Everywhere You Go

The weather at the moment is rather strange. Last week, it rained non-stop for three days, causing flooding and landslides in and around Aberdeen.

 

But now the sun is shining and it is unseasonably warm. Which is causing me some problems.

 

It's too cold, and the risk of rain is too high, to go without a warm and waterproof jacket. But when walking around wearing said jacket, I quickly become too hot and end up sweating like Gary Glitter in a Phuket playgroup.

 

But if I then take my jacket off, I quickly become too cold, and it's really too big to be carrying round.

 

I have neither the funds nor the inclination to invest in a new winter jacket (even though the one I'm currently wearing has been around for a few years now and has the remains of a pen lodged in the lining, the pen having slipped through a hole in one of the myriad pockets).

 

I hate autumn. Cold without being properly cold, warm without being warm enough to stay out for too long. Far too wet. Dark mornings and darker evenings. It's at this time of year that a permanent return to Australia (or a transfer to my employer's Houston or Singapore office) seems ever more inviting.

21st Century Boy

I think the musical pool I've been dipping into over the past few years has shrunk somewhat.

 

Spurred on by a text from a friend, I attempted to draw up my list of my 10 favourite albums since 2000.

 

And off the top of my head, the list consisted of:

 

The Cooper Temple Clause - See This Through and Leave

The Cooper Temple Clause - Kick Up The Fire and Let The Flames Break Loose

The Cooper Temple Clause - Make This Your Own

Elbow - Asleep In The Back

Elbow - Leaders Of The Free World

Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid

The Coral - The Coral

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever To Tell

The Libertines - Up The Bracket

Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not

 

So, six albums contributed by two artists. No Oasis albums. No Doves. No Coldplay. No AC/DC, Queens of the Stone Age, Primal Scream, Manic Street Preachers, Verve, Bob Dylan or Ian Brown.

 

I'm wary of becoming one of those middle-aged guys who claims to have their finger on the pulse of modern music, but who can only tell you when the next Rush or David Bowie album is coming out.

 

I do think that most of the music covered by NME nowadays is pish - but I've probably thought that every year since 1998. They certainly lost me for a while around the turn of the century when they shamefully lauded The Strokes as some kind of defining band, when they were nothing of the kind.

 

But maybe I am in danger of losing my knowledge of what's new. Mrs Wife is the one who bought Florence and The Machine's debut album Lungs, while I've instead been spending my money on Beatles remasters and Ian Brown albums. While she can identify the new singles by The Enemy or The Big Pink from their exposure on Radio 1, I spend my morning commute listening to Miles Davis or Abbey Road.

 

I'll be 30 next year - is it time to give up the NME subscription and devote my time and money to Classic Rock instead?

Separated At Birth

Shamelessly stolen from another blog, which I would link to if it wasn't open to invited readers only.

Hey Jude

This reminds me of Baby Brother's A Capella renditions of Bohemian Rhapsody when he was around the same age.

Hidden Gems

The last time I looked, my Magic Tune Box had just under 21,000 songs on it. Most of these tracks are those I've ripped from my CDs, but some are from CDs borrowed from friends and family or from downloads both legal and illicit.

This much music means that to listen to it all would take solid weeks. And it also means that there are lots of tracks on the Magic Tune Box that I've never heard. Not even once.

So, a while back I decided that one way to remedy this would be to listen to all the albums on the Magic Tune Box in alphabetical order. As well as allowing me to hear some of the music for the first time, this also enabled me to keep my borderline OCD in check.

At the moment, I've gotten as far as "E". And today, I heard the Rory Gallagher compilation Etched In Blue for the first time.

I was blown away.

Thanks to my odd desire to listen to everything in some pre-defined order, and to the alphabet, I've discovered some new (30-year-old) tunes.

Take your happiness where you can find it folks....

Season 2009/2010: Match 2: Montrose v Queen's Park

It's now official - I support the worst "professional" football team in Scotland.

