Funny Because It's True

From today's Daily Mash

Philip to say 'Mick' no more than eight times

PRINCE Philip will be allowed into Ireland today on condition he calls them all 'Micks' no more than eight times during the four day visit.

'Gosh, you're all surprisingly tall'

The historic trip was only agreed after intense negotiations between London and Dublin, with the Foreign Office stressing that he was going to say it and there was nothing that anyone could do about it.

Prince Philip will say 'Mick' for the first time when he meets President Mary Macalese at her official residence in Phoenix Park. He is expected to say that he 'did not know Mick houses had roofs'.

He will then use an average of two Micks a day culminating with a visit to the Tyndall Institute in Cork on Friday when he will say 'Christ almighty, not more fucking Micks'.

It will be the first time Prince Philip has met an Irish person since 1984 when he told Eurovision song contest winner, Dana: "You're not so bad. The worst is the half-Irish, half-Chinese. I met one once. He was called Declan Wu and he stole my horse."

The visit is the first by a British sovereign in a century and the Queen is understood to be very excited about meeting hundreds of people who, according the British Constitution, are not good enough to be married to her.

The Royal Household has acknowledged the sensitivity of the visit and made key changes to protocol, including replacing the Queen's Official Royal Question of 'What do you do?' with 'Are you going to kill me?'.

During the trip the the Queen will view the Book of Kells and say it is 'very nice' as well as visiting the Irish National Stud in Kildare where she will attempt to drug key rivals in advance of next month's Epsom Derby. And sources say the Queen is also keen to try out her Irish accent and has been rehearsing phrases including 'a very top of the good morning to you' and 'one is being sure, one is being sure'.

Meanwhile, in addition to his eight Micks, Prince Philip has also been given an allowance of three 'bogtrotters', two 'fenians' and a completely unacceptable joke about Bobby Sands.

Preparations

This Saturday, Mrs Wife and I are hosting a barbecue.

We did the same last year, and a decent crowd turned out for what eventually amounted to 12 hours of chargrilled meat and cold beer-based fun.

Word has obviously spread, as this year's sequel looks as though it's going to attract 50 hungry punters.

So you'll have to excuse me while I go and mow the carpet, hoover the lawn, marinade the barbecue and scrub the chicken.

Or something like that anyway.

Of Hiccups, Monster Bobs and Visas

The dust is finally settling on a fairly hectic weekend and I'm almost able to keep my eyes open long enough to post, so I'll try to collect my thoughts.

Friday's working day culminated in a leaving night for a fellow employee, and the drink was flowing freely at the start of the evening. My recollections of events are hazy, but I'm told that my Elvis impersonation kept my colleagues amused.

Thankfully, I had the sense to bail out before things got too messy, and instead subjected the passengers on the Aberdeen to Montrose train to a spectacular bout of hiccups that lasted for the duration of the journey. These hiccups were more like sonic booms, and were so loud that I could hear them above Definitely Maybe cranked up full blast on the Magic Tune Box.

Having arrived in Montrose, I decided that food was required, and treated myself to a pizza. The first bite removed removed several layers off the interior lining of my mouth, and in shock I managed to spill molten cheese on both my hands. All in all, a fairly eventful post-pub meal.

After staggering from the pizza shop to Dungroanin', I managed to scare Pepper, Mrs Wife's rabbit, half to death, then retreated to bed.

Unfortunately, Saturday dawned for me at the early hour of 7.30am. Unable to get back to sleep, I settled on the couch, wrapped in a fake fur throw, and allowed my hangover to build up a head of steam.

What I found out later in the day was that a combination of hail, snow, horizontal rain and howling winds, mixed with the standard of football offered up in an end-of-season Angus derby, is enough to shift even the most stubborn of hangovers.

Though the match wasn't dire, the standard of refereeing, in a league renowned for atrocious officials, was honking, and the man in black's performance was enough in itself to deny Montrose a confirmed play-off spot. For a week at least.

