Dances In The Sand

In a week's time, I'll be here...

Not that I'm excited or anything...

Washed Out

When I started this blog, way back in 2006, I lived in Lochgilphead in Argyll.

At the time, I joked that it rained on two days out of every three.

For the past fortnight, Mrs Wife and I have been on holiday in nearby Inveraray, the town where we married (also in 2006).

And I've realised that my "two days out of every three" joke wasn't a joke.

Barely a day has passed without us being subjected to a torrential downpour. Which has meant that we've spent the majority of our time confined to the static caravan where we're staying.

Which, in truth, hasn't been as bad as it sounds. It's been good to get away from home and work for a while, taking with us piles of books and DVDs. The weather has stayed dry long enough for us to have the occasional walk, we've visited a traditional sweetie shop (twice) and we've caught up with family and friends.

But today we head home to what I expect will be a mountain of mail. And Scotland v Czech Republic on TV (which I haven't actually told Mrs Wife about yet....)

Friday Ten - Ten Songs or Albums That Remind Me Of Different Places and Times

Whenever I hear one of these records, I am automatically transported back in time.

1) Nessun Dorma - Luciano Pavarotti: Any time I hear the last minute or so of Nessum Dorma, I'm 10 years old and spending the summer holidays with my Granny and Grampa in Brechin. The World Cup is on the BBC every day, and the green pitches seem especially bright under the Italian floodlights. Every match is preceded and followed by the tournament's adopted theme tune, bellowed by Pavarotti. This piece of music is a whole mish-mash of different memories - watching the matches in my Granny and Grampa's house, recreating Salvatori Schillachi's bug-eyed goal celebrations and Packie Bonner's penalty saves in Brechin Public Park, and generally playing more football in a day than my legs could now manage in a month.

2) This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours - Manic Street Preachers: This was the last album I bought before moving to Edinburgh for university at 18. In the flurry of leaving drinks, packing, work and general excitement in the week leading up to the move, I barely listened to the album. But once I'd unpacked in my new home in Craiglockhart Halls of Residence and set my stereo up, this album remained in the CD player for a while afterwards. All of the tracks are now forever associated with that first week away from home and the exciting new world it presented.

3) Who Killed The Zutons? - The Zutons: One of the first albums I bought after returning from a year traveling around the world, this coincided with me buying a car and an in-car CD player and getting a job with the Oban Times. As I scooted around the town from Mrs Wife's folks' house to the office, the Liverpudlians' first album became the soundtrack to that first week as a full-time journalist.

4) A Grand Don't Come For Free - The Streets: A few months into our round the world jaunt in 2003-2004, Mrs Wife and I were skint and living hand-to-mouth in Perth, Western Australia. One of my friends took pity and sent across a pile of albums to help pass the time. Later, when we were based in Melbourne, he did the same again, just before we started traveling down Australia's east coast by bus. One of the CDs was The Streets' second album, and I would often listen to it on overnight bus journies, this curious English concept album soundtracking sleepless nights staring out into the pitch-black bush.

5) Love Is Noise - The Verve: The Verve's fourth album was released the day I set off for Norway for the first time with work. I'd decided before leaving that Love Is Noise would be my anthem for the three-day jaunt, and I listened to the track any time I had a spare five minutes. I also drove my colleagues to distraction by singing it at all other times, including making an odd hooting noise to recreate the instruments. Any time I hear it now, I'm back in Stavanger in the summer sunshine.

6) Be Here Now - Oasis: Oasis opened the concerts on their Be Here Now tour of 1997 with the song of the same name, and any time I hear it I can remember the excitement of being in the front row, my arms squeezed against the barrier to stop my ribs snapping, as the band burst out of a red phonebox and straight into this song.

7) Did You Miss Me? - The Cooper Temple Clause: When working in a canteen while at university in 2001, I would arrive at 8am on Saturday morning (not a student-friendly time of the weekend), hook up my CD player and stick on my favourite album of the time, The Cooper Temple Clause's majestic debut See This Through and Leave. The opening keyboard refrain still helps perk me up on occasion, although I don't have an endless supply of bacon rolls and Coke on hand any more.

