A Wee Challenge For You - Yes YOU!

My posts are like buses, you don't see anything for a while and then two come along at once. I was planning on doing this one anyway, but the one before it was a random, last minute act of a desperate man. Lets just say you don't want upset a Canadian, sure they might act all polite but underneath they are a most impatient race.

But never mind that, let's get back to the purpose of this post. A week from now is St Andrew's Day, a day to celebrate Scottishness or all things Scotland related. We aren't very good at that in this country. The Irish have the leprechaun hat, tin whistle and top-of-the-mornin' chirpiness all sown up and they do it very well by all accounts. Everyone knows St Patrick's day. By contrast we in Scotland haven't really done a good job of selling St Andrew's Day. We could I suppose encourage people to wear blue, eat lots of shortbread, play the bagpipes badly and our drinks industry could follow the example of Guinness by selling barrel loads of drams but that wouldn't go down well with a lot of Scots. It's seen as cliché by too many people and so the day goes by with little in the way of celebration. That's a shame. It's time that changed. And that's where YOU come in.

We are all bloggers here, its probably fair to say that we enjoy that wonderful thing called language.

My challenge to you is to a write a blog post of 5 paragraphs (or more) in Scots. Why? Just because it will be fun and interesting.

You can write about whatever you like - social issues, injustice, humanity, politics, or something funny that you saw during the day. I don't much care what, as long as it is 5 paragraphs long and with every line written (to the best of your abilities) in Scots. And 5 full paragraphs at that, no cheating. None of the single sentence paragraph crap.

I know for most people outside of Scotland this might sound like an impossible challenge but I'm not seeking perfection. I'm not very good at speaking Scots myself, whenever I dared to as a child I got a skelp in the lug for my troubles for fear that I was going to turn into a ned. Looking at some of the kids around today I can see the wisdom behind that method of parenting, still I harbour some disappointment. Scots when used correctly can be quite a beautiful language. Some even consider it exotic. But that's going a wee bit far, that's just weird. However I will admit to it being entertaining.

So reader, care to celebrate St Andrew's Day? Are you up for the challenge? One post in your blog on the 30th of November, written in Scots? If you do decide to join in, whether you be from Rio De Janeiro, Papua New Guinea, Dunedin, Nova Scotia or wherever leave a comment here, so I can go have a nosey. And if you want to see my piss poor attempt from another time and place go here.

Remember perfection is not required, use the power of the internet and just have a good go at it. Have fun! Oh and I almost forgot - Spread the word - that way you can see you favourite bloggers' attempts too.

Tennis Is A Game For Cheats

At an early age I decided that tennis was a sport that was full of cheats. Like most sports that I hadn't played before I didn't really know the rules so when the ball went up in the air, racket made contact with the ball, ball went over the net, bounced on the surface and my flailing arms missed the return and was followed by the words

15, Love!

I wanted to shout out

15? Get real! 1! And don't call me love! Only old ladies call me love and they only get away with it because of their age. 15? Fuck off!

Of course being 9 years old at the time I didn't say it. Partly because I was a quiet and reserved kid but mostly because if I swore and my mother found out I would have been very, very dead but only after I had suffered greatly. So I kept my own count.

One - nil.

When the ball then went up in the air, hit the racket, went over the net, bounced on the surface and my flailing arms missed once again and I heard the words

30, Love!

I was beyond swearing, I wanted to deck him.

30? Fuck off! 2 - nil! And what's with the cheating and calling me love? Is that a distraction tactic? I can count you know!

When the ball went up in the air for a third time, hit the racket, went over the net, and bounced on the surface and my flailing arms were no where close to getting the return I at least knew what to expect. The cheating up until this point wasn't exactly subtle, it was taking a familiar pattern.

40, Love!

Now I was confused, completely thrown off track.

40? Who taught you maths? Surely you mean 45, and by the way its still only 3 - nil.

I quickly decided the game of tennis wasn't the sport for me, mostly because I wasn't very good. Despite that first game where I ran around like a headless chicken to no avail I was actually very good at getting points off my opponents serve but it was all pointless when I couldn't get any points on my own serve. Which was down to not knowing how to serve. The ball would go up in the air, hit the racket, go over the net and then hit anywhere on the surface that wasn't legal. This I could probably have persevered with if it wasn't for the cheating thing. When the people you are playing with can't keep count there just doesn't seem to be any point.

Years have since passed and over that time I've largely associated tennis with cheating & Cliff Richard, neither of which I have a lot of time for, so now that tennis is embroiled in the middle of a match fixing scandal I have to wonder why no-one in the game saw it coming.