A measly two points from the first quarter of the season tells as much of the story as should be necessary - no wins from the opening nine matches.

As is the case with fans of most shite teams, I'm adamant that Montrose are better than this.

Except they're not.

The defence is largely anonymous. Paul Quinn could have stopped and made a cup of tea before scoring Queen's Park's first last night, with the centre backs - Sean Crighton and player/manager/captain/obergrupenfuhrer/king of the world Steven Tweed - nowhere to be seen.

Andrew McNeil was an erratic keeper when he was at Hibs, and presumably that's why he now finds himself slumming it at the foot of Division Three.

And Montrose have no-one who can score goals. All of their attacks were based around long shots from outside or near the edge of the box, or aimlessly lumping the ball into the box and hoping that Tweed or Crighton could connect with their noggins.

It seems a long time since the heady days of Jim Weir, when promotion looked a serious possibility - but it's only been a season and half. Montrose's slide to below mediocrity has been rapid, thanks in no small part to a whole host of managers and a club-wide budget cut.

It's going to be a grim winter.

Rare Photograph From The 1940 Tour de France

 

Gone But Not Forgotten

My granny died early this morning after a long series of illnesses.

If I'm honest, it's a blessing of sorts, as age and illness had slowly and cumulatively stripped her of everything that made her my granny - her memories, her personality, her mobility and, in the end, everything bar her body's refusal to finally surrender.

At the moment, it's hard to put those memories to the side, but I'd much rather remember her for the wonderful woman she was.

She was a woman who loved unconditionally, who was singularly devoted to her husband, children and grandchildren and a woman to whom there was no greater pleasure than spending time surrounded by her loved ones.

I may be biased, but I have never met a better cook, and I would give almost anything to taste her steak pie and roast tatties again.

My memories are all over the place at the moment, but all of them are happy. Images of the whole family clustered around the kitchen table playing Monopoly, my granny always insisting on being the iron; her singing along to Radio 2, always out of tune and always a bar behind the recorded version; roaring with laughter at Some Like It Hot despite having seen it hundreds of times.

I could go on like this forever, but I won't. I'll just sit here with my memories of a wonderful woman.

Flashback

A while ago (well, two years ago if we're being accurate) I posted an old account of the time Mrs Wife and I were travelling around Vietnam.

Because I'm lazy and I was a better writer when I was a 23-year-old layabout than I am now that I'm a 29-year-old layabout, here's an account of when Mrs Wife and I first arrived in Australia in late 2003.

Happy New Year from Perth! Hope everybody had a good Hogmanay despite what I hear were hurricane-like weather conditions on the East of Scotland.

For the record, both New Year's Eve and New Year's Day were scorching here. As this is the start of the Ozzie summer, temperature is steadily rising, so although Xmas Day's 32 degrees seemed pretty darn hot, the temperature is now nudging 40 degrees almost every day, so it can almost seem unbearable - at least until I remember that the alternative is driving home from Aberdeen in the dark during a blizzard - then the ice lollies and sunbathing don't seem as bad....

Anyway, life in Perth is good. It's a lot smaller than I expected, especially after arriving from Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, but it's a lot more manageable than those three cities, and a lot more chilled out. We've been here since the 20th of December, and in that short space of time I have already had three different employers.

Finding work hasn't been that easy, our visas restrict us to three months in a single job, so employers tend to shy away from travellers. My first crack at employment was in a small cafe in the middle of Perth run by a psychotic Chinese woman called Nancy (that was what first set the alarm bells ringing, Chinese people aren't called Nancy, they're called Ng and Chan and things). The place was staffed almost exclusively by illegal immigrants, from places as diverse as Yugoslavia (the mysterious and suspicious Dragan - potentially evading war crimes charges I think), Ben from Taiwan (has now overstayed his visa by three years) and assorted other Orientals with all the warmth and endearing qualities of frozen vomit.

