Bent Shots?

I saw this photograph this afternoon on Who Ate All The Pies? when I should have been putting together some cutting edge market analysis.

First off, I don't care whether Zlatan Ibrahmiovic and Gerard Pique are the world's most high-profile gay footballers. What got me thinking is that if they are they're the ONLY gay footballers I'm aware of playing at the very top of the game.

In fact, the only other gay footballer I can remember is Justin Fashanu, who of course tragically committed suicide in 1998.

In the west, somewhere between two and thirteen per cent of the population is estimated to be gay. Say, for argument's sake, that the figure is ten per cent. Then, presume that each Premiership club has a 20-man squad. That's 40 gay men.

Even assuming that only two per cent of men are gay. That's eight gay Premiership footballers. Even suppose that the macho world of football has only half as many gay employees as society at large. That's four Premiership footballers.

It seems strange that, when football has largely managed to shake off the worst of its racist, misogynistic, xenophobic and bigoted bad days, no gay players have publicly come out.

Will Ibrahimovic and Pique be the first?

The Last Waltz

In the May 2009 issue of The Stool Pigeon, the free music newspaper, there's a small feature on the 10 Most Popular Funeral Songs for people aged between 20 and 44.

Before I go any further, here's the list:

1. Jeff Buckley - Last Goodbye
2. REM - Everybody Hurts
3. The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony
4. Sinead O'Connor - Nothing Compares 2U
5. Robbie Williams - Angels
6. U2 - With Or Without You
7. Westlife - You Raise Me Up
8. Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart
9. Crowded House - Don't Dream It's Over
10. Gary Jules - Mad World

It's a strange assortment. From the sublime - Jeff Buckley and The Verve - to the ridiculous - Westlife.

With the possible exception of Bittersweet Symphony, none of the tracks is uplifting, all choosing to wallow in misery. I'm surprised that neither Oasis nor Nirvana make an appearance, and a little surprised that Crowded House make the list.

I decided long ago that the songs I'd like played at my funeral are The Beatles' Strawberry Fields Forever and Doves' Here It Comes.

But I think I'd also like something uplifting, perhaps in the vein of Elbow's One Day Like This or The Verve's Love Is Noise. I've heard in the past of a young man who died tragically early going out to the strains of Tenacious D's Tribute, in an effort to make everyone smile as they said goodbye to a dear friend and relative.

I've only been to one funeral that ended with a pop song, and it was The Byrds' version of Mr Tambourine Man. It made it difficult to listen to the song for a while afterwards, but it was a fitting way to say goodbye to the person in question.

The music played at your funeral should, at the end of the day (no pun intended), be something personal that means something to you and those in attendance.

I wonder if churches ever get requests for Too Drunk To Fuck by Dead Kennedys (for the chronic alcoholic), Star Fucker by Nine Inch Nails (for the groupie) or anything by Anal Cunt?

Twittering On

I signed up for Twitter this week.


I didn't know anything about Twitter until fairly recently, when The Tomahawk Kid asked if I was on Twitter. I wasn't at that time, but my acquisition a fortnight ago of an all-singing, all-dancing, ultra-modern internet mobile phone encouraged me to take the plunge and sign up.


So far, I'm intrigued. Twitter seems to be Facebook without the constant oneupmanship, stupid games and getting poked by idiots from school you'd rather forget.


But it's just the latest in a long line of social networking sites that have suckered me in. Over the years, I've joined Friends Reunited, MySpace, Bebo, WAYN, Facebook and probably several others that I've forgotten.


So while I can now send an emailed photograph of myself to the six people worldwide who are bored enough to want to know what I'm doing (including Barack Obama), my own wife doesn't know what I had for lunch today and my parents don't know what I'm currently watching on TV.


It's a strange world we live in.

Dying Virgin

The current collapse of some of Britain's best-known high street traders has had an unexpected effect.

When Woolworths announced that it had begun a closing down sale, the day immediately following the announcement was the 100-year-old company's record highest day of trading. The Aberdeen brach was like food parcel day at a UN refugee camp, scrums of people all but slamming each other into the rapidly emptying shelves.

Yesterday, Mrs Wife and I ventured into Dundee and found ourselves in Zavvi, the oddly-named record emporium formerly known as Virgin.

(Richard Branson obviously bailed at just the right time. And the Virgin is now right royally screwed.)

It was a similar situation to that we encountered in Woolies just before it closed - the shop probably seeing more money flowing into its tills in single days than in the previous six months combined.