And so Saturday night started with me shivering, attempting to restore my core body temperature to something above freezing and preparing for a second consecutive night on the lash.

I believe a good time was had by all, with most of the assembled crowd enjoying their first visit to Roo's Leap. This vast amount of food was washed down with a few civilised drinks....

....Which doesn't really explain how I ended up finally going to bed at 6am, having woken the whole house with an impromptu didgeridoo solo.

My body clock must still be on British Winter Time, because I awoke at 8.30am, unable to do anything but doze fitfully until my lift to Dundee arrived. Why Dundee? To take in the Dundee United v Rangers SPL match, one of the more entertaining games I've been to this season, albeit one in which the final result left a lot to be desired. But no team can expect to go behind three times and still win a match.

A long day at work on Monday was followed by a trip north to Ellon, where Mrs Wife acquired her second rabbit, a bouncing boy now known as Dylan (in tribute to Robert Zimmerman, not The Magic Roundabout).

Introducing Dylan and Pepper has been a high-tension affair. Pepper is no longer in possession of her womanly organs, but Dylan still has a full set of boy bits, and he's eager to use them. So far, as Pepper has investigated this newcomer, she's smacked him around the nose a few times and attempted to give him a warning nibble on the nose. But Dylan seems to take this as foreplay, so there may be testing times ahead.

Yesterday, the 28th anniversary of my arrival on this planet, saw Mrs Wife and I venture south to Edinburgh, with the intention of collecting our Chinese visas. Unfortunately, the Chinese Consulate is an awkward beast, and no amount of discussion or offers of cash would tempt them to process the application in a single day. Which means that I'll have to make a return journey next week.

So, a busy weekend means I'm pretty shattered and looking forward to a few evenings of realxing on the sofa to recuperate.

I must be getting old.

Hell For Leather, Lathered, Drunk, I'm Soused, I'm Pissed, I'm Sunk

I'm four days short of completing my 28th journey around the sun, and to commemorate this inauspicious occasion, a great part of this weekend will be spent in a drunken stupor.

It seems curious that, as I've progressed in age and in weight, my capacity to handle alcohol has dimished almost in direct proportion.

As 17-year-olds, my friends and I would think nothing of drinking a half bottle of vodka each BEFORE going out to the pubs. And then feeling full, fit and mad for it again on Sunday morning, right and ready enough to tackle a game of football.

But, as a 28-year-old weighing two stone more than I did at my fighting weight, it takes substantially less alcohol to send me on the slippery slope to drunkenness and hangover hell.

I'm at a loss as to the reasons for this. I can't now imagine starting a night out with a couple of beers, finishing the best part of a half bottle of vodka and then spending four hours in the pub drinking more vodka. But surely, as I age, my body should be more tolerant of the punishment I inflict upon it?

Anyway, the amount of drink I can handle is beside the point. This weekend, a sociable meal at Roo's Leap in Montrose will be followed by several hours of carnage in Montrose's pubs, with several members of the party new to the excitement of drinking in the town of Gable Enders.

I may report back. If I'm able to write and able to remember what happened.

Quizzical Education

Tonight, in an effort to forge bonds between co-workers where there were no bonds before, our company is holding a quiz night.

My team of four, which includes Mrs Wife, one of my colleagues and his own Mrs Wife, will be up against everyone else from the office as we attempt to prove we're the brainiest of the lot. (In fact, all we should be aiming for is to avoid finishing last).

A quick spell of random questions this morning between myself and my colleague proved one thing - I don't know half as much as I thought I did, and I know considerably less than I did when I was a kid.

As a teenager, I represented the whole of the Brechin area in the Masterkid of Angus competition. And whilst at high school, I appeared on Radio Tay several times as a member of our school's quiz team. (Good God, why didn't anyone tell me to STOP BEING A GEEK!)

Back then, I think I had a pretty good grasp of 'general knowledge' - ie, loads of useless crap that somehow lodged itself in my brain.

