The Complete Business Manual 2008

This is obviously the new world way to run a business ,,,,
Christ, if only we'd had this procedure in place when I was working ,,,
What "gay" days we could have had ,.,.,. fun, fun, fun .,,. multi million pound ( or Dollar ) profits ,.., and no customer contact whatsoever. Absolutely brilliant in its concept .,., and so simple to achieve .,.,., why didn't we think of it ?
A total "customer free zone" was something we always dreamed of ,.,. but in my day we actually aimed for a totally satisfied and happy customer ,, with his every whim realised !
Ipsofacto, no problems to be resolved.

Today's businessman has changed things round a little ,.,. almost straight out the pages of the Party Political Handbook for Beginners, they now aim for total customer free zones with therefore absolutely no problems to deal with. If a customer should actually get through ,,, hang up on him ! Jesus how bloody clever is that ? It's Brilliant ,,

Take Orange for example : If I could contact the bastards I'd take them all right .,.,,. all the way to bloody Court !
Here's how they've got up my nose ! So far up in fact that they're coming out the top !
My wife decided to Top-Up her mobile ,.,. A simple task you might think ?
She decided to do it by dialling the 'phone's own Top-Up service.
I'd like to add £10 to my account she fingered into her 'phone's buttons ,,,
Oops, we have a "Communication Failure" Orange told her ,,, "please try again " So she did !!
Now at this point I would advise any would-be topper-upper to .... BEWARE !!
She tried again .,,.,.,. Wooops .,,. here we go again ,..,., Com-fail ,, please try again ! ( so courteous too ... )
And again ,, and again .,,. Then Ahhhhhh ,,,, all is finally well .,,.,. at attempt #5 the oh so pleasant ORANGE told her she had now successfully topped up her mobile by the required £10.
Ha, ye bloody think ??
An hour or two later she received a call from a proper customer orientated company ; our Visa card Bank, Egg ,,, "We're just checking Mrs. B ,,, there's been some very peculiar activity on your credit card ,, did you authorise 5 -payments of £10 to the same company earlier tonight ?" Mmmmm ,, turns out of course that ORANGE only had a Com Failure at their end ,, from ours they managed to take the tenner off the card each time !

Now mistakes happen of course ,,, it's not the end of the world really ,, so we call their 450 line ( at 25p a go !) to ask them to re-imburse our card to the tune of £40 .,.,., we call them once ,,, they say that even although our bank knows it, and our phone registers it, their call centre in India can only see £20 having been topped up !! Please give us 24-hours 'till our system catches up, and we'll call you back they say !!
And shit ! what dummies we've become ,, we believe them !
They didn't of course .,., so 48-hours later we call the sub continent again .,,. they still see only £20 ,,, but of course Mr. B ,, we WILL re-imburse your card ,,, can you just wait 1-minute and talk to my "SUPERWISER " ,,, yeah that's with a W .,.,., certainly wiser than me ,,, for there I was waiting ,,, one minute ,, then two ,, then 10 ,,, then 20 ,,, "Bastards !" I shout down the ,by now, red hot 'phone, but no one was listening ,,, they were OFF ,,, having their fun, fun, fun .,,.,. Customers, what customers ??
I even did it all over again ,, ( that's a 3rd. 25p ,,,, which I also now insist be re-imbursed ! ) and went through the whole saga with a 3rd. Indian ,,, I've heard about as many of them now as Custer did at the Little Big Horn !!
Needless to say my wife still has the errant £50 on her 'phone and NOTHING back in her bank !!
Now I refuse to go through this shit again so I decide there & then ,,, I'll give them an earful by email ,.., Ah, ye bloody think ? You just try finding an email ,, a Contact Us or any other method of reaching these buggers via the written word .,,. I'll make it easy for you .,.,,. YOU CAN'T !!

So there you now have it ,, The Complete Business Manual 2008 .,,.
Don't deal with customers ,, don't resolve their problems ,, and for Christ's sake don't let them ever find a way to contact you ,.,.
Pure Fuckin' Dead Brilliant ,.,. No ? I take my hat off to them .,.,,. I really do ,,,
However ,,, I WILL have them !! They have ORANGE SHOPS .,., and you better believe ,, you wouldn't want to work in one of them this week !!

Jesus H. Christ ,,, Now Google are at it too ,,,,
I have a complaint ,, a nuisance happening every few days with my iGoogle customised home page .,., I wanted to ask them why it keeps changing ,,, reverting back to some standard London based home page every couple of days ,, a page that I really don't want.
This requires me each time to have to re-sign in with username, password etc ,,
Like I said, a bloody nuisance but no more ,.,.,..,
'TILL NOW !!

Now I find that Google too operate their business using the aforementioned Complete Business Manual 2008 ,.,. There is simply NO WAY TO CONTACT THESE PEOPLE to ask a simple question ,.,.,. go on, try it for yourself ,,, it's impossible ,, and the lengths they go to, to avoid giving you an email / contact us, is quite mind boggling !!
What a world we now live in when you can't even vent your spleen when companies upset you !
It's enough to give us oldies a heart attack ,.,.,. in fact if I should get my blood pressure to a point in the near future when I do myself some damage I want my children to pursue a case of Manslaughter againt these bastards .,.,,.
However, I DON'T want my wife involved in this acion, lest she suffers the same fate !!
Anyway, I'll let you know when I finally crack the Google Barrier ,.,. and knock down the Orange Wall ,.., for believe me ,, I BLOODY WILL !!

( if it's the last thing I ever do ! ) )

A Disaster has occurred !

