Have fun 'babyshitting' btw ;-) ,.,.,. ( she said ! )

Yeah, the daughter ( safely out of the way touring sunny Denmark ) gave me this little throw away line just prior to us going into town to babysit little Gordy-poo ....

How prophetic that remark turned out to be !

Mum & Dad went out to dinner & the Opera ,,, the achingly sad La Madame Butterfly ,,,

But hey, we were pretty sad too after a while :(

Gordy had his red hat on with his green wellie boots ,,, a picture of sartorial elegance when we arrived ,,, but would he take either of these off ?

Not on your bloody life Grandad ...

Firstly he stole ,,, well exchanged perhaps, some of Granny's dinner for his. He dumped some of his burger ( admittedly real Aberdeen Angus coo ) for some of her M & S Chicken Lasagne ... Yuck ,, chicken & lasagne don't go do they ? And certainly not with burger, M & S's or anyone else's !

Next he decided he wanted some of her wine with his dinner ,.,.,

Ha, this wee fella still has a lot to learn about life ,.,. parting Granny from her wine needs a general anaesthetic ,.,.,. and a very good surgeon !!

Me he doesn't even bother asking ...

Anyway, somehow, between him and his Grandmother, the wine glass ended up smashed in 4 or 5 pieces and the wine all over the table ( mine was safely inside my tum by this point :)

Then a little later came bathtime ,,, to be followed by bedtime ( a 3-story night and they must be read by Grandad ,.,.

But GORDY ,.,.,.,. Man U are playing FC Roma in ten minutes ,,,,

The bathtime went well ,, he had done pee-pees in the toilet prior to getting in, so all was well ,,, wasn't it ? Well yeah, right up to the point when he started trying to run ,,, thro' the water from one end to the other ,,,, that was right after I switched on the whirlpool jets in the bath ,,,, hahaha what a fright he got ,,, what a laugh I got ,,,( unknown to me these little jet nozzles retain a little water from the previous run ,,, of course by now, above Gordy's water level, stone cold !

So when I switched them on he got the freezing cold water jets ,, full blast from every angle ,,,,

Oops ,,,

After a minute or two's crying however, he returned to normal frolicking and cavorting about in his tub, throwing toys & stuff out at me ,,,, and then it happened ,,,

As he tried running along the half full bath looking behind him and muttering "Oh No ,, what's happening", I could see this great ,,, eh ,,, turd, following close behind him ,,, then a smaller one, then more ,, and more ,,,

Within seconds the bath was full of the brown stuff ,,,, Ohhhhh Yuk Gordy ,,,

Surely I hadn't frightened the shite out of my little grandson had I ?????

And I'll let you into a wee secret here ,,, I had been toying with the idea of joining him in the bath to try out the new jacuzzi ,,, Phew ,,, what a good decision it was to abandon that idea in favour of the footie ?

I whisked him out PDQ, wiped his bum and dried him off ,, and retired quietly to the bedroom while Gran got to do the old Barlinnie "slop-out" of the bath and all the little whirlpool jets ,,,

Mum & Dad had a good laugh when they came home ,,

Oh ,, He's never done it in the bath before they said in unison ,, a first apparently ,.,. oh goody, goody for us grand-folks !

However the last laugh may well still be ours ,,,, for how well Granny poked out all those little whirlpool jets remains to be seen ,, by whoever next takes an invigorating jacuzzi ,,

Oh to be a fly on that wall ,.,. hahahahahaha ....

Babyshitting just took on a whole new look !

Thanks Phyl ,.,.,.

A few wee crackers from today's newspaper

Ultimate putdown :
OUR dog tales subject reminded a learned friend of the Glasgow police court in the sixties when a bailie, nicknamed Budgie for his rapid-fire delivery, told the owner of a troublesome dog that she would have to control it, and ended by giving her, as he put it, "the usual statutory warning".
He spoke so fast the dog-owner didn't catch it, and she fainted when she asked the clerk of the court what he said, and the clerk replied: "Yer dug's getting shot on Saturday morning."

Staking the obvious
READERS were quite taken with Radio Scotland's report on the fire at the abattoir in Turrif which stated that "no animals were hurt in the fire".
"Just what did the BBC think they were at the abattoir for?" they wondered.

Granny bond :
WE overhear a harassed mother coping with her young daughter at the shops when the young one told her mum: "Granny's nicer to me than you are."
The mother wasn't in the least bit fazed, as she replied: "That's her jobe."

Cold comfort :
SCIENTIST Malcolm Watson held a demonstration at Wonderama, as part of the Edinburgh Science Festival yesterday, to show kids how to make the "coldest ice cream on the planet" using liquid nitrogen.
Malcolm tells us that despite the exciting experiments going on in front of them, there's always one kid who's more interested in asking:
"When you went bald, did it hurt?"

Home truth :
A Dad tells us his teenage daughter had left school and was applying for a job to tide her over before going to college. Under "previous employment" he encouraged her to put "babysitting", to show that she at least had a work ethic.
When he was checking the form for her later, he noticed that after putting in babysitter, the form asked "reason for leaving", and his daughter had written:
"They came home."

Bad timing :
"I managed to make love for an hour and five minutes non-stop at the weekend,"
said the chap in the bar proudly.
"But I later discovered that the clocks had gone forward an hour."
( Hahaha ,,, my big pal was impressed wi' the 5-minutes ! )


Couldn't give a dram :
Linguistic misunderstandings.
Garth Foster from Ayr was in a club in London after a harrowing day and asked for a "double malt whisky".
"Sorry, sir," replied the barmaid. "We only have single malts."

Court controversy
STORIES you wish you had read.
Mohamed al Fayed, stood up at the £7m Diana inquest yesterday and shouted: "April Fool!"
He then added: "You didn't really think I thought the Duke of Edinburgh ordered her murder, did you?"
NO, we're just joshing.
What actually happened yesterday at the inquest was that Lord Justice Scott Baker picked up an envelope from the table, removed three cards from it and read out:
"Henri Paul, with the Mercedes Benz, in the tunnel."

And finally ,,, Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined.

I knew it ,, just bloody knew it !

£760,000 pay-off for Northern Rock chief.

The golden goodbye for Adam Applegarth, the former head of Northern Rock !

Another bloody reward for failure.

Jesus, what is the matter with this stupid world ?

How do these people get away with it ?

If only I'd been a bit more of a wanker and not so much of a worker, maybe I'd have convinced that wee Yankee bastard owner of MSA to pay me off handsomely too ?

As it was, I'd like to put it on record (again) that the little shit robbed me of what was rightfully my full redundancy money, and to my dying day I'll keep my fingers crossed that he rots in Hell.

Tony Hancock ,, alas another flawed genius.

Last night I watched the TV drama "Hancock & Joan" on BBC4.

"This was not some tragic romantic fiction, but the painfully real story of Tony Hancock and his affair with Joan, the wife of his best friend John Le Mesurier. It was retold, without a whiff of sentimentality or melodrama, in Hancock and Joan, a poignant new play by Rick Cottan.
Ken Stott plays Hancock, Maxine Peake is Joan and Alex Jennings the long-suffering John."

It saddened me greatly ,.,. I was close to tears as the story unfolded ,,,
the end was almost too much to take ,, again !
Of course I knew this story well from the time when it all happened,
but here were the little details that I hadn't fully appreciated then.

I was a fan of The Man, the little man from 23, Railway Cuttings, East Cheam,
comic genius extraordinaire.

Joan Le Mesurier, wife and great love of John was simply captivated and captured by the tortured little genius ,,( well weren't we all ? )

John was also Tony's best friend ,,, which only made matters more difficult for the comic ,,
he loved John almost as much as Joan so was tortured even more !

His problem with the dreaded drink got worse I'm sure, because he had destroyed his friend.

Ken Stott was obviously a great fan too .,,. he played Tony magnificently ,.,.
every body movement, every facial expression, was pure Hancock.

Maxine Peake was just wonderful as Joan ,,,
(I believe Joan agrees for she is the only one still with us today.)
Alex Jennings too had studied his character with love ,, he WAS John Le Mesurier.
All three should get a Bafta for their performances ,.,. when I think of Maxine as the dumb slut in the fabulous Dinner Ladies ( and wasn't she quite superb there too ) ,,
well ,, is there any end to this girl's talent ?
But the final acolade must go to Ken Stott for the performance of a lifetime.
I'm sure Tony himself would have agreed ,,, and probably bought him a drink !
So long again HHH.

Setting a good example for children takes all the fun out of middle age. William Feather

Aye maybe so ,, but then again there comes a point when you really do have to ?
What a night we’ve had ,.,. screaming & crying in the street at 3-30 am ,, neighbours out calling the cops ,, 3 ,.,. yeah THREE Police squad cars arriving on the scene ,, ,,( in very impressive & quick time ! )
Our back door nearly getting smashed in with frantic battering ,,,
Guess what ,,, Guess who ,,,
Yeah, our young teenage neighbour strikes again ,,, terrified out of her mind but obviously somewhat the worse for drink ( and who knows what else ? ) ,,, as the proverbial fart ,,,

"Oh help" she cries on the back door step, "I hear noises in the house,, plates breaking in the kitchen ,, there’s somebody in the house, ,, please can I come in and sleep in your house ,, oh don't make me go back over there."
Then we have the Cops in our house interviewing this dipsy wee besom ,.,.
Turns out she’s not actually been in the house ,, lost her bloody keys hasn’t she !
"She’s had a skin full " the cop tells me ,, "she's probably disturbed a fox ,,, " I've checked the place out ,, the house is perfectly secure ,, nobody near the place ,,,
as if I’m some daft old bugger who can’t work all that out for myself from the smell of the booze on her breath ,,,, ( well maybe not the fox bit ,, it was 3.30am after all & I was still half asleep ! )

So I said to my own daughter next morning ( in jest of course ! ),.,.

