Yesterday's Post ,Today

Work that one out if you can.

It's quite simple really.

Yesterday was St Andrew's Day, and with St Andrew being the patron Saint of Scotland and I had intended to have a Scottish theme to yesterday's post but then I got myself into a bloody mess and didn't really have the time. So I'll write it up a day late instead, besides I've always been a procrastinator anyway.
The Irish have St Patricks day which involves wearing something green and drinking a lot of Guiness. The Guiness company have done quite well out of hijacking St Patricks day, but here in Scotland we don't really do much for St Andrew's day. In recent years there has been some movement to make it a national holiday but even if it was a day off from working most people would probably only use it to go Christmas shopping or something. The problem with it being so close to Christmas is that most people are saving up for all the Christmas parties that start in the next couple of weeks so its hard to get excited about a St Andrew's Day. That made coming up with a theme for this post difficult so I finally just decided to go with a Scottish music theme by mentioning bands and a song worth checking out.
So here they are in no particular order, download them at your leisure.

The Fratelli's new band this year that seemed to come from nowhere to have one of the best debut albums of the year. Unique sound and very energetic, and would be a great band to see live. Softer track to listen to Everyone Knows You Cried Last Night

The Skid's A punk rock band of the late 70's & early 80s that in truth I had forgotten about until U2 & Greenday got together and remade The Saint's Are Coming

Son's & Daughter's Folk/Rock with Scottish accents. Another unique band that are great live. Track to listen to is Monster's if only for the line 'compassion's just a word in a dictionary on your shelf'.

Arab Strap If you have ever wondered what a Scotsman (no not me) sounded like when drunk then you have to listen to this duo because thats exactly what they sound like. Some bands specialize in singing love songs, not Arab Strap miserable cunts that they are (and I say that in the nicest possible way) they sing anti-love songs. Strangely it works, possibly because he does sound likes he's drunk. The song to listen to is The Shy Retirer, partly for that authentic drunk sound I was talking about and partly for the 'you know i'm always moanin' but you jump-start my seratonin'.

Belle & Sebastian A little bit twee but sometimes twee is ok. If You Find Yourself Caught In Love

Paolo Nutini Another debut act this year. At 19 years of age he has all the ingredients that would make it so easy to hate him, he is good looking and he has talent and a voice beyond his years. I haven't figured out why I haven't been able to hate him yet other than for the reason of not getting a ticket for his shows that sell out incredibly fast. Last Request

Camera Obscura. This was a band I heard a lot about from friends who had seen them live but I didn't pay much heed until I heard them for myself and then I went through a phase where I just played everything they had ever performed basically because I thought that the lead singer's voice was gorgeous and I couldn't get enough of it. Books Written For Girls

Biffy Clyro Before there was the Arctic Monkeys there was Biffy Clyro. Justboy.

The Corries. I have a rather ecletic taste I like most types of music but I was never that keen on Scottish folk music basicly because most of it is (excuse my French) embarrassing shite. Most Scottish folk music seems to me to talk about 'roamin' in the gloamin' and I have no clue what that means but then neither do the Englishmen who write that crap. Not only do the songs have no real relevance to Scotland but most of the singers are bloody awful, where they find them I do not know but it makes for painful listening. The Corries though were different, they clearly enjoyed performing and knew how to work an audience, they could make you laugh, they could make you cry and they could make you sing along. So many bands today could learn a thing a two by watching an old show of The Corries in action. The Corries were a duo who mostly did small venues in the middle of nowhere but no matter where they were they made sure that the audience had fun. Yes they sang about Scottish history, but there was none of this roamin' in the gloamin' crap, they were much more than a folk singing duo they were also a comedy act too. And of them was responsible for writing the now adopted Scottish anthem Flower Of Scotland which seems apt for St Andrew's Day

Jesus & Mary Chain. I was listening to this band for 2 years before I even knew they were Scottish. They were unlike any Scottish I heard up until that point. Just Like Honey

KT Tunstall. Genuine nice girl, great live act and incredibly ballsy. She never gave up on her dream despite being turned down by the industry for 10 years and remained true to herself and her music and was rewarded for it when she made finally made the breakthru. Girl & The Ghost

Idlewild. Scottish Indie band there seems to be a 1000 of them around now but Idlewild showed them how it was done. Love Steals Us From The Loneliness

Anyway thats enough, maybe next year i'll add more.

Royal Exchange Square In Winter

I am determined that one of year I am going to take a photograph that does this scene justice. I'm not normally a fan of Christmas street lighting, in my opinion most displays end up looking cheap, gaudy and tacky but for the past few years the lighting around Royal Exchange Square in Glasgow has looked impressive. I'm not sure whether its the buildings that lend themselves to being showered in light or if its down to the fact that someone has taken the time to design an imaginative sympathetic display but whatever the reason that it looks so good at this time of the year doesn't really matter. What matter's is that I can't seem to take a decent photograph of it.
Last year my pictures came out all blurry, this year they were a little better but I wasn't able to stand where I wanted to for traffic going back So I couldn't get the full scene shot but I'll get it next year. The pictures might even be better too, next year I'll upgrade my compact camera to an SLR. What is it they say about people who blame their tools?