It seems, that at the ripe ( some might say over-ripe ) old age of eh, ahuh ,,, well let's just say old enough to be a 5-times grandpa .,,.,. Arghhhhhhhhh ,,, am I really ????
I have now, for the first time in my life ,,, EVER ,,, developed bloody Hay Fever, seemingly !!
How the hell has that come about I ask myself ??
My nose has been streaming all day today (again !) ; it did the same yestertime and all the while I was sneezing and feeling completely miserable ! ( I mean, even more miserable than normal ! )
I can barely keep my eyes open ,, they too are streaming constantly ,,
What is this dreadful ailment and more importantly what is the cure ?
I hear talk of an Anti Histamine but I didn't even know I had another auntie ...
If anyone can shed light on why I have suddenly become afflicted I'd appreciate their help ....
Answers on a Post Card please ,,,, and hopefully a fast one ,,, I need the CURE before tomorrow morning at 9.30am when I'm due to tee off !!
PS : Could it simply be the sun-tan cream ,.., It seems to melt in the heat and run into my eyes ,,? Maybe tomorrow I'll try sun block below the eyes only !!
HELP !!!!

Do you people know who I am !?

Heard a wee story the other day ,.,. in fact it was my son who told it to me, and he's a lawyer ,, an honest man ,, so it MUST be true ?
It was about Kirk Douglas' other ,, not so well known son ,.., Don't remember his name but not Michael .,.,,. Anyway this guy is ( or maybe was ? ) a stand-up comedien ,..,
Apparently one night doing a gig he was being heckled badly ,,, let's just say his audience weren't being kind to the boy ! He was, in fact, as the old time grease paint comics might say ,, dying on his feet ! Akin to a new act at the old Glasgow Empire !
He seemingly got so exasperated that he grabbed the mike out of it's stand and walking right up to the edge of the stage he shouted at them ,,,
"Do you people know who I am ?" ,.., Silence at last ..
"I am KIRK DOUGLAS' son" he told them .... the silence grew almost tangible until at last one guy got to his feet and shouted back ,,,
NO, I'm KIRK DOUGLAS' son ,,,, great laughter ensued all round the house ,,
Another audience member jumped up at the opposite side of the house ,,,
NO, I'm KIRK DOUGLAS' son ,,, then another, and another ,, until within 2-minutes the whole hall was in uproar with hundreds of guys on their feet claiming to be the great man's son ,,,
The young would-be stand-up comic simply walked off and never returned !
True ?? Who knows ,, but funny ,,,, It sure tickled my fancy ! How about yours ?

Preparing to go !

You have to ask yourself ,,, Is it really worth it ??
It's been all hassle here and in my son & daughter-in-law's house for the past few days ,,, and all we're doing is driving down the road a couple of hundred miles for a short holiday break !
First it was the booking ,,,, then it was the site ,,, CenterParcs ,.., is it any good, what do other people think of it ?,, checking out the online comments and listening to friends .,,.
"Oh, the place is wonderful ( for kids ! ) but don't eat in ANY of the on site restauants ,, take good hiking shoes ! ,.,.,. don't hire their bikes ( very poor condition ,, ) ,,, everything COSTS an arm & a leg !! ",.,.,.
Then the girls decided to buy a week's meals in the Supermarket ,,, here ! ,.., before we left ?
Are there no supermarkets in England I muse ?? Why are we carrying all this food ? & drink, of course ?? I mean ,, we're even taking our own Scottish limes & lemons for the Gin ( That's English Gin btw !! )
"Remember to pack swimming trunks to go in the fun pool with Gordy ,,, get some cash" ( again ... it seems England has slipped into 3rd. world status ,, now they have no bloody Banks ! ) "Watch you don't get Scottish bank notes ,, they might refuse to take them ,,,
Aye right ! They'll take them or they'll get bugger all !"
"Did you pack a book to read ? ,,, a weatherproof jacket ?,,, your shaver ,,, ? the camera ,, phone charger ,,, & on & on ,,, " I'm knackered & we haven't moved out the street yet !
Christ it's a weeeek ,,, I can grow a bloody beard if it all goes pear shaped & I forget a shaver ..
Hahaha ,,, Derek & Amanda bought me a new tee shirt for my holiday ,,,
It's a Mr. GRUMPY !!
Oops ,,, time to shut up and go enjoy !!!!

Women can be such Fusses !

She just got onto me again !
Telling me how bloody stupid I was !! ( Ha, as if I didn't know that already ....)
She brought some chocolate bars in from the fridge in the garage and confronted me with them ,,,
I used to eat the odd peanut choc bar ( Marathon ... before they became the truly awful Snicker ?) or a Mars during a round of golf ,, but more importantly I used to always keep a couple in my golf bag to ensure my old pal Jim Russell didn't suffer a hypo half way round the course ,,, Jim was diabetic & sometimes a lack of sugar would hit him like an errant golf ball .,,.
at these times he needed an urgent sugar fix ,,, and what better than a Marathon or Mars ?
Sadly Jim died ,,, over a year ago now.
So what was so wrong with me having a few chocy bars secreted away in the fridge you might wonder ,,?
Aye Ok, so I'm on a sometimes Atkins diet ,,, and I don't often take one out on the course with me anymore ,,
Although I did like the thought that they were there if I took a wee notion !
However she did have a point I suppose .,,.
The sell by date on them was passed ,,, a little on the wrong side of fresh ,,,
Eh, ok, I finally conceded ,, bin them then if you must my dear ,,,
But I really don't see what can go out of date on a bit of chocolate and some peanuts !!
Ok, so June 2004 wasn't exactly yesterday ,,, but ,,,

Wot a lot I've got !!

This morning ,,, or in Lotsie speak, tosmorning ,, or yestertime even ... I was browsing !

Not the net as some might, but all my own old files ,,,

My Documents, my Stationery, my Clipart, my photos ,,, my everydamnthing ,,

and have I got some really good STUFF ! ?

Ha, look at some of this ... it's brilliant ..

Sadly not all the animation is working here ,,,

Mr. Bean is really something to see !!

Anyway I have hundreds more of these almost forgotten stationeries so stand-by for more exciting emails !

I'm surrounded by them these days !