After a four-hour trial spent avoiding Nancy's death stare as much as possible, I was offered the job for $12 an hour, which Nancy assured me was a great wage. Which it is in British terms (almost five GBP an hour) but the minimum wage for waiters in Oz is $15ph. I also knew that if I had to work there for two months, there would either be a raid by the Department of Immigration, or I would end up knocking Nancy's head in with a coffee pot, so I politely declined her offer.

My second stab at earning some cash was scrubbing campervans near the airport. Although it sounds like a pretty crappy job, it paid $14ph (about six pounds), was outdoors in the sun, and the people were pretty sound. But there wasn't enough work to last all the employees, so it was a case of last in, first out, but I at least got three days out of this one.

And now we're both working for a telemarketing company, trying to sell mobile phones. There's a base rate to ensure we don't starve, but most of the money is made through commission, so we'll see how it goes. We're both looking for better jobs though. Personally, I'm just waiting for the job advert seeking an immediate vacancy for a roving music journalist on $100,000 a year....

Aside from the jobhunting, we haven't really done very much since we arrived, partly due to having nae cash, and partly because our time here has been interrupted by Xmas and New Year. We spent Xmas in the hostel, with a champagne brekky by the pool and then a full Xmas dinner and Xmas supper.

It was good to spend the day lazing round in the sun, and generally mucking round in the pool. We were out in Perth on Hogmanay, our hostel is in the 'trendy' area of Northbridge (imagine Camden in London or The Grassmarket in Edinburgh, but with more pissed British people and no rain and you're getting close), so we spent the night at the street party there, walking between the stages and through the huge crowds until the fireworks.

So now we've moved into a flat with a couple of Ozzies, business student Tim and Journalism graduate Leah, and we're trying to save a bit of cash to buy a car and keep on moving. Hope everybody is fully recovered from the festivities and glad to be back at work.

Panda-ring To The Masses

Should we let the giant panda die out? An interesting debate here between two conservationists.

Sunday Soul: Bobby Womack and Peace - Across 110th Street

Taken from the opening credits of Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown.

Season 2009/2010: Match 1: Montrose v East Stirlingshire

We may be almost midway through September, but today was my first live football game of the season. A combination of weddings and work trips meant that I missed Montrose's first three home games - which may not have been a bad thing, given that they were two draws and a defeat.

But today I was back in Montrose in time to get myself down to Links Park for the first time this season. And within 10 minutes of kick-off, I almost wished I wasn't.

Shire were awarded a soft penalty after just five minutes, former Montrose man Andy Rodgers sending Andy McNeil the wrong way from the spot. Then three minutes later the home side was another goal behind, the impossible-to-spell-correctly-without-checking-first-every-time Michael Bolochoweckyj rising unchallenged to head home a corner at the back post.

Montrose were dire throughout the first half, and there was a real danger that the Falkirk-based visitors would put them to the sword.

They were marginally better in the second half, but created little of note. In all honesty, they were pretty dire.

Steven Tweed continues to select himself at centre back, but lasted only 26 minutes today before succumbing to injury. New goalkeeper Andrew McNeil looked erratic, but he made some good saved and looks like he could be a decent signing. Marek Tomana, who reminds me of Georgi Kinkladze in the way he runs and passes the ball, but he looked short of match fitness and drifted out of today's match. Fraser Milligan was another who got pass marks today, but needs to have points deducted for wearing pink boots.

There weren't many positives out there today, and Montrose are now firmly planted at the bottm of the bottom league. I think it's going to be a long season.

When Driving Lessons Go Wrong

This is what happens when a learner driver takes a corner too wide in Springbank Terrace, Aberdeen....

....when the driving instructor grabs the wheel to stop a collision with an oncoming car....

....and when the learner panics and accidentally hits the accelerator instead of the brake....

Running Man

A colleague and friend of mine has done what I consider to be a very brave, and very foolish, thing - he's signed up for next year's Edinburgh marathon.

