Friday, January 25, 2008

For Alan


Alan Edwards, curator of This Moment, died on Wednesday. He hadn't posted since mid December and people were beginning to worry. With good reason as it turned out. 'This Moment' was an inspiration. It influenced my photography in a variety of ways as well as just being a lovely place to pop in and marvel at Alan's latest pictures, peruse the various amusing links he always seemed to find, or simply enjoy the quotes and extracts he published in tandem with his photos. I'll miss all of these things. I'll also miss (and have missed for some time now) his little forays over to mine and Clairwil's blogs. He had a gentle, off the wall sense of humour and he was very easy to carry on silly, amusing little riffs with in the comments section.

I'll stop now. Visit his blog, have a rummage through it, I promise you'll find some great stuff in there.



My condolences to his family and close friends. He'll be sorely missed by everyone who came to know him, online or in real life.




The Bard And The Bottle

The Deil's Awa Wi' Th' Exciseman 1. The Deil cam fiddlin thro' the town, And danc'd awa wi' th' Exciseman! And ilka wife cries: -'Auld Mahoun, I wish ye luck o' the prize, man! Chorus The Deil's awa, the Deil's awa, The Deil's awa wi' th' Exciseman! He's danc'd awa, he's danc'd awa, He's danc'd awa wi' th' Exciseman! 2. ' We'll mak our maut, and we'll brew our drink, We'll laugh, sing, and rejoice, man, And monie braw thanks to the meikle black Deil, That danc'd awa wi' th' Exciseman! 3. ' There's threesome reels, there's foursome reels, There's hornpipes and strathspeys, man, But the ae best dance ere cam to the land Was The Deil's Awa wi' th' Exciseman!' Why is it my favourite Burns poems involve, or are about drinking? This one, 'No Churchman Am I' and 'A Bottle And A Friend...........? Yeah, something a bit wrong there.......... Ach!

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Bear With Me

Good evening folks! Due to a series of foul-ups concerning the modem I got from the PO, it'll be a couple of days before I can get on the net. Apparently, they don't do routers with USB connections anymore!! At least the Post Office don't. Also doesn't help if your PC is so old that the ethernet port is nothing but a hole in the casing. Anyway, must go, got a man from the PO tech dept calling me back after nine. Cheers!

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Canal Walk

It's always a pleasure to see a swan, especially on a cold, dark, blustery day by the canal. The rugby folk were setting up behind me for the Heinekin Cuptie between Glasgow Warriors and Saracens at Firhill Stadium, but I was far more interested in what lay at the waterside. The Firhill Basin is an excellent sanctuary for water birds, a place to fart about, rest up, train the 'young-uns'..........

It's just a pity there wasn't a little more light.

Friday, January 18, 2008

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

The Wit And Wisdom Of Janet Street-Porter

Is there any purpose to Janet Street Porter? Is she anything beyond a massive ego and a one woman advert for the proliferation of RP? Generally I don't hear a great deal from the woman, but for some bizarre reason, she seems to come to my attention only when she takes needless, unoriginal pot-shots at bloggers. Last time it was Oye Billy that brought her dribblings to my attention. This time it's the excellent Matt Wardman, via Clairwil's blog roundup ,who's picked up on old bollock-chops and her wild swings at something, anything, approaching a coherent article.
Attacking bloggers and blogging is, let's face it, the very definition of shooting fish in a barrel. It's right there in the 'Hack Columnist Handbook' under "Will This Do?: What to do when you've forgotten to write your piece for the Sunday Supplement". Yes, there's loads and loads of blogs that are awe-inspiringly awful. People with little to say and no means of saying it with any wit or panache. And that's just 'Dave' Cameron taken care of..........

The fact remains, and I've said it somewhere else today, that most of the forty-odd blogs in my side-bar are as well written and interesting/amusing as anything that JSP could ever muster. Beyond that, there are blogs in there that are so superior to her paid dribblings it's embarrassing. When the quality of broadsheet column writing is as indifferent as hers (and a lot of it is), it becomes a curious game to see who'll be next to jump on the bandwagon and wax self-righteous about the terrible trauma of having to put up with people who have the nerve to write and publish for little or no monetary gain, for the sheer hell of it.



In other news................Someone at work isn't talking to me. I can't think why to be honest, but apparently he's told another work colleague that I said something nasty to him and he didn't like it.

