Come With Me On A Voyage Into The Unknown.......

Anyway, Christmas is approaching, much like a drunk line manager at an office party. You pretend it's not there for as long as possible until you just can't avoid it . To be honest, Christmas in the Ill Man household isn't too bad. Only a few presents to buy, a pleasant afternoon meal. All fairly calm and unfussy, though I suppose they've always been like that. Does anyone have horror stories? Does anyone do the whole 'wake up/presents/booze/Queens speech/Christmas lunch/booze/tedious elderly relatives/booze/asleep in front of the Bond film' thing? Or are you planning on doing some shopping? I have also come into contact with the menu for the Christmas night out at work. It does not fill me with great hope. It's a combination of Mexican and traditional Christmas grub. I shan't turn my nose up at it though. I do have some manners.

A New Blog, A New World Order....................

.................well, not quite, but i've found a new use for the Ill Man beta site I started. I'm going to turn it into a photographic diary by posting up a picture taken each day. Hooray! I've also found a site that manages to be both hilarious and very scary indeed. In fact, not since the The Euston Manifesto have I been so tickled and yet terrified at the same time. Take a look. So basically they're saying that the old Polish goalie is going to come back from the dead and be installed as the next Pope, but it won't really be him. It'll be, yes you guessed it ladies and gents...................The Cloven Hoofed One in disguise. Brilliant! Can't wait................... If this is old news to everyone then bear with me, the novelty hasn't quite worn off on me yet................

Hello, I Love You, Won't You Tell Me Your Name...........

Well, that's me on the housing list. A few other avenues to go down, but it's a slight weight off me. I'm the biggest procrastinator in the world sometimes and it's the simplest thing in the world to do, but not for me it would seem. It's taken about four years for me to get my arse in gear on this one.

Anyone hear about the BA employee who misinterpreted company dress code so spectacularly that it took an intervention from The Daily Mail to turn her into a christian martyr figure and get her way..............?

Correct me if i'm wrong here folks, but BA seemingly have a ban on jewelery of all kinds being on show whilst wearing full uniform. It's nothing to do with religion. BA you see, in their infinite wisdom decided that jewelery looked a bit naff hanging outside their uniforms. Especially if you have someone who doesn't know where to stop with the cheap bling. What they hadn't banked on, and maybe this is to their great discredit, is that Mrs Doris Spam of Acton had Jesus/God into her soul and she believed that it was her duty to let all and sundry know about it through the insignia of the cross. I actually have no problem with all this. Maybe she has a point, maybe a small, tastefully displayed cross should be allowed as part of BA uniform if that is indeed the religious belief of the person concerned. I am not BA though and you know how big companies are when it comes to such trifling and unexpectedly contentious subjects..................They get more than just a little bit 'backed up'

My beef is mainly with the Daily Mail and their desire to stir up a 'Culture War' as The Flying Rodent puts it. "Ban The Veil" they screamed during the summer. It's 'Save The Cross' now. It matters not what point-counterpoint goes on between the pages of said publication, this is about letting all these filthy immigrants with their heathen beliefs know that whatever attempts they make to impose their ways (by wearing veils mainly) they won't succeed. BA have caved, inevitably after pressure from high ranking politicians and clergy. Who needs the hassle I suppose.........? I'd have bankrupted BA to fight this to be honest, but then i'm an atheist cunt and as such should be ignored on this matter.......................... The Mail will of course claim that they are merely campaigning for the equal recognition for Christianity when it comes to displaying emblems of faith. They would say that though, wouldn't they............................. Nothing to do with showing them uppity 'Mozzlimz' what's what by any chance?

Random

Christmas Market, St Enoch Square

Unashamedly Late

More photos from Tuesdays stagger up to Ruchill flagpole. I love these, I'm utterly unashamed to admit. Sod it, I don't blow me own trumpet nearly often enough. Since Tuesday all it's done is blow a fucking gale though. And piss down something rotten. Tomorrows meant to be better so I'm told. We'll see........... The old dear that lives above me has trouble turning on her gas fire so I've been commandeered to turn it on for her. She's a bit arthritic so she can't turn the thing on, which is a bit of a bitch since the only people I know who have such fires are OAP's. Why is that? Are they designed to be owned but never turned on? Her flat is like a ruddy wind tunnel and quite frankly a wee gas fire and a hot water bottle can only keep you so warm. It's a few years since her hubby passed on and her family who used to live up there are al laway. She's got virtually no memory from one week to the next which is in equal parts amusing and distressing. Every time I come to her door I feel like I'm introducing myself for the first time. Anyway, we have a signal system going now. I hear her trying to turn the thing on late afternoon, I give her a phone to see if she's got it on, I go up, turn it on and she slips me a £2 coin. I know the worst thing to do in that situation is refuse the cash but all I'm doing is turning her fire on................. I know, pensions burning a hole in their pockets.................