It's Called -The Law Of Averages

The Law Of Averages dictates that you have good days and bad days. A good day may mean that you aren't involved in any accidents, not even close to being involved in an accident. Such days are good they might even be great but fate likes to even up the score a little bit by throwing a spanner in the works and have days where you have many opportunities to be involved in an accident. Those are the types of day that its probably safer to stay in bed.
It turned out to be one of those days for me today. I knew it from the off. I woke up, it was winter, it was still dark my body was saying "Stay in bed." Of course I ignored it and thought about all that work I couldn't get done if I stayed in bed. So I crawled out of bed and stepped into the shower and promptly slid on excess shower gel and narrowly avoided crashing through the glass screen. Fun! Still alive I dried myself off, got dressed and walked out the door. Only to find myself almost run over by the idiot riding his motorcycle on the pavement. I narrowly avoided getting my feet run over by jumping onto a wall. I never knew I had such dexterity that early in the morning but apparently I do when my toes are at risk. Potential accident number 2 averted it was time to go to work. No sooner had I got in the van and the god of fate was playing his little games again. I got myself strapped into the seat and inched the van out of the tight parking space only to find that I obviously wasn't moving fast enough for Mr Minidriver who was determined to reverse into my space before I had the chance to move out of it.
You would think drivers of Mini's would be sensible when choosing who to have an altercation with - white van drivers wouldn't be my choice if I drove a mini but then I have more common sense than that. Personally I avoid fights that I cannot possibly win but then again I can still be an idiot. Despite managing to avoid 3 accidents I still walked straight into one, literally. Once I got to my destination without any problems I got out the van, opened up the back door, and stepped inside remembering to duck my head underneath the ceiling, only I didn't duck quite low enough. Whack!
It was a little bit painful but I checked my head and it was still attached to my neck and no blood was spilled so I carried on what I was doing. Two minutes later though and my head looked like it was trying to recreate the scene the last time that Mount Etna erupted. Blood was pouring out and using my hand to put weight on the wound didn't seem to be having much effect. Strangely enough at first I was more concerned about how I was going to get my jacket clean, there's nothing like a gaping wound in the head to discover the priorities in life. Although when I looked down on the floor of the van and realised I was standing on a puddle of blood I did take things a little more seriously.
Luckily the rugby club was open so I washed out the wound and waited for the blood to clot and went to the hospital. Where I waited for 4 hours before I was seen, getting the chance to wash the blood off my face probably wasn't so lucky after all. Eventually I got seen by a doctor with an Australian accent who stitched up my wound. Sadly I didn't get a lollipop with my stitches like I did for my last set (I was only 5 then). Instead I got the adult equivalent of the lollipop - a four hour fee for using the car park. Excuse me for not using an ambulance!
It's nice how the government kick you when you are down, free health care but only if you don't use the parking facilities. Of course I shouldn't really have drove to the hospital with a head wound but I wasn't exactly thinking straight at that point.
Anyway the reason I told you this story is so that the next time you think it would be a good idea to stay in bed you can tell yourself its not for laziness but for safety reasons.

May I Say Something?

Yes Blogger I am talking to YOU.

When I take the time to type a post or a comment I expect it to be published, I do not expect it to disappear into the dark hidden depths of cyberspace never to be seen again because that is just pointless.

Ok I'm done now, carry on!

When you come to Scotland I’ll make you eat a haggis.

That’s what I said 8 months ago to a few American friends of mine when they first arranged to come over for a visit. It all began harmless enough they were coming here for a visit and being the charming host I was going to forcefeed them haggis and so the banter started. After a couple of weeks one of them was smart enough to do some research and find out what a haggis was, their reaction was too respond with “ No fucking way am I eating a haggis , there is no way I am eating a sheep’s heart, lungs and liver, I don’t care how much onion and oatmeal is mixed in to disguise the taste, boiling all that together inside a sheep’s stomach has got to be the most disgusting thing I’ve heard!”