Life Was Simplier And Much More Innocent When...

...you could begin again with a quick wipe at your etch-a-sketch.

I have a feeling I am showing my age with that comment - for the younger readers think Ctrl-Alt-Delete.

Give Me My Missing Sensibilities!

I'm generally one of those people who works better when working on a few things at one time than when I have to concentrate on just one task at a time. I don't know why that is. Believe me I would much rather be the type of person who was able to start one task, see it through to completion before moving on to the next thing. Why I don't work like that I don't know. I imagine life would be much less stressful and I could probably be lazier too and have more leisure time. Sadly I wasn't designed that way.

I'm not even designed that way when it comes to my free time. It's not been unknown for me to have 4 books on the go. That's easy though compared to what I've got myself into now.

Somehow I found myself writing a script. This despite the fact that I don't have any real confidence in my writing abilities or have any clue on how to go about writing a script - the idea was there it had to be got out. I tried to ignore it, but the fucker wouldn't leave me alone. No sooner had I started the writing malarkey, when another totally separate idea started to make its presence felt. Tried ignoring that one too, with as much success as before. So somehow in a matter of months to having never dreamt of writing scripts to attempting to write not one but two. I think I might have gone cuckoo.

It's one thing reading 4 books at once - after all someone did once teach me how to read. no-one has ever really sat me down and taught me how to write a script - I barely passed my English Higher at my second attempt - I have no clue what the hell I'm doing!

Luckily though I have found a partner for one of the scripts who has some sort of experience in this sort of thing - which is helpful. It would be much more helpful if they weren't from LA then I could get them involved in the second script. The second script which is actually the first (but lets not make this any more confusing than it has to be), has many international characters in it but the whole thing has a Scottish undercurrent to it so there is a lot of Scots dialogue to a) give it a sense of place and b) just because its funny. Trying to explain that side of things to someone from LA with minimal experience of living in Scotland I probably would bite of more than I could chew. I don't think I understand it myself.

I seriously suspect I am going out of my mind taking all this on. And what's worse I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that I am running out of things to blog about. I had planned on writing a very funny golf post until I stole it and put it aside for one of the scripts. A witnessed cafe moment promptly went the same way, as did a taxi story. Anything with potential gets put aside in the off chance it can be used for something that is probably not going to make me any money for years, if at all. The average ideas I'm left with I just can't be bothered writing. Physically I'm exhausted from the day job, mentally I'm exhausted from hitting my head against a wall of polyfiller - sometimes I just wish I could do one thing at a time!

I'm hungry - someone make me some banana pancakes.

No Time To Write...

...a proper post. Lately I've had my best blogging ideas whilst nowhere near a computer and by the time I get home I either can't be bothered or just plain forget.

So instead of writing a post pf my own I have a question for you, yeah YOU, and I want you to answer truthfully and don't think I won't come running after you if you read without answering - you don't know me well enough to know that I'm not crazy enough to do it.

Here's your question, well strictly speaking its two, but they are related.....

What's the one thing you've always wanted to do during your lifetime? And when are you going to do it?

The Finger

Someone showed me the finger today. In Glasgow! Of all places!

Imagine my surprise.

There was a man, he tripped, I laughed, he turned round and up went his middle finger. Like it was my fault he was a clumsy eejit.

Everyone else saw the crack in the pavement and walked over it. The man with the white stick tapped it and walked around it. OK I'll come clean there was no blind man but you get my point. Everyone else saw the danger, took steps to avoid it but not this joker. He trips, turns round and goes FUCK YOU, WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE LAUGHING AT!

What happened to humour? People used to see the funny side when they tripped. When I was a a kid if you tripped, you laughed at yourself. You'd replay the incident, and laugh while everybody else laughed. Now people can't take a joke any more. Its no more 'look at me', now its 'how dare you laugh at me, look at my finger!'

Truth is at first I felt bad for laughing. It wasn't like a belly laugh, it was more an uncomfortable snigger that I did try to hold in. After seeing the finger though I was glad I laughed at the tosser.

But it struck me afterwards, who invented the finger? How come we know who invented the television but we don't know the name of the person who first used their middle digit to show their displeasure. And how come it took off? Did they try other things first? Was it like a trial and error approach to find some that that was universally approved by the masses?

And while we are it - who invented the kiss? Were they in any way related to the person who saw an egg come out of a hen's bum and thought I'm going to eat one of those? How come we don't know these peoples names? Surely these people have had much more influence on human progress than the first people to climb Everest or reach the South Pole......