Stand Up for Sit Down Drinking

Scotland 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.

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 is our culture.

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.

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'.

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.

Apparently the world's first recorded circumcision occurred just after Highland Dancers started dancing the 'Sword Dance'.

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.

Drunk phone calls always end in self-loathing in the foetal position - just me..??  Thankfully for Alexander Graham Bell texting came sometime later.

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.

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.

That, and we're quite handy with an axe.

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.

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..??

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.

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.

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 sitting down.  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.

We've all been there, you have ended up lying in the gutter purely because there was nowhere suitable to sit - just me..??

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. 

Slange ava..!!

My Quarter Life Crisis

Apparently 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.

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?'

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.

So what should I do with my life?  I've had a few ideas.

1) Start a Business.

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.

2)  Devise an innovative, exciting product I could display on Dragons Den.

The only issue I can envisage with this is the fact I would need to find a business partner to work the Thunder Machine.

3)  Write a Children's Book.

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'.

4)  Pursue a career in comedy.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

'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.

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. 

'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.

Why is it only Communists Dictators should enjoy such luxury..?  It's time see-through coffins hit the mainstream.

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.

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.

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.

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.

'Mr Fish'



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.

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.

My Dad's Lesbian Ex-Wife

No, the title of this blog is not inspired by a 'Friends' storyline, it's based on almost 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..!!"

Which we did.

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'.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

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), "...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..."

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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..

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.

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.

How was I supposed to know he was a retired minister?

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.

After he posed like that for three consecutive art lessons I was ready to reveal my finished portrait.

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!

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.. 
 

Now, I'm fairly sure Mr Houston wasn't familiar with the 'I Know What You Did' movie franchise, which makes you think, what did he do the previous summer..??

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.

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.

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!