" you see what you’ve got to look forward to when yours are of drinking age ,,, ha "
"Oh no I forgot," I continued ,, "Your man is going to teach yours sensible drinking habits" ,, ( unlike that daft wee bugger pal of mine across the road ,.,. the wan slowly but surely allowing his daughter to become the local drunk !! ,, and who will now be absolutely mortified that the whole street knows his business .,., ( him, the wife and younger daughter are away for a week's holiday leaving this one at home alone ,.,. aye, no chaperone in sight ! He's probably lucky he didn't come home to a teenage party wrecked house ?? How bold was that !)

Thanks hen, I can hear him say ,, fur nothin' ! You're grounded !!

It was our next door neighbour and his daughter who first heard the screaming and phoned the cops ,.,. and who were also out in the street being nosey when all the cops arrived ,,, Oops

My daughter, in reply to me, laughed uproariously ,.,.,

Quote "oh Christ - hahaaahaaaahaaaa - what will they do if she ever gets a job in another town and has to live in a flat of her own !??

"Easy" I replied ,, "the cops'll lay on 3-squad cars nightly to see she gets to bed ok " :)

NB : All names & places hidden to protect the guilty !!

Auld guys don't do Gadgets

I play golf with some old guys ,.,. well that way I can win !
Anyway some of them are very good ,,, golfers that is ,,, and fun, but boy are they out of touch with the world of modern gadgets ?
Take mobile phones for example ,.,.
Peter, one of our number ( approx. 72 years of age but very fit & active in body if not in mind !) received a new mobile from his offspring.
Months have passed and he still has absolutely no idea what to do with it ,.,. "it keeps going onto that voicemail thing and I can't get it out again" he tells us.
Turn it ON we all shout ,,,
"I took it into Woolies the other day to see if they could tell me whit was wrang with the bloody thing."
"What kind of phone is it" the girl asks him ,.,.,. "it's one of these Nookie things he tells her ",, aye in all seriousness ..,,. After about 5-minutes talking to Peter she has a few colleagues round her all giggling ,,, Peter honestly hasn't a clue what they're all sniggering about ,,,
He even suggests that maybe he should trade it in for one of the Voodoo phones ,, he's heard they're easier to operate !
Big Tam ( his pal ) suggests ,,, "Naw, get wan like mine" ,, he pulls it out of his pocket and shows it to Peter ,.,. "dead easy to work and only £9.99 ,.,."
"Whit kind is it" says Pete ,.,.,. "It's a wee Shagem !!" ,,, and like his pal he really does think this is the correct pronunciation of his phone's manufacturer .,,.
I thought I'd join in the fun ,,, by this time we are about 10-strong round the table ( the course is closed because of snow ! )
So out comes mine from my pocket ,,, "how about the Sony Erection" I ask him ,,, the sniggering spreads from Woolies to Cowglen ,.,., but does a complete bypass round Pete & Tam!
At this ,, thankfully the greens manager declared the course open !!
God only knows what they'd make of some of my son's crazy gadgets !

There's Sales Flyers .. and then there's the High Flyers !!

I received a flyer through my letterbox this morning ,.,. it was a beaut !
All the way from God himself ... well his Baptist Reps here on planet Earth at any rate ...
They want to say a prayer for me ,.,. Gee thanks Big G ,.,.
How's about putting right that wee mistake you made on our Lotto numbers back in 2002 ,.
The complete set of 6 this time would sure make me sit up and take some notice of the power of prayer !
He also offers to do the business if I send in MY prayers for friends, family & even neighbours in my street ( but only during the month of March !! ) I guess he knows some of these people ,,, Christ ( oops ) I wouldn't give half of them hoose room, never mind a prayer.
These religious nutters think that some 32% of all Scots still believe in the power of prayer ! One in three of us say that praying makes us feel better & happier ,.,. Mmmmmm .. arithmetic not their strong suit either I see.
God wants us to tell him ( they say ) what makes us happy, what makes us sad, thankful, worry etc ...

And there was me thinking this omnipresent super being already knew all this stuff.
We can contact the Big man on the internet ( it's true then ,, Google does have the answer to Life, the Universe & Everything !! ), via the telephone ( I now have have a direct line ! ) ordinary snail mail ... or even by dropping a note off in the Prayer box in the Church foyer ( I wonder ,,, do they do popcorn and ice creams in there too ? ,.,..,

Well maybe not but their flyer does give us a voucher for a free coffee and cake in their Oasis Café !)
You have to wonder though ,,, what planet are they really on ?

Or is it just as the old philosopher used to say ,,, The gods too are fond of a joke. - Aristotle

Old People ? Not us !

Pudge & I went for a walk today with the girls ,, my wife, daughter and almost brand new little grand-daughter ; Pudge's Granny, Mother and wee sister that is !
We strolled around the East Kilbride shopping mall. It was a Monday afternoon ,.,.
Strange things when paired together, shopping malls and Monday afternoons.
What a pity I didn't have my camera with me ! Again !!
You can have great fun just geri-crumble spotting ,.,. It's all you see ,.,. old folks, all sorts of varieties, from the real dottery old foggies through the tired and worldly weary to the pseudo- trendy ,.,. Oh and of course there's also a smattering of young ne'er-do-wells who should obviously be in school but are too busy perfecting their group hoodie wearing skills with their scruffy, dirty unwashed & bored look !
The old folks are by far the best watching subjects however.
I had trouble at times deciding who was with whom ,,, the old wifie wandering aimlessly looking in shop windows while this seemingly unrelated old guy with walking stick or sometimes even zimmer tagged along, but some way behind ,, a bit like Philip forever gazing at Lizzie's arse end. Only when the old dear stopped did it become apparent that here was a pair ,..,
Then there was the 75-year old guy ( if he was a day ) with his dyed blond receding hair line complete with pony-tail that any old horse would have been proud of ! He wore that with a motor-biker type leather jacket and would you believe Caterpillar boots ,, you know, the light yellowy coloured things ,.,. Honest he did ( now you see why I needed the camera ? ) The old lady he was with was actually having great trouble keeping up for he was obviously her toy-boy !!
A further selection of assorted, decrepit old souls were to be found simply passing their time away ,, waiting, you felt, on the call from that big Store Manager in the sky ,,, C'mon UP !!
They all seemed so OLD ,,,, what on earth was I doing there among them, I worried ???
However I consoled myself and my wife, and the daughter too .....
I told us all that real old folks are ALWAYS at least 10-15 years older than we are at ANY given time in our lives !!
Everyone seemed happy with this explanation ,.., except little Anna, who gave me a very odd look on this announcement. Pudge played possum all afternoon and saw nothing !

She thinks it's Xmas again ! But worse, she thinks I'm bloody Santa Claus !

The woman I live with ( the current Mrs. B ! ) decided yestertime was to be her wee blow out day. She argued that very soon now it was her Birthday and very soon too, Mother's Day !

So she wanted indulging !

In fact both days are one and the same ,,, !! Now there's planning for you !

OK, birthday ,, I should buy her some little minding I suppose ,,, well you don't want to make a big thing out of it at her age do you ?

Ouch ! ,, that was my arse being kicked !

Well yes actually, she would quite like a big thing made of it ,,, or to be more precise an expensive thing ,, or even two !

You see, she had had her eye on this rather pretty handbag in one of our little designer ( for designer read expensive ! ) boutiques ,.,.,.

Now don't get me wrong, it's a lovely bag ,,, if indeed bags can be regarded as anything other than a pocket substitute ? It is green leather, with bits of glittery bling all over it ,,, oh and a bloody great silver PADLOCK ! ( which incidentally does nothing ,, zippo ,, it turns out to be simply a heavy bloody ornament on said bag !

Funny creatures wumen !

Her other little indulgence was a new Mobile 'Phone ,.., the Sony Ericsson's we both have ( the K750 i ) suffer from what is patently an inherent design flaw ( or to be more precise again ,, a bloody fault ! .,,. but will they admit it ,, will they hell. )

So naturally, me buying another 'phone would pick another Sony Ericsson like I'd choose to have a third oriface ! ie, positively my last resort of the top 100 mobiles ?

But again, wuman logic has to seen to be believed ! She wants a new SE ,,, but with more this, more that and of course a super-duper built-in state of the art digital camera.

Is she a great photographer, even an occasional picture taker ? Not on your Nellie ,.,.

NEVER takes photos !

But there you go ,,, a phone with a known fault history ,, a camera that will be used ,, eh when the moon turns to cheese and all for only 4-times as much as a telephone for using as eh, a telephone, & maybe at a pinch to send the odd text ? ,.,. not an MP3 player, not an FM radio tuner, not Bluetooth, not internet connected and without an expandable memory !

Anyway, to continue ,,,,, that's not all ! Listen up ,,,,

Would you believe on top of that we also have a daughter-in-law ( yeah I know ,, it was having that son that did it ! ) well she too has a child ,,, our little grandson Gordy ,,, so she too is a mother ,, and here's the rub ,,,, she too celebrates her birthday on the very same day !!!

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhh, two birthday pressies, two Mother's Day gifts ,,, all on the same bloody day. I'll be bankrupt before the moth is out ! ( Hahaha, a Freudian slip if ever I saw one !! )

Perhaps we could be entered for stupidest Father and son awards, me and my daft boy ??

And to top it all off ,.,. I had a rather large bill myself for the repair to my golf trolley yesterday !! But that's important !

Ouch, ouch .... hey, that was sore !

Another pet hate !

All Politicians !

This is not just a pet bone of contention with no real depth to it .,,.

Rather it's a conclusion based on a lifetime of watching, listening and reading ,..,,. even talking to the buggers and writing to them expressing my opinions !!

They lie, they cheat, they misuse their power, they prevaricate, they sit back and let the bloody do-gooder brigade and the ethnic minorities run all over them .,,.,. now here I will go against all my gut instincts and say NOT all of them, but certainly 99% of them ,.,. they are in it simply for what they can get out of it ,, ie, only their own ends or put another way,, to line their own pockets ,,, Cynic ? Moi ?
Ok then, you try getting an honest answer out of any of them ! And that's not all ,,, they are dangerous ,.,. they can cause a fight in an empty house ,.,.

