adventure in itself. I lived and worked in Stornoway on the isle of Lewis for 11 months. I met some brilliant people, laid eyes upon some of the most stunning scenery I’ve ever encountered, ran over a sheep, seen a man fight a bin and lose, visited the best ‘worst’ night club ever, ate the finest black pudding known to humankind, offended half the islands free church community with jokes about Aids and Princess Di, tried to order whisky in Gaelic, got my first clubcard, lived through a hurricane, seen a goalkick taken in a head-wind blown out for a corner, and most importantly, made at least 4 friends.<br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB">When travelling to Lewis your transport choices are....</span></span><br />
<br />
<ul><li>the Ferry</li>
</ul><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;">or</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><ul><li><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;">the Flight</div></li>
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkohkAWXUYBSMwykUJLngFpu7lcBp-6Fi40kFcM-sy00V8TQvUDECHSfMjuvrUdIGaDEYf-0DTyX66P06naSKmJ86oo3CAbaPr0G0FUWHfhVnjThzmMoiI82po4t-Ty9wuA6RG-9hEw6E/s1600/imagesCABBXPER.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkohkAWXUYBSMwykUJLngFpu7lcBp-6Fi40kFcM-sy00V8TQvUDECHSfMjuvrUdIGaDEYf-0DTyX66P06naSKmJ86oo3CAbaPr0G0FUWHfhVnjThzmMoiI82po4t-Ty9wuA6RG-9hEw6E/s1600/imagesCABBXPER.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">(this isn't a joke this is the actual plane that takes you there)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><span lang="EN-GB">The flight is considered by true sons and daughters of Lewis as cheating. The travel choice of the weak, frequented mainly by my flat mate and I and other ‘outsiders,’ ‘Weegies’ and ‘Edinburghers’...‘Edinburghites’...‘Edinburgalians’.... people from Edinburgh. My Afro-Celtic flatmate and I must have looked like the drug smuggling version of Turk and JD, because whenever we took the flight we were always subject to the ‘random’ bag search......</span><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-GB"></span></div>One time I was taking the flight back from Edinburgh and there was a gentleman who thought he was boarding a flight to Prague (how he made this mistake I’ll never know). A member of the airport staff retrieved him and his luggage just as we were going through the, "there’s-only-one-exit" pre-flight safety routine. I would have loved to been witness to this guys reaction if he had actually completed the journey to Stornoway.......<br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">Another time an, erm, ‘heavier’ gentleman, was asked by the airhostess to counter-balance the plane by moving from the back to the front. I had never considered my 12 and a half stone frame could potentially save the lives of my fellow 8 passengers by merely moving seats. Not only that, while I was boarding the plane I noticed some sticky tape on the propellers (there obviously to stop the propellers flying off). I started to get that emotional, cold sweat. I was panicking. The Battle of Britain music played in my head accompanied by imagines of spluttering engines, mid air collisions, snakes on a plane, our boeing 747 ditching into the sea never to be recovered and the black box blaming my fat arsh for swapping seats. I didn’t want to fly on the god-forsaken, piece of shit excuse of an aeroplane. I wanted off.....</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">Why oh why did she have to wait until after we’d taken off before she asked me to move seats.....????<br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">I decided to take the ferry next time. Surely no one will expect me to change seats to counter balance the vessel? The ferry. The choice of real, authentic, (in-bred), island folk. I wouldn’t be nearly as nervous. The only thing that could threaten the ferry safely crossing the Minch would be a bad northeasterly or a North-Korean sub. I'd prefer my chances in either of those situations than risk plummeting to my death in a glorified washing machine<br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">Relative to the outrageous cost of flying, (flybe could start a cross-Atlantic service for the price they charge for a flight to Stornoway) the ferry at £15 return, would appear to be a bit of a bargain. However, when you consider that half the time the ruddy thing is cancelled and the other half you’d trade places for a smooth voyage on the titanic, or an uneventful crossing on the Mary-Rose, you quickly realise your £15 hasn’t got you very far, worse than that in fact, it’s only got you to Ullapool.<br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">The worst crossing I ever encountered was before I moved to Lewis. I was 17 and our school team was playing against the high school in Stornoway. It was a big game. The Stornoway team had made it to the final of the Scottish Schools cup the previous year, but we still fancied our chances. We departed from Ullapool the evening before the game and arrived at, what-felt-like, some time the following week. It was awful. That night the crossing had more ups and downs than an escape podule in a Chilean mine. I spent the whole journey looking like Pete Docherty on a particularly bad come down. When not huddled in the foetal position trying to off-set the inevitable bouts of vomiting I was out puking over the side ‘feeding the seaguls’. When we got there we slept on crash mats in the school hall and played the game at silly o’clock the following morning. Circumstances had conspired against us and led to a particularly bad (I should really say typical) performance from myself in the sticks. We lost 8 or 9 nil, it could have been (was) 10 I’ve chosen not to remember. <br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">As the defeated, sea sick travellers set about their journey home our captain couldn’t believe we played so badly, and felt the standard of the opposition didn’t warrant their place in the final......</span></span></span></span></span><br />