Before I had much time to think I quickly said “Och I don’t know who is been telling you that story but that’s a tale we tell foreigners so that we get the haggis all to ourselves. The haggis is a rare animal that only lives in the remotest quietest glens of Scotland. We don’t know why it only lives here. In fact we don’t know much about it at all other than it tastes quite delicious. But even though it does taste rather good we as Scots do feel kind of responsible for its survival and we don’t want it to go the same way as the dodo bird. So we created the myth that the haggis was made up of sheep’s parts that no-one in the right mind would want to eat. This does two things, firstly it allows us as Scots to hunt and enjoy the taste of haggis on the 8 permitted weeks of the year that we are allowed to do so without threatening to wipe out the species, secondly it allows the haggis to breed and do whatever it does the rest of the year without interference.
You see in this country we don’t mind taking money from people who want to go looking for the Loch Ness Monster because quite frankly if you are stupid enough to believe in Nessie then you don’t deserve to have money in your back pocket. Thousands of tourists come over every year just for the sole purpose of Nessie spotting, you have no idea how many stupid people there are in this world. But that did teach us one thing. If it ever got out that haggis was a rare breed of animal found nowhere else but Scotland we’d have thousands of people coming over every year trying to spot a haggis and some of those people would bring guns and go haggis trophy hunting and very likely the haggis would go the same way as the Tasmanian Tiger. Or some of them would end up being caught, caged and sent to zoos all over the world and there wouldn’t be enough of them left in the wild to successfully breed. For whatever reason the haggis has made its home in Scotland, maybe it likes the rain, the air, the mountains or the heather or the man eating midge. Whatever the reason it doesn’t really matter, what matters is it seems to like it here and nowhere else, it might not even be able to survive anywhere else so the people of Scotland are very proud of the haggis and act like its guardian. We even have a special day to celebrate this guardianship, it’s a bit like thanksgiving really only we don’t eat turkey, we hunt haggis and kill one, only one, we take it home and on the 25^th of January we have a big family get together, with traditional music and dance and at the end of the night we recite a poem written by Robert Burns ‘Address to a Haggis’ before we sit down and eat it. It’s a respect thing, it’s a bit like saying ‘Thank you Lord for this wonderful meal…’, only different”

Now I’m normally quick witted but I even surprised myself at how quick I came up with that reply. By the time I was done speaking they didn’t know what to believe anymore, I was quite proud of myself actually but I still knew there was enough doubt in their minds to not quite believe me but I kept it up for another two weeks that they were going to eat haggis when they got here when one of them went “Can we go haggis hunting first? That sounds like so much fun.” At first I tried to put them off by saying “I can’t. I wish I could but in this country you can’t even go salmon fishing without a special permit, for haggis hunting the rules are even more strict you need a licence that proves that you are Scottish and that you respect and care for the animal and will only shoot what you can eat and no more.”

And so it began, hook, line and sinker I was drawing them in to believing the story of the haggis and the hunt. The more I said it wasn’t possible for them to go haggis hunting the more interested they were. Funny how the mind works. Eventually after some persistence on their part I came up with the solution and told them of a remote place that I knew where haggis bred in small numbers and where we might not get caught hunting them illegally without permits but they’d have to “promise to not tell a soul, you have to keep the secret of the haggis if you can promise this then I will take you all to a kilt hire shop and get you dressed up and looking the part, then later I’ll take you to a clay pigeon range to practice your aim. And if your shot is expert enough we will go haggis hunting and anything we shoot we’ll take home with us and eat that night. But we’ll only do that if you promise to keep the secret of the haggis and your aim is good enough, we want to kill the haggis dead on impact not watch it suffer in agony because of a bad shot, that would be cruel.”

It’s probably been 6 months that I have kept this promised haggis hunt going and last night we were talking about the trip and they got excited about December the 2^nd, the big day, the haggis hunt day. They arrive at the end of next week. I’m almost tempted to take them to the kilt hire shop, discreetly slip a £20 note to the shop owner so as to encourage him to tell a few haggis hunting tales whilst I arrange for the clay pigeon shoot lesson and transport to a remote mountain range but then again if I get them drunk on whisky and there are no haggis to hunt I might be taking my life in my own hands. Ah decisions, decisions, when to come clean.

So What Do You Look For?

I'm a private person so I'm not really one for talking about my relationships or my sexual exploits and quite frankly I don't care enough to listen to others when they talk about their own perfect or imperfect relationships. Over the years I have become quite an expert at avoiding being drawn into such conversations. It's always easier to do this when in a group. 'Damn, my cup's empty, anyone want a refill?', works well enough. Of course that excuse doesn't so good if you are only with one person, then they will just follow you bringing the conversation with them. Today though I was with a group of friends so when the conversation turned to something I had no interest in I called upon my one of excuse-to-leave-the-room moments and made my escape, sadly I didn't time my return quite right.
I got back just in time to hear
"Steven!"
Ah crap, I've been spotted.
"What do you look for before you ask a girl out?"
Great, I hate these questions.
"What do you mean?"

"You know, do you like blondes or brunettes, short or tall girls, what do you prefer?"

"I don't know, I don't really have a list of conditions."

At this moment I heard an audible gasp in the corner of the room like it was a crime not to have a predefined list of preferences on a sheet of paper somewhere that had to be ticked off before a relationship could even be considered.