The old addage holds good to this day ,, anyone expressing a wish to go into politics should forever be banned from doing so !

Don't get me started either !

I'll give you Grumpy Old Men so a will ,, don't get me started boy !
I've decided to follow in the footsteps of writer Mitchell Symons,
and of course our very own Rab C. Nesbitt !
So, every week or so I'm gonna give you a little bullet about something that really annoys me !
Bet you can hardly wait ?

OK here goes ,,
#1 on my list are the people on TV who've never been to school ,..,,. well I suppose they must have visited the old education establishment at some point but patently they never learned anything on the GRAMMAR front !
You know who I mean ,,, the " I seen and I done " brigade ,.,.., football pundits are the #1 offenders, but there are many, many more ,.,. just listen :(
Arghhhhhhhhhh ...... GET THEM OFF MY SCREEN !

Is it no' time our Judges & Sheriffs were sent on a "Social Awareness course ?"

A story from the morning paper. ( with my comments in brackets )

Driver admits running over graffiti vandal :
A MAN ran over a vandal who wrote "Welcome to Hell" on his fence and smashed his van's window, a court heard yesterday.
Stephen Armstrong, 47, said he intended to give the culprit a fright after he also threatened him with a knife and baton when he confronted him about the vandalism.
( Give him a fright !! I'd have wanted to give the bastard a bit more than a bloody fright if he threatened me with a baton or a knife ! )
But, the High Court in Glasgow was told, the electrician lost control of his van when he mounted the pavement and ran over the 22-year-old, smashing his leg and collar bone and leaving him with a punctured lung.
( Lost control my arse, but if that's what your lawyer needs you to say then fine ! But from me ,, WELL DONE ,.,. I say, GOOD ON YE MATE ,,, it's time the silent majority of us stood up and hit back at the scum in our society. )
Armstrong, a father of eight, ( Christ you've been a busy boy, surprised you had time to get up and chase anybody ! ) of Southpark Village, Glasgow, admitted assaulting his victim, who cannot be named, to the danger of his life.
He will be sentenced next month.
( And lets hope this time that the Judge sees sense and lets him off. )
The full article contains 129 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.

Kevin Spacey

I know I've said it before ,.,. but let me say it again ,, this guy Spacey must be one the best actors ever to come out ( or go in ! ) to Hollywood ,.,. either that OR ,, he's dead lucky ?
He may just have a good eye for a brilliant script and excellent co-star actors ,, but I give him more credit than that ,, he simply never appears in a bad movie.
And what a performance he turns in ,.,., watched him again last night ( against my better judgement too, starting at 11pm ! ) But it kept my attention right to the end ( 2-am and me with a golf match at 9 !! ) He played The Negotiator in a ripping police yarn and he was the man ,,, very, very believable in his part ( again ) ,.,. I think that's his secret ,, somehow he's able to get right into his role ,,, he becomes the person he's playing ,, gets right to the very soul and under the skin of his character ,.,.
Me, I'd give the guy the Oscar EVERY year .,,. just fantastic.

All's well that ends well

My beloved has now, finally, received the result of her chest X-ray ,.., and after only a 4-week wait :( As I said before, it's NHS medicine Jim but not as we know it !!

Anyway, after worrying for these final 4-weeks we now have a "normal" chest ??

We're not sure if that's good or bad, since we've tried all our lives not to be normal ; however we assume "normal"means all is clear & all is well !

So, after 6 of the worst months of her life my dearest darling woman seems ok again, well pretty well on the road to recovery anyway ,,,, we've had anti B's on numerous occasions ; we've had blood tests, urine tests, kidney, liver checks ; blood pressure, blood count ,,, she even knows her cholesteral is ok ! ,.,. you name it she's had it ,.,. the one thing she hasn't actually had however is ,,, she's still no nearer to knowing from what illness she suffered ?

So much for doctoring ,.,.., they don't seem to have improved much in real terms since the days of Burke & Hare as far as I can see.
Certainly they're nowhere near the expertise of "Bones McCoy" on the Starship Enterprise :)
Roll on the Starship NHS.

PS : 25th. Jan. Now I know she's definitely on the mend ,.,.
Her sense of humour is back with a bang !
Last night after my Burns Supper at the golf club my old mate Smackmaknee ( sober ) ran
me home and decided to have a wee whisky or three, so necessitating a sleep-over.
Musing to himself whether or not to phone his live-in son or not? ( he'll be thinking
I've got myself a woman or something if I stay out again. )
Quick as a flash herself lifted the 'phone, "I'll phone him if you like, she said, that glint back
in the eye ,,, tell him you've pulled and won't be home eh ?
Oh yeah, she's back !!

Ha, The We'an just "popped out !"

At last ,,, God at long last ,.,. the we'an finally decided to come out and sample the Scottish winter ,,, So, a nae brain we'an then !
However, after keeping us all on tenterhooks for an inordinately long time she arrived very quickly indeed.
I got the call at 1.30am into Wed. morning ,.,. "Dad, I think we should perhaps go to the hospital now ,,, my waters are splashing about on the floor !!" ( the daddy-to-be of the piece doesn't yet drive hence my involvement )
That reminds me of the Glesca joke ,,,
The wuman calling the emergency services 999 for an ambulance ,,,
"I'm pregnant and need an ambulance quickly " she tells the guy on the other end of the 'phone.
"Where are you ringing from dear," asks the controller ,.,.
"Fae ma belly tae ma bloody feet" came the quick reply !!


Anyway, back to the story ,.,.,.
I raised myself from my cosy bed and out I went into the wind, rain, fog and ice cold night ,.,.
I got her to the Queen Mum's at just before 2-am.
The midwifie person examined her and suggested baby was a few long hours away ; she should go home and return around breakfast time. :)
She ( the daughter that is ) is possibly more experienced than the check-in staff up there and decided she was staying ! She was reluctantly assigned to a General ward.
Next, they tried to evict the father-to-be ,.,. telling him he couldn't stay with her in this general open ward ,, Go home they told him ! Come back tomorrow morning ,, nothing will happen before then ,.,., Ha !
He stubornly refused and sat in the empty, cold waiting room ,.,.
Well of course, you can all guess what happened next ?
Less than 2-hours after I dropped them at the front door, an hour after admission, little baby Anna Bridget Buchanan-Widmann leapt out ,.,. 4.24am to be precise ( which is more than can be said for the Medical staff ! )
Fortunately new dad (-no-longer-to-be ) was right there on the spot, in the labour ward with his beloved and ready with the scissors to cut his beautiful new daughter free from her mum.
7 lbs 8oz ,,, 20"long, healthy and gorgeous ,.,.,.,. see for yourself :)

As Stevie Wonder would say ,,, Isn't she Lovely
Oh and that moniker ,.,. you'll want to know ,.,.it's the most beautiful Xmas present ever for both grandmothers.
Anna is Danish for Ann and Bridget is English for Brita so the we'an has the reverse translation of his Scottish and Danish grannys ,.,.
Isn't that just so lovely and thoughtful of the new parents ?
Welcome to our world little one :)

Terrorist Attacks ,.,. The Spin offs ?

The pregnant daughter still is ,.,.,. pregnant that is !
She's now some days overdue and pissed off with the whole affair ,.,. well maybe ( hopefully ) NOT the affair but you know what I mean ,,,, This bundle she's carrying around everywhere is getting a mite heavy for my wee we'an to lug around !
She's also personna non grata with her new in-laws ,.,. they flew over from Denmark to see their new grandchild ,,, they came a couple of days before baby was supposed to make her appearance and were here for a few days after ,,, alas all to no avail. I have just dropped them back at the airport en route home ,.,. They came, they didn't see and I guess they didn't conquer either ,.,.,. Phyl said they did stare at her huge belly for all the days they were in residence, willing baby to come out to play, but Vikings or no', baby defied them ,.,.the little one already has a sense of humour obviously ,.,. we here all fully expect an appearance now today after the grandparents are safely esconsed back in the land of the great Danes !
Anyway ,,, I am writing here to RANT, not to coo at babies !!
Glasgow airport, as you'll all know, was the target of some really DUMB terrorist activity back a couple of months ago ,.,. you remember, the eejits who couldn't drive a Land Rover thro' a plate glass window without cocking it up !!
Well bravo, the Glasgow airport authority ,,, They've managed to capitalise on this near catastrophe ,.,.,. You now can't get anywhere near the airport front concourse to DROP-OFF passengers ,, not even old folks with multiple suitcases ! Fair enough ,,, no future terrorist bastard will be able to emulate their daft comrades in arms !! But wait a minute ,,,
There apparently is a drop off point ,,, somewhere ?? But you try finding your way to it ,.,.
As you approach the airport old front road ,, where you could drive all the way round, past the entrance ,,, you can no longer do ANYTHING other than be forced into a car-park ,,, and having got yourself in there it costs you £1 to get back out !! Park or not !!
I explained to the machine eating the tickets on the way out that I only passed thro' the bloody car park ,, and only because I was forced into it in the first place ,.,. I wasn't paying !
The machine told me to put in my £1 ,.,. I said I had got out of bed to simply run the Vikings to their 'plane and didn't carry money in my Pj's ,.,. It then said ,.,. well put your credit card in ,,,
I asked it if it carried credit cards in it's Jim-Jam pocket to bed ?
Well in that case sir, you'll have to reverse, go park ,, then go talk to Customer Services in the car park main office ,,, Yeah right ,,, in my pyjamas ?? And add more time to my parking bill ??
I called the machine a few choice names, questioned it's parentage ,,, and finally told it that it was one of a new band of theiving bastards, robbing people for no reason other than BECAUSE IT COULD ,.,.,.
I told the lifeless machine that this was the very last time I would be caught in such a trap ,.,.,. even if it means doing a three point turn at the entrance to their car park ,, and driving back against the traffic, I will never again enter it.
I finally put a credit card in it's jaws ( fully expecting it to be eaten after my abuse ) ,.,. but it flew back to me instantly ,,, £1 lighter of course ,.,.
I put it in my P/j pocket and drove off ,,, in the huff !!