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</div><span lang="EN-GB">Lewis and the town of Stornoway warrants your attention and is somewhere you should, no <i>need</i>, to visit. Forget improving rail services, forget dualling the A9 and forget building a new forth-road bridge, lets get started on a bridge to Stornoway. That way we can leave the ferry and the flights to the people mad enough to take them; those that are mad enough to live in Lewis in the first place...!! </span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">(PS. The 'Minch' is the stretch of water that seperates Lewis from the Scottish mainland)</span>Daniel http://www.blogger.com/profile/09968097898716840226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-638088804602799350.post-86984776141610018922010-10-25T13:15:00.000-07:002010-10-30T04:38:59.177-07:00Halloween is Like Prawn Crackers<span lang="EN-GB">When I was 14 my pal and I were given money from his dad to go out and get ourselves a chippy. Instead, we decided it would be a better idea all round if we took that money and purchased a bottle of vodka from the corner shop. The Spar in Dingwall wasn't big on ID at the time but even we, at 14, didn't consider for a second that we would actually get served. I say "we" but I actually mean "me"; being taller than my friend meant I was nominated the daunting task of trying to get the booze. </span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">As it turned out acquiring the alcohol wasn’t all that problematic. I don't think the chap serving behind the counter had considered the "Think 21" policy, he kindda just took your word for it........</span><br />
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Not a great interregation I must say. Did he expect me to crack under that pressure....???<br />
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We were in an unlikely, unprecedented situation. We had the voddy but having made the decision to go upmarket and buy Smirnoff instead of Grants (a decision I felt would validate my credibility as an eighteen year old) we had spent our all our money. We had no money for food and, even worse, nothing to drink the vodka with. No problem though. With the £2.00 we managed to cobble together my friend could go into the shop and innocently, and legally purchase some coke or perhaps irn bru. And of course we could always make ourselves some food, beans or dairylea on toast, this would surely suffice? But no. It was decided that the better idea would be to drink the vodka straight using two shot glasses, and to ‘fast’ for the evening. <br />
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We weren't even drunk when we made that decision. As we shotted our way through the bottle things became decidedly worse......</span></span></div><div align="center" class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-wxLvq-pk9IcRyDJeSLMT8AX2VV6FxF23jx7Cqa7sg3os61sjisB-5fR0aiCkxXfDSBb2kWVgBxqP20nLFdyykELp5aLGezCfGD7wHtDtwHbp7DNYyM6wFV6IDzbbhwSpto437tVqevY/s1600/haloween+blog+pic+3.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="169" nx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-wxLvq-pk9IcRyDJeSLMT8AX2VV6FxF23jx7Cqa7sg3os61sjisB-5fR0aiCkxXfDSBb2kWVgBxqP20nLFdyykELp5aLGezCfGD7wHtDtwHbp7DNYyM6wFV6IDzbbhwSpto437tVqevY/s320/haloween+blog+pic+3.bmp" width="320" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><br />
Since we had decided to forgo the chippy in favour of straight vodka the only thing we had eaten all day was prawn crackers left over from my mates chinese the previous evening. Those prawn crackers were eventually regurgitated in the back of my dads car (an Audi A2 which was a piece of shit anyway..) and on my bedroom carpet (a minging green thing that needed updating...) and in the driveway (which is outdoors so doesn’t count).<br />
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So how is Halloween like prawn crackers? Well, an unfortunate experience with a bottle of straight vodka has put me off prawn crackers for life, and likewise a series of terrible Halloweens has meant this 'holiday' is nothing more than a perpetual disaster.<br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">Aside from the opportunity to cause mischief and eat sweeties until you go blind, Halloween has never been much fun. There was the inevitable disappointment of excessive, unwanted monkey nuts, used mainly for hurling at people. While bobbing for apples has always reminded me of how Mum tried to drown me when I was a kid. An unfortunate event she claims was down to a "particularly bad bout of post-natal depression" (12 years after she gave birth funnily enough). Furthermore most Halloweens tended to end up with us getting chased by the 'homies' (the looked-after-kids from the home, nothing to do with 'fidy cent' bloods or cribs or anything). Then of course there was that bad idea that came annually...'Mooning' the neighbours......</span><span lang="EN-GB"><br />
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But the real reason I will always hate Halloween is the same reason I hate lazer tag, bowling, Easter and public swimming pools.....<strong>my Mum</strong>. Now my mum has many talents (mainly making soup) but she isn't the most artistic or creative of people, nor is she particularly bothered when it comes to humiliating her children. But to give you an idea of why I dislike Halloween here is a list of some of the costumes I was sent out in......</span> </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><ul><li>WINDOW CLEANER - (a railway boilersuit with a shammy and a bucket) </li>
<li>FRANKENSTEIN - (this was a black jacket with a Frankenstein mask) </li>
<li>A MEXICAN - (this consisted of a poncho and a sombrero borrowed off my uncle Johnny) </li>
<li>THE KARATE KID - (I wore my taekwondo suit with a bit of paper that said 'the Karate Kid' taped (not pinned) on the back) </li>
<li>TEENAGE MUTANT HERO TURTLE - (though this one was actually amazing, but only because my auntie Bunty made it. I was Donatello and my brother was Raphael)</li>
</ul></div>but my personal favourite had to be....<br />
<ul><li>GOALKEEPER - (basically my goalie strip and gloves I wore every other day at training)</li>
</ul><span lang="EN-GB">A goalkeeper!! You can’t eat crips or open bubblegum juice or american soda with big goalie gloves on. How could my mother do this to me?? This was just like the time she sent me to the school disco in shorts because I kept sliding on my knees and ruining my trousers. In hindsight I can see this attempt at dressing up much the same way I imagine the teachers at the school disco did......pathetic! But when you're 9 years old you still believe you're in with a shout of winning the best dressed competition.....</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">So consider this, young, proud, parents. What you do this Halloween can, in the future, have a profound effect on your children. Dress them properly, make the effort, and if not?? Consider the disappointment of the child at the Halloween disco who genuinely believes they can win the best-dressed competition dressed as a goalkeeper.<br />
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Halloween, it'll always leave a bad taste in the mouth, just like those prawn crackers.....!! </span>Daniel http://www.blogger.com/profile/09968097898716840226noreply@blogger.com0