8) Death Trip 21 - Ash: In 1999, five of us from university went to Ireland for 10 days. These were the days of portable tape players, and my friends and I swapped compilation tapes. Strangely, the only track I can remember putting on mine is Death Trip 21 by Ash, from their Nu-Clear Sounds album. Hearing it now reminds me of the train ride from Belfast to Dublin.

9) In The Meantime - Spacehog: This song reminds me of the same holiday, as it was on the jukebox in the hostel we stayed in in Dublin. We were in the Irish capital in mid-April, but it was hammering down with snow for most of our time there. So we spent a lot of time in the hostel bar, and this song got a few airings during our stay.

10) Here, There and Everywhere - The Beatles: The first dance at our wedding. Mrs Wife had this on her list of potential first dances from her teenage years, and it was an easy choice to make. It also features in the episode of Friends where Phoebe gets married, played on a steel drum, but ours was the Fabs' version.

Home, Home On The Range

Mrs Wife and I have just returned from a hectic few days in London. We had originally booked the trip to see Michael Jackson at the O2, which had been scheduled for Wednesday, but as we'd bought and paid for flights and hotel, we decided to have the holiday anyway.

And, in the space of five days in the capital, we:

• Went to the Comedy Store's improv night, where we were entertained by the hilarious talents of Josie Lawrence, Andy Smart, Lee Simpson, Suki Webster, Richard Vranch and Stephen Frost.
• Dined at the Hard Rock Cafe with Baby Brother and his girlfriend (who had been due to see Jacko's concert with us).
• Visited the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, the London Tombs, St Paul's Cathedral, Covent Garden and Camden Market.
• Took a cruise along the Thames from Westminster to Greenwich.
• Saw Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart (or Gandalf and Jean Luc Picard or Magneto and Professor Xavier depending on your own personal geek persuasion) in Waiting For Godot at the Theatre Royal.
• Attended, at Mrs Wife's request, We Will Rock You, which wasn't as bad as I had thought it might be.
• Avoided a Biblical downpour by spending £27(!) on cinema tickets for Transformers 2. Which seemed almost identical to the first one, but with more gratuitous shots of Megan Fox's cleavage - ie it was pretty darn good.
• Met up with Mrs Wife's cousin and a friend of mine from my university days that I haven't seen in more than seven years for a boozy afternoon in Theatreland.

All in all, a pretty productive, if tiring, five days.

Where To Begin

Mrs Wife and I have returned home from our English break, having stopped en route to take in Cirque de Soleil's show in Glasgow with her parents - perhaps more on that later.

As is the case when I am left unattended in town centres or with internet access and free time, I seem to have acquired a large pile of music during our holiday, and I have now begun the task of putting it into iTunes - an endeavour that may take me some time.

While away, I have purchased through a variety of means the following CDs:

Mongrel - Better Than Heavy
Late of the Pier - Fantasy Black Channel
Public Domain - Bass In The Place
The Byrds - Sweetheart of The Rodeo
Clinic - Internal Wrangler
The Dears - Missiles
Dogs - Turn Against This Land
Doves - Kingdom Of Rust
Bob Dylan - Infidels
Bob Dylan - Oh Mercy
Bob Dylan - Time Out Of Mind
Elbow and The BBC Concert Orchestra - The Seldom Seen Kid Live At Abbey Road CD/DVD Box Set
Manic Street Preachers - Gold Against The Soul
Morgan - Organized
Placebo - Black Market Music
Proud Mary - The Same Old Blues
South - Adventures In The Underground Journey To The Stars
Stereo MC's - Deep Down & Dirty
VHS Or Beta - Night On Fire
Wire - Pink Flag
Neil Young - Are You Passionate?
Yourcodenameis: Milo - Print Is Dead Vol 1.
Trainspotting soundtrack

Which represents a varied selection of old records, new records, well-known records and obscure records from a pretty wide variety of genres I think. Finding time to listen to them may be the biggest problem, but I guess that's why we invented iPods and commuting to work.

Season 2008/2009: Match 21: Norwich City v Sheffield Wednesday

Mrs Wife and I have been dog and house sitting for her auntie and uncle in Skegness since Tuesday, and as part of this two-week break in England, I decided it would be a good opporchancity to take in some football south of the border.