NERDS that is ,,,The son is a complete gadget & gizmo freak .,., buys every damn kind of new modern electronic ( or is even that word now old hat ? ) PC gadget to play games with ,.,.,. he even has a gyroscope ball thing to strengthen his arms ! ... a nerd of the first order !

The daughter left one ,,,, but found another ! ,, and an even worse case to boot ! And what has he done for her ??? Apart from making her laugh again ,,, bringing her sublime happiness ,,, ?

Why he's actually turning her into one too :(

This one speaks so many foreign languages it's obscene ,,, and wait for this ,,, he keeps a note of his American Express card Pin number written down in his wallet, in Georgian !! ... but in case anyone finding it or stealing it reads Georgian, he's encrypted it into Japanese !!!! Hahaha

He believes it might be just a tad unlikely for the average Glesca pick-pocket to speak both Georgian and Japanese !!

I have to listen to this shite on a daily basis ,,, and I'm trying hard not to seem like an uncontrolable giggling idiot for he's also a splendid chef and does a pretty mean BBQ !!

But how is he turning my daughter into a nerd too you ask ??

Well she called me tosmorning, thrilled skinny, because he had bought her ( and paid money for it ! ) wait for it ..... her very own WEB SITE !!

Eh ??? Is it me ??

I think mibbie it's getting near the time when I need to shuffle off this mortal coil :)

Only a Golfer would understand !

After you read my tale below, I don’t ever want to talk about this again !!
I’m so angry with myself this morning ,,,
It’s kept me awake half the bloody night !
In fact I’ve been very angry with myself since precisely 9-05am yesterday morning !
At 9-00am Wed. 2nd. July, whilst competing in the Cowglen Seniors Open I drove off at the 4th. hole.
Holes 1, 2 & 3 had been steady if not spectacular ,,, 5,5,5 ,,, an ok start. ( not quite like the day before of course, when I started my practice round with 4,4,4, ,,, and another 4 to follow that at this damned 4th hole ! ,,,, 4 straight pars ! )
My normal drive at the 4th. would generally take me up the hill, centrally on the fairway, with an easy 8 or 9 iron onto the green ,,,,
This being the Open of course, I sliced my ball and off it went, rolling all the way down the hill into the heavy rough close to the out-of-bounds wall ,,,
After a short hunt one of my playing partners located my ball ,,,, it was two feet into the rough in long grass ,, about knee high grass !,,,
A lift & drop, within two club lengths, out into the semi rough never entered my head .,., a single penalty stroke would have seen me in a position to certainly chip back out onto the fairway and thence onto the green in 4 .,,., all night long I’ve dreamt about doing it that way !! But instead I lashed at it ,,, I put it deeper into the same long grass a mere 2 feet from it’s original position !
Did I stop and think then ,,, DOH ,,, NO !!
I lashed at it again ,,, out it came this time ,, right behind the big bush ,,, 15-yards I’d moved it with these two errant strokes .,,. Did I learn anything this time ,,, ??
Eh, no ,,, The Dummy just HAD to go for the green, didn’t I ,, from this impossible position ,.,. naturally I didn’t make it ,,, instead I ended up behind the very big tree on the right side ,, just back from the burn ,,
Absolutely no way to get the ball up in the air from right under this tree’s overhanging branches ,,, so I manufactured a low punch & run ,, hoping to get the ball to bounce over said burn and onto the green in what would then be 5 ,, all wasn’t lost yet ,,,
Well I managed not to go into the burn ,, but stopped hopelessly short of the green on the steep slope ,, stupidly putted up ( rather than use my magic chipper ) ,, well short of the pin ,,, in fact barely on the green ,,, followed then by a very poor putt to some 6 – 7 feet away ,,, Did I sink this tiddler ,,,
Arghhhhhh ,, no, it took two more putts and it was all over ,,, the 4th. and my Open Championship !
I haven’t had a 9 at that hole in ten years ,, 4, or at times 5 ,,, on a really bad day I may have had a 6 ,,, but 9 ,,, Jesus ,, where did that come from ?
Obviously I’ve been bad in some previous life ??

After that I just relaxed and played my normal game ,, Reached the turn in 45 ( yeah, with that 9 still on my card & in my mind ! )
However I had a better inward 9 coming home in 38 with a magic TWO at the 12th. ( well I thought, at least I’ll make a few quid on that, for there were two to three hundred entrants, all putting a pound into the Two’s kitty.
Finished score a net 67 ,,, not bad considering ?
However I also had a really daft 5 at the par 3, 16th ,,, after landing my tee shot a mere 10-yards from the flag, just off the green on the left side.

An hour later I’m in the clubhouse and in the lead !! Whit ??
The first 10 or 12 games are in, and the only two sub 70 scores are my 67 and wee Joe Sawyers, another Cowglen senior, with a 68 !!
What’s going on, I ask myself ?? Another dozen cards are returned ,,, all 70 odds ,, 80’s even !
OK, so the course was set up as long as I’ve ever seen it ,,, all the yellow tees were set right back as far as they’d go ,,, virtually the medal course in fact ,, best suited to the big hitters ,,, a real trial for the higher handicap older guys ,, but c’mon ,,, surely a 67 isn’t going anywhere near the winning post ?? Is it ??

Well believe it or not ,,, 4 - 5 hours later & only the last two games were still out ,, at 17 & 18 respectively and yours truly is STILL the clubhouse leader ,,, ( and incidentally only two other two’s have been recorded !! Yo ! )
Then it happened ,,, Bugger me ! ( if you’ll all pardon my somewhat sexually explicit French ) ,,, the very last three ball came in ,, two 69’s and a bloody winning 64 ,,
Arghhhh shit ! ( sorry I mean Merdé )

So a bad day ended with a 2nd place overall cheque for £50 ,,, a First place in my age class 6- crystal glasses and a still to be declared share of the Two’s kitty !!
Hey, life’s not at all bad really is it ??
But in my nightmare that 9 is always reduced to a bad six and the daft 5 to four ,,,

& there I am ,, 63 ,,, The Winner & cleaning up the whole kitty ,, the lot !!
Ah well, next year I’ll take the penalty drop !!
Hahahahaha

Footnote : It just had to be didn't it ?