It's the NHS at it's best, again, but not as we know it Jim !

My dear Ann was still suffering this damned infection last week ,,, it still had her in it's hold ,,,

The Doc. thought it had either migrated from her chest ( for it is definitely clear there he says !) to her kidney ,,( or of course it could be another fresh, new infection ,.,. after all, her immune system has been rocked to it's foundations over the past few months ,, fighting on all fronts ,, )
Mine too :)
After taking her urine sample to the Doc's at 8-30am ( me that is ,, I get all the good jobs to do !) she decided she was going back to bed to sleep 'till noon so I should go play golf ,,, she said !

She had slept ok the night before ,, no hots, sweats, or anything ,, so I decided I would ,.,.
However the funny part of this tale is not my performance on the golf course ,,,
Phyllis, the heavily pregnant daughter, had offered a sample bottle for the said urine ,,, since she had plenty of these little pregnancy test recepticles at home ; save me the trip to the Doc's to pick one up ,,,
SO, when I handed it in at the Doc's reception I naturally explained where I had got the bottle ,,,, with the white lid, ( for pregnant women's urine apparently ) instead of the normal ( non pregnant everybody else's urine ) red lid !!

Ipsofacto, because Doctor's receptionists are not the brightest of people, well not at 8-30am anyway ,,, this poor wee confused receptionist wuman thought ( nay, was absolutely convinced ! ) that I was handing in a sample from the pregnant one !!
Both Doc. Tobias & I had to spell it out for her ,.,. and more than once ,,, that this was the infected woman's sample ,.,.., finally she grasped the situation ( or so she said ) and decided that maybe she should just change the coloured top on the bottle ,.,. or transfer the sample to a bottle with the required RED lid !! Oh Lord, give me strength to deal with the NHS ,.,. please !
I wouldn’t be the least surprised to get the all clear on Monday ,,,, ,.,. telling me that my wife is NOT pregnant !
Meantime more paracetamols and plenty fluids for the patient with ,.,.., eh, the unknown infection ,,,
And for me ? ,.,.., that'll be the Whisky fluid , just in case it turns out that she IS pregnant !!
Oh, and the infection is ok for a visiting pregnant daughter ,, he doesn't know what it is but he does know it's not contagious to her or the kids ,.,. !! Aye right ,.,. it's medicine ,, but not as we know it Jim !!

Anyway I went to the golf ,, I slipped on the ice and fell yet again ,, bang on the flat of my back ,, again ! Sore as hell ,,, again !
I had insisted to my wife before leaving that she phone me if she needed me ,..,,
but we made no contingency plan if I needed her !! or indeed if I fell and smashed the mobile phone under my bum !!

The Phantom Creamola Foam !

This morning I just read THE strangest thing !!
Last week or so when my dear wife was somewhat delirious in one of her fever sweats ,,,
she suddenly asked me, through bleary, sleepy eyes to get her .,,.,. a drink of Creamola Foam !!
She was very specific : it had to be Creamola foam ! Nothing else would satisfy this high temperature craving
Bizarre ,, this very morning my heavily pregnant daughter has blogged the following story. ( neither mother nor daughter had mentioned this urge to one another ! )

"CREAMOLA FOAM
Pregnancy is so strange. I woke up at 3-am and felt a sudden urge to blog Creamola Foam!
My granny used to buy Derek and I it as a treat on Friday evenings when I was 7 or 8 years old and I suddenly remembered how much I loved it. Of course thinking back on it, it was probably an unhealthy mix of sugar and acid of some sort that these days would be expected to kill a child at 100 paces but I would love to taste it once more just to confirm that theory.
But apparently they no longer make it :-( "

Could it be that the mother is living thro' a phantom pregnancy with her daughter ??

Doctoring these days 'aint wot it used to be !

Had a bit of Blogger's Block this past wee while ,.,.,.
My mind has been on other, much more important things ,,

My poor wee darlin' wuman has no' been hersel for the past few months.
It started with a cold that then went into her chest giving her a cough ,,, naw, mair like a bark !That went on and on and developed into a bad chest infection ,,,, needing multiple dozes of anti -biotics to shift it.
At the same time she got something else from one of our grandwe'ans ?,,, a bug ? ,.,. sickness, diarrheoa, horse sweats, freezing cold one minute, burning hot the next ,,, no appetite, squeamish at the mere mention of food ,.,.,. all in all, not a happy camper !
The Doc was working on all this ,,,
But now she confuses him ,.,. she's been slowly but surely developing this "tremor" in her hand, over the past year maybe ,,, so she asked the good ( but simple ) medic what he could do for this at the same time !!
** BELLS RINGING ** ** MISTAKE **
He did what all these battery produced Gp's do these days ,.,. he issued her with the standard prescription ,.,.,. these are your new "calm-you-down Diazapalm pills missus."
Mmmmmm, now for my money that's when her troubles really started !
This dope ( and I don't mean the Doc this time ! ) wreaks havoc with people's insides ,..,
For starters the side effects have to be read to be believed !
These things, given out by Docs to help their patients, reputedly can cause, wait for it ,,, sickness, diarrheoa, severe headaches, sweats, loss of appetite ,,, getting the picture here ?
They can give her all the stuff she had to begin with ,, and this to "cure" her tremor ???
They can also introduce a few new nasties of their own ,,, eg, forgetfulness, rages, mood swings extraordinaire !!
In other words ,, the bloody " cure" is actually worse than the original illness ever was !

So, this is Doctoring in the 21st century ?? Well, God save us from the so called NHS.

So you go back ,,, you explain the new symptoms are now worse,, I mean much worse, than the original complaint and ask what else he can do for you ??
Well nothing really missus, you're a "Shaker" and there's not a lot we can do about that other than dope you up to the eyeballs ( there are different pills but they all do the same thing !! ) and change your normally pleasant personality to that of an angry Zombie !!
But, now that the "Zombie pills" have proved to be a disaster ( surprise, surprise ,, do these things actually work for ANYONE ?? ) we'll now try taking some blood samples and check if you have any problems with your kidneys, thyroid, liver, blood count ,,, etc ,,,
Now forgive me trying to teach the medical profession how to sook eggs, but shouldn't this have been the first thing tried rather than the last ,,, doping patients into oblivion surely isn't the NHS's 1st option is it ??,,,
Or are doped patients just easier options for our "hard worked, 9 to 5, no weekends, £140K a year " GP's ??
Bloody old cynic ,.,. Moi ??? !!!
Anyway, welcome back my pill-less sweetheart ,.,.,.
Now let's you and I get you well again in spite of the Doc's best efforts ?
How about some home made Chicken Soup ??

It wis they bloody Maroon strips !

So, here we go again ,,, Typical bloody Scotland ,,

Get us aw worked up for a brammer o' a perfermance and then play like shite !

But of course the ref. did us no favours .,,. Yon wis an absolute stone-wall penalty, that block on Faddy ,.,. Aye it bloody wis !

And Fletcher just wisnae match fit ,, say whit ye like, the bhoy kin play a bit ,.,.,. normally !

We definitely missed some o' oor "stars" ,.,. Big Lee (McCulloch), Wee beardy Paul (Hartley) wi' the mad eyes, and Scotty ( it's a grand auld team tae play fur Brown. )

But as Big Eck says ,.,. noo there's nae decision to make aboot how we play the Ities ,..,

We jist huv tae go oot an' WIN ,,, nae problem then ,, We ur always betur agin' betur opposition onywae ,..,,.

However I really wid like tae know ,.,.,.
Whit bampot pit us oot in Jambo maroon strips fur Christ's sake ???

As they say ,,,, dress like Jambos and ye'll play like bloody Jambos ,,,

I bet ye that wee Russian bastard at Tynecastle is laughin' his heid off the day !
Well come tae Hampden on Nov.17th ya wee shite, and start yer greetin' a' ower again ,.,.
We arra Peepell !!

Gaun, have a wee laugh !

Here's a great wee column from today's Herald writer Lawrence Donegan ,.,., ( and before anyone asks ,, How the Hell would I know if he's related to the late, great Lonnie ? )
What I do know is that he made me laugh ,.., out loud too, so I make no apology for copying and sharing this with anyone who cares to read it, even although it expressly says No Copying without permission ! ( I'm sure Lawrence would grant permission ,, he seems like a fun guy to me )