The match that seemed most appealing within traveling distance today was Norwich City v Sheffield Wednesday at Carrow Road, the Canaries taking on the Owls in a match the home side couldn't really afford to lose as they seek to avoid relegation.

It was my first visit to Norwich (both the city and the football club) and I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the stadium - I'd say there are only two better in the Scottish league, and Carrow Road is certainly a far better venue for watching football than the soulless bowl that is Hampden, despite being less than half the size of our national stadium. The stands are tight against the pitch and even in the back rows, you feel as though you're right on top of the action.

There were a few players with Scottish connections playing today - Scotland goalkeeper (and now presumably second choice for the national side following Shagger's midweek antics) David Marshall started for Norwich, as did Alan Gow, the striker currently on loan from Rangers. Another former Rangers striker on show was Sheffield Wednesday's Francis Jeffers, whose Rangers career was so glorious that I'd forgotten it ever happened until I was reading the programme before the start of today's match. Chris Killen, who is on loan at Norwich from Celtic, didn't play today due to injury. Former Dundee and Celtic midfielder Mark Fotheringham hasn't played for Norwich since March, when he was stripped of the club captaincy after storming down the tunnel having been substituted by new Canaries boss Bryan Gunn.

The weather in Norwich today was glorious, and the stadium was filled to capacity for the match, with a vocal Sheffield Wednesday support filling one of the corners of the Jarrold stand. Apparently my seat in the County Lounge section was within spitting distance of the directors box inhabited by Delia Smith, but I didn't catch site of the chef.

And so to the match. Sheffield Wednesday were by far the better team, and easily looked as though they deserved to be more than eight points ahead of an average Norwich side. Jermaine Johnson looked lively throughout for the visitors, his darting runs down the left a constant source of worry for the Norwich back line. Francis Jeffers, meanwhile, continued his career-long impersonation of a tree.

In the Norwich ranks, Lee Croft looked faster than a short Alan Stubbs lookalike ought to have, and he frequently had the pace to beat Tommy Spurr. It was just a pity that none of his teammates thought it a good idea to make their way into the box in the hope of connecting with one of his crosses or passes. Alan Gow actually looked decent, which probably won't come as a surprise to anyone who saw him play for Falkirk but might do to Rangers fans who never saw him don the light blue. All too often he opted to attempt to beat every man instead of shooting, and his decision-making proved costly in the end. His strike partner David Mooney was utter shite, and I was surprised that Gunn kept him on the park for the duration of the match.

The game was a scrappy affair, neither side creating many clear-cut chances. Wednesday looked better throughout and should have won comfortably, but instead had to rely on Jermaine Johnson's goal two minutes after the break to secure all three points. Norwich had an equaliser ruled out five minutes from time for a foul in the build-up that it seemed no-one in the stadium saw except for referee Mike Russell.

Russell had an appalling game from start to finish, turning a blind eye to a series of niggling fouls from the Wednesday players. As well as disallowing the equaliser, he also managed to turn his back on an eight-man brawl in the Wednesday box during the second half, a ruck that had to be split up by the linesman in his absence. Tommy Spurr was sent off with a minute of normal time remaining, having been booked for a nothing foul 10 minutes earlier. A very poor show from the official.

On the basis of today's game, Norwich are in trouble. Nottingham Forest, who I'm going to see on Saturday, scraped a point with fellow strugglers Barnsley, while Charlton got a result at Southampton. Both of those results keep Norwich out of the drop zone for the time being, but they're only a point ahead of Forest, while Southampton can overhaul them by winning their game in hand.

Having said all that, there were a few good signs for Norwich - Gow looks like he's enjoying his football, Marshall is a steady goalkeeper, Jon Otsemobor and Ryan Bertrand were solid in defence, Croft looked decent and Sammy Clingan had a good game in the middle of the park. Gunn also handed a debut to Korey Smith, who has been promoted from the club's academy, and he looked a decent prospect when coming on from the bench.

On a good day, Norwich could easily beat an average SPL side such as Aberdeen (the Dons selected there purely for my own amusement). But it seems as though good days are few and far between for Norwich at the moment, and their season is going to end with a real relegation dog fight (or Canary fight at least).