Out again the next day and what did I shoot at that 4th. ?

Yep, you guessed it ,,, only a bloody brilliant birdie 3 !!

They say suicide is painless, don't they ???

PS : Another wee tale !
It was a sunny morning ...
A little before 8:00 am ...
On the first hole of a busy course ...
And I was beginning my pre-shot routine ...
visualizing my upcoming shot
When a piercing voice came over the clubhouse loud speaker ...
'Would the gentleman on the woman's tee back up to the men's tee please !'

I could feel every eye on the course looking at me.
I was still deep in my routine ...
Seemingly impervious to the interruption.
Again the announcement .
'Would the man on the woman's tee kindly back up to the men's tee.'

I simply ignored the guy and kept concentrating ...
When once more ...
the man yelled ...
'Would the man on the woman's tee back up to the men's tee ...
Please ! '

I finally stopped ...
Turned, cupped my hands and shouted back
'Would the ass hole with the microphone
Please be quiet
and let me play my second shot.'

Thank-you !!

Whit ! Ye cannae Molicate onybody any mair ?

I had quite a wee turn this week ,,
There I was with both my wee Collins Scots Gem AND my new Concise Scots Dictionary but neither one could confirm the spelling of Molicate ,,, or is it Mollicate ?
Never in my wildest dreams did I consider I was using a Non-Word !
I checked again ,,, maybe I'd missed it ? ,,, maybe there was a page missing from my new dictionary ? Alas No ,,, the word simply doesn't exist !
What a load of old rubbish ,, of course it exists !
What a sad omission however ,,, I'll need to talk to the daughter ,, she can and does introduce new words into Collins dictionaries from time to time as the language evolves !!
But hey ! ,, I've been using Molicate / Mollicate ever since I was a lad so that makes it ,, ehmmm, not very new !
I did receive the usual "help" from Bill Gates' microsoft Spell check however .,,.
Bill threw in some great Red-Herring suggestions ,, worthy of a mention !
Could it be ,,,, he asks me, in the case of MOLICATE ,,,, Medicate, militate, motivate, implicate or foliate ???
Or if MOLLICATE ,,, I could try ,,, Emolliate, collocate or collimate as well as the above militate and motivate ????
My friend & former head English teacher, one William Dickie Esq. reflected on my molication ( of the opposition btw in a recent golf tournament ) and offered the following observations on possible etymologies:

MOLIFICARE (proto Latin) - to extirpate, demoralise, render into minute particles etc. Compression over time and elision.
MOLOCH -(cognate generalisation) - Semitic god to whom parents sacrificed their offspring and by extension v.t. (verb transitive) to destroy completely
MOLICATE- almost certainly the genuine article - a wee punter from Partick expostulating as he leaves the Locarno (probably circa early '50's) after his lumber has been appropriated by another male.

So there you go ,,, it definitely exists ,,, 'cause ah kin remember leaving the Locarno masel.

And if the daughter fails to get my word into her future dictionaries I may revert to using Willie's rather appropriate Moloch !!

Oh and of course you'll all know by now that this was simply another of my Mulligrumphs ,,
n, a complaint, lamentation,; freq in pl, a state of dissatisfaction, a fit of sulks 19, now Ork EC
vi, complain, grumble la 19
So there !

Footnote : Just learned the correct spelling is MOLOCATE ! although also acceptable are ,,,
molecate, mollicate, mollocate, malacate. ,,,, To beat up, batter.

Bloody Dentists ,, Bloody Teeth ,, Bloody Useless !

So I paid the wee bastard his £200 odd quid ,.,.

A week later I had the shiny new Plate complete with its 5- miserable little teeth ,,,

Oh it's a much better fit than that old thing you had, he says ,, it'll be much stronger too ,, modern materials are so much better ,,, Blah, bloody blah ,, blah blah ,,

Ha !

It's another week on and guess where the bloody plate is ?

Yeah, back in his miserable little Dental Practice for repair ,,, Broke biting on a ,,,, lump of bloody cheddar cheese no less ! Real bloody strong this new material !!

Glad I kept the Old Thing as a spare !

You've got such an unusually high palate he tells me .,., bone right along the centre ,,, very difficult, that tooth on the bite .,., blah, de bloody blah , blah blah ,,,

So I've told him ,,, get it fixed PDQ ,, get it strenghened ,,, and beware these words ,,,

Unfit for Purpose ! ,.,. Much like the bloody practicioner in this place I told him .,.,,

And watch out for my lawyer's letter !

He's only gone & done it again !

Yabadabadooooo ....
Another Seniors Trophy to the old man ....
Hey-hey, I've still got it ,,, ( and I can still use it ! oooh misses !! )

Scudder the golfer can still produce the goods :)

Yesterday I won the Seniors Committee Outing Day Trophy .,., a little competition we play for annually ,,, eligible to play are the current Committee members ( all 10 of us ) plus all past committee members & Captains, so there must have been ,,, oh, twelve of us !!

Anyway I was obviously inspired by watching Tiger get though the 4-days at Torry Pines in the US Open, to a play-off against the old timer, Rocco Mediate !

Or was it maybe getting my first haircut for some months ?

I wasn't sure if he'd gone on to win as he was playing same time as me ,,,

And I guess he wasn't sure if I'd won either ?

Anyway we both did the business in the end ....

I watched the highlights of his game later and I swear, .. the boy's putting is becoming almost as good as mine !!