I know for a fact that I couldn't run a marathon - my knees are agony after an hour of football, never mind four or more hours of running on concrete.

And there's no way I could be bothered to train for a marathon - I'm just too damned lazy.

Please head across to Kevin's blog and show your support for his madness....

Are You All Sitting Comfortbold Two Square On Your Botties?

Then I'll begin....

So starts the second half of Ogden's Nut Gone Flake, one of the greatest albums ever made.

As well as having the Small Faces at their peak, mixing mod, musichall and rock stompers together, the second half of the album is a concept piece narrated by one of my stranger heroes, Stanley Unwin.

Unwin famously jabbered in his own language, Unwinese, and his utterances on the second half of Ogden's are wonderful.

I can't accurately annotate his contributions, but this comes from Wikipedia:

Unwinese, also known as "Basic Engly Twentyfido" - probably a reference to Charles Kay Ogden's 1930 work "Basic English", which strips the language down to 8509 words, was a special, ornamented and mangled form of English in which many of the words were corrupted in a playful and humorous way. Unwin’s performances could be hilarious yet disorienting although the meaning and context were always conveyed in a disguised and picturesque style.

Unwinese was very poetic in the way it alluded to its subject – e.g. Elvis Presley and his contemporaries are described as having ‘wasp-waist and swivel-hippy’ – and it was often punctuated with moments of clarity and directness to accentuate the ‘nonsense’ – e.g. ‘Deep joy!’ ‘Oh yes’.

Unwin claimed his gift came from his mother, who once told him that on the way home she had "falolloped over and grazed her kneeclabbers". This phrase eventually turned up in one of Unwin's monologues, Goldiloppers and the Three Bearloders.

I've just purchased Unwin's first album, Rotatey Diskers With Unwin, and it's fabulous. And available from Amazon for less than £3. At that price, it's a steal.

Unwin's website can be seen here.

And my favourite piece of Unwin trivia: He is buried in the churchyard at Long Buckby, with wife Frances, who pre-deceased him. Their gravestone has the epitaph, "Reunitey in the heavenly-bode – Deep Joy".

Friday Ten - My Ten Favourite Beatles Songs (At This Precise Moment In Time)

1 - Strawberry Fields Forever

 

2 - A Day In The Life

 

3 - While My Guitar Gently Weeps

 

4 - I Am The Walrus

 

5 - All You Need Is Love

 

6 - Dear Prudence

 

7 - Come Together

 

8 - Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)

 

9 - Twist and Shout

 

10 - Please Please Me

Birthday Wishes....

....To my Faither, who turned 50 today.

The Sixteenth Groanin' Jock Lyrical Challenge

It's been a VERY long time (eight months to be exact) since the last instalment of the Groanin' Jock Lyrical Challenge.

Neepheid was the winner on that occasion, correctly identifying two of the tracks. Answers are now on the comments on that post.

So now, here are the five mystery lyrics for you to identify. Simply name the artist and track - answers in the comments, no Googling!

1. Well your railroad gate, you know I just can't jump it.

2. "Look out the left," the captain said, "The lights down there, that's where we'll land."

3. I got the pulsating rhythmical remedy.

4. Temperature's rising, fever is high, can't see no future, can't see no sky.

5. The pack on my back is aching, the straps seem to cut me like a knife.

Desert Island Discs

As seen at Cedric M. Kippers' Magically Bored - The Desert Island Discs challenge.

Rule number 1. You only have room for 25 albums.

Rule number 2. You can only name one album per band.

Rule number 3. They have to be named in order.

Rule number 4. Greatest Hits or compilations are invalid.

So without further ado (or any ado at all) here is the list of 25 records I'd take with me to listen to until the end of my days.