So I got nowt done today. I had intended on getting a few things done, as well as visiting the Peoples Palace on Glasgow Green. One look out the window told me that even going to the supermarket might be a tall order. The day was idled away playing an ancient driving simulator I found lurking in the bowels of my PC. Oddly enough it was more fun than floating aimlessly about the internet all day. Fancy that............. Anyway, please go here, here and here to be otherwise entertained.

Bonsoir mes enfants!

Autumn In Maryhill

So, what have I been up to in the past few days? Not a lot to be honest..........I have some new songs up on Myspace for those that are curious about what my singing voice is like (Thom Yorke with a head cold apparently.....) They're my 4-track home recordings so don't expect too much. The other ones were done in a proper studio................... I took a stomp up to Ruchill Park today. I must have spent about an hour or so up at the flagpole. It's arguably the best view in Glasgow, unless you've been up the Science Centre Tower, in which case the lift engineers will be with you soon. Please remain calm and continue drawing straws to determine who gets eaten next........ After two or three days of dismal rain and wind, the weather gods decided to smile on the Ill Man and provided as good a day as can be expected for the time of year. What a joy it was to get to the summit of Ruchill and watch a dirty great big rain cloud envelope the south of the city before moving east. I can't explain the feeling of elation I got when I realised the cloud was going to miss my location. (Nothing to do with wishing crappy weather on the citizens of southern Glasgow you understand, had I been standing at the flagpole in Queens Park i'd have been wishing any storm clouds floating about to deposit their contents somewhere in the north.) I almost felt like I was in control of the elements, or at the very least it felt as if someone was ensuring I had as pleasant a day as possible. Then the sun came out and bathed the spires and cranes and tenements and tower blocks of the city in the kind of light you expect to herald the second coming. Much snapping was done, as well as loads of open jawed gawping at the view. The last time I was up at the flagpole was during the last snowfall in the city. A very different experience, though no less awe inspiring. After watching the sun play hide and seek behind some distant cloud, I decided to come back down before the increasingly malevolent wind chill froze my fingers off. Of course, I came down a good five minutes too early as I missed that bit where the sun starts making the cloud glow red as it dips out of sight. At this time of year it's there for about five minutes tops before the murk on the horizon blots it all out. I did get to meet some swans though. A mother and it's offspring I think. The light was going so I couldn't get great shots of them, though I did witness them being chased along the canal by another swan. Quite spectacular actually, loads of splashing and noise though I failed to capture it convincingly on camera. I'll post it up later but it's a tad out of focus. Anyway, the two newcomers followed me along the canal bank for a bit and posed for a few shots before deciding I was walking too fast and opted to take things at their own pace.

Feet Up, Brain On Ice

My tracker tells me that someone has been hunting down "The Dentist Pt3". Who is it? C'mon then, own up.............I thought I had let that one slip away in the mists of time. Anyway, it may or may not interest you to know that I shall be reworking some of my earlier fiction bits and adding an ending to The Dentist. I'll put them up on my other blog. Well, it's not doing much else at the moment. What a pig of a day. I'm off next week and i'm hoping and praying for a few nice days so I can get out and take some photos etc. All it's done for the past week is chuck it down though. I actually regretted not taking my camera with me today when I went shopping. A number of times I was standing thinking "That would make a brilliant shot". The Kibble Palace in the botanic gardens looked pretty amazing all lit up, the rain pounding off the road under car headlights, the lines of traffic on high beam on Great Western Road......Ok, they might have come out all wrong, but I always live in hope. The folks are away to Barcelona right now. The flood of phone calls I feared asking after my mother haven't materialised. Apart from Auntie Dot getting me out of bed at an ungodly hour(half twelve) to speak to my mum. I ended up making the most nervous small talk with a woman I rarely ever see. It's been so long she still thinks I work as a chef. I told her I worked in a solicitors office at which point she asked me what the prospects were. Hilarious. The prospects are quite good I suppose, if I wanted a long term career at a blackhearted cowboy law firm........... Anyway, I shall leave you to read the meanderings of this idiot. Apparently we cannot be trusted to use the technology at our dispoal in a responsible manner and need leading by the nose, obviously by our all knowing elders and betters to the promised land of never saying nasty things about the Labour Party ever again.