Gonna Party Like It's Twenty Zero Nine

My hangover has abated sufficiently to enable me to look at a computer monitor without wincing, my feet have thawed enough to allow me to walk without a peculiarly numb-toed rolling gait and Mrs Wife's Mither has served up a sumptuous New Year's Day feast, so all that is left for me to do before retiring to the sofa is to wish everyone a happy, healthy and prosperous 2009.

Oktoberfest

As of 4.30pm this afternoon, I'm on holiday, and it feels like it's not a moment too soon.

For some reason, I feel knackered, so it'll be good simply to be away from 6.15am wake up calls if nothing else.

Mrs Wife and I are heading to Skegness tomorrow to see her relatives, so a lengthy road trip is in the offing. But at least we'll have a selection of quality tunes to see us down the road, amongst them the latest offerings from Oasis, Glasvegas, Elbow and Santogold, plus whatever Mrs Wife deems necessary for entertainment.

After a few days in sunny Skegness (well, hopefully sunny), we'll head north again, stopping in York for a night to break up the journey and see a bit of culture - if a cathedral and some wax works count as culture anyway.

Then it's back to Montrose to watch the Gable Endies shaft the Sons in the Division Three title race, a match that will also act as a mini blogmeet, with Dumbarton fans The Tomahawk Kid and Big Rab likely to be visiting Links Park.

The same night, I'll be down in Edinburgh for a reunion commemorating the tenth anniversary of starting universary. I can scarcely believe a decade has passed since we first left home in search of education, enlightenment, sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. I predict a messy night in store involving cheap spirits and chicken kebabs, all consumed in the vain hope of recapturing lost youth.

Mr Henderson

Of all the funny things that I saw, heard, read and ate in China (yes, ate: tofu, good God....) the funniest of them all involved no Chinese people, no Chinglish and no chopstick-related mayhem.

It is a curious fact that that funniest thing that happened to me in China involved Mrs Wife and an orang-utang.

Ever since our lives became entwined, it has been a strange custom of ours to visit, when possible, the zoo for her birthday.

As Mrs Wife turned 28 during our Shanghai sojourn, we decided to take a trip out the city's zoo. Truthfully, we weren't sure what to expect - we'd heard rumours that the quality of the enclosures might be someway short of that found in the west, and that we should prepare for the worst.

But in truth, the standards weren't too bad - perhaps not as high as would be expected in Edinburgh or London, but certainly of sufficient size that the animals could move around freely and explore the confines of their cages.

By far the worst aspect of the zoo was the Chinese customers, who ignored the rules forbidding the feeding of animals and merrily threw sweeties in wrappers to bears and attempted to attract the attentions of a red panda with a sandwich.

The zoo is massive, and walking around in the scorching sun was tiring. But, as the end of the day approached, it began to seem as though we had the park to ourselves, most of the Chinese having departed.

And it was near closing time that we found the primates. As ever, the gorillas and chimpanzees were highly entertaining, given how closely related they are to ourselves.

Having spent a good few minutes watching our near cousins, Mrs Wife and I arrived in the deserted orang-utang building, where two of the apes were separated by a wall that split the enclosure.

As Mrs Wife watched the comic antics of a young orang-utang, I wandered to the other side of the enclosure, where I found myself face-to-face with a six-foot plus male.

I don't think I've ever been that close to a fully-grown male orang-utang before, and I expressed my surprise by shouting to Mrs Wife: "Come and see, it's a yeti."

Mrs Wife duly obliged, and spent several minutes in silent awe as the creature checked us out, swung around on a tyre and then climbed a rope.

Finally, the silence was broken when Mrs Wife said: "I don't think I've ever seen a yeti before."

Groanin' Jock's Chinglish Adventures Volume III: Buried With The Died Wifeless Man

The third installment of the series that may never end takes us to the Chinese Sex Museum.

Yep, that's right, the Chinese Sex Museum. A collection of art, artefacts and hideous devices detailing the history of sex and sex culture in the world's oldest culture.