25 - The Cooper Temple Clause - See This Through and Leave

24 - Supergrass - In It For The Money

23 - Gomez - Liquid Skin

22 - Powderfinger - Vulture Street

21 - The Charlatans - The Charlatans

20 - Primal Scream - Exterminator

19 - Michael Jackson - Thriller

18 - The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead

17 - The Jam - Sound Affects

16 - Elbow - ASleep In The Back

15 - The Libertines - Up The Bracket

14 - Radiohead - OK Computer

13 - Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not

12 - The Doors - The Doors

11 - The Bluetones - Return To The Last Chance Saloon

10 - The Coral - The Coral

9 - Small Faces - Ogden's Nut Gone Flake

8 - John Lennon - Imagine

7 - Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited

6 - Stereophonics - Word Gets Around

5 - Oasis - Definitely Maybe

4 - The Beatles - Magical Mystery Tour

3 - Super Furry Animals - Radiator

2 - Nirvana - Nevermind

1 - The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses

This isn't the list of my 25 favourite albums - there would be at least another six Beatles albums, and others by Nirvana, Oasis, The Stone Roses and Radiohead if it was. I couldn't elevate a single Rolling Stones album, or any of the records by Pink Floyd, The Who, The Jimi Hendrix Experience or David Bowie to my top 25, and even Red Hot Chili Peppers, Muse, Coldplay and The Verve fail to make the cut.

Now, I throw the challenge open to everyone else - what would be the 25 records you would take with you to a desert island?

Keep On Walking

Fantastic commercial for Johnnie Walker starring Robert Carlyle.

As seen on another blog that I would link to if it wasn't open to invited guests only.

Sunday Soul: Stevie Wonder - Superstition

Live from Sesame Street!

Signed Shearer Shirt

A tad optimistic methinks....

Down and Out?

With Mrs Wife visiting a friend in Inverness this afternoon, I'm home alone to watch the Scotland v Macedonia match.

It's a must-win match - and even a win is no guarantee that we can finish second in a fairly average group.

The team selection hardly fills me with confidence - Stephen McManus hasn't played a game this season, Davie Weir is 39, Graham Alexander isn't international class, Kenny Miller is pish.

There's a lot of responsibility on the shoulders of Messrs McFadden and D Fletcher. Whether they can reach the top of their respective games today - wildly exciting attacking play and solid midfield combatism - remains to be seen, but for Scotland to win will require a determined performance from all of the (so far) misfiring team.

Then we just have to beat Holland....

Home Alone

Thanks to rain of Biblical proprtions yesterday - it was raining heavily when I got up at 6.15am, was still chucking down when I got home at 5.30pm, was absolutely belting down when I went to bed at 10pm and continued through the night - I am stuck at home.

Despite the fact that we're in one of the wettest parts of the world, our rail system can't cope with the water, and all trains are cancelled or severely delayed.

Which means that I'm "working from home" today, which means that I'm working in significantly greater comfort than I'm used to.

For a start, I'm in jeans, a jumper and thick woolly socks. NME TV is on in the background. I can eat what I like when I like.

And I'm realising once again that there's no way I could ever work from home permanently - I just don't have the discipline. I need to be in an air-conditioned office wearing proper work clothes to get me in the work frame of mind.

Still, one day isn't going to hurt.

Cradle Snatchers

It was a shock this afternoon when news broke that Chelsea have been banned from signing players until January 2011.

To me, and my fellow football-following colleagues, it was an unexpected announcement - none of us could remember hearing about the case before today, and none of us had heard of Gael Kakuta.

(I'd be willing to wager that even most Chelsea "fans" were oblivious to his existence until today.)

It's a brave step by FIFA, banning one of the world's richest (but not necessarily biggest and definitely not most successful) clubs from adding to their already formidable squad for the next 18 months.

It also explains why Chelsea were so quick to secure key players like John Terry and Ashley Cole to new long-term deals in the past week. But it does raise question marks over why they didn't rush out and sign new players ahead of the ban.

None of the players the club was linked with this summer made the move to Stamford Bridge, leaving Carlo Ancelotti with the same squad as that left behind by Guus Hiddink.

