About Ruddy Time!!!

Black Sabbath to enter Rock'n'Roll Hall Of Fame. Whit? It's taken until 2006 for the Sab to gain entry to that old dump? These four Brummie gents, without whom generations of American youth would have grown up listening to Perry Como or something, have only just set foot in what is meant to be the pantheon of modern popular music. I know they only have a handfull of inductees a year, but surely Sabbath would have been a no brainer at least ten years ago? no? Ok, maybe it's me........ I see that The Sex Pistols are to be inducted too............I'd love to see Mr Lydon on hand to accept this accolde but something tells me it'll be Fatty Jones and Glen Matlock. Matlock incidentaly appeared recently with comedy punk band The Paddingtons at the opening of a plaque commemorating something or other to do with "Punk". Maybe it commemorated the time Steve Jones...

BOO!!!

Good Evening. Long time since the last post. Hope you're all well. Not a lot to tell about the last week or so it has to be said, though I do keep getting visits from strange cats. One keeps coming into the close and finding it's way into the house. The other, a gorgeous white, black and brown chap appeared at my kitchen window sill last night, stared in for a while, then promptly turned his back on us. Effortlessly rude and charming in equal measures.............. Other news: A Mischief Of Magpies has just flung it's doors open to the masses. It's either a genius idea or an act of madness. Maybe a bit of both. So what are you waiting for.................?

Blogging Blind

Just a quickie tonight. For the second month in a row, i'm running low on time on my flat rate connection.The alternative is a pay per minute connection which can't be used for any more than about ten minutes without racking up a monstrous bill. The result of this is that I have roughly 14 hours of internet time to last until the third of December. As a result i'm blogging on a text document on my desktop. I then copy and paste to the template and voila!, my latest dribblings.....Then I run away and hide. The reason for running short on time is probably due to my blogging. losing track of time at your template, bashing things out, editing them meticulously for the entertainment and indifference of my readers. They're an ill defined shower on the whole(you don't want to know what comes up on my tracker....), but I'm happy to report that I have a couple of new correspondents. The nocturnal and ever wise Professor Smile and Croila, the bagpiping scourge of shit neighbours the world over. Thanks for popping in and do come again..... aloha.

Political Bloggers:Try A Splash Of Colour You Tedious Sods

I'm not going to link to the multitude of US political commentary blogs out there, but I suggest you take a wee trip on the Blogger hyperspace ride that is the "Next Blog" button. What you ought to find is that every one of them uses the same template(grey, sometimes parchment) and are only worth the most cursory of glances. No humour, no profanity, no sense in which you feel like you would ever want to share breathing space with the individual responsible. Theres no connection at all, unless you happen to wholeheartedly endorse the views of the particular blogger. Problem is, old lefty that I am, the Democrat blogs should appeal to me. Instead they bore me with their banal prose, parochialism and blindly partisan bullishness. Just like their Republican bretheren. Ok, can't blame them for being parochial, but how about the odd "Who's your ideal celebrity partner?" quiz, maybe a bit of banter about life in general, a few jokes, something to show theres a human being behind the spoonfed cynicism and news group links. Lifes too important to take seriously.

Autumn Breaks And Back To Winter

Theres something about this cold, dry weather that makes me cheerful. No pissing rain, no galeforce winds...........just a sharp chill that can be fended off with an extra layer under your jacket, a scarf and a hat to cover your ears. Purely from an aesthetic point of view, it's a fantastic time of year. Only a matter of time before the monsoon conditions return............

West Enders Are A Godless Bunch

Amen to that brother............ The 2001 Census turned up some interesting figures for the way in which Glasgow as whole worships. Todays Herald has the full story here. It would seem that the West End is a hotbed of non belief, with most of the city's 131,000 atheists living there. Lovely. Depends on what you regard as the West End. Different people see it in different ways. To some it's everything west of the M8, to others it's Byres Road, the Uni and the BBC. To sign off tonight I leave you this; Apparently Britains first Temperance Society found it's home in Maryhill according to Andy T of the ptfc.net forum. As he dryly notes "I would say as an organisation, they failed......." I feel another "Amen" coming on..................