Included in the exhibition were countless phallic pieces of pottery, statues of men naked and erect and even an awful punishment device for cheating women that took the form of a saddle that you attached to a donkey that had a massive wooden penis attached to it - it's pretty much indescribable.....

Anyway, the image above is from a caption referring to a jade statue. And obviously it was used for buried with the died wifeless man.

Because every died wifeless man needs a jade statue of a woman to remind him that, not only did he not get any when he was alive, he's sure as hell not getting any now he's dead.

Croaked It

I've spent most of my life in Scotland, and as a result, I'm always keen to see a new part of the planet - broadening the mind, I think it's called.

Mrs Wife and I have trekked through the jungles of northern Thailand; stood halfway up what, at that time, was the world's tallest building and looked out onto the minarets of Kuala Lumpur and onwards to the haze-shrouded hills on the horizon; snorkelled at the Great Barrier Reef; swum in the warm Pacific waters around Fiji; and drunk cheap Mexican beer in a Hollywood garden until the early hours of the morning.

But despite all our previous globe-trotting, there were some things we encountered in Shanghai that we've never seen anywhere else.

For example, on a day trip to Qibao, we spent an hour or so wandering the tightly-packed streets, where we were told we were experiencing "real China".

Many of the shops on these streets were traditional Chinese eateries, where passers-by can grab a quick snack as they head onwards towards their next engagement.

And the food on offer was a tad different to that found in your average greasy spoon cafe.

We saw whole birds impaled on skewers and deep fried, beak, eyes and all. Meats of in an arresting array of unusual colours that we didn't even want to know what animal had met its maker during the butchering process.

Most alarmingly of all (and something that still gives Mrs Wife a severe case of the heebie-jeebies) was a woman sitting on a doorstep skinning a bucket of live frogs and transferring them to a second bucket. The second bucket was a writhing mass of slithering, blood-soaked limbs.

Eating habits aside, the Chinese have an attiutude to many things that, to western eyes, seems strange.

Public spitting and urination is taken for granted. Infants don't wear nappies, but instead have trousers with big holes at the rear. When the child shows signs of needing to relieve itself, it is dangled over the nearest bush/gutter/river and left to get on with things.

Personal space doesn't exist. In a country of 1.3 billion people, perhaps that's understandable. But in the street, people in cars, on motorbikes or on bicycles will cut across your path without warning. On the pavements, pedestrians will do the same, walking diagonally in front of you so that you need to check your pace or stop suddenly to avoid banging into them.

In short, China can, for the first few days, be an infuriating place to visit. But, once you've adjusted to the pace of life in one of the world's most crowded and chaotic cities, it's easier to adapt to the rhythm - knowing that cars don't always stop at red lights, that Chinese people have no interest in anything that is happening directly behind them and that if you really want to buy something in the "fakes" markets, pick a price you'd be willing to pay and stick to it.

Just watch out for the woman with the bucket of skinned frogs.

Groanin' Jock's Chinglish Adventures Volume II: Yellow Old Man Of May

Continuing the series that no-one's waiting for, here's my second Chinglish discovery.

This headline appeared in a magazine in which the headlines were thoughtfully translated into English, but the remainder of the text appeared in Chinese script.

Perhaps this is a way of teaching Chinese readers English; if so, I think it probably falls someway short of the mark.

Can anyone shed some light on what "Yellow Old Man of May Daughter Scissors Hand" might mean?

Art Of Noise

The first thing that struck me when I stepped on Chinese soil for the first time was how quiet it was.

Given that the population of Shanghai is estimated at between 16 million and 25 million people, this may seem a strange admission, but there's a reason for it.

In a piece of bureaucratic genius, all Chinese people take their holidays at exactly the same time.

Which means that, when the holidays arrive, 1.3 billion people take to the roads, rails and skies and trample merrily across their vast country in seek of a break from their day-to-day lives.

It also means, as our host Paul pointed out, that all Chinese transport hubs need to be 10 times the size they would be if the government-approved holidays didn't exist.

And so it was that Mrs Wife and I arrived at Shanghai's new(ish) Pudong airport, where it seemed that our flight was the only one that was arriving or departing.

The baggage reclaim hall was eerily quiet. The queues for immigration control were minimal and efficient in a "why are you coming to China?" way.