Don't Let The Bastards Grind You Down

The Ill Mother has hit the Guinness. I came in tonight and there she was with her wee bottle and a glass, watching Paul O'Grady. Nice. Never tasted Guinness until tonight actually and quite frankly it's awful. I drink a fair amount of things that make most people recoil in horror but Guinness has a similar effect on me. It tastes ghastly. I'll bear that in mind next time someone with a pint of black and white shite mocks me for drinking wheat beer. Still, she used to drink gin. If you can drink gin you can drink anything...... Back at work...........I now won't be able to look at blogs at lunchtime. they're cracking down on emailing so it's no surprise they're making up reasons to interfere with your lunchtime surfing. You get access to the blog itself, but the comments box comes up with some sort of blocking message telling you that you're trying to access porn. Que? I tried to look at Over Here but the connection wiped out and sent me back to the desktop. Looks like they're onto you Sandra....... It's all a pile of wank to be honest, they just want to break you and make you more compliant to any shoite they decide to fling at you........people just end up in situations where they seek out their little skives, make sure they do just enough work and no more or recede into surreal banter and general arseing about. "Little Victories" as Norman Stanley Fletcher put it.

Lazy

Kelvin Hall

Star Dairy Get's 'Eskimo'd'

Charing Cross From Garnethill.

The Ill Man Temperance Society Is Now Recruiting

I have what you might call a wee affection for the drink. I nudge the turps a little too hard, and though I don't see myself as a full blown alky and i'm generally able to function day to day, I know that the best part of four pints a night is a bit much. It certainly affects my performance at work.

I had no alcohol on sunday and as a result I bounced merrily through monday like a scruffy Butlins Red Coat, indiscriminately smiling at innocent bystanders, cheerfully bashing through my work and not getting enraged at the niggling computer problems that plague my day. Last night I necked six bottles of beer and woke up feeling sluggish and queasy. I sleepwalked my way through the day and came home exhausted

All pretty much self explanatory so far. Drink yer tits off at night and you will generally feel shite the next day. Don't do it. It's not that simple though, the lure of the offy on the way home can be too much sometimes, especially if you've had a thoroughly rotten day. It's only matched by the lure of the scud mag shop. Sometimes I visit both and have done with it.

Money to burn boy, that's your problem..............

It seems to have become a ritual. Eat dinner then crack them open. I usually drink the lot(to be fair I don't buy vast quantities....) but it's become a drag now. I shall experiment with only drinking at weekends, maybe the odd school night if the occasion calls for it......Wish me luck.

Anyway, i'm drinking tea just now. I'd say it's a perfect cup. Just the correct balance of milk and tea, you know that way when it goes down smooth as a nut with a nice tannin-ey aftertaste playing across the tip of yer tongue guv'ner......

Luvly. I'll maybe have another, and another and................you see where this is going. I'm not an addict but I will do something until it hurts generally..........

Cheers!

We Like The Moon!

You are The Moon

Hope, expectation, Bright promises.

The Moon is a card of magic and mystery - when prominent you know that nothing is as it seems, particularly when it concerns relationships. All logic is thrown out the window.

The Moon is all about visions and illusions, madness, genius and poetry. This is a card that has to do with sleep, and so with both dreams and nightmares. It is a scary card in that it warns that there might be hidden enemies, tricks and falsehoods. But it should also be remembered that this is a card of great creativity, of powerful magic, primal feelings and intuition. You may be going through a time of emotional and mental trial; if you have any past mental problems, you must be vigilant in taking your medication but avoid drugs or alcohol, as abuse of either will cause them irreparable damage. This time however, can also result in great creativity, psychic powers, visions and insight. You can and should trust your intuition.

These chaps like the moon as well. Cheers to The Empress and The Magician

What Tarot Card are You? Take the Test to Find Out.