That's not necessarily a massive hardship - they're still a formidable force and one of the English game's most powerful clubs.

But all it would take would be a serious injury or loss of form from one or two of the club's key players and they could find themselves on the slide.

Aside from the hardship to Chelsea, I think that FIFA's decision shows that it does at least have some balls. If it won't simply stand by and watch clubs mercilessly plunder others of their homegrown talent, perhaps we'll see gradual shifts in the balance of power.

I'm not expecting Brechin City or Montrose to be up challenging the Old Firm any time soon (even if there have been a few players from the Angus clubs who have made the step up to the Premier League in recent years, including Andy Webster).

But if smaller clubs can nurture their talented players without having to fear that they will be snatched by a bigger club as soon as they show that they're special, maybe we will see those with better youth systems make more progress than they do now.

Amongst the potential beneficiaries are Hibs and Rangers, who have both produced a fair dose of Scottish internationals in recent years.

But no doubt Chelsea will appeal, money will talk and the status quo will remain.

So The Story Begins....

After 20-odd years of procrastinating, laziness, writer's block and various other excuses, I have attempted to start writing some fiction.

Whether this will take the form of a short story or novel, I haven't decided yet.

It took me around five hours, on and off, to write around 500 words. Which, to someone who writes a 50-page report every week, and who used to fill a whole newspaper single-handedly in three days, seems terribly and painfully slow.

And now that the first 500 words has been committed to paper (or to .doc anyway), I'm pretty much convinced that most of it is utter shit.

I bet Enid Blyton never had it this hard.

Walt Disney Marvel At That

Disney's acquisition of Marvel Comics yesterday for USD 4 billion has, unsurprisingly, seen a lot of people get their Spiderman pants in a twist at the prospect of the world's most sugary sweet company taking control of some of the biggest superhero names.

But that's the wrong viewpoint to take. Few companies on Earth have the global marketing reach that Disney does. Fewer still are so well represented across so many media - cartoons, live action shows, movies, comics, toys, computer games, theme parks and every form of merchandising tie-in under the sun.

Marvel can only benefit from having that kind of financial and marketing muscle behind it.

But almost immediately, some sections of the interweb went into overdrive at the prospect of Mickey Mouse joining the X-Men, Spider-Man joining forces with Donald Duck and Goofy facing Hulk.

However, Disney has a history not just with its own core characters, but in branches of popular culture one wouldn't normally associate with Uncle Walt's empire.

Quite aside from Disney's own Pirates of the Carribbean franchise, what a lot of the denizens of the blogosphere appear to have overlooked is that Disney also owns Mirmax Films. A quick scan of the list of films released by Miramax throws up:

Reservoir Dogs (Extended scenes of torture and graphic violence)

Pulp Fiction (Homosexual rape, gimps, violence, drug overdoses and so on)

Trainspotting (Heroin abuse, violence, sex)

Dogma (Alanis Morrissette as God)

The Talented Mr Ripley (Homosexuality, murder)

Bridget Jones's Diary (Sex, and one woman's obsessions with it. Oblique references to anal sex.)

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (Non-PC humour of almost every kind)

Gangs of New York (Violence)

Kill Bill (Yet more violence)

Clerks 2 (Bestiality amongst other attractions)

No Country For Old Men (Crazy serial killer cutting a swathe across America)

There Will Be Blood (Probably nothing too objectional, but hardly standard "Disney" fare)

and so on.

Disney hasn't bought Marvel because it wants to publish comics. And it hasn't bought Marvel so it can mess about with comics. If anything, the additional cash behind Marvel may enable it to publish more comics.

Sure, we might see a Pirates of the Caribbean series appear on Marvel in the future. But a Fantastic Four/Minnie Mouse crossover isn't going to be on the cards.

What the deal will enable Marvel to do is keep on doing what it does - publishing the best comics starring the best characters. Batman and The Joker aside, all of the best characters from the two main comic publishing houses are owned by Marvel. And now they have the financial backing to grow further.