But, having cleared customs, we were given our first taste of real Shanghai.

Firstly, the heat blasted through the open doors of the terminal building. I've been in hotter places in the past, but not for a while. I shouldn't need to point out the climatic differences between Aberdeen and southern China.

But a much stronger force hit us as we walked out into the arrivals hall - the racket generated by any group of Chinese people.

From my observations, I think the Chinese may be the loudest nation on Earth. If something can be done, it seems that the Chinese ethos is that it should be done as noisily as possible. If a car has a horn, lean on it while you drive. If your scooter sounds louder if you rev the engine harder, make sure you rev it to its limits, preferably while blasting away on your horn as well.

And this mentality extends to all walks of life. If you're meeting someone at the airport, shout at them from the moment you see them. If everyone else is shouting as well, just shout louder - you'll win eventually.

I'd been to crowded cities before we visited Shanghai, amongst them Hanoi, Bangkok, Singapore, Sydney, Los Angeles, New York and London. None of them are even in the same league as Shanghai.

As I've already said, China is a nation of 1.3 billion people. And wherever you go, it feels like half of them are there with you.

Get on the bus, and you'll be lucky to get a seat (even luckier if someone moves out of your way so that you can sit on the empty seat beside them). Attempt to take the subway and, if it's a busy period (ie between 6am and 9pm), you'll be squeezed against three Chinese guys, all of them fiddling with their PSPs, all with the volume turned up full, all playing different games.

Visit a restaurant, whether a traditional Chinese eatery or a KFC or McDonalds, and you'll fight through a scrum of hungry punters, then find yourself seated next to a party of eight playing drinking games at the top of their voices.

Frankly, Shanghai is bedlam. Practically everywhere you go in the city centre, someone is attempting to sell you something, whether a "long kite", a fake rolex or pirate DVDs.

But despite the madness, it's a place with its own charms - from the futuristic Pudong skyline to the relaxed charms of the French Concession and the good-humoured banter of the antiques market in the Old Town.

There are plenty more tales to come from our Shanghai experience - stop me if I'm boring you....

Groanin' Jock's Chinglish Adventures Volume I: You're Polite People

Well, we're home, and thoroughly exhausted by the combination of walking around one of the world's biggest, noisiest, dustiest, smoggiest cities, not to mention the jetlag and the fact that I was back in work at a time scandalously close to the arse crack of dawn yesterday.

Given that this is my "I'm home" post, I don't want to go into too much detail on what happened in China, but I'll come back to it in the fullness of time.

Instead, I'll firstly thank the wonderful guest posters who have filled the empty pages here at Dungroanin' during my absence - Misssy M, Erica, The Tomahawk Kid and Rachel - all of whom have done a far better job than me of being witty, entertaining and articulate.

And I'll also begin a brand new series right here, right now: Groanin' Jock's Chinglish Adventures.

Chinglish is a curious language that exists only in China. This peculiar written language tends to occur in places where Chinese directions or instructions have been translated into English in a less than coherent manner. And in Shanghai, they can be found everywhere - on street signs, in museums, in the printed media and on people's clothes.

This first one is from a street sign at a pedestrian crossing in central Shaghai.

Chee-ree-oh, We're Off To China

The next time you hear from me, I'll either be in China or back from China.

Be nice to the guest posters.

If anyone needs us, we'll be with Paul Langmead.

Getting Ready

I'm tired, thanks to getting home late last night after playing in the Aberdeen Oil League then watching the UEFA Cup Final.

I couldn't possibly pass on mentioning the Rangers match, disappointing though the result was.

But if anyone had told me at the start of the season that Rangers would play in a European final within the next year, I would have thought them insane.

The better team won last night, but Rangers played to their strengths, defending (fairly) solidly and looking to catch Zenit on the break.

And in the second half, just as it looked as though Rangers might take the lead through their continued pressure, Zenit scored, and the match was over.

So yes, I'm disappointed, but extremely proud of the club for having made it to Manchester in the first place. Now we can turn our attentions to the league....