It's a curious situation - we're only tempted out into the shops when we think there's a bargain to be had, and we don't care enough to spend money in well-kent high street stores until they're wheezing their last dying breaths.

Just 17

A friend from my university days came to visit last week, providing us with the first opportunity to catch up with each other since his stag do last year.

While he and his wife were here, we watched Motherwell playing in Europe, a match in which it was brought to our attention that it is 17 years since Motherwell last won a trophy.

I remember the Scottish Cup final of 1991, as I think it was the first in which I'd taken a real interest. The fact that it was an extra time seven-goal thriller helped, as did Ally Maxwell's heroics in goal despite having suffered a broken rib during the match.

But it wasn't the football reminiscing that struck me - it was the idea that the match was more than 17 years ago.

Initially, it seemed impossible that 17 years had passed. But I'm torn between that fact and the fact that ONLY 17 years have passed, given how much has happened in the interim.

Since a Motherwell team containing Davie Cooper, Tom Boyd and Phil O'Donnell lifted the cup, I've finished primary school and been through both high school and university. Britain has had three new Prime Ministers, four if you include Thatcher, whose reign ended in 1991.

I've moved house at least 10 times. Mrs Wife and I have been around the world. Mrs Wife has become Mrs Wife. My grampa has died. My parents have split up. I've endured more hangovers than I care to remember. Princess Diana, George Harrison, the Queen Mother, the Pope and George Best have all died. Dunblane, Columbine, two Iraq wars, the complete collapse of the Soviet Union and September 11 have all come and gone. So too have Euro 92, USA 94, Euro 96, France 98, Euro 2000, Japan & South Korea 2002, Euro 2004, Germany 2006 and Euro 2008.

But I can still remember watching that Scottish Cup final, and recreating its key moments with a seven-year-old Baby Brother in the park afterwards. I remember the excitement at receiving a signed photograph of Ally Maxwell from the SFA. I remember Davie Cooper humiliating Dundee United despite being in his late 30s.

So, has it been 17 long years since Motherwell won a trophy? Or only 17 years? I can't decide.

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.

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....

Don't Panic

What's the easiest way to kick-start a period of mass hysteria in the general public?

At the moment, it seems as though all it takes is for some high heid yin to say "Don't Panic".

I ambled along to the local BP garage a few minutes ago to pick up some lunch, and it seems that the world has gone mad. Despite warnings in the media that panic buying of fuel will merely hasten an avoidable crisis, cars were queuing out onto the road in the mad melee to purchase petrol.

The diesel pumps at this garage have already run dry, and it seems that the staff don't know when they will next be refilled.

I'm now wondering if this phenomenon applies only to fuel, or to other consumables? If someone somewhere announced tomorrow that there would be a shortage of milk within the next week, would people start panic-buying cow juice? Could we expect a sudden run on coffee if Colombia and Kenya announced they weren't going to ship any more?

The answer to both of those is probably yes. But what if we were instead told that the world supply of Angel Delight was starting to run short - would Asda and Tesco be stowed out with scrums of consumers fighting over packets of butterscotch and strawberry flavoured stoor?

Or if the suppliers of pickled eggs stopped pickling eggs, would there be sudden stockpiling of these precious resources in kitchen cupboards around the country?

Sounds like a good experiment to me.

Soap On A Rope

Soapworld is a miserable place.

Mrs Wife's nightly entertainment regime sees us visit Hollyoaks, Emmerdale, Coronation Street and Albert Square, as well as the occasional stop off in Ramsay Street (literally, in the photograph above taken in 2004).

Tonight's merry little jaunt has seen us "entertained" by a hit and run, blackmail, a baby contracting leukemia, three people arrested for supplying drugs, a gang of teenage thugs terrorising an elderly woman, another "tear-jerking" tale of a hit and run and the stabbing of a teenage boy.

Aside from wallowing in other people's misery, it strikes me that these places can't be especially great places to live.

Imagine being an estate agent selling a house in the picturesque village of Emmerdale.

"Charming four-bed stone farmhouse. Double glazing, gas central heating, gardens to front and rear. Emmerdale is a lively village in the Yorkshire Dales, 15 miles from the town of Hotton. Recent events have included fatal plane and bus crashes and an explosion that wiped out almost half of the village's residents."

I'm sure that would convince most buyers to look elsewhere.

But moving south, buyers in London can't be quite so choosy:

"Two-bedroom terraced town house, situated close to busy local pub, corner shop, garage and tube station. Please ignore the fact that there have been at least two devasting house fires, three fatal car crashes and four murders in this neighbourly east end square in the past 24 years. Oh, and the gangsters who live next door."