But hey, he could still learn a thing or two about straight driving from yours truly :)

You need hands ! or ( Half the hands, half the fun ? )

Just watched a guy on "Millionaire" tonight ,, a repeat showing of one of the earlier shows from late 2000. Asked by Tarrent about his occupations over the years ,,, he said he was once ,..,

wait for this ,,, a "wringer outer for a one armed window washer",, Isn't that a cracker ?

Christ, but some folk do have fun in their working lives ! That's got to be the best description of a job I've ever heard !

The poor bugger got to £64,000 and had a go at the £125,000 question ,, seemed quite sure of his answer too ... but sadly he was WRONG ! Ouch ... !!

Still, for a wringer outer for a one armed window washer, I guess £32 grand is a useful wee lift ?

Btw, what would EVER make you take up a job as a window washer if you only had one arm ?

Apart from the wringin' oot ,,, what does he use to hold on to the ladder ???

It's Musique Claude, but not as we know it !

So, against all our better judgement and last year's final post show positive assertion of "Never Again" we stupidly did it ,.,. again ,,,, yep I admit it ,,, we watched the Eurovision Song Contest ,,, Doh ! It's got to be a sign of old age and senility setting in, hasn't it ?

Anyway, for the first time in a long number of years ( yeah ok, so we watch it every bloody year ! ) the songs were a bit better ,, not ALL your usual Euro rubbish. But of course when it came to the judging it all went pear shaped yet again ,.,. To be fair the UK song was absolute shite and thoroughly deserved its last place ,, but that aside, the political voting has now turned the show into a farce,, a world wide laughing stock ,, I mean, even Wogan is threatening "Never Again !!", so things really must be bad.

My beloved however, gas come up with the answer to get the show back on the level !

All contestants sing in the same language ,,, possibly English since that seems to be almost the case already and English seems to be accepted as the language of the music world ,,, well pop music at least ! No National displays allowed ,, no flags, no "see our country" videos ,,, although they could still be shown, but RANDOMLY ,, not necessarily with the country performing ! That could really confuse the drunks eh !!

The competitors have an identifying number and voting is then done on the number of the song and hopefully then judged on music content only ,.,.,. How zat ?

Each country will obviously know its own song since it would still be voted for, pre competition, but this doesn't matter since the judges can't vote for their own .,,. so it still works.

Think the little woman has cracked it ,.,. over to you Terry !!

Devotees of grammatical studies have not been distinguished for any very remarkable felicities of expression.

Jesus ! I thought to myself ,,, and me the faither of a gifted Linguist.
How come I didn't know this before now ? How come she never let on ??
Christ, I'm bloody nearly OLD, and this is me just finding out about the English language wot I thought I spoke !
There was me, stoopid me obviously, thinking that the language I was taught at school, to speak, and think in, was THE definitive English ?
Not on yer life pal ,.,.
I got a wee bit upset again this morning when writing the latest chapter of my on-going book and Microsoft's auto spell check kept questioning MY English and substituting its bloody bastardised US English ( a contradiction in terms as far as I'm concerned ,,, lovely people I'm sure, but English speaking ?,, eh, naw, I don't think so ! )
Well bugger me ... seems this US English shite is only one of a huge number of derivitives ,.,.the tip of the iceberg no less.
Here's the full list of English's you can use, according to Microsoft's language choice ,,,,
Would you believe ,, apart from proper English and their own US of A version that THEY think is English, you can also have ,,,,
English Australia, Belize, Canada, Caribbean, Hong Kong SAR, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Jamaica, ,,, hey, you think I'm done ? ,,,, Ha ,, hang on in there ....
Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Trinidad & Tobago and Zimbabwe,
and the daughter has never mentioned any one of these ....
I suppose I'll need to temper my anger at all these "foreign" call centre operatives now ?
After all they're only speaking their English !!! Aye right !
Notice anything missing btw ?????
Aye, me too ,.,., it's nae bloody wonder we want our Independence and Freedom.

The Wee Soul got Confused !

My dear grandkids ( well the two oldest ) came up last night to watch the European Cup final, Man U Vs Chelsea, with us.

Marcel & me were firmly in the Red Man U camp but Lotsie decided she was a Blue girl ?

Don't know why, other than maybe to give one to her big brother !

Anyway, the 90-minutes came & went at 1 - 1.

Extra time started ,.,. Lots was a wee bit sleepy by then and dozed on and off on Granny's big comfy swivel chair ,,, Zzzz, Oops, wakened again ,,,, Zzzz ,,,

Marcel & me shouting from time to time roused the little sleepy head ,,,, awake, asleep, awake, asleep ,,,

Then came the Penalty shoot out ! She missed most of it, but the yells in the living room did revive her at each shot !

1-o Man U .... 1-1 ... 2-1 ... and so on ,,,,

It reached a climax at 3-3 ,,, with Chelsea only to score their next penalty to win the most coveted cup in all of Europe ... Up stepped their Captain ,, England Captain, Mr. Chelsea, the magnificent John Terry ,,, game over surely ,,, ??

He slips as he hits the ball ,,, he MISSES ,,, all hell breaks loose ,,, Lotsie jumps up, apparently wide awake ....but getting more & more confused looking !

Two more penalties ,,,, Man U score ,,, Chelsea's Anelka hits a low ball to the goalkeeper's right ,, Man U have a new hero ,,, The goalie saves it and the stadium explodes ,, Mayhem, everywhere in Moscow there's cheers, tears, noise ,,,

Lotsie & Marcel, now an hour or more later than their normal bedtime are being hussled by Pumpa to get into their shoes & jackets ready to go home ,,,, but of course we have to wait another 10-minutes or so to see the Cup presentation etc ,,, can't watch all that drama and miss the end ?

Our wee soul is totally bewildered by all the yelling and tears on the TV screen ( by sleep or by Footie .. not sure which ) ,,

Lotsie is bending down putting on her shoes when I hear her quietly say to her granny ,,,

"So who won anyway ?"

What a lovely wee moment ,,,

I'm getting fed up with Flickr !

