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 !