Maybe that's why you never see any estate agents move into Albert Square.

Cynic? Yeah, right.

I'm pretty cynical. I'm Scottish and I'm a journalist, so it's to be expected.

But I thought that I was more than 56% cynical - I'm not sure how you put a percentage on cynicism, but the strange people of the worldwide interweb managed it.

You Are 56% Cynical

Yes, you are cynical, but more than anything, you're a realist. You see what's screwed up in the world, but you also take time to remember what's right.

How Cynical Are You?

As seen at Big Rab's site.

Escape To Victory

An interesting article on The Times website today on some homeless footballers who have gone AWOL:

African participation in the Homeless World Cup, a football tournament designed to improve the confidence of former vagrants, was under review last night after 15 players went on the run at the finals in Denmark.

The competition’s aim — to offer a golden opportunity for homeless people to change their lives — was taken literally by seven players from Burundi, four from Liberia, three from Cameroon and one from Afghanistan.

Danish police were looking for the footballers last night but admitted that they could easily have travelled further afield in the Schengen system of 15 “borderless” EU countries, which do not require visitors to show passports. The players’ visas expired on Monday after the tournament ended.

Kay Byles, a spokeswoman for the Scottish-based Homeless World Cup Foundation, said that it was the first of the annual contests — which started in 2002 — to experience runaways. Arrangements for next year’s cup in Melbourne would be reviewed, she said.

Is it just me, or does the concept of the Homeless World Cup seem a little naive?

You take 500 homeless people, many of them from third world nations, to Denmark and expect them all to play in the tournament before returning home.

Why would homeless people from Cameroon, Liberia, Afghanistan or Burundi want to return home to their own countries when faced with a golden opportunity to start afresh in Denmark?

True, they will still be homeless in Europe, and are effectively in the country illegally. But I think I'd sooner take my chances on the streets of Copenhagen than on those of Yaounde, Monrovia or Kabul.

And, instead of flying homeless people around the world to play football, couldn't the organisers make better use of their time and money by finding them somewhere to live in their home countries, and by giving them training or finding them jobs?

By the by, Scotland won the tournament, defeating Poland 9-3 in the final. Let the record show that Scotland won the World Cup in 2007, and that England havne't won it for more than 40 years.

Sporran Language

Jesus Christ on a bike (apologies if that offended anyone....in fact no, no apologies. This is MY blog - if you don't like a wee bit of blasphemy, just point your browser in another direction).

The British government is giving serious consideration to issuing licences to people who own sporrans.

As regular readers will be aware, I both own an (fairly) regularly don a kilt in an effort to convince people that I am a stylish, well-dressed drunk, rather than a scruffy, looks-like-he-dressed-in-a-charity-shop-with-his-eyes-closed drunk.

I've owned my kilt since shortly before my wedding last year - so therefore my sporran would be subject to the licensing laws.

So how exactly does one go about obtaining a license for a bit of dead seal bought more than a year ago?

What is this country coming to? Are we on a slippery slope to having to apply to the government to own a pair of leather shoes? Will angry mobs storm the streets demanding that the authorities recognise their Right To Wear Wool?

Well, the government can try - but I don't fancy their chances of getting that piece of legislation through.

Begins At Home

England's international footballers are amongst the most loathsome, obscenely rich people in the country.

In one passage of Frank Lampard's autobiography (which must be a thrilling read covering his 28 years on the planet) he supposedly regales the reader with the story of how he was in awe of the wealth on show on Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich's yacht. This from a man who earns about eighty thousand pounds a week.

In the space of a week, Joey Barton, a mono-syllabic thug who in any other walk of life would likely have been jailed by now, earns four times as much as the average British worker.

So, it is with mixed feelings that I read today's news that the England national team is to donate all of its earnings from international fixtures to charity.

True, the move is to be applauded. But we are talking here of 25 players making a donation once every couple of months. There are more than 400 players plying their trade in the Premiership, all of whom could make a sizeable difference by making a similar pledge.

What's In A Name?

Guess which site is top unsponsored link when someone types "male jock meat" into the Optimum search engine?

Even worse - I finish above Gay Man Flicks TGP - Free Gay Sex Movies Every Day :)

I really should have thought of a better name for this blog....

Schooled

Teachers aren't allowed to do anything to discipline unruly pupils nowadays. I was fortunate in that I grew up in the post-cane era, so I never experienced the smack of willow on my hand or rear end as a result of my cheek.

But without the threat of corporal punishment, how can teachers control a class of 30 unruly teenagers? To be honest, some of them probably can't.