"Well how do you know who to go out with then?"

"I don't, but then I don't go into the supermarket only looking for pasta and if the store has no pasta walk straight back out again. I don't always know what I want when I go shopping but I've not starved yet." I felt sure at this point that the conversation might take a change in direction but alas not quite yet.
"You must know what you want and what you like...."

"Not really. I either like someone or I don't but I don't set conditions, I suppose I've never been out with a black girl or an asian girl but its not because I deliberately rule them out. I don't know many black girls, not many live near me. I did see an attractive Chinese girl the other day but I didn't ask her out, not because she was Chinese but because I don't tend to chat up women when they are busy refueling their car. Perhaps thats me being discriminatory, maybe I'm missing an opportunity, I'm sure a lot of women who refuel their cars are really nice women and some of them might even be single. I’ve never been one for making lists of the do’s and don’ts, yes’s and no’s when looking at the opposite sex. I don’t believe in making lists of requirements, nor do I believe in scoring people off as potential partners because of hair colour, height, physical features or religion. I am very much of the equal opportunities kind of guy mindset. After all I’m no relationship expert I don’t really know who is going to be that perfect woman for me until I meet her. I’m not the perfect man myself so who am I to make a list and rate people accordingly? I've been out with two Scot's, a Kiwi and an Italian, I might have went out with other nationalities if the opportunity arose but it didn't. It's true all my ex's were brunettes or redheaded but I'm not totally against going out with a blonde, its just Michelle Pfeiffer has never phoned. Maybe she doesn't have my number or maybe I just don't tick all the right boxes for her. It's a shame, but I'll survive."

And with that the conversation was changed to how cold it was outside. There is a god!
However during a quiet moment when I brain seemed to have nothing better to do I started thinking maybe I didn't take the conversation serious enough. Maybe I do have a list of of wants, do's and don'ts. Maybe it would be easier to find that perfect person for me if I too had a list, so I went about making my list. It's not a big list but its a start, I might add more later or I might not. But here's what I've got so far....

1. She Must Know How To Wipe Her Own Arse - If I ever have to wash skid marks out of anyone's panties, they should belong to a child, not an adult. Yes, I can do washing, I’m a modern man, I can even separate the whites from the coloured clothing. Even if my chosen partner insists in doing the washing (I wouldn’t argue with her if she did, there is enough of a lazy caveman in me not to give a damn about doing the washing for myself and quite frankly I could think of more important things to argue about), there will be occasions where I get particularly amorous and try and remove her panties during a spontaneous moment of uncontrolled passion. Discovering that she is unable to manage the simple act of wiping her own bum might lead to a sudden change of heart during a lust filled moment.
   

2. On That Note She Must Have Good Hygiene – She must shower or bathe at least once a day. No dodgy body odour. Must brush her teeth at least twice a day. She must never need to be asked to go do this. Oh and no strange fishy smells. I might sound picky but it's a preference. I don't really like to say things like "Has anyone ever told you that you stink!" I probably wouldn't say that to anyone because I don't really like to hurt people but unfortunately I do have a rather expressive face at times. I can't always control it, it has a habit of giving away what I'm thinking. Especially during awkward moments like that.
   

3. She Must Not Be A Man Hater – If she hates men, I ain’t going to change her nor will I want to. She has to like men. Yet there is a balance to this, she can’t like them so much that I have to worry about her infidelity. Oh and no men beaters need apply, I don’t hit women, but neither am I going to stick around and take a beating. I will just walk away.
   

4. I’m Not A DIY Project – By that I mean I don’t expect her to look on me as someone with potential if only I can be shaped in the right way. I am not a piece of wet clay ready to be molded. I am what I am, and on top of that I can be a stubborn little bastard. I am bendable, but only if I want to be, try and change me wholesale though and I will resist.
   

5. Communication – She must accept that I am a guy. I am just a simple creature, I don’t understand subtlety. My communication skills are limited yet I still find it important to use what little I have in the most efficient manner. For example if I say ‘you look fine’, I mean fine as you would use in the term a fine wine. Fine does not mean you look ok, but could look better. If that’s what I meant to say that’s what I would have said. So saying something like ‘You are a fine figure of a woman Mrs. Macgregor’ would be a compliment and should be taken as such.
   My communication skills are largely direct and blunt, she should realize that really I need to be talked to in a similar manner. Hinting for 3 days that she wants me to take her shopping on Saturday when the football (soccer) is on, won’t really cut it. I just don’t have the ability to hear hints. However telling me direct that we are going shopping on Saturday might be heard. Sure I will be pissed off for 90 minutes, but on occasions that is better than the alternative, ie the 5 day silent treatment wondering what the hell I did wrong now.

And thats where my list ends, well so far, should I continue? What are your must haves?