Why oh why can't you change the order of your pics on Flickr ?
Having to upload a set in reverse order so they come out right on the page is just such a chore ,.,.
And one I can never get right !
I think I'm gonna abandon Flickr 'til they can get this obvious flaw sorted ,.,.
Sorry, I just don't like the random upload of my pics.
Bye-bye the big F

Well I sure got that all wrong !

We ( the wife & me ) were up at PQ ( in town ) babysitting Friday night ,,, & well into Sat. afternoon !
The son and his wife ( said baby's maw & paw ) were attending a wedding down Seamill way and decided to stay over in the famous Hydro for the night.
During our stay in the big house ( in PQ that is, not Glasgow's infamous Barlinnie prison ) our daughter brought along her family ,,,, hubby-to-be ? Thomas ,,, and kids Marcel, Lotsie, Pudgeman & Tiny-bits for dinner and after dinner games ,,, ( I think this was her way of "helping" us old folks baby-sit one child ,,, bringing along 4-more !! Oh no, make that 5 ,,,
I forgot, Thomas too is still quite young ! )
Anyway, on leaving yesterday I suddenly remembered about the hide & seek game the son's little Gordy and the daughter's Pudgeman had been playing.
I came across them in the big walk -in cupboard in the hall ,.,. Little Leon (Pudge ) was hiding behind a load of hanging coats & jackets ,,, but the bold Gordy ( well it was his house ! ) I found, half way up the very tall ladder which was parked in there !
"Jesus !" I muttered ( to myself I think ) ,.,. pulling him off and telling him, in no uncertain Grandfatherly tones, how dangerous it was for little boys to climb ladders ,.,..
So here's where it all went wrong ,.,.,.,.
I mentioned to the father that he might keep the cupboard closed and locked in future, or to keep a close eye on his little son's Hilaryesque ways ,,,
Off we went home at that, having done our babysitting and having managed to keep the kid safe and in one piece ,.,.,. only to receive a 'phone call a mere few hours later in the evening from a distraught daughter-in-law to tell us our son ,,, the father of the piece ,,, had only gone and fallen off said ladder and broken his wrist !!
"Jesus !" I muttered ,, and definitely not to myself this time !
Now this would be bad enough in itself but this is the 2nd. time he's done this ,, breaking the arm that is, not falling off ladders ,,, the previous time it was the left arm playing footie ,,, this time it was the right arm, "fixing" a fallen curtain rail !! And this time in front of a single glazed window, with a fall to the street more than high enough to kill him !! And the broken wrist could of course just as easily have been a broken neck ,,,
You just never get away from parental worry do you ?
There are times when the wife & I wonder if they're actually trying to put us into an early grave intentionally .,. it's not like we've got pots of money to leave them or anything !
Maybe they're just tired of us ???
:O) ... Seriously .... the follow up ...
The son had to spend all Saturday night in great pain with his hand facing completely the wrong direction at the end of his arm ,,, he was taken 10-floors down for a chest x-ray early next morning, having not slept all night, to ensure he was fit to undergo a general anaesthetic ( a precaution since he suffers from asthma ) but then asked to find his own way back to his ward since a porter could take up to 1/2 an hour to be found ! With the hand still in severe pain he didn't even know which ward he had come from ,,,!
The consultant surgeon finally came to see the wrist later that morning ! The worst break he'd seen in over 10-years he called it ,.,. Oh God, not again .... ( his mother & I didn't sleep much that night either.)
He operated Sunday, mid morning, a 31/2 hour op. ( apparently very successfully ) and our dear son now has a metal plate inserted deep in his hand/wrist, held in place with several screws and covered in old fashioned stookie ,, No, take that back ,, this is new fashioned stookie ,, a wet, but lighter plastic version which hardens very much quicker than the old plaster of Paris, but will still be on for at least a month. He was checked over at 7-30am Monday for any infection in the wound and also that he had come through an overnight after the general anaesthetic ,, and pronounced fit to go home ,.,. Just as soon as he received his appointment card ( for the return visit in a month to remove the stookie ! ) oh, and his pain relief medication, he could go !
Believe it or not this took longer than the operation !!! His wife and mother finally, after many abortive 'phone calls had to go down there at the regular afternoon visiting hour at 2-30pm and only then did they manage to get these vital release items !!
Like I've been known to say before ,, It's the NHS Jim but not as we know it !
Oh and the final piece in the jig-saw ,..,,
Wait for this ,.,.,. The daughter-in-law, God bless her, asked ME if I could go up these same, but now bent and broken ladders and fix the bloody curtain rail ,, ‘cause wee Gordy can’t sleep unless the room is in darkness !!
They ARE trying to get rid of us aren’t they ????

She WAS the best mum in the world ! But what now ???

Oh dearie me,

I've gone and knocked her off her pedestal ,.,.

Up until about 2 hours ago she WAS the best Mum in our world ,,,

But what now ? ,,, I dropped her prized trophy ,, the one given to her by the best daughter in our world ,,, OK, the ONLY daughter ,, but still the best !

It slipped out of my hand and onto the wooden floor ,,, maybe fitted carpets should be re-considered at the onset of old age ?

Maybe the only daughter will put her back on her pedestal ???

( You KNOW what I mean here Phyl ,,,, get me off the hook ,, please ? ,.,. buy her another one for God's sake )

Christ, the things that are sent to try us !!