But I'm finding that nowadays, that crap doesn't stick as well as it used to. Maybe it's because I have to work for a living and remember relevant facts about the oil industry, not to mention deadlines, which reports I should be working on, which databases I need to update and the like. Or maybe I just don't have the time to sit and read newspapers and magazines the way I used to, devouring information for information's sake.

These days, when I get home from work, I'm quite content to sit in front of the television or play computer games. And no-one ever won a general knowledge quiz through their ability to recall the plotlines from Lost, or the best players in Football Manager 2007.

Or perhaps I'm just getting stupider. Brain cells die and are never replaced - that's a fact of life. And as my head fills with new knowledge, such as information about mortgage rates, the price of fuel and the ins and outs of squirrel sex, maybe there's just no room in my head to remember which is the most common element on Earth (it's hydrogen) or what the Rolling Stones' first single was (I Wanna Be Your Man).

I'm sure we'll found out this evening.

The Montrose Sessions

Today I'll be joining two of my mates under the pretence of a band practice.

Thankfully the others have a fair bit of talent between them, which means that they can just tell me what to do.

Our sessions rarely produce anything worthy of note, but it's not entirely about the music - it's just a way of relaxing and excusing spending a day drinking beer, eating pizza and playing PlayStation games.

Anyway, just to prove that we DO occasionally produce something that borders on worthwhile, here's one we prepared earlier. It's pretty rough, as befits a recording made by three partially drunk guys on a four track with only a drum machine for company. For anyone who cares, I'm on bass.

Free Fun

As there is still a fortnight to go until the next pay day, but my bank account is already looking bare and my credit card is hollering for attention after a period of sustained abuse, Mrs Wife and I will be living on the cheap until the end of the month.

Thankfully, a combination of free tickets to the Cirque Surreal circus at Queen's Links in Aberdeen and our cinema passes means that we won't be short of entertainment this evening.

In fact, combined with a gala day in Montrose tomorrow, a visit from a friend I haven't seen in a long while tomorrow evening and a donkey derby on Sunday, it seems that this next two weeks will be jam-packed with excitement, none of it costing a penny.

Of Bowling, BBQs and Bombs

The weekend - where to begin?

As I explained previously, on Friday the company we work for paid for all employees in its Aberdeen office to spend the afternoon playing Pirate Island Adventure Golf, spinning about the on the dodgems, eating too much, playing pool and bowling.

Four minutes on the dodgems wasn't enough to demonstrate my Lewis Hamilton-esque driving, my golf was inhibited by poor approach work (though my putting was immense) and my pool playing was a bit rusty. I did finish a creditable joint third in the bowling though, missing out on the five pound prize after a play-off decided by means of one game of pool. (I came from seven balls down to lose it on the black - so close.)

And then Mrs Wife and I rose on Saturday morning to find Montrose basking in glorious sunshine. In fact, had we started our housewarming barbecue at 9.30am, the weather would have been perfect. But by 1.30pm, clouds were scattering across the sky, and by 3pm drops of rain could be felt cooling my sunburt neck. And by 6.30pm we had a full-on Montrose monsoon. But by then most people were fed and, if not drunk, merry enough not to care that they were crammed into Dungroanin' like giant sardines in a standard-sized phone box.

It was whilst we were partying indoors that news came in of the terrorist attack at Glasgow Airport. For so long, terrorism in the UK, whether that perpetrated by the IRA or by Islamic extremists, has focussed on London. But to find out that this unholy war has moved north of the border was a shock.

I would imagine that every single person in the room when the news came through has been to Glasgow Airport at some point in their lives, whether as a passenger or there to collect a relative. To see mobile phone video footage of the burning jeep at the airport brought home the fact that this was happening just over 100 miles from my front door, almost live as we saw it.

Apparently this is the first bombing in Scotland since the Luftwaffe crossed the English Channel. Whether that's true or not, I don't know. But if we thought that those who claim to be acting in Allah's name were going to concentrate their efforts on New York, Washington and London, we were obviously wrong.