The best things in life are free if you have the nerve to blag.
LAWRENCE DONEGAN
When I started my career as a journalist, my ambitions were to save the world and get lots of free stuff. I think you can all agree as you sit there drinking your skinny mocha latte on this fine Saturday morning that I have made a pretty good job of saving the world, although I wouldn't want to take all the credit for myself, obviously. The Sugababes helped.
The free stuff has been slightly more elusive, partly because - and I know this will get a laugh out of some of you - journalism is a very ethical trade. This means that offers of a free week's golf in Kazakhstan, all expenses paid, in return for a glowing appraisal of Kazakhstan's claims to be the finest golf destination on the planet must be declined lest this arrangement be seen as a terrible breach of the solemn bond of trust that exists between those of us who write columns like this and those of you whose lives are so sad and empty you actually read it.
It would also be factually incorrect. Everybody knows that Uzbekistan is the finest golf destination on the planet, as I discovered during my month-long holiday in the Bahamas last year, courtesy of the Uzbekistan Tourist Board.
The other problem with getting free stuff is I am not brass-necked enough to ask for it. I find it too embarrassing, both for myself and for the person saying "no", for no better reason other than I'm a popular newspaper columnist with four fans, some of whom don't even live in the same household as me, and they are not.
It is also the case I have a very Presbyterian attitude to life even though the closest brush I ever had with the Presbyterian lifestyle was the night I snogged a girl from Stornoway at the university disco and she slapped me in the ear for getting fresh.
By contrast, there are some extremely unethical people I know - and for the purposes of this column I will refer to these people by the collective noun "Dida" - who would feel no compunction in walking up to a St John's Ambulance person and asking for a free heart transplant even though their most pressing medical condition was a displaced hair.
My hair could be on fire and I would still want to pay the fire brigade for wear and tear on their fire hose. At this stage, you are no doubt wondering where on Earth all of this is leading and I will tell you, although I can't let the moment pass without mentioning the radio station in Detroit which this week offered $1000 (£500) to the first listener who correctly predicted when Britney Spears would commit suicide following her recent troubles.
What hope is there for America when idiots like that are mocking Britney in her moment of supreme personal difficulty? The same goes for mankind, although from a Scottish perspective I no longer feel so depressed about the Real Radio football phone-in.
Anyway, back to free stuff.
This week, while the aforementioned brains trust in Detroit was proving it is possible to operate a radio station despite possessing the mental acuity of a tadpole, Radiohead announced they were giving their next album away for free. Or to put it more accurately, for "any price the purchaser deems to be appropriate".
Having bought the last Radiohead album for a price the man behind the counter at HMV deemed to be appropriate - £12 - rather than the price I deemed to be appropriate after I played it a few times - 12p - I am bound to say this is a fabulous idea and one I feel should be extended to other things in life such as cars, houses and books.
For instance, those people who really want to read the next Ken Follett novel could show their appreciation for his genius by shelling out £300, while those of us who consider Ken to be a future Booker Prize winner, but only on condition that Jeffrey Archer was his sole competition, could send him an invoice for £150.
The same could go for that lovely flat in the West End you want but would require a mortgage 385 times your salary for you to buy it.
"I'll take it for free."
"But it has just been valued at £3m."
"Not by me it hasn't and free is what I deem to be an appropriate price."
Come to think of it, let's make everything free. If everything were free then there would be no arguments, no poverty and no reason for Ken Follett ever to write another sentence.
More than anything else, it would stop me blushing when I asked people for free stuff.

I guess it's 'cause Funerals Suck ?

Went to yet another friend's funeral yesterday.

Not too close a friend but a friend nonetheless ,,, one I've partnered to victory on the golf course, so close enough ?

We get all dressed up ,,, like he would have cared whether we wore suits with dress shirts, club or black ties, freshly polished black shoes or not ?
This was wee John McGraw, a wee, man's man ,, he wouldn't have given a shit if we'd all turned up in dungarees .,,. but I'm sure he would have been pleased to see that we did turn up ! A bit embarrassed maybe ,, but quietly chuffed.

We arrived early ,,, can't be late for the last hurrah ? We sat in the car, Smackmaknee & me, and watched them coming ,.,. they arrived in dribs & drabs ,, they got out of their cars, they chatted, they smoked, they hugged, they laughed ,,, yep, they bloody laugh all the time at funerals ,, it's obscene ,, no it's not really,,, it's a cover for their grief isn't it ? ,, a peculiarly Scottish thing I wonder ?? They smoke some more, them that all know of wee John's lung cancer, his emphysema and finally his heart attack ,.,. all smoking related ,.,.,. but they don't care ,, or think ? or maybe they just don't care to think ??

We're still sitting in the car as they all make their way to the queue for the chapel ,.,.,.
We better get ourselves out there too ,,,,

Oh Hi Jim, hello Tom ,,, aye Dougie, here we go again ,,, nice day for it ,,, and on & on .,,.the small talk.

We pass wee John himself ,, lying there in that coffin in the back of such a Limo as he would never have been in alive .,,. what a pity the wee man couldn't at least have enjoyed this last wee bit of affluence, luxury ,.,.,. neither him nor the wee wife, for didn't she drop down dead with a heart attack of her own only 3 months past ,,, brought on by being John's full time carer they say ?

Then we're in the chapel seats ,, must be 200/230 friends and family here ,, a good turn out for a quiet, wee, ordinary guy ,.,. Eva Cassidy sings "Somewhere over the Rainbow " as we sit down ,,
The wee man makes his entrance, carried on the shoulders of six of his closest family, friends ,.,. His daughter is near hysterical in her grief ,, great howling tears flood her face ,,, her man cuddles her close ,,
We have a bit of a chat from the "Human Society" female ,,, this is to be a non Church, non Chapel, completely non religious affair. She tells us as much as she's learned in the last two days about our friend !! Then we sit for a few minutes and listen to "Moon River" by Danny Williams for Christ's sake ! ,.,. A wee special poignant poem from one of his granddaughters and next thing we know we're being ushered out again ,, Tony Bennett starts to sing about the loveliness of Paris ,,, and losing his heart in San Francisco ,.,.,. was wee John ever there I wonder ? The recording sticks and repeats ,, and sticks & spins too fast ( Tony on Helium ! ) ,, and is finally silenced before the family even clear the premises !!

Then we're all back at Cowglen ,, now the laughter just cascades through the lounge ,, the drink flows, the jokes are told ,, the stories of days gone by ,, with or without the leading man having played a part ! It's such an absurd ritual ,, we have the free drink to/from the wee man ,,, we have soup and steak pie ,, (or fish of course !),, we spend an hour or two laughing, giggling, telling jokes, eating, drinking, just being there ,,,, but in the end ,,, he's gone ,, we're gone ,,
What is/was it all about ???
I guess for me Funerals just Suck.

Some Sensible Argument for Thomas !

Because there are a lot of loonies like me in Scotland ,,, baying for the blood of any Englishman and total FREEDOM there was a recent short debate on what we might call an "Independent Scottish Currency" ,,,,,,,,

ok, you've got the scene ,,,,,,,, here he goes then. ( one of my favourite writers, Tom Shields )

" One suggestion was the Mickle, with 1314 mickles making one Muckle !

The muckle would float or sink with the Irish punt but certainly not be associated in any way with the English pound.

There was also strong support for a National name for the currency.

As the French do with their Franc ,,,, ours could be the Jock !

A jock would consist of 100 we’ans, and 10 jocks would be a Tamson, made up of 1000 of his we’ans " ,,, and so on ?

The man's a little off the planet at times, but very witty with it ,,,,,

And never a mention of TIME !!

Stingy Employers

The Long Service Awards.
I must tell you about my company awards for long service ,,,,,,,, no ? Oh yes you’ve got to hear this …. How well we were treated for hard work and loyalty by our American multi-billionaire ( yes billion-aire ) owner.
Christ, it's a hoot ( if it wasn't such a bloody miserable gift )
We { the guys } got a small gold tie pin ............. but not until 10 years at the grind stone had been completed !
Yep , a bloody miserable tie pin ,,,,,, at 10 years it was a plain gold tie pin with MSA 10 engraved on it. At 15 years you got your next award ….. would you believe, it's another bloody tie pin, but this time with a small [very bloody small indeed] diamond in it. * This is about twice actual size !!
Oh, and, the obligatory “MSA 15” of course !
At 20 years, you’ve guessed already haven’t you ? ….. Uh-huh, it was two diamonds, at 25 two diamonds and a ruby ( bet that fooled you ?) and at 30 it was a three diamond affair.
At 35 they gave me ,,,,,,,, eh, yet another tie pin ….( and btw, I only ever wear a tie pin at the long service award dinner ! ) this time with three diamonds and a ruby, well naturally …. You’d already sussed that ….. All of course with the number of years on them too. Wonder what I would have recieved if I'd still been there at 40 years { Phew, escaped just in time !! }
Oh, and one time, and this is absolutely true, I got presented with an "honourary" gift by our sister company in Germany for some work I had helped them with ,,,,,,,,
You’d never believe it if I told you what it was ….. guessed it yet ? ,,,,, Yeah, a bloody German tie pin ! At one of the long service doos, as a protest, I put them all on my tie at the one time, a long row of them, to go up and be presented with yet another one by the Chairman of the parent company. I thought this might just tell them something …. You know , like I’ve got quite enough of these useless bloody things ! .. But no, He thought I was brilliant," Gee Doug, you must be so proud to have been here all that time and you wear all your gold together, that's just won'erful " …..
Silly bastard ,,,,,,,THICK AS BLOODY PIG'S SHIT !!
Now the girls ,,, that was a different matter all together !!
After 10 years they got a gold charm bracelet …. with one little gold charm on it ,.,.,.
( a small plain round gold with MSA 10 ) . Need I go on ?? Every 5 years they got the same add on gold charms with the diamond, the ruby etc. etc. ad nauseum !!
This is the company I worked for, for 35 years ,,,,, no bloody wonder I'm the way I am today!!

How they do it in New Zealand ? Now that's a different concept altogether !
My little cousin, who lives on that little plook on the bahooki of our planet Earth in NZ, organised a special wee do for her man’s 60th birthday ,,,,,,,, she set him up for a Strip-o-Gram ?? a bloody Strip-o-Gram ,,,, I'd have killed her, especially if she’d picked ( as she did ) a skinny, bony, scrawny affair and hadn't even paid the full price to let him have his evil way with her. That was a real bitchy pressie to get the poor guy !
And then she had him filmed ,,,,,, what a cow ?
"When are you sending me copies of the pics ????" I asked her. Oh gaun, please, I can hardly wait. I'm looking forward to seeing those.
Surely he wasn't really embarrassed ?,,, that would just be an act he was putting on for her of course, especially when he spotted the bloody camera. Guys just don't get embarrassed watching girls taking their clothes off ,,,,, in fact that’s one of the things we can do really well ….. it’s probably what we do best !!
I do hope my She-Devil doesn't get any ideas for my next big milestone !!
( although it's such a long, long, long time away she'll probably have forgotten by then ) Well, not unless she does it better than the wee cous. and at least I get laid in the deal :) Aye, "laid to rest" more like !
OH aye, I forgot didn’t I ? The Long Service thing in NZ !!
She got a $500 cheque to go spend on something she fancied !!
And that for only 20-years service !!
Now there’s an original idea for you little Mr. J.T.Ryan III ….
Doh !