But at least I hadn't washed the damned boiled egg out of it .... :o)

Time to get it all off my chest.( a weekly rant is coming )

I've decided that in my old age I'm getting far too ratty, too intense, too angry, too intolerant.
I have too much rage within me to be healthy ,,,, apparently it's embarrassing at times too, to friends & family.
So, I'm just going to, one last time, write down every single thing that upsets me, annoys me, causes my blood pressure to rise and/or generally gets me down.
That way I can (maybe) finally just let it go and be happy again ,, enjoy all that life has to offer ( which is much ! so why waste it in a constant state of annoyance & anger )
Why should I let all this stuff fester inside ( or outside ) me and cause me actual bodily harm ,, for it's bound to in the end isn't it ?,, so therefore once committed to paper this last time that's it ,, I'm letting it all go ,,, onward I go to pastures new & greener.
( or like Buzz Lightyear .. To infinity & beyond ? )
Ok, so here goes ,,, but wait, this list may well run to quite a few days ,, or possibly weeks ,, hopefully not months ,, but who knows ? Maybe I should simply publish and re-visit it on a weekly basis with updates !! Yeah, that's the plan ,,,, TBC and re-visited ,,, often !
Please realise there can be no particular or specific order to this ,.,. it'll come as it comes !!

Firstly then, there is the complete incompetence of our ( and everyone else's ) politicians ,, ipsofacto governments, that band of special men & women who want to run our lives the way THEY see fit ,, these include small town & county councillors, all the way thro' to local & central MP's, Euro MP's and on to so called world leaders !
Christ give us strength ! Why can't these imbeciles ever see what the rest of can see with our eyes wide shut ? I guess it's more important for them to make fast bucks for themselves than to actually serve the people who elected them ?
One last time I say ,, anyone who expresses a desire to enter Politics should be automatically banned for life from actually doing so !

Then there's The Law ,,, I can't make any sense of the completely inadequate sentences passed down to today's criminals ,, nor the crazy parole arrangements ,, get 10 years ,, serve maybe as much as 41/2 and live in comfort while inside all that time !,.,. even get to sue us ( the taxpayers ) for making you slop-out or not being treated to your satisfaction.
When oh when is the pendulum going to swing back ? Get rid of the bloody do-gooders and maybe then we'll get back to proper treatment of the scum in our society ,, criminals should be PUNISHED !

I wonder too what it was we ( parents of my age ) did so wrong in bringing up our kids that todays parents do everything completely opposite to common sense ,.,. why can't they understand that small kids DO actually need some discipline from time to time ,.,. it really didn't do them any harm ,.,. only these same bloody do-gooders have convinced them that to smack a we'an's wee arse when necessary is an act of evil brutality ! Bollocks I say.
And the reason we now have a Nation of teen hoodies and street corner junkies is of course that they don't have any home parents ,, mothers are so much better at bringing up their kids than paid nannies ,,, society started to go wrong when women's salaries were allowed to be added to men's to count towards mortgages ,,,
And of course when we told the local Bobby he could no longer cuff the ear of cheeky kids, school teachers they couldn't control their classrooms anymore ,,, no belt, no detention, no lines ,,, no fear of teacher ,, result ? ill educated hoodlums ,,
I've said it before & no doubt will again ,, " You get what you allow "

Next I turn my wrath on the uglyfying of our beautiful country ,, take for example Electricity Pylons ,.,. what numpty allowed that disfiguring of our countryside ? And what have our politicians learned from these monstrocities ?? Nothing obviously ! ,, for now they want to blot the landscape with even uglier ( and noisy ) bloody wind generators ...

When did the world get taken over by Poofs I wonder ? Why is everything on TV lorded over by these queer people ? We used to lock them up ,.,. they are NOT normal ,, no matter how PC it might be nowadays to say they are ,, It is IMPOSSIBLE to pro-create by Jobby-Jabbing so why are these oddities allowed to shove their vile habits down our throats ,, constantly ?

Now Dentists ,,, how come we get Free prescriptions, free bus passes etc, when we become OAP's but NO FREE dental treatment ,, ? You can't even get decent priced NHS treatment anymore ,, that's if you can actually find an NHS dentist ! ( why was that allowed to happen ? )What makes them special ? I checked online how much I should be charged on the NHS by my dentist for a replacement denture with 5-teeth on it ,,, £68 was the price.
I printed it off and took it to his surgery.
The wee shit said the NHS denture was rubbish and below his "minimum standards" ,, he simply refused to do it ,, his lowest priced NHS option is £173 !! Little bastard thinks his NHS patients should pay for his new BMW obviously ..
Time these people too were reminded that they exist to help the patient, and MUST ( by law ) do NHS work when requested ,,, not just line their own pockets.

Education ? Going down the pan because we encourage the payment of vast sums of money to so called Celebs and football players with ( generally ) not a brain cell between them. These people should not be given a penny 'till they can at least pass the 11+

Religion ,,,? The CAUSE of every conflict on earth ,, now and past.
Should be outlawed forever !

Football ,,, whatever happened to proper attacking footie ? The beautiful game went pear shaped when coaches, ( no strike that daft expression ,, they were Managers ) did away with the team configuration which defined the game ,, this was a 2/3/5 set-up ,,,, 2- full backs, 3- half backs and 5- forwards ,, ie, two wingers, two inside forwards and a centre forward ! It seems that today's managers are so frightened to lose that the game has degenerated into a boring ritual of sideways and backwards passes .,,.,. Only the Brazilians still remember the real game !

And talking football of course brings me to one of the most annoying of my pet hates ,, that of the grammar-less TV pundits, commentators et al. I have absolutely no time for the "I seen and I done" brigade. Where the hell were these people when the rest of us went to school ?? It really annoys me that the BBC, STV and Sky employ these morons and let them loose on young ears to do untold damage. And particularly the BBC because they charge ME for the bloody privilege ! So, I've decided to NAME & SHAME the ignorant ones !

First up we have the otherwise likeable Champagne Charlie ( Nicholas ) but his lack of grammatical correctness just does my head ( and ears ) in ! ( and yeah I know it's bad form to end a sentence with a preposition, thanks very much ! ) Then there's Pat Nevin ,,,,The list just goes on & on ,,, And of course there's my wee Tuesday night pal Con Sharkey ( but there's a good reason for his grammar ,,, he went to the Catholic school where most of the ex-pupils are taught bad ( Irish nun ) grammar.

