Do You Remember The First Time?

............The first time you blogged I mean..................

I do. It was a damp Saturday afternoon in September and I was bored titless. My friend Clairwil had started one, but I'd sort of poo-pooed the notion of writing about myself online. What kind of self absorbed dipstick would go for such a thing? Of course, I didn't say this to Clairwil at the time, fearing a bloody nose and a pint over my head, but on reading her stuff, I began to change my mind. It all looked quite good fun, if you could get over the fact that for the first few months, you would essentially be talking to yourself. Well, since talking to myself is a long standing and ingrained defence mechanism that helps me make sense of the world, I realised it wouldn't make any difference. It couldn't hurt to give it a try.

So, in the space of an hour, I'd thrown up this here blog. Not as you see it now of course (I've decorated since then), but since the quality of writing has only advanced marginally since back in 2005, I'd say it's the same entity it was when I started.

Anyway, heres my first ever proper blog post:

Late Call

It's been a good day. My team won and probably due to an unusual chemical blance in my brain at this moment in time, i'm in a great mood.


A few things regarding Kate Moss and her recent tribulations.

Kate, yr alright. Yr a bit F**ked up, but i've seen worse.......

The cant and hypocrisy of the tabloid vermin is vomit inducing. A great man once said "Before a metropolitan daily exposes an evil, it takes it's own pulse" Your average tabloid hack is either an alky or a cokehead. Usually both.

The thing that had me laughing like a moron was the explanation for the benefit of Sun readers that cocaine use was rife in the fashion world. There it was, in language a 7yr old would regard as insulting, telling their readership something that Ab-Fab made jokes out of about eight years ago.......................something that has always been. By this reasoning, I had assumed Kate Moss was a regular consumer of the stuff anyway........................

Ok, maybe it's a ploy to justify the extra few chapters the publisher wants her to add to her biography. Even so, as an exercise in demonisation, it stands as something of a classic.

Nice to see that Hurricane Rita(Can't wait for Mavis and Derek) didnt cause as much damage as Katrina, but then, New Orleans will be a bit of a mess again as it's just along the coast from the hurricane's landfall.

Anyway, bye for now

So, there you have it. A rant about the tabloids, some insignificant detail about my weekend and an appallingly weak joke, shoe-horned into an inconclusive comment about the hurricanes hitting the US at the time. Who could have known what it would all lead to................... :(

Right! I've shown you mine, you show me yours................ ("~)

A Sea Of Shrunken Yellow Men Crawling Out Their Cots And Calling For Mother

My Grandpa's in hospital. Nothing too bad, just a chest infection, anemia, polyps in the fundament.......

he's survived worse...........

Hospitals put the fear of God in me folks, I don't mind admitting that. It doesn't matter if it's some Victorian rabbit warren or some ritzy new death hole, I always leave feeling vaguely unwell and with the desire never to return.

I think it's the smell, the sick, 40 watt lighting, the bedlam like atmosphere......

I have no problem with going to see old Jimmy. He's deaf as a post and lives in a world of his own. My type of guy basically. I also think it's why his surroundings don't bother him too much.

It's a bummer going on family visits though. My mum sits at his bedside and clucks around him a bit while the rest of us talk amongst ourselves. He's used to it I think, between his late wife, his daughter in law and my mum, it's generally all he's known and he seems comfy with it. Still, I'd actually prefer to go on my own, then we can just sit and talk about football and all the stuff that's been going round in both our heads that day................(consults bus timetable for Springburn)

The geriatric ward at Stobhill is like the seventh circle of hell, two long lines of beds full of the confused and the dying. In the case of the manic old lad with the unlit fag in his mouth it's probably both. The fag was still in his gob when we left an hour later, still up in his bed gumming away, no words, just noises, the ability to articulate long gone. Another shouts a name repeatedly, maybe he's still swimming in the fog of the morphine. He could be calling anyone, but the name is female................You join the dots as you wish.

Grandpa's bed is at the bottom end of the ward. He lies across from a couple of sprightly looking lads with newspapers and a TV set. They're the short-termers, the tourists. They'll be out again in a week. Maybe it's true what they say about being nearer the door.............

As we walk out, an old gent smiles at me from one of the office like side rooms. I don't react quickly enough to wave at him or smile back, just a kind of impromptu grimace of acknowledgement before he melts back into the ward behind me. I silently wish him better health as I leave.

They provide handwash before you enter the ward. I leave wondering if theres anything attached to the wall that might aid the process of alleviating the feelings of grimness that cling to me as I leave.

It's The Taking Part That..........................yeah, I know.........

The results are in over at the Clarity Of Night short fiction competition, but my little effort didn't get a sniff of the prizes. Aw! It was ok for a short order effort I suppose, but I'll need to do a lot more with my next entry. I did get some good feedback on it, and the story will be posted up at mine and Clairwil's short story blog 'Fiction Depot'. There were some very good entries, some of which got a mention in the final listings, some of which didn't. One of my favourites came fifth and the other won the readers poll, so that's always something. Well done Sarah Hina!

The Following People Are Hereby Banned From This Blog........

.........David Duff

That's it.




I jest, no body's banned. Not even everyones favourite old scrote Duff, a man who's been ejected from more blogs than I've had disappointments in life . You see, I only wish I had people to ban. My last tracker reading was twelve (count 'em) visitors to this blog in the past 24 hours. Fuck! Not even the random blog hoppers and spammers want to know. I do content myself with the fact that the same folk pop in each day (probably), but it's not enough godammit!!! That said, at least I've not got to the stage of inventing people to comment on my blog, though I'd say it's not far off..............

It doesn't help that I'm posting as infrequently as this dissolute cunt. I predict a small flurry of nonsense posted around the time I move in to the flat, to make up for my current mutedness.