So is it any surprise that teachers at a school in Kent have resorted to keeping a private journal pointing out the flaws in pupils, primarily for their own entertainment?

Unfortunately for the school involved, someone misplaced the book and it fell into the hands of a member of the public.

This concerned citizen was disturbed to find that it referred to one boy as a "ding bat" who was "away with the fairies", and another as being a "bit of a wally".

Admitedly, the teachers shouldn't have let this book get out of the staff room. But is anyone really surprised that teachers think some pupils are a bit useless?

How many of us in our jobs don't deal with colleagues or customers who we would describe in equally fond terms?

One of my report cards from my final year of high school, when I was 18, said that I was "so laid back, he's almost horizontal". Another from primary school said that if I had devoted as much time to my lessons as I had to working on becoming Rangers' star striker, I'd have enjoyed a more fruitful year.

But hey, at least I cam out the other end a rounded, well-balanced individual (who didn't end up playing up front for Rangers). I wonder if the ding bat or the bit of a wally will do as well?

Ta-Ta Tony

Finally, after 10 years of his gormless grin, sweaty shirts and smarmy style, Tony Blair has announced the date when he will resign as Prime Minister.

I am no fan of Blair. In fact, in my list of irritating people, he is probably second from the top behind Gillian McKeith (if you don't know who she is, you're lucky. But you can Google her.)

When Blair became Prime Minister, I was still at school, Princess Diana was still alive and Rangers were the champions of Scotland. I don't think that TB (how apt that his initials are the same as those of a fatal disease) was responsible for my aging, Diana's death or Rangers' decline, but he can be held accountable for a lot of things.

My student days were made a lot harder when Blair's government, all of whom enjoyed a free university education, decided to abolish student grants and replace them with loans.

On a very personal level, this is the Blair government's single biggest effect on my life. House prices and interest rates may have risen and the cost of living may be higher in general, but these things would probably have happened anyway. Blair and his cabinet made the decision to charge people for the privilege of enjoying higher education, and that is something I have never been able to forgive.

One of the joys of being British is that everyone is giving a chance to do the best they can, but stripping student grants added pitfalls to what was previously a level playing field.

Nonetheless, Blair is most likely to be remembered for his actions in peace and war. His time as Prime Minister has seen the unthinkable happen in Northern Ireland, with Unionists and Republicans sharing office, setting down their weapons and attempting to forge a better future in the province. A critic of Blair's I may be, but this development should rank as his greatest achievement.

However, his actions in leading Britain into Afghanistan and Iraq will serve as the permanent legacy of his time in charge. By throwing his hat in the ring with Bush, Tony lost a lot of friends, both at home and overseas, and a lot of voters. Even now, in polling booths across the country, voters who had previously backed Blair and his New Labour have deserted him in their thousands.

Whether the war was right or not is a debate that has been done to death. Stating that the war in Iraq was in response to proof that Saddam Hussein had, or was planning to build, weapons of mass destruction, was the wrong tack to take. Had Blair said from the outset: "Saddam's an asshole, he's killing people in Iraq and we want to free the Iraqis from his tyranny", he might have found more support coming his way.

The most disturbing aspect of Blair resigning as Prime Minister is that Gordon Brown is his replacement-in-waiting. Blair may be a smarmy, soundbite-driven snake, but he certainly has charisma. Brown, on the other hand, is as dour as can be imaginable. I don't for a minute think that politicians should be elected solely on their abilities in front of the camera, but what Brown makes up in political nous, he certainly lacks in flair.

Are we on the verge of a better time? Or will we look back on Blair's decade in charge as a comparitive golden era? Only hindsight will tell.

Visual DNA

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Whilst checking out some of my favourite blogs this afternoon, I was intrigued by a link on Blue Sloth's page.

Over at Imagini, you're asked to choose images from a series that appears on screen, which is then used to build a personality profile, known as your Visual DNA

I must admit, I was sceptical at first, but my effort, seen above, managed pretty well to nail me.

Apathy Only Ruined Me

One of my favourite lyricists is Gruff Rhys of the Super Furry Animals. His native language is Welsh, which may be why his lyrics tend to differ from those written by songsmiths whose first tongue is English.

To my mind, the band peaked in 1997 and 1998 with the release of the album Radiator and the Ice Hockey Hair EP.

The track Hermann Loves Pauline, which first appeared on Radiator, explores the life and times of Albert Einstein. The opening verse sets the tone:

Hermann loved Pauline
And Pauline loved Hermann
They made love and gave birth
To a little German
They called him MC squared
Because he rapped like no other
An asthma sufferer
Like Ernesto Guevara

I don't think I'll ever hear another song that manages to namecheck Einstein, Che Guevara and Marie Curie, Monte Cristo cigars and Ventolin inhalers.