And how come nowadays that when a news item on TV requires a comment by a member of the public it's ALWAYS a black face that gives it ?? Correct me if I'm wrong but Britain used to be a WHITE country with a few foreign immigrants ? When did we become the second citizens in our own country ? And while I'm at it who let all these bloody Mosques be built here ,,, I don't see any Churches of Scotland in Muslim lands !!

Me and the boy hit the movie house !

Marcel, my big grandson asked me the other day if I'd like to go to the flicks with him ,,,
Well to be absolutely honest, his mother asked me if I'd take him, since me and him could get in for a pensioner and child fee, whereas if she took him she'd have had to pay for herself ( full price adult ) plus her three other kids ,, the big son in question, his little sister & brother and their littler sister ,, yeah the bastards charge for all of them ,, even the littlest at 14 weeks !
All in all it would have cost her £25.95p just to get in !! ,,, and no doubt disrupt the entire proceedings into the bargain, since it wasn't a movie to keep a 14-week old, a 3-year old or an 8-year old amused ,,,,,
It cost me "only" £9.50 so quite a saving ,,, and, she figured I wouldn't mind since my favourite actor was in the movie ,, one Mr. K. Spacey.
She had of course given Marcel the ten quid to pay us both in but since I don't often treat the kids in this way I was more than happy to pay.
Before going in I asked him if he wanted to take in some sweets or drinks or whatever ,, BUT NOT BLOODY POPCORN I said ! The noise that stuff makes would drown out any sound system. Thankfully he said no thanks to all the sweetie stuff and decided just to have a drink ,,
"I'll pay Pumpa" he said ,.,. "Och ok then" says I ,, "it's only a can of coke ,, carry on son ,, I'll have one too."
He shouts to me do I want a small, medium or large coke ... "eh make it medium" I replied ,, not really thinking to ask why we weren't just having a can ?
He comes back over to where I'm standing looking at the prices of the sweetie stuff ,.,. and gives me his change from the tenner to keep in my pocket so's he doesn't lose it .... £4.20p ????
"What's this" I ask .. "The girl's made a mistake" I tell him ,, "it can't possibly be £5.80p for two cokes ...??" .. I head for the counter to check the assistant's arithmetic ,.,. just as Marcel turns to me holding the two "medium" plastic containers of coke !!
Jesus H. Christ ,, you could have a bath in that I exclaimed ... they must have contained at least 2-lites of coke (EACH) ,, possibly even more !
I couldn't believe these were the medium size ,, so I just had to go back to the counter and ask .. DOH ! Is that the correct price ? ,,, and surely these are the large size ??
"Yep that's the price sir" she told me and "Nope ,, the large size is half as large again ,, for the family to share !!" Bloody Nora I thought ,,, "oh thanks" I said !
Well see'n I don't go to the movies very often !
Oh, the movie itself you ask ,,,,, "21" with, as I said before, the brilliant Kevin Spacey ,.,. it was excellent ,, and the kid could have had popcorn too, for the sound systems are a bit better nowadays from what I remember ,,, blow your bloody brains out in fact ,, but very good for an old guy who's half deaf !! And certainly loud enough to drown out any popcorn crunchers !!
All in all a good day ,.,. but next time I'll take a 4x 2 litre pack of coke from Asda and save my wean even more money !!

See these little bloody Hitlers !

Cheeky, uppity, wee bastards ,,, that's my considered opinion of these little shitfaces that patrol Glasgow ( and no doubt all other ) airports these days.
Somebody gave the idiots a UNIFORM ,,, and by God they're gonna use it !!
Glasgow airport authority of course are the real culprits ,, well them or the bloody Gestapo polis we now have running our "Home Security" .,,.,. Ha, just an excuse for behaving like Hitler's SS.
You can't park now, even in the drop-off parking area ,, for two bloody minutes and miles away from their precious airport terminal, to pick up a tired mother, pulling a heavy suitcase and pushing her baby in a pram ,,, honest to God ,, what IS this country coming to ?
"You can't wait here," the small, overbearingly officious little nerd told me ,,,
"Why no' says I ,,, I've arranged with my daughter to meet me here ,, you don't have a Pick-Up point ,, so here it is !"
"You can park free now in Car Park 2 ,,, for 10-minutes ",, he said ,,
I couldn't help myself ,, I laughed in his wee smug face ,, that didn't help I'm sure ! ,,
" What " says I ,, "A whole 10-minutes ,, Wow ! And your 'planes arrive so exactly on time too ,,,
Don't be so bloody daft ,, 10-minutes to collect a passenger from this airport ,, I'd have to be in and out of there every 10-minutes ( no, make that 8 ,,, 10 & you'd be along to book me no doubt ! ) for at least an hour ,,, makes no sense whatsoever ,,"
"I don't make the rules sur" he said ,,, "but either you move your vehicle ,,( note that ,, not my car ,, my bloody vehicle ,, you know then that you're talking to a mechanically activated wart don't you ? ) or I call the police ,, "
So I moved ! ,,, went round again ,.,. when I got back he had moved on ,,, so I parked again ,,,
I got fully two minutes this time before one of the said Gestapo arrived on his super-duper motorbike ( or should I say two-wheeled-vehicle ? ) This one wouldn't even entertain talking to me ,,, couldn't hear what I was protesting about for all the paraphernalia attached to the over-large helmut on his napper ,,
I moved on ,,, as "instructed" ,.,.
Who do these people think they are ,,, or have I missed something ,,
Are we, in fact, now living in a Police State right enough ?
Last time I checked WE, the people , pay these bastards wages ,,, to serve US, to look after OUR country, NOT terrorise ordinary people going about their daily business.
Time they were reminded of this !
And as for this nonsense at airports ,, it's way beyond time they sorted a proper pick up arrangement ,,, a free 1/2 hour minimum if they want to have any passengers left at all.

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 :)