Foucaults Pendulum

Foucaults Pendulum proves that the earth does indeed rotate on it's axis as opposed to the heavens revolving around us. An ingenious and rather beautiful device it is too. Here is a simple guide to the pendulum. From Umberto Eco's novel Foucaults Pendulum; "I knew the earth was rotating, and I with it, and Saint Martin-des-Champs and all Paris with me, and that together we were rotating beneath the pendulum, whose own plane never changed direction, because up there, along the infinite extrapolation of it's wire beyond the choir ceiling, up towards the most distant galaxies, lay the only fixed point in the universe, eternally unmoving. So it was not so much the earth to which I addressed my gaze but the heavens, where the mystery of absolute immobility was celebrated. The Pendulum told me that everything moved - earth, solar system, nebulae and black holes, all the children of the great cosmic expansion - one single point stood still: a pivot, bolt, or hook around which the universe could move" Thats it. No rants. No amusing tales of quixotic football teams or nocturnal encounters with local wildlife. Just the pendulum....................

No Title

The following is a reply I made to a post on A Mischief Of Magpies(linked below). It has been re-touched a bit, but the essence of the original rant remains. Ill Man. Something approaching the wave of gut wrenching emotion that overtook me a year ago in a small war cemetery on the outskirts of Ypres hit me when I read this post. Theres something about standing before the final resting place of someone who's remains could never be identified or standing in the room where deserters, some as young as fourteen, driven mad by the lunacy of the trenches were shot. It hits you for six and crashes through your emotional defences. It hit me a day later at the massive Tyne Cot cemetery, though not with quite the same intensity for some reason. Maybe once you've seen one unknown soldier you've seen 'em all eh?..... Gordon Gentle, through the actions of his mother will not be forgotten. Another name to add to the list of those who died defending our way of life. Thing is Gordon Gentle died for nothing, as did every other soldier and civillian trapped in this blood soaked folly. His mother would like the whole world to know this. He didn't die to make our lives better or safer. He did not die to defend all that we hold dear. The exact opposite. He died to sate the vulgar hunger of corporations and further the vainglorious posturings of ludicrous men, men who's ego's far outstrip their intellectual capacity. Rightly, she will not let this drop. I defy anyone to tell me exactly how many have died in Iraq. Nobody really wants to know, myself included. We all indulge in the western patented solipsism that keeps us all fat, sane and safe. As long as yer just a statistic pal......... Collective amnesia sets in, nobody cares............Numbers are so much more comforting than blood, guts and death, all of which is tastefully hidden from us by our media. Unless you have a link to Al Jazeera or something. So here's to Gordon Gentle. Here's to every lost life in Iraq. Here's to the lost souls of Flanders Field who's memories are mocked by Mr Blair and his apologistas with every ludicrous excuse and lie used to justify the invasion of Iraq.

Madness In Maryhill

Evening all. Received my first letter from my MP today. Ann McKechin, Labour MP sent me a delightful little note to explain her position on the recent terror legislation her party are in the process of introducing. In particular she was at pains to explain her position on the proposed 90 day detention proposals. She did not support the government, but considers the 28 days compromise to be too low. No, I don't know exactly what her preferred option was. 45 days? 60 days? Who knows.................The irony is that I did not send her an email. Is someone out there making complaints to my MP using my name? Or has there been a bit of a balls up at the constituency office? Failing that Ann McKechin reads Dirty Notes. Very clever but She's still not getting my vote...................... After that faintly surreal start to the day I made my way to the football at Firhill. Thistle were playing hosts to Gretna, runaway leaders of the Scottish Second Division. Gretna are owned by millionaire business man Brookes Mileson and are currently sweeping all before them. You would expect them to. They pay four figure weekly wages to their players, Thistle have to make do with rigid wage restrictions and a generous rolling win bonus system. Anyway, by half past four I was in something of a pickle. Thistle had gifted Gretna a slightly flattering 3-0 lead and looked like they couldnt tell up from down. By 4.35, I had decided to call it a day and headed home. I took a detour to Lidl, and on returning was informed by my father, who had stayed to the end(as he always does) that we had scored three times in the last ten minutes to take take a point. That is the last time I ever leave a Thistle match early. The likeliehood of such a return from the dead happening again any time soon is obviously slim, but I shall now sit and wait until the end, no matter what the defecit is. Lesson learned. God Is A Jags Fan!!!!! Well, he was yesterday...................