The local Newspaper printed the above story ,,, well a précis of it !

Superb ! thanks for that, Ken at the Diary.

I meant to add Ken, ,,, I tried to have a jeweller melt them down post-redundancy only to find they were more or less worthless ? Cheap USA gold ,.,. Now there's loyalty to your long, hard worked employees eh ?

Ha-ha, The Spell Checker has it sussed !

Was writing to my local & European MP's this morning ,,,
with a copy to the PM of course !
I hit the SEND button and as always the Spell Checker then takes over my computer !
All impending mail has to be screened before the damn thing will do what I tell it !!
Today however it was worth the delay ,,,
Old SC knows a thing or two ,.,. tells me there is no such thing as an MP ,,,,
He suggests surely I must mean MP3 ,,,#
Hahahahaha that puts the bastards in their place even better than I can !!
Good on ye SC ,.,.,. I'll never complain about you again :)

My dearly beloved has passed away !

I know you’ll want to hear this ,.., although it’s rather bad news I’m afraid. :(
A funny thing happened to me today on the 17th. green.
There I was, about to putt for my par :) when “CRACK” went my trusty putter !
I looked down and there it was ,,,
Without as much as a by your leave, my MacGregor ZP 20 simply lost it’s head !!
For no reason other than stroking a little white friend the shaft and the head fell out with one another and separated ,.,.
The shaft snapped clean off, just above the head ,,, Ouch !!

It is obviously a casting as I can see, now that she’s in two bits ,,
Possibly an inherent weakness in her original design ?

I must write to the good folks at MacGregor and see if they'd like to bring the old girl back to life with a head transplant ?
I don’t know if it was a weakness or just old age, ( like it's owner ! ) but what I do know is that over the last couple of years or so the ZP 20 and I had become very good friends ,.,.
I would be happy to let them see the poor thing if they want to carry out a post mortem ,.,. but more happy if they would like to repair it ( the said head transplant ) ,.,. or better still ,.,. replace the old girl completely ?
The MacGregor clan, well them wot make the clubs, are based in the ole US of A these days ,.,.

Me ? I live in Glasgow ,,, that’s Bonnie Scotland for any foreign readers, so if they would like to see it I'm suggesting they send me a 1st. Class air ticket and I'll be happy to deliver the corpse for inspection.
Alternatively they might settle for just having a look at the photographic evidence and send me off a replacement ? Well one can hope :) Golf folks are inherently Nice People :)
Here she is then :- once the love of my life !!

An Extraordinary Tale ,, and another one for my MP !

My daughter is pregnant.
This is not a new experience for her ( or me ! ) She has hundreds of we'ans ,.,.
well three ,, but sometimes it seems like hundreds !
Anyway, on all previous pregnancies she has had the scan which can also tell you the sex of the child-to-be.
So naturally, when this point arrived this time round, she asked the nurse again ,,
"What are we getting this time ?"
"Oh sorry" was the answer,,, "we're not allowed to say anymore !"
"WHIT ? whyever not ,, you've always told me in the past ?? "
"Well you see ,, we've had to change the rules ,.,.. because of the Muslim ladies " ,, the nurse explained.
It seems that our Muslim "invaders" have now made it impossible for US ,, the people whose country and whose NHS this is .,,. to receive this info lest we are seen to be racist ,.,..
You see, the Muslim "ladies" are apparently inclined to abort FEMALE children ( obviously males are much more desireable to their world domination plans ? ) so to discourage this practice they now don't get told the child's sex. And because they don't get told ,,, we can't be told either or we're seen as getting preferential treatment !! ie, this would be seen ( by them of course ) as racist, anti Muslim !
Did ever you hear such bloody shite ,.,. they are denying us our rights in our country, in our NHS ,, and WE'RE racist !!
When are our politicians going to waken up ??

Of course, there is a footnote to this story :-
That info was given by the Nurse "unofficially" - for as the wee lassie explained ,.,.
"we're no' allowed to say that or we'll lose our job !! "

My daughter also has a pregnant friend ,.,. living in Aberdeen ,.,. same story, different nurse, same answer but with a twist ,.,.,. she went for her scan - asked the sex and was told they no longer gave out that info (though they'd told her 2 years earlier with child number 1 at the same hospital). When she asked why they claimed they were "worried people would sue if they got it wrong" …
Haha forgive me being cynical here, but couldn't they just say - as they do in France, in Denmark etc - there's a X% chance it is a boy/girl but scans aren't 100% accurate.
Hmmmm, Christ, I remember when we used to live in a FREE country where you could speak your mind !!

My wee darling wuman still isnae well ,.,.

She, you know, her who will be obeyed !

She's been quite ill these past few weeks ,,,

She wakened me at 5 am this morning ,,,
“I was just thinking” she said !!
“Thinking ? at 5 am … “ I said
“He’s a new man ,.,., we don’t want to upset him “ she said ,, clear and precise as if she was wide awake ,..,
“Whit – WHO ,.,.”says I ,.,.
Zzzzzzzzzz she says ,,, !!!!

A week later and I still don't know who's new ??

Then at 7-20 am ,,, I got kicked on the leg ,,, "Ouch" I said ,,,

“ You’re late” she says ,,
“ I'm What ??? “ ( that's me talking ! )
“I thought you were getting up early” she mutters from deep within a sleepy head.
“What for ?” says me ,.,.,.
“To phone for MY doctor’s appointment “ she drags out from below the covers.
“It’s just a wee bit early for anybody to be in the surgery yet pet ” says I ,.,. rather testily I have to admit, after looking at my luminous dialled watch in the darkness of the bedroom ,,,
But by the time I was saying that, I was already up, out of bed and standing there looking at her ,,, fast asleep ,.,.,. yet again ,,,

Christ, she's bloody hallucinating now I thought as I came to ,,,
I just came downstairs anyway ,,, No point in waiting on her next bulletin or assault.

PS : The surgery actually opened at 8-20am ,, not the 8am they tell you about on their recorded message !
Honest tae Christ ,,, I need a rest !

Lotta-lotta luck ,.,. NOT !

Just reading about that "lucky" woman in East Kilbride ?

Her with the £35.4 Euro Millions win. Just think about that for a second ,,, WOW ,,,

Has anyone else noticed, or is it just me and mine ?

When the Lotto first started and the weekly prizes were much larger than they are now ,,

ie, when more people were doing it ,, I used to win a tenner or so every other week or two ,,,occasionally the odd £50 even ,,

Nowadays, and I still do both the Wed. and Sat. draws, I win nothing ,,, zippo,, ziltch, not as much as a bean have I won, in years now.

Why is this ?,,,, with fewer people doing it my chances of a win surely must have INCREASED ?

Anyway, next thing to do obviously, since my luck is going nowhere, is to check out the wee woman in EK ,,, does she need a pal ? a new lover even ,, I see her man ( ex man ) is even luckier than me !! That'll be him in the Mood Badge above !!

Do I happen to know her by any chance ?,, could she be a friend ?,, ok, a friend of a friend ?,,

a friend's friend's aquaintance maybe ? anything, to get into her circle ,.,. her knickers, ,,

I mean her bankbook of course !

Anyway, good luck to the wee soul ,, a bit naive but she seems a nice enough person ,.,.

but God help her now that the world knows her name ! That was her 1st. big mistake ,.,.

With that amount of cash, she should surely have opted for ANONYMITY ?

Think I'll Settle for Scattering on Cowglen !

So we did Islay again ,.,.,. God's Little Acre !

We thought ,.,. summer will be a better time ,,, no more October school weeks for us retired folks ,.,. no more horizontal driving rain ,.,. we'll go in the SUMMER :) and see the beautiful island at it's best.
That's what we said :( Shame we didn't think to check out the bloody forecast ?

We arrived Friday morning ,.,. it was raining, misty and, to all intents and purposes October'ish ! Oh well, we said, a summer shower, no real wintry winds ; it'll probably be off before we reach Bowmore, sure it will Joyce ?
Joycie, our local Ileach, wasn't quite so sure ,.., she'd seen Islay summer weather before ! Often.

We reached our hotel in Bowmore ,.,. the very original and aptly named Bowmore Hotel !
We met up again with Peter, the proprieter ,.,. that's old Peter btw, not the younger cloned son ! We had eaten in Peter's establishment before but never actually used his B & B service.
We were shown to our rooms ,..,,. no bellhop, no kindly Island help of any kind ,, just lug your own bags up the stairs folks ,, you're in the Hebrides now !
Peter went on at length about how well he was doing with all the renovations at his hotel :(
This perhaps should have started the warning bells ringing ?? But no, we were happy, back on our beloved little patch of heaven ,.,. with all those lovely Peaty distilleries :)
What could possibly spoil our week ?



Well the weather wasn't exactly shaping up too well for starters ,.., and now we had ,..,,.
"The Room" for a follow-up ! Ours was a tatty, crammed, ( no, make that bloody crammed ) hovel with peeling paintwork, threadbare carpet, a newly created loo with bare plasterboard finish ! ,.,. Oh, and a double bed UNDER a metal framed bunk bed !!
Peter had noticably been very careful to guide Joycie & Steve to the better room ,, but helpmaboab, theirs was exactly the same as ours ! Ha, So good to have friends in hotel places !!

When we were alone the dearly beloved, still recovering from illness, took one look and told me ,.,. " Go see Peter ,, and tell him we need a different room ,, I'm not sleeping under that bloody scaffolding, not even for one night ! "
So I saw Peter. We got a change of room ,,, at first glance it was an improvement on the original ,.., well we had single beds, but at least no overhead bunk bed scaffolding ,.,. but wait ,,, what happened to our wardrobe ? Mmmm none ? Oh and that newly installed loo ,.,. where's the door ?
Bloody Nora ,,, a room with a view ,,, but even for long married couples this "open plan toilet arrangement" isn't exactly a turn-on feature !
We did have drawers for storage ,.,. and we did take a peek in a few of the other unoccupied rooms to see if another deal with Peter was worth the bother ,.,. alas no, they all had "flaws" !
Some had wardrobes and drawers ,.,. but subtly positioned beds so as to render opening them impossible ,, you think I exaggerate don't you ? Well here's the photos to prove I am honest as the day is wet !