The Ill Man Observes

..............anyway, I hear Elton John has said 'Fuck You' to organised religion. I fully expect organised religion to turn round and say 'Fuck You Back x100 No Comebacks!!!' or something equally witty. I say well done Dame Elton, about time someone told these parasites to go and rot. I think banning religious organisations is a bit much, if only for practical reasons, but my dearest wish is that eventually the human race will evolve and realise they don't need these vampiric middle men to communicate with the god of their choice. I see an official at a football match in Newport had a blood vessel ruptured by a well aimed pound coin this weekend. Very well aimed. In fact, too well aimed and as such I think the culprit must have had a catapult. Maybe I should stand outside Ibrox of a saturday and sell them, I'd make an absolute mint. What I don't get is why anyone would want to lob hard earned money at footballers and officials. I don't regard myself as tight, but I can think of a dozen more satisfying uses for a pound coin than as a means of maiming a man who's primary function in life is to get verbally abused by the shit thick thugs that make up the majority of the football manager fraternity. Right, that will be all. Back to your PornoTube you lovely ladies and gents.

That Damien Rice Is A Cunt

Well, he is................ Re-aquainting myself with the fusty circle jerk that is Later...... With Jools Holland. God that guy's a a bawsack, isn't he? The guy is a total colon tickler. He'll endorse any old shoite. "Hey Jarvis" he'll say, "Your new album is awesome". The rest of the planet looks on and wonders why the lanky streak of piss isn't doing us all a favour and finding something else to do with his time.......Truly, Jules Holland is to popular music what Des O'Connor is to the chat show. An easy audience. Like many Jules Holland cavalcades it's 90% pish and 10% genius jaw dropping brilliance. I liked The View. They reminded me of The Buzzcocks. I also couldn't hear a damn thing they were singing, which made me very happy. Don't you think it's a bit shit when you know what a band are banging on about all the time? Especially if what they have to say is of little importance. I loved the way Kurt Cobain slurred like a drunk, I loved the way Michael Stipe sounded like he was talking in his sleep on early REM records, I loved the way Pete Doherty sounded like he was out where the busses don't run. Which he was..........It's just a thing you don't get very often. I hope The View's album sounds like what I heard on myspace. It would make this old man very happy. That and Smokey Robinson. Again Mr Holland had his ice pick and crampons out in an attempt to clamber up "the Smokester's" ass. He needn't have bothered as Smokey greeted him like a long lost pal, imparted many words of wisdom and genuinely laffed his ass off at the old footage they dug out to show him. Smokey reminds me of Brian Wilson without the drug and EST damage. Still a wide eyed kid at heart.....................

Bad Beer

Argh! Can I not go five minutes without feeling a bit grubby or under the weather? The other night I bought some beer. A few bottles of some rather nice wheat beer from Falkirk (I shit you not!). Anyway, I cracked one open to find that it was utterly flat. Dead as Donny Rumsfelds political career (first cheap shot of the night, eyethankyew.........) I tried it and unsurprisingly found it to be quite unpleasant. I opened the next and it seemed to be equally sour. The third was something of an improvement but it was still nowhere near as good as the bottle I had at the weekend. Anyway, in all I think I must have consumed about half a pint of beer that most certainly had gone off due to not being bottled properly. I've not been the same since...... The moral of the story? Stick to known brands, don't buy anything that claims to be bottle conditioned and be very wary of men from Larbert and their home brewing kits. Anyway, i'm a wee bit tired, but i'll not go to bed. No, that would be easy. That would be sensible. That my friends would be giving in. No, I shall sit here and have a few more beers, listen to some Mahler and the Elastica album again and I shall drift pointlessly through the pages of Blogland for the next hour or so like a bad smell. Or maybe the first waft of spring air. One of the two anyway. Needless to say you should visit Clairwil and tell her of any acts of random foolishness and mischief you have been indulging in recently. For my part I have started pressing every traffic light button I encounter whether i'm crossing the road or not. "Oooooh!" I hear you say mockingly, "Think big Ill Man, that'll bring them to their knees!!!!" A piffling act of tomfoolery for sure but it's a start. I have the soul of a presbyterian minister at times you see and that part of me disapproves greatly of 'fucking around'. It's a cross i've had to bear for too long a time. Anyway, i'm sure any car drivers reading this will testify to how annoying it is to have to wait for non existant pedestrians to cross the road when you're five minutes late for joining that queue of traffic trying to get into the city centre. What can I say? Next time you encounter a 'phantom red' think of me, a perverse skip added to my stride as I gambol and frolick my way to another eight hours of slack jawed mouse clicking monotony in stalag North St. My needs are simple, as is my mind. One more thing. Visit this man and ask, nay DEMAND that he make more posts. Genius. Ok, that's yer lot. Now piss off!