Anger And Frustration

Evening. An assortment of stuff tonight, so strap in. First a plea to fellow bloggers. A Mischief Of Magpies, the group blog I contribute to is in need of new blood. If you want a place to get things off your chest, indulge in intelligent debate and show everyone what a witty, well read and clever sod you are then you are most welcome. Just email me and i'll arrange to have an invitation sent to you. For those without a blog, i'm not 100% sure what the script is for getting you on board, but I can honestly say that you could do worse than get your own blog going. It's a piece of piss. Your prescence on A Mischief Of Magpies will also provide a link to your own site allowing an increase in traffic to the wonders(or horrors) of your personal blog. Ok, sales pitch over with, I shall move on to the cunt who invented that button on my keyboard that when pressed disconnects me, and shuts my PC down. I hate you with every fibre of my being, you perverse, twisted bastard. Twice last night my slightly erratic typing strokes landed on this little grey button whilst making blog entries. The best part of 500 words gone in an instant. I don't touch type and those who do should be burnt as witches. Ok, so the button is up next to the function keys and in theory should not be struck whilst typing, but all it takes is a misplaced bash at the delete button without looking and everything you wrote is gone forever. The only possible purpose for this button is to help middle aged men who skim porno sites while the wifes out shopping switch the pc off in a quick and easy manner when the other half unexpectedly comes in the door with her elderly mother in tow. I see Blair has decided it's 90 days or nowt. Obviously the man is desperate for some quick fixes, hoping that the fear people have of another suicide attack will let him get away with erroding civil rights in the name of some vague threat from international terrorism. These measures will NOT stop another act of terrorism by Muslim fundamentalists on these shores. I don't for a moment trust any country with such laws on detention to remain true to their original premise(locking up nasty men who they think want to kill you). Once the breach of a certain freedom or right has been made by a government, regardless of the caveats made to ensure that the powers will only be used in ceratin circumstances, the mutual trust between public and government that allowed such a liberty in the first place will have started to wither. If you're happy with that.............. well, please yourself. Like that other absurdity and weapon of control the ID card, this issue will inspire the immortal words from the mouths of morons "But if you've nothing to hide......" Ok, enough of the apocalyptic predictions. I'm off for me tea. bye.

Oh Sweet JESUS!!!!

What is wrong with people? Have you ever clicked that little button at the top right hand corner of the blog you happen to be reading? The one that takes you to the "Next Blog"? Of course you have, but you only made it as far as six or seven blogs along the line before you lost the will to live and went back to the online poker page or went looking for some porn. I've just spent about half an hour raking through peoples blogs. Why? Don't ask, you might just get an answer.................. It's not the multitude of Spanish and Scandinavian language blogs that annoyed me(just my inability to understand them), nor the tedious yank Republican/Democrat activist blogs that define new standards in black and white thinking. It's not the god fearers or the home bakery nuts or the people who detail every dull incident that ever happened to them every day............No, the blogs that had me cursing my very existance were the ones written by offensively dull thirty somethings with children, documenting................THEIR CHILDREN!!!!! Have these people any idea how eye wateringly tedious a blog about them, their lives and their children are to anyone other than the mentally enfeebled and their elderly relatives. They are the 21st century equivelent of that couple you or your parents met on holiday one year and who proceeded to send you an annual newsletter detailing whatever zany antics they had got up to in the six months since you had the misfortune to make their aquaintance. How we all wished they would just send an annonymous looking christmas card. It would have got wall space, unlike the newsletter which went straight in the fucking bin.............................. All of which makes my humble little blog look rather amusing and enjoyable. Maybe shite blogs have a purpose after all................