Another favourite is Demons:

Clarity just confuses me
The lines drawn on a map, a strange assembly
When there's northeners in southeners
And westenders in Eastenders
And sunny days in January
Left spaces in my diary

But the demons never need to know
What the demons never got to see
As we fall in and out of line
Stay in touch now for a while

Cos I know that apathy only ruined me
Hanging around waiting for calamity
And by the year four million
Our skins will be vermilion
I own a dartboard memory
So I'll forget any felony

But the demons never need to know
What the demons never got to see
As we fall in and out of line
Stay in touch now for a while
Cos I know that you know
That we know they don't know what's going on

But the demons never need to know
What the demons never got to see
As we fall in and out of line
Stay in touch now for a while
But the demons never need to read
What we never got around to write
A flirt with mediocrity comes with a heavy penalty
Cos I know that you know
That we know they don't know what's going on...

But my single favourite Gruff Rhys lyric is from Download, the penultimate song on Radiator:

There are people who think, and people who don't
And the people who don't are the ones who have most
There are people who lie, and others who'll cry
And the people who lie are the ones that get by
In the corporate rush to devour the new
We'll be losing our friends who will number but few
Position yourself on another man's cruise
One to share, the other to choose

No other lyric writer I've heard better encapsulates the stark realities of the modern corporate world than Gruff Rhys does on this track. Though the Super Furry Animals have continued to push the boundaries of indie music, welding electro beats, Beach Boys harmonies and scuzzy punk together, they've never again reached the same levels they did on Radiator, which is a musical and lyrical treat, and as good an album as I have ever heard.

Waste

It's easy to forget, in this era of the Supersize Big Mac Meal and the Kingsize Mars Bar, that food in Britain was rationed less than 60 years ago.

For people of my generation, Thatcher's Children, a life where you can't eat whatever you want, whenever you want, is unthinkable.

It wasn't actually food that got me thinking along these lines. One day, whilst out walking in the Bruntsfield area of Edinburgh, I came across a balloon shop. As the name suggests, this was an emporium that stocked only balloons and related parephenalia And it struck me that life in Britain has progressed pretty fast in the last 60 years - from a country where meat, eggs and cheese were rationed, to one where we need a shop exclusively to sell balloons.

I can see vast differences in attitudes between my grandparents' generation and mine, with my parents' generation somewhere between the two. My grandparents would carefully manage their finances, down to the last penny. If something wasn't essential, it wasn't purchased. Household items were repaired, often many times.

My generation is almost the complete opposite. If you can't afford something, buy it anyway and rack up huge credit card bills and overdrafts in the process. If something breaks, buy a new one.

Our society in the west today seems to be geared towards the short term. How can it make sense that it costs more to repair a broken kettle than it does to buy a new one?

The recent Channel Four programme The Human Footprint showed in stark terms how wasteful we Brits are. As well as showing how much urine and vomit we produce in our lifetime, it also said that most of us will get through four televisions and nine DVD players.

The programme's website also has a nifty calculator, which told me that I've probably now consumed 291 tins of baked beans (probably more in my case - I was a student for four years), that I've had 36,011 dreams and bought 183 books.

And it came in short on the number of mobile phones I've had - it suggested six, when in fact I'm on my seventh. In fact, there are now more mobile phones in Britain than there are people.

If anything points at how wasteful a race we are it's that.

Political Power

Today it seems as though nothing is happening and that, conversely, everything is happening.

With each passing minute, the result from another constituency is announced, bringing us closer to a result from the closest Scottish election yet. But with each passing minute, as the result from another constituency is announced, neither Labour nor the SNP is showing any signs of gaining a majority in the Scottish Executive.

As I write this, Labour has won 37 seats in the Wee Parliament, the SNP 34, and the Liberal Democrats 12. Which means that, once again, the Liberals are the party with the real power.

If you'll excuse what may be a disturbing image for a moment, Scottish Liberal Democrats leader Nicol Stephen has the choice of jumping into bed with Jack McConnell or with Alex Salmond. With McConnell, he knows what to expect; they've been together before and have enjoyed a fairly steady relationship thus far.

But Alex represents a new and untested bedfellow, who is promising an exciting future as one of the founding fathers of an independent Scotland.

So, it's up to the Liberals - stay in the steady marriage or opt for the exciting affair. Who'd've thunk Scottish politics could be so tempestuous?