The next few days are likely to be spent in a blur as I attempt to get all my shit together before flying off to China. But even before then, I'm going to be a busy boy. Tonight, Dungroanin' will be graced by Eric, my Blogfather and everyone's favourite Heterosexual Caucasian Male, and his wife Fiona, who are in these frozen northern climes for a holiday.

So we'll catch up, set the world to rights and share a drink or two, safe in the knowledge that neither of us has to work the next day.

Friday will be spent packing and preparing everything for departure to Shanghai, including delivering Mrs Wife's rabbits, Pepper and Dylan, to a rabbit boarding establishment. Yep, such a thing exists.

That will be followed by the Dirty Pretty Things concert in Dundee, which should be pretty darn good, what with DPT being a Libertines/Cooper Temple Clause indie supergroup. Which will, in turn, be followed by a night in a hotel at Glasgow airport before we jet off.

I'm not sure whether I'll be able to blog while I'm away, so I've arranged for a few kind souls to drop by and keep both my readers amused in the interim. And they're likely to be so good that my presence here will no longer be required.

Bedtime

It's 2am, and I should really be in bed.

No doubt Mrs Wife has a fun-filled day planned for me tomorrow, what with it being our last weekend at home until the end of May.

I expect that tomorrow's (today's) chores will include cutting the grass, which is a pain in the hole at the best of times but is an especially annoying pain of the whole when it clashes with watching Soccer AM or listening to Rangers v Dundee Utd on the wireless.

(As an aside, my Granny always called the radio the wireless, even though it was always plugged in. Even as a wee boy, that struck me as strange. She also referred to the black stuff on roads as Tarmacadam, which, while it is the correct term, hasn't been used by anyone else since the stuff was invented.)

It seems strange to think that in a week's time, Mrs Wife and I will be en route from Dundee to Glasgow, having just seen Dirty Pretty Things at Fat Sams, and that 24 hours later will be winging our way to Shanghai via Amsterdam.

The extent of my preparation so far has been to pile four new shirts on the spare bed, buy a travel pillow and the Lonely Planet China book and try to find out where in Shanghai I can buy cheap electrical goods and hooky DVDs.

I should really be preparing now, but I'm too busy flicking randomly and distractedly through the hundreds of channels on Sky.

And halfheartedly praying for rain so that I don't have to cut the grass.

Happy Holidays

Having never enjoyed the benefits of Bank Holidays off work when with my previous employer, I'm always very appreciative when I get a Monday off with the rest of the working world.

That's especially true when it seems that summer has arrived, as was the case today with barely a cloud in the sky. And so, armed with the Magic Tune Box loaded with the newly-acquired albums by Portishead and The Courteeners, Alexander McCall Smith's fourth No.1 Ladies Detective Agency book and a drink, I spent most of the afternoon baking in the May sunshine.

As a result, my arms are now a lurid lobster pink - which is a progression from corned beef grey, the standard hue of the Scotsman on his own soil.

But now the haar is rolling in and the working week is lumbering in to view. And my arms are stinging a bit.

Still, it was good while it lasted.

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.

Perfect Guide

My Chinese guidebook arrived in the mail this morning, and I've been enthralled by it for the past hour.

I love guidebooks and everything about them. Looking at pictures of far-off lands I intend to visit very soon, reading about the history of a culture so alien to my own that it may as well be from another planet.

Everything about the Lonely Planet guidebooks is measured to perfection - from wide-ranging histories of the countries covered down to miniscule details of where to find a vegetarian restaurant or a laundrette in the smallest backwater town.

Although Mrs Wife and I will only be visiting Shanghai, the book I have covers the whole of China, and I can quite imagine that I'll read the whole thing before we head eastwards.

Opening the book at random places, I find ideas for entertainment in Hong Kong's Kowloon area, details on bike tours of Hangzhou and a recommendation to visit the West Street Bar in Suzhou, which is described as a "three storey bar crammed full of Chinese and European antiques. With its homey ambience, eclectic crowd and friendly management, it's a great place to relax with a beer".

Will I ever enjoy a bike ride around Hangzhou or a beer in Suzhou? Probably not. But just reading about them is almost enough to make me jack in my job and head off eastwards in search of adventure, becoming a perennial traveller.

Almost....