Should we be afraid? No, we should be angry. We can't live in a state of fear - for then these ideological cretins, who would kill anyone unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, would have won.

It remains the case that you're far more likely to die in a car accident or from a heart attack than as a result of a terrorist attack. And our emergency services and military are amongst the best in the world - Glasgow airport was fully functional less than a day after the failed attack.

The greatest show of strength we can put on is to continue life as normal, to show that no matter what evil these people can summon, we will always overcome.

Fun Day In The Floods

This afternoon, instead of sitting at my desk messing about on blogs and watching as the clock makes its deathly-slow journey towards 4.30pm, my colleagues and I will be braving the Aberdeen monsoon in a quest for fun, entertainment and better bonding as workmates.

The company has generously stumped up the cash for our office to troop down to Codona's Amusement Arcade on Aberdeen's Beach Boulevard, where we will compete in games of Pirate Island Adventure Golf and ten-pin bowling. These activities will be separated by a shot on the dodgems and a meal. All of which certainly sounds more entertaining than an afternoon chasing stories about oilfields far, far away.

I will therefore spend this afternoon demonstrating that I can play golf like Tiger Woods, drive like Lewis Hamilton and bowl like John Goodman in The Big Lebowski.

Or, as is more likely, demonstrate that I play golf like Goodman, drive like Woods and bowl like Hamilton.

Back To School

Until very recently, I believed that I was still too young to be invited to a school reunion. After all, it's only been nine years since I left secondary school, and only five since I graduated from university.

But despite still being a metaphorical spring chicken, I was recently invited to attend a reunion of all those fortunate past pupils of Tarfside Primary School who are still alive.

So, despite both suffering from chronic hangovers, Baby Brother and I headed back to the school for the first time in many years on Saturday.

Actually, that's a lie. Mither dropped us off at the school on Saturday. Which is pretty lame - a combined age of 50 and we're still getting driven to school by our mum.

It was an unusual gathering. Though many had travelled considerable distances to attend the event, many hadn't made it for one reason or another. So we were left with a strange spectrum of ages, ranging from the school's current pupils, all aged between five and twelve years, up to a handful of alumni now within grasping distance of their 80th birthdays.

(What is the correct collective name for a group of elderly folk? A wrinkle? A moan? A zimmer?)

The present, but soon to be retired, teacher at the school has retained self-made yearbooks for each of her years at the helm of the school, and it was equally intriguing and mortifying to flick through the pages chronicling my brief period as a pupil.

Parents in the early 1990s must have cruel, colourblind or both. Amongst the natty costumes I was sporting in the photos were a faded Rangers shellsuit, the jacket bleached a pastel shade closer to lilac than to the more proper Royal Blue; a Rangers strip (notice a trend here?) which I wore in its entirety, the shorts hiked up to somewhere around my armpits; and a pair of Bermuda-patterned Speedo swimming trunks, which at least provided some distraction from my lurid white pigeon chest.

Thankfully, this catalogue of what not to wear was shared equally amongst those of us who attended school around the same time, so the burden of shame wasn't mine to bear alone.

Even more toe-curling were the videos of school plays showing on a constant loop in a back room, showcasing to full effect the incendiary thespian skills of Scottish primary school children, starring yours truly affecting some god-awful English accent for recurring roles as a butler.

All in all, it was a great weekend, offering the opportunity to catch up with old friends who have been strangers for too long, drink to excess in the unique surroundings of Tarfside Masonic Hall and spend Sunday eating freshly barbecued hamburgers whilst playing football on the school playing field for the first time in nigh-on 15 years.

Needless to say, I had lost none of the magic.....

Crazy Days

How many of you can say that, in the course of your weekend, you have crashed a go-kart, visited the tomb of your country's most famous son, seen Keith Richards pretending (?) to be a pirate and been peed on by a lion?

I'm guessing I'm the only one who can tick all of THOSE boxes. Stay tuned for more....