It seems certain items of post have been received at my 'new hoose'. I don't like the sound of that, it feels like i'm being tracked. For the past fifteen years, I've felt almost invisible and it's been rather pleasant. Now they know who I am and where I live. I'll always remember the day I finally signed my soul over to the Satan.

He works at the A____ N_______. Lovely guy, Ibrox season ticket holder, lives in Newton Mearns, eats his young..................


Ok, I won't be in tomorrow night as I have a wedding reception to attend. I'll leave you with some good old fashioned sick 'n' twisted God Fearin' Gospel Joy...........



...........and this little oddity

Summer Is Ready When You Are.........

I wasn't cut out for this blogging thing you know........

I never remember anything, I think of things during the day but the ideas disappear out the window as soon as I think of them. I have notions, but I fail to pull them out of the air and they fuck off back into the ether for some other chancer to pummel into submission on an even more third rate journal of banality. Fuck!

Not sure what the problem is. Maybe it's the mortgage I've just taken out. The whole thing has kind of knocked me sideways a bit and I'm wondering if I'll ever move in. As I work for a firm of solicitors who deal in conveyancing, I realise that there are various interests involved and that these things sometimes take time. Getting three or more seperate solicitors to actually communicate with each other and fucking do something for you seems to be a forlorn hope and one can only use the time to save some cash and get the direct debits/standing orders in place. Still, could be worse. I know someone who is attempting to move from a quarter share of a Shared ownership property to 100% share,disponing it from her name to that of her and her husband. They also happen not to share surnames......................

I think they're having to make up about half a dozen dispositions just to get both their names on the one set of title deeds. I know people who don't take their husbands name can be a pain in the tits from an admin or legal position, but surely it can't be that big a problem to resolve?

Anyway, I'm also bummed cos my man on the Tour de France, Michael Rasmussen got hoofed out unceremoniously by his team for being economical with the truth as to his whereabouts prior to the tour. I'm sure even the least interested of you know something about this...........

He was leading, had passed every dope test and was about to win the race, but cycling is in a major meltdown over cheating allegations and the suspicions surrounding Rasmussen were enough to see him ejected. A case of guilty until proven innocent. The amusing thing is that the guy who inherited the lead from Ras has similar suspicions surrounding him, due to his previous prescence in a team known for collective doping. As virtually last man standing, they won't dare kick him out, but it does make you wonder...............

The whole thing brings to mind the problem of proving a negative.

Replace "Have you stopped beating your wife Mr Jones?" with "Have you stopped taking performance enhancing drugs Mr Rasmussen?"

A bit of a pickle all told.

Ok, heres some Sonic Youth. For a period of about three albums in the early-mid nineties, they were churning out catchy nuggets of noisy pop music like this. Then they disappeared up their arses again, begging us to take them seriously as 'artistes' once more. I naturally lost interest and started listening to Placebo.

I was young and stupid, cut me some slack.............

And Lo, They Came Bearing Feather Dusters............

......................and a manic gleam in their eyes that told me they would not be taking "Aw Naw!" for an answer. It's clear out time at iLL Man Towers and I'm taking cover. Lesson 1. Living with yr folks is neither big, nor clever.......

Anyway, here are some things I may or may not need some advice on.....

1 - Soup. I'm in the mood again for a bit of liquid sorcery. I whipped together a sort of Spring veg thingy at the weekend, but I'm looking for something new and unique. I know for a fact a few of you out there have some little soupy secrets to divulge. Go on, make my week.....

2 - I'm off to Gretna at the weekend. I wish I could tell you all I was eloping, but alas, hell has a better chance of getting a little light frost than I have of forming a meaningful relationship with a member of the opposite sex. Football I'm afraid. I'm off to see Thistle get pumped by.......I mean play Gretna. It's been a bit of a week for the club all told. It looks like we're staring into the financial abyss again. At least last time we had a refurbished main stand, state of the art floodlights, undersoil heating and a fucking huge stand to show for the debt we were in. This time all we have is a pile of rubble at one end of the ground and a botched property deal. Oh, and a team that would have a hard time against the local amateurs.......My club needs me. More to the point, I need my club.....

3 - The more curious and observant among you will have noticed that the iLL Man blog empire is expanding. Feel free to drop in and say hello. On the subject of comments, I have noticed that it takes a certain kind of post to generate feedback from people. Now, I'm not going to look back through my posts and find out what the formula is. It would be 'posting-by-rote' and since this blog is an exercise in self indulgence, I feel it would become something of a chore to come up with things that I feel people would respond to. I realised long ago that I'm far too random to get much of a gang in tow.

4 - Following on from the above point. Can I have shout outs from all my lurkers. If you've never commented, then do so now and forever haud yer piece....

5- I'm off to bed, I'm fucked.......

I Wanna Sweep the Streets!!!!

Anything but what I'm doing now! *

Work has finally ground me down. It's a wonder it hasn't happened sooner, I must have a bigger masochistic streak than I thought. The idea of having to alternate between long, grinding, endless days of tedious mouse clicking and being up to my ears in paperwork that's been barely explained to me by the worlds most unapproachable man has finally taken it's toll on me. It's either the job or me........

The CV is being dusted down as I speak, references shall be sought and I fully expect to be in a similarly infuriating and soul crushing job in two months time. It's just that from here even the most threadbare and yellowing of lawns looks more appealing.

I admit to being an ill-educated peasant with serious issues regarding self application. I will tell you I don't have limited horizons but others may inform you otherwise. I'll break the cycle eventually, probably when I'm least expecting to, but until then the merry-go-round of crap office jobs looks like continuing......



*I hear they get paid as well as I do, if not better.....