But if Disney hasn't bought Marvel for its comics, why do the deal in the first place?

Because it now has access to 70 years of history - from Stan Lee's original Spider-Man and Fantastic Four comics onwards. The movie versions of Spider-Man and X-Men were huge box office smashes, while Fantastic Four and the Hulk have also performed fairly well.

Disney can add its considerable financial and movie muscle to this vast history (once current movie deals for Spider-Man, Iron Man, Hulk and Fantastic Four expire).

All in all, it seems to be a good deal for both parties.

And if Wolverine does get to make Bambi into venison with those claws?I'd watch that...

Return Of The Mark

It's been a good long while since I actually wrote anything worthwhile on this farflung outpost of the worldwide interweb.

(Some might say I've never written anything worthwhile on this farflung outpost of the worldwide interweb, and they'd probably be right.)

For far too long now, all I've been posting here are links, photographs and videos that amuse or entertain me.

I'm not entirely sure when the rot set in. I've just had no inspiration to put pen to paper (or fingers to keys) and write anything here for a few months. It's not from lack of potential material - in the last few weeks I've been to London, Bute, Oslo and Inveraray. I've seen a sensational performance of Waiting For Godot starring Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart. I've stood on the roof of St Paul's Cathedral. I've been the to the top of Besseggen. I've sung Elvis songs onstage at a wedding reception and Pulp songs in a Rothesay pub.

But for some reason, none of this has tempted me into adding new posts here. Maybe because I spend a long working week writing, I can't be bothered firing up the laptop and churning out more tripe.

Maybe I'm like Austin Powers and simply missing my mojo. I've long harboured ambitions of writing a novel, but every idea I have seems already to have been done. And if I can't write a couple of hundred words as a blog post, what hope do I have of writing something more substantial?

So I guess that I should start with baby steps - actually writing real posts here instead of simply posting photographs of people taking the piss out of Neil Lennon.

I very much doubt that anyone is still checking in here at all - if I can't be bothered stopping by, I doubt anyone else is. So I may be writing this to myself. But hey, baby steps....

George Burley's Leaving Do - Exclusive Picture

It was announced last night that George Burley's contract as Scotland football manager had been cancelled with immediate effect by the SFA.

 

An impromptu leaving party was held, as this exclusive picture shows.

Fine Effort

 

Footballers On Facebook

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Rio Ferdinand: going to hit the Amsterdam cafes before the game, who's in?
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Sat'day random drinks n' antics LOLZ

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Ashley C can't find his fone, can some1 give it a buzz for us?

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Roque Santa Cruz is looking forward to starting on Saturday

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Joleon Lescott became a fan of money.

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Marcus Bent is hoping to start at Old Trafford - 1 hour ago
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Jamie Redknapp is literally on facebook
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Mike Ashley My evil plan is almost complete.
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3 days ago
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Samir Nasri is watching Top Gear on Dave. Cheers Abou
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Jens Lehmann went down holding his face

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mark hughes sent jolean lescott invitation to join the group 'Mancity'

invite was rejected

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When I Get To The Bottom I Go Back To The Top

Some men, as they leave their youthful days of drinking and chasing women behind them, develop hobbies - pottering about in the garden, devoting more time to sports, collecting things or building model railways.

 

Taking the last of those hobbies further, John Ivers decided to build his own fully-functional roller coaster in his back garden.

 

There's a fine line between genius and madness....

Sunday Soul: James Brown - If I Ruled The World

Wonder Woman

Megan Fox as Wonder Woman. MmmmmmmHmmmmm.

Monkey Business

And yes, I do know it's an ape, not a monkey.

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.

Time For T

In the next few hours, I'll be setting off, via Falkirk, for T In The Park.

By my own reckoning, this will be my ninth T In The Park, but my first since 2006. While my brain remains free of the imminent alcoholic fug, here are my thoughts on each of the previous eight I've attended.