Fireworks On Glasgow Green

The last time I was at Glasgow Green to see the November 5th display I must have been about seven or eight. The fireworks were fine as far as I can remember but my feet damn well near froze solid in a pair of unforgiving school shoes and what I imagine were a rather thin pair of socks. Usually my dad would buy a box of cheap fireworks and we'd fire them off in the back green. The rockets would usually clear the tenement and explode out of sight, the Catherine Wheels would be a pain in the arse to set off, at least a third of the box would be duds and my brother and I would make the most of our sparklers, the only real joy to be had in the whole anti-climactic affair. Believe me, an organised display kicks the bollocks off backyard efforts. They're also cheaper. Except one year when friends of my folks brought round their own fireworks. Mums got busy making a buffet, dads arsed about with the fireworks. Felt almost like a proper display in a way, except instead of serious ballistic experts in charge, we had three middle aged blokes pretty much contravening every article of the firework code and generally showing off.

Anyway, the novelty wore off by the time I was about ten, for my folks mainly, but my brother and I weren't really fussed. We left the fireworks to the professionals and the mongs who liked to chuck cheap bangers at each other in the street. Anyway, after my tirade the other day I perversely decided to go to the display on Glasgow Green. It was pretty good to be honest, though I feel they didn't fire off enough in the way of the 'Krakatoa East Of Java' type fireworks. Too many of them were pretty and brightly coloured but lacked that 'Shock & Awe' feel that you really want when you go to a display. The other beef I had was that Radio Clyde (renamed Celtic FM at the weekend) was blaring away through the build up. Fine, I can just about handle that, what really annoyed was the fact that I had Primal Scream and Franz Ferdinand blaring out of 25 ft high speaker stacks through the fireworks. Kind of takes the edge off the experience if you ask me.......

Oh Dear!

If I hear another firework go off I will go mental. It's been quiet for a while now, but all i've heard all evening is the sound of cheap fireworks cracking off all around chez ill man. They sound like they're being set off about six feet away. Ok, it's probably more like six streets away which means I cant call the police on them or threaten them with a big stick................. Look, if I had my way, possession of fireworks without some sort of license would be punnishable by death. I don't bloody care if it's "a little display for the kiddies" or if it's the local gang of retards trying to maim each other with bangers, they would all feel my wrath for their inconsiderate behviour. Having never got my way on any count, you should all consider yourselves lucky...... Another problem I have right now is that I seem to have lost all patience with the world. As I type this for instance, I notice that when I use the delete key, the cursor is very, very slow. This is fucking annoying and makes me want to scream. Even little things like typos make me want to choke the life out of a young conservative. Oddly enough I've never had that desire before.......Also, why all of a sudden can I not read the type on certain websites? In general, everything appears smaller on my monitor since an internet outage a few days ago. Ok, so I can probably fix this in windows, but it's the fact it's happened at all. I used to be able to handle and accept the random nature of the universe. Does this mean i'm going to start believing in God as a way of ordering my life? I suppose it could be worse, I could turn into an agnostic and then you'd all be sorry.......... It's the little things, the inconsequential little aggravations that are doing for me. I think they reveal the pointlessness of existance without you really noticing.My theory in all this being...... "If they can't get the simple things right, how the fuck do they keep everything going?" If you want to know the meaning of life, should one exist at all, I reccommend you ask someone that works in IT. Right, i'm off to smash the shit out of some inanimate objects, wish me luck...................

.........Oh, She's Got Legs Like A Spider...............

I see Fat Sparrow's been having trouble with insects. I won't go as far as to say I like insects, they can be a pain in the arse(wasps, bluebottles, midges etc) but I do like the old Daddy Long-Legs or 'Jennies' as my folks call them. There seems to be some conjecture over what a Daddy Longlegs actually is. For instance, there seem to be two different spider types that frankly i'm unfamiliar with and I do believe they are unworthy of the name. They're just rubbish arachnids. On the other hand, the beastie in this link and the picture above is actually a crane fly. Such clumsy and pointless creatures, I sort of identify with them.................... I also like bees and those weird hovering insects that look like tiny hummingbirds. I've been trying all summer to get shots of those stripey fuckers in the botanic gardens but to no avail. They always turn out blurry and out of focus, mainly because I can't get in close enough without shitting myself when they move. I know they tend not to sting as they're too busy going about their business to bother about some moron with a camera, but many years of indoctrination about the dangers of black and yellow flying insects has ingrained itself in me. My other favourites are moths. Every so often i'll see a really fat furry fucker in the bathroom and just stand there looking at it. When it's not flying about like a lunatic in the lampshade that is.............. Bye!