Oh well, it's now the next day and ,, you guessed of course ,, still pissing it down Islay fashion !
Joycie knows her stuff ,, Heather the Weather could take a lesson or two from our Ileach !


We go walking on the beach ,, Hahaha, it's wonderful ,, wet right enough but really quite beautiful still ,,, well not still as such ,, the wind now also thinks it's October ! But do we care ,,, Eh, yeah we do ,,, we really wanted to see this pretty island in the sun and the heat ,, just for a wee change.
We spend the rest of our week ,,,we drink, we eat, we drink some more and then we ,,, drink some more ,,, hic ,, and then we go out to the pub ,.., hic,hic, who cares what the bloody weather does ?


We have now settled into our respective hotel rooms ,,, did I mention the bruises on Steve's head from getting up of a morning and smashing it off the bottom of the (iron) bunk bed ?
They too finally asked for a change of room !!
They got single beds too, ( they seem a bit anti sex I feel on Islay ) they each got a wardrobe, ( non opening doors though ! ) and hey, the ultimate prize, a loo WITH door !


Incidentally Peter's food is still good ,.,. the hotel restaurant can hold it's own with all the others in Bowmore ,,, both of them ! And not even the sniff of a Fish and Chippy to be found, anywhere on the island.


The Fun Day thing scheduled for the weekend including Highland games, pipers, dancing etc. was cancelled because of ,, eh that would be more RAIN ,,,
Our Golf game was ,,, cancelled due to the weather !
So we ate some more ,, we drank some more and we listened to some music ,, in the pub some more !
The week came and the week went but the rain on Islay ,, that's forever !
Being in love with a place is never having to say It's DRY and SUNNY !!
We're back home again now and the beloved has been back to the Doc ,,, seems all this "walking in the rain" might have been good for Johnny Ray but it knocked seven bells out of my dear wife again ,,,
The chest is heaving, the coughing has begun again and the sweats, boiling temperatures and freezing cold are back ,,
Thanks Islay ,,, You may not see us again for a while !

Och the NHS is in Good Hands .... isn't it ?

The wee wifie is decidedly poorly ,..,
In fact as poorly as I've seen her in many's a long day.
So poorly that I had to call in the NHS Doc ,.,.
Now don't get me wrong, the Doc was a nice woman ,, pleasant in every way ,.,.
but did she fully understand the patient's symptoms ? That I'm not so sure of !
The illness took the form of severe stomach cramps, nausea, sickness, diarrheoa, terrible sweats, chilling cold, non eating and sleeping ,,, Aye, Christ, she's sleeping for Scotland !
The Doc thought maybe food poisoning ,, but then settled for "the dreaded virus" ( or as we all know it ,,, all together now ,,, The Doc hasn't a bloody scooby disease :)
So she gave out some pills ,,, anti "B's" for the virus ??? and other pain killing / plugger upper things for the stomach pains and the diarrheoa .....
Days passed ,.,.,. was the patient now on the mend ,, getting better on this medication that the Doc assured would settle the stomach pains in no time flat and sort out the dreaded virus ??? Was she eating at least ? stopped having the sweats and the pains ,.., ?
In a word ,.,. NAW !
The Doc was summoned again on Thursday pm ,.,.
A different Doc appeared ,, ( good service this btw,, on both requests for a home visit by the much maligned NHS they were at the patient's bedside within the hour ,.,.,.
But good practitioners in the art of healing ??? Mmmmmm, the jury's still out on that one ,, but we do have our doubts and concerns ,,, already and it's only later, Thurs. pm !
Doc 2 diagnosed a CHEST INFECTION ,.,.,. ?? Eh, whit ? Nobody said there were any symptoms of chest deficiences ,, neither the patient nor the caller outer of Docs !
Where did this magical diagnosis suddenly appear from then, we wonder ?
So it's not a virus then Doc, it's an infection ,.,. Ahh, we did wonder about anti "B's" your colleague dished out for viruses !!
"I'll give her a stronger anti "B" because it's a nasty infection she has there" he said ,.,.
"And is she still taking the two Paracetamols 4-times a day for the sweats ??" Eh, whit ?
What bloody Paracetamols .. nobody told us to take any Paracetamols ,, the patient did take a few of these early on herself for the accompanying headaches ,, but figured THEY were what was CAUSING her to sweat so much ??!!
OK, So the first Doc FORGOT to mention the Paracetamols ! Oh well, we're all busy people I suppose ,.,.., so,
The carer got on his bike ( figuretively speaking -- we have to remember the main players here are gerry-crumbles ),.,. straight to the chemist shop ,, oh sorry, we seem to have only Pharmacies these days !
The new anti "B's" were brought to the patient's bedside ,.,. The chemist ( sorry again,, Pharmacist ,,, it's just my age !) advised that these pills were strong and should really ONLY be taken on the back of FOOD ,,, remember food ,, that's the stuff the patient hasn't been able to look at for a week now ,, ??? The dear wifie was feeling like shit ,,, ( not feeling like A shit ,, nothing left there now after a week of no food ) just ,,eh, feeling badly, so took the first one of the new stronger anti "B's" to get the show on the road anyway ,,,
We then read the pill blurb ,, you know, the wee bit of "Get-Out" clause paper that the Docs and the Pharmacists seem to need to get by nowadays ?
Wait for it ,.., this you bloody won't believe ,.,.
The NHS is really great ,, it sees us from Cradle to Grave ,, that was the old Labour bullshit line that launched it ,,, wasn't it ?
Problem nowadays seems to be that it takes you out of your cradle ( of caring ) and PUTS you into your bloody grave ! ( whether or not you want to go ! )
The side effects which MAY be CAUSED by these anti"B's" ??
Hahahaha, if it wasn't so bloody tragic it would be bloody funny !!
You've already guessed of course haven't you ??
Yep ,,these pills may cause ,,, stomach cramps, nausea, sickness, diarrheoa, sweats ,,, ????
Oh I see, they give you more of what you called the Doc out for in the first place !!
Woop-de-bloody-dooooooooo ,.,.,.,.,. Arghhhhhhhhhhhh
God save us from the mighty NHS ,,,, please !

My Brilliant Brain

Watched a programme on TV last night ,, absolutely fascinating.

My Brilliant Brain, Accidental Genius ,.,. an insight into Savant Brains.
About people with exraordinary brains ,.,. some born that way, some after brain trauma ,,
One guy ( a born with ) just sorted numbers constantly in his head ,, he designed calendars of all sorts ,, but he could also remember everything .,,. could tell you what day it was on July 20th. 1912 ,, or any other day, date , year etc ,, He could also read a 500 page book inside an hour ,,,
And memorise every word !!
Eh, shows just what the human brain is actually capable of though ?
Another guy, without ever a lesson, could play piano like a concert pianist ,, and would play ANY piece, note perfect, after hearing it only once !! Truly amazing ,.,. however the down side was that most of these people were slightly less than normal in other ways ,.., ?

Disabled but also with a rare talent ? Remember Dustin Hoffman as the autistic in the Rain Man ?
The calendar guy couldn't look after his day to day needs ,, like shaving, cooking ,, shopping etc ,, The pianist was like a hobo ,.,.,.
A Scouser, Tommy, formerly a builder, who had a brain haemorrhage at 40 or 50 years old ( and with no artistic talent whatsoever ,.,. or any other talent of course. Well he was a Scouser ! Ha, almost just joking !! ) suffered severe brain damage, but suddenly after surgery became a manic 100 MPH talker ,, then developed an overwhelming need ,,, and I mean an absolutely bloody overwhelming need ,,, to paint & sculpt,.,. He covered every piece of paper in the house, then moved on to every other surface ,, walls, doors, floors, ceilings ,.., and his stuff is amazing ,, problem for him is he simply can't rest ,, or stop painting ,, he just goes at it morn to night ,, sadly however his wife just couldn't live with the new artist in him ,, she had to leave to find some sanity for her own life ,,,
Anyway, there was this Prof guy, from Oz I think ,, who is studying this Savant brain behaviour stuff ,,,
He reckons that one day ,, and maybe not too far off either, we will ALL be able to tap in to this incredible brain power ,,, to bring out a special talent that he believes we all have ,.,.
All I can say to that is WOW ! Let me at it ,, I want to try this ,.,. Please ,.,., I have always believed our brains are vastly under used .
One female ( another medic studying this phenomenon ) who also has the savant brain herself, spoke of her talent ,,, she was a writer ,.,.wrote everything from poetry to just her life experiences ,,, she told of also being somewhat manic ,,, wakening in the night and scribbling notes on post it pads ,, sticking them all over the place, hundreds of them ,,

Quote " I just had to get this stuff down on paper ,, my head was bursting with stuff I had to write down "
This describes exactly how (and why ? ) I started writing ,.,. I used these same words early on in my writing ??? My head too was bursting with stuff ,, it wouldn't stop .. and also wakened me in the night.
She is now on medication to curb her "enthusiasm" ,.,. I have just kinda dried up a bit ,,, it no longer wakens me ,,, but then according to my wife ,, nothing does !
However, a quite fascinating study ,,

I wait with baited breath for the Prof. to come up with his "Thinking Cap" that will bring these talents gushing out of us all.

I just know he's right.

The High Life ?

