A Scotsman On A Horse!

Wednesday started with bright sunshine, a hopeful heart and a foot full of dog shite.... Cheers! People who let their dogs shit the pavements are, along with cyclists, creationists and people who think soap operas are real, my least favourite people in the world. Never mind rubbing Fido's nose in it, I'd say a face full of reeking dog muck might stop the fuckers being so careless in future. The result of said failure to 'hurdle the turd' was that I had to spend ten minutes in the gents at work scraping the......... (snip!) Yeah, I'll say no more.............. Let's just say that when I bought a much needed new pair of work shoes a few days back, I was looking for sturdiness over style. The downside of this is that the deep cut treads on the soles aren't terribly conducive to a quick wipe off on a patch of grass or in a puddle. This was 9.05am. It could only get fucking worse! It didn't really, but my glasses did break five minutes after I got in the door that night............. At work I have turned into a blank eyed hive of irritating ticks and twitches. It's partly a defense mechanism, designed to fend off the attentions of the people who sit around me, a bit like someone who bags a double or triple seat on a bus or plane for themselves by talking to themselves loudly and rubbing their crotch repeatedly. It's also a reaction to my working environment. Of course, the person next to me does it too from time to time, but she's just copying me. She thinks humming the tune from the Magic Roundabout is awful clever. I mutter to myself and hum bits of whatever is rolling around the empty corridors of my mind because I don't want her to talk to me and I'm bored out of my skull. She hums to herself because she wants everyone to notice her and remark upon how witty and amusing she is, and ask her what it is she's humming, at which point she'll bore them cockless until the end of time. There is an upside to all this brain-itching madness. I have become a bit good at the weekly football predictions. I look forward to relieving my colleagues of their readies for quite some time to come. Maybe it's the cabin fever talking, but I aim to hoover up as much cash as possible between now and next May. Who knows, it may help keep me solvent long enough to survive the financial meltdown. Hell, I could even fire it into an Irish fucking bank account in the laughably mistaken belief that it'll be safe there............... Anyway, all charmless grousing aside, I'd like to give a little punt the Glasgow Guerrilla Gardening blog, curated by Clairwil. It's in it's infancy just now, but as the seasons tick past and we grow in number as well as new sites to cultivate and beautify, so shall the blog become more rounded. Found this over at The Quiet Road. It made me smile.............

Cake Rocks!!

Blossom tree in the back garden

It does! Official!

Ah, the charity bakesale. Nothing more gratifying than seeing the ruddy big sponge cake you brought in, the one you thought you'd have to take home again untouched, get scoffed by the hungry hordes. A special thanks to whoever brought in the iced ginger cake, went very nicely with the coffee.

New work shoes most definitely do not fucking rock.

I seem to have bought the same pair of shoes I had last year, in that they've taken a good few layers of skin off my heels. All I can wear now are my scabby trainers until the wounds heal. Diechmann Shoes are evil, but what can you do when you can't afford a decent pair of Chelsea Boots?

Office speak doesn't, has never and never will 'Rock'

My mother called today to 'touch base'. Eek! What's the world coming to when innocent sixty one year olds are using that sort of language? I gently corrected her, but I fear it may well be a popular phrase with the 'over fifty' crowd already. We're doomed! Doomed!!

Why was she calling me at work? Well, I haven't seen her in a fortnight for one. Quite rightly I felt like a total louse and resolved to go round and annoy my folks at the first opportunity. Since my mothers diagnosis, she's become a very different animal, and she gets a bit worried if she hasn't seen me in a while, something I can maybe be a tad insensitive to at times. Once she knew I was finally buggering off to my own place, her favourite cry was "I won't miss that!", usually in response to one of my less pleasing habits. Maybe I just got used to the notion that they were glad to be shot of me and would be happy to see me a couple of times a month. Illness changes things though and when someone tells you that your time on Earth is a little more finite than you had bargained for, you will want to see your offspring as often as is reasonably possible. Needless to say, chastened, I shall be round at least once a week to get under their feet and remind them of why they wanted shot of me in the first place................... =D

Cheers!

The Tale Of The Sadistic Shoe Maker

Sometimes shoe shopping can be a bit laborious for The iLL Man. It inevitably turns into something akin to hunting for the Elephants Graveyard and I usually return home either with nothing at all, or something that "wasn't quite what I was after", not that I knew what that was either, but it's always good to have an ideal in mind in these situations. Other times shoe shopping can be a piece of piss. Like when I'm looking for work shoes.

"Fuck style!" I yell, "bring me something black, comfy and inexpensive!!!.

So naturally I head to one of those self service warehouse type outlets where you can try the fuckers on to yr hearts content. Such was the case the other day and lo, I found myself a pair of size twelve slip-ons (handy in the morning when you're too numb and fucked to be bothered with anything as complex as tying shoelaces) which felt remarkably comfy. Nice! Anyway, I boxed them up and paid the £14.99(I really should know better) and off I went.

The following morning I put them on and found, to my horror, that my feet had a great deal of difficulty sliding into them. Had the shoes shrunk in the night? Had my feet mutated and gone beyond an already impressive size 12? It being about 8.25 am by this point, and time I was gone, I had no choice but to cram the ill-fitting shoes onto my feet and high-tail it out to work. Half an hour later, I waddled in agony to my desk and groped about for my old pair. There are so many holes in them that people can see what colour socks I'm wearing, but fuck it, there's only so much pain a man can take. It felt as though someone had put tiny little razor blades in the heels and I skulked off to the bogs to survey the damage. It wasn't too bad, a small raw patch of skin on each heel and the beginnings of a couple of blisters. The problem was that I couldn't resist bursting one of them and the cold air on new, raw skin had me wincing in agony. I resolved to leave the other one alone and decided the only way I could get home that night was to cram bits of paper towel into my socks

There has to be a name for this phenomenon. It crossed my mind that I might have picked up a pair of elevens by accident, but no, the stickers on the soles and the size stamp resolutely say '12'. Why do a pair of shoes feel roomy and pleasant in the shop, yet seem to have turned into medieval torture devices the following day? Yes the socks I was wearing the next day were marginally thicker, but surely not thick enough produce the vice-like effect I experienced.

I do believe the shoes will serve me well in time, but I just need to wait until I grow some new skin on the back of my feet before I go back to them.

Anyway, a few announcements. First up, The Scottish Idlers Guild meets for the very first time on Saturday. Hit the link for the details, but needless to say, if you live in the Glasgow area, crave a life less tiresome and can spare some time this coming Saturday afternoon, then feel free to join the Guild and you'll be welcomed, probably with a request to get a round in.............

Next up, I see that Steve at Dr Feelgood is back in the saddle again. Steve was one of the first people to link to me and his blog has never been anything other than essential reading. He's been away for a fair few months, but he's still as good as ever. Check his majestic Fisking of the malodorous Jon Gaunt of the Sun. OK, it's shooting fish in a barrel, but it's deserving of it. He also provides a couple of very amusing Richard Littlejohn related links. Welcome back!

Finally. Am I the only one who hates this fucking album? Am I the only one who thinks the Beatles are shit? If I am, please ignore me. I am quite wrong and my views are of no consequence.

On the other hand.............