He wasn't meant to. Fuck me! I won't go into it, but it involved him making a crass comment about a recently deceased footballer, and my assertion that it was the kind of thing one would expect of an asinine prick. Frankly, I couldn't care less what he says and to whom, but it's the fact he's taken the hump with me that makes me laugh. He likes to make out he's 'a bit edgy', the sayer of the un-sayable as it were. Fine, so he shouldn't mind if I say what I think of him when he opens his gob and spouts shite, it should come with the territory surely, no?

If you can't take the flak, then get out of the war-zone, baby!


Monday, January 14, 2008

Bad Weather, Bad Karma



The next time some smug buffoon sidles up to you as you curse the opening heavens and tells you that "Theres no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong choice of clothing......", do me a favour, once you've finished sticking the head on them and take a few seconds to audibly curse the name of the man who originated the phrase.

Yes, your friend and mine............... Billy Connolly.

Now, I'm a fan of Mr C believe it or not. I like his acting work, I enjoy his stand-up, I can even bear to watch his slightly puffed up travelogues. It's when he waxes lyrical about the good old Scottish weather that I find myself reaching for my trusty blunderbuss......... Aye Billy, that's right, we should all rejoice at the pissing rain, gale force winds and hypothermia inducing cold, cos you know what? If it wisnae for yer wellies.......

Fuck that! Billy Connolly pissed off to LA when he got the chance, just like the rest of us would. I'm sure he'll tell you it wasn't for the weather, but it's a bit like a man saying he's not going to a brothel to get laid. He's fooling nobody. Of course, he's got his wee castle somewhere in Aberdeenshire now, so he can enjoy all that wonderful pissy weather safe in the knowledge that he needn't go out in it and get trench foot any time soon.

I, on the other hand need sunshine. Not endless days of blistering heat and clear blue skies.........that would be a bit silly. No, just some sunshine here and there. A half decent spring and summer please. I have to be honest, it feels like it's been one long winter since about April last year in Britain. The only difference is that it got a bit humid in the summer months. I can't think what's worse. Cold and wet or hot and wet? It's a rhetorical question, but those with mucky minds are free to divulge their preferences if they wish...........



Anyway, heres to January! Long may she stifle our souls, piss on our chips and strangle our bank accounts.


Saturday, January 12, 2008

Is This Your Car Sir?


.................If it is, can you please shift it? It's making the area look most untidy.


Yes, I know it cost you three grand and it's 'a classic of it's kind' but frankly, it's bringing the tone of the area down. It's brought my brand new Peugeot out in a rash, and Mrs Quimlicker has had to have her 4x4 BMW put into a lock-up to stop it's value depreciating any further. On top of that, the value of propert in the area has fallen constantly since you chose to purchase that heap of superanuated French crap. This is a street of standards young man! A street of smart, reasonably expensive, yet utterly homogenous motor vehicles. We'll have none of your 2CV's, Volkswagen Beetles or sinister Eastern European shit boxes here!!


I've got my eye on you sonny! I'm sure I saw you taking public transport one day last week.............


Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Thanks For Dinner You Shitters!!

Ah yes.................One man and his trusty rope. Never has social disfunction been so amusing.

I will be with Broadband on the 21st, so you might get some proper blog posts by then. Then again, you might not...........

'Bongo Fuckup Merchants' Of The Month

Saturday, January 05, 2008

Ooh! Look! Free Music!

The new Radiohead album in full. Handy for me as I disagree with paying anything for a download, and I can figure out if I want to buy the CD when it's in the shops. On this showing, I'll give it a wee while I think. The music's ok I suppose, but it's all gone a little 'Jazz' of late. Anyway, Thom Yorke hasn't written an intelligible or affecting lyric since OK Computer about ten years ago.............Still, people seem to love it. Emperors New Clothes? maybe, but it seems to me that Radiohead have been wandering around in the scud for an eternity now. Sure, I love Sigur Ros and they don't make any sense either, but their music does bring me out in head-to-toe goosebumps. That's the difference..............

Friday, January 04, 2008

Riding The Psychic Wall Of Death


Happy New Year everyone!

Just popping in to mention a new blog I've started. It's got the rather unwieldy name of 'The Amazing One Man Brake Club'. It's about going to watch football in strange places and it's still a work in progress. It replaces 'Derelict', which I had neither the time nor inclination to keep up to date. Sorry if anyone was attached to it in any way.................

I have a fair few sets of photos from may footballing travels over the past few years, so I'll be posting them up until the good weather comes in and I can get out and about.

Cheers!

p.s. Here is the definition of 'Brake Club' . No, I don't travel to matches in that fashion, though I think it would be a great drunken laugh if someone was to try and revive it.........