Why don't high rise flats work in Glasgow ? Nay, Scotland even ,.,.
in fact pretty much anywhere in Britain they simply don't work ?? WHY ??
They work fine in NYC ,.,. they work in Singapore ,,, Tokyo ,.,. many, many countries have them ,, I've seen them ,,, they look great and people like living in them ,.,. so,
Why here, do the residents of these homes in the sky seem to drop right off our antisocial behaviour scale ?
Is it that these other countries don't have social misfits ?
No, I hardly think so .,,.
Is it that we build our skyscrapers ( well, little versions thereof -- is that what's wrong ? -- we don't build them high enough ? ) in the wrong places ,,, far away from town, alone, ill maintained, and finally lost, and forgotten ?
We actually seem to build these ( and ours are small monstrosities by comparison to those in, say New York ) as some kind of multi-family prison block, specifically for our social outcasts ,.,. almost, as it were, to keep them that way?
Do our social departments actually interview prospective high rise dwellers to ensure we get a complete block of the worst misfits in our society living together ? Or is this pure coincidence ??
Please queue according to type for allocation of flat ,, druggies, alcoholics, asbos, wife beaters, etc,
I think not !
So, where is it that ( only ) we go wrong ?
Answers on a post card please to ,,,,, The Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh
or if you live south of the border,, the Bam Pot @ bloody 10, Downing St.

Glasgow's urban ghetto

Read yet another article today ( it's July 2007 for Christ's sake and still it goes on ! ) in the never-ending saga/circus that is the underpriviledged underbelly of Glasow's overspill.
This place overspilled ( blood generally ) back in my youthful days in the Bar-L !
Why can't /won't these people ever learn ? Aren't they tired of beating the crap out of one another yet ? Can't they see, or at least understand, that there is a different way ?
Or can it possibly be that all encompassing poverty simply rots your brain into a state of limbo from which you can't ever escape ?
I have often wondered what I would have become, what my life might have been, had I not managed to free myself from the jungle that was the Bar-L ?
Would I, now, like these poor, sad specimens of their sick society, trapped in this war zone, also be fighting my territorial rights and lashing out at any outside help / interference ?
Thankfully, for there but for "fate?" I'll never really know .,,.., but ,.,.,. oh boy, do I have my ( dark ) suspicions ?

Sandyhills, My Spiritual Homecoming.

Yesterday, as my little American friend Trent would have said, I HAD A GREAT DAY !

I had been looking forward to this day for months ,, nae, years ,, and had worried that maybe the dreaming of it would far outshine the reality.

But I needn't have concerned myself, for, as it turned out, it was a truly awesome day !

I played Sandyhills again, for the first time in over 40-years ,, the golf course where I first played the game as a skinny teenager !

I didn't remember much of the place ,, a few holes looked familiar but not many ,,, like all golf courses, naturally, it has changed over the years, but I was back, and I loved every minute ,,

Memories of my old pal Alistair ( Best ) came flooding back ,, our school days, afternoons spent in his Killin St. home ,.,.,.., sadly he couldn't be there with me this time ,, he died, 2-years ago now.

I played "out of my skin" and had by far the biggest win of the day finishing 9-up ,.,.

I shot an amazing 38 out and 40 back giving me a score consistant with an 8 handicap player rather than my existing 16. My opponents ( only the President and Captain of Sandyhills ) gave me the "Man of the Match " award and re-christened me "The Scud Missile Launcher", having seen the "Scudder" motif on my hat !

I helped our team ( Cowglen Seniors ) to a famous 5-1 victory and the lifting of the Match Trophy.

But what made me happiest of all, and the day really great, was simply returning to my Spiritual Golf Home.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh Happy Days.

My Daughter, the Blogger !

I've been reading my dear daughter's Blogs these last few weeks ,,
Not that I don't always read them ,, it's just that recently she seems to have become more of a "Ranter" than a Blogger ! Of her last 15 or so blogs some 11 have been "RANTS" about one thing or another ! She doesn't always log them as rants of course but that's what they are. Mmmmm ,,, maybe it's her age ? Or maybe it's Mamas Chicken Pox blues ?
Here are some of her moans ,,,
First there was her old Lap Top, the one that broke down so frequently it really belonged to the Repair man !
Then she encountered Juvenile Delinquents in Asda ( whom she dealt with in fine fashion ) ,, Next came the Loonie Fringe Politicians and their Rants ! particularly the BNP and the so called Christians ( she wanted them flung to the Lions ! )
Then we had the crazy UK only Child Nut Allergy study ,,, a hoot of a read ,,
Hahaha then there was the breakfast cereal Mortar / Wallpaper Paste !
Her old Citroen car came in for a kicking next for having the audacity to lose a bolt holding the gearbox in situ !
Oh I nearly forgot the NHS ,, they give out DO NOT DRIVE Warnings on 19-month old baby medicine bottles !
After that we got the story about the miscreant able bodied idiots who use Disabled Parking spaces in Supermarket car parks ( have you seen how many spaces we have for the disabled these days ,, especially at DIY stores ! There just can't be that many disabled DIY'ers in the world, never mind visiting B & Q ? )
Oh, then we had the Incomprehensible Inconsistances ,, or why MS's new Vista wouldn't let her access MS's Hotmail ! A good question you have to agree ?
She finished it all off last week with a moan about Dreary Car Colours making our Dull Scottish envirronment even duller and drearier .,,. I reminded her of old Mr. Ford in America who made cars any colour you wanted ,,, as long as it was BLACK !

She's a Crusader my kid ,.,. and mighty proud I am to read her daily output but there's one Blog she's not finished yet and I'm dying to know ,.,.,.,. about her Top Secret Assignment, that most surreal of things she's been asked to do in a very long time ???
C'mon Phyl ,, do tell :)

My Blook is Coming !!

I see the new way for Publishing Houses to find up and coming authors is to appoint "Blog Readers" ,,,, people whose full time job is just browsing other folks blogs !
Progress knows no bounds !
The resulting publication of course being called a BLOOK !
Well whatever next ,,, I may yet be published ?

Just a wee Social Comment !

Scotland definitely believes in education:

The average Uni professor / School teacher earns more money in a year than a professional footballer gets in a whole week !

Reggie's Folly

The wife of the piece is the dearly beloved ,, Let's call her Ann !

She ( who will be obeyed ! ) wanted to replace the strip of silicone filler with a plastic beading at the back of the wash hand basin in the downstairs toilet ,.,. Oh and ditto on the wash hand basin AND the bath in the upstairs loo too.

So she set about removing the old beading / silicone filler stuff, upstairs first.

I fretted that she was about to break wall tiles and /or wash hand basin and /or the bloody bath !

However with my expert help and guidance :) she managed to complete both with no real damage done.

So next it was onto the downstairs job !

Now to let you understand ,,, The downstairs loo was installed by REGGIE ,,, a sortofa plumber from far away Newarthill that we hired once, in a weak moment.

First we tried to scrape away the existing silicone filler stuff from behind the basin ,,, it was good stuff 'cause it wouldn't come off ! So, we scraped a bit harder ,,, Oh shit, the WHB fell away from the wall ,,, how the hell did that happen ?,, Ah, you forgot didn't you ,, REGGIE ,,, there were NO screws fixing the WHB to the wall ,, only a big dollop of glue !

I tried to balance the basin ( now hanging precariously by the pipes to the hot and cold taps ) ( which incidentally, are on the WRONG way round from every other set of taps in the Western World ) on the pedestal but bugger me, it wasn't fixed to the floor in any way at all ,, not even Reggie glued ,.,.,.

So picture it, if you can ,,, we, two daft old buggers with Stanley knives in hand ,, trying to hold not only the basin but now the pedestal too, to stop it all collapsing to the floor and undoubtedly starting a flood ,, 'cause it's a fair bet in my head by now, that at best Reggie will have only half tightened any pipe fittings ?

God only knows how, but finally, after a few minutes we got ourselves sorted to the point where that lady we called Ann is holding the pedestal steady while I hold the basin on top of it with one hand and try screwing in one of the two missing screws with the other !

Absolutely no way is this going to work ,,, I can't get a screw started in the hole ,, it can only take a very short "dumpy" screwdriver ,,, I try on and off for the next 30 minutes to achieve some kind of fixing to the wall ,,, Alas there's nothing else for it ,,,I get Ann to hold the lot while I get underneath and uncouple the hot and cold pipe connections ,,, fortunately wee Reggie has done a job here ,, and we do have inline isolation valves, so we escape the flooding ! ( for now ? )

Finally, after what seems like an hour, I lift the whole basin free and plonk it down on the carpet in the hall ,, Ah, forgot the hanging pipes and waste would still be full of water didn't I ? ( dirty water in the case of the waste ! ) Ach, The carpet cleaning job can be next !

Now I go about trying to get a couple of fixing screws into the (solid wood) wall. Ok that's done !

While we have this all off the wall the Ann person decides a new strip of wallpaper is required to be fitted in along the back of the basin since it's damaged there ,, and suddenly appears with a roll of this paper as if by magic !! Honest, she did !

The re papering naturally requires some wallpaper paste which we "borrow" from our neighbourly painter/decorator next door.

Then it was back to the job of re fitting Reggie's Folly !

We pushed, we shoved, we tried lying upside down, inside out and backwards ,, could we engage these bloody screws in the wall thro' the basin ?? Not on your f***ing life ,.,.

We sat down for a rest, completely cream crackered by now ,, we had a coffee ,, ( and a cream cracker !! ) and finally after now some 3, or was it 4 hours, with a monumental effort we got it all back together ,, taps tightened, ( for they were loose too ! ) pipes fitted and basin on the wall WITH two screws halfway home ! A result !

Only then did she discover ,,,, the basin is shaped ,, curved if you will ,, arced even ,, NOT BLOODY STRAIGHT ,, and so impossible to fit with her plastic bloody beading strip !!

It's back on the wall now with a thin line of white silicone filler just to tidy up the edge betwixt wall and basin ,,,, or put another way ,, THE WAY IT BLOODY WAS TO BEGIN WITH !!

Next day and every day since, my body has ached with all the bloody contortions I did under that basin ,..,,. and not even any sex was involved !! She's gonna put me in an early grave !