1997: My first festival, and T In The Park's first at Balado, near Kinross. My two friends and I take scandalously little drink and are generally unprepared for what awaits us. Highlights include Saturday headliners Kula Shaker and The Charlatans, while the weekend ends with a second tent jam-packed for John Squire's post-Roses band The Seahorses.

1998: Saturday's highlights include Audioweb and Super Furry Animals, who are so good that instead of going to see headliners The Prodigy, I instead go to the CD tent, buy a Super Furry Animals bootleg and return to my tent to listen to it. The rain came in the middle of the night and never stopped. My two friends bailed for home mid-afternoon on the Sunday, but I was determined to stick it out, despite the thigh-high mud, just to see Ian Brown. I cadge a lift home from two girls from school and get home around 2am, having been mesmerised by Brown's fantastic performance.

1999: This was my first year attending with folks from uni, one of whom I'll be sharing a tent with this weekend. I can't actually remember too much about what bands I saw, although I do remember Nicky Wire trashing the stage and giving away James Dean Bradfield's white fender guitar after the Manic Street Preachers' headline set.

2000: Mrs Wife (then known as Miss Girlfriend) and one of her friends accompany me to Balado to see Travis, Moby, Ocean Colour Scene and Beth Orton. I have no recollection of rain, but that line-up is hardly the most rock'n'roll, is it? Although I've just looked up the full line-up online and it seems we chose not to see Muse or The Flaming Lips....

2001: The first year in which the three of attending this year went together. Again, my overall recollections are hazy, but I do remember seeing Paul Weller's acoustic set. Having suffered through the whole of Wheatus' horror show, Weller promptly came on stage and started flexing his ego, playing Style Council songs and little-known solo work. Then Noel Gallagher joined in, they played That's Entertainment and everything was right with the world. Stereo MC's were also among the surprisingly fantastic acts.

2002: I left for T In The Park 2002 immediately after graduating, eschewing a night on the piss with my fellow graduands for a night eating cold food in a muddy field. The sound quality at the main stage was woeful, turning Oasis' headline set into a faint swirling noise. It also had the same effect on Primal Scream. Doves and The Cooper Temple Clause were both brilliant though.

By 2003, Mrs Wife and I were saving hard for a trip around the world. And by 2004, we were in Australia.

So by 2005, having returned from foreign climes, I was ready for a return to T In The Park. A huge group of us from Brechin set off together and turned a large part of the campsite into our own compound, cordoned off with yellow and black police tape. One of the most enjoyable Ts in terms of the pre-festival banter, plus the weather held out, which is always a bonus. Yet again, Super Furry Animals and Ian Brown are amongst the bands I see, although Ian Brown throws a strop early on during his set and storms off, having played a few Stone Roses songs. Still a great weekend though.

2006: Mrs Wife (who by this time is the newly-appointed Mrs Wife) again accompanies me, and I'm lucky enough to have a free press pass this time. Sound quality at the main stage again plays an unwelcome part, ruining the Arctic Monkeys and Hard-Fi sets, but The Who more than make up for it.

And, for a variety of reasons (primarily the £200 cost of a ticket and the number of neds) I've not been since.

Who knows what T In The Park 2009 will bring? I'm hoping to see Nick Cave, Jane's Addiction and Blur, but aside from that, the weekend is a blank canvas.

Sunday Soul: Aretha Franklin - Respect

The First Lady of Soul giving a thunderous performance of her signature tune - the faster tempo really makes this version stand out.

An Unwelcome Lift

Today, for the first time in my 29 years roaming the Earth, I found myself stuck in a lift.

Returning from a lunchtime game of five-a-side football, myself and five colleagues decided that, instead of climbing the stairs from the basement of our building, we would take the lift to our second floor office.

Upon entering the lift, just as we were about to begin our ascent, one of my colleagues jumped up and down a few times to shake the lift for a laugh. But in doing so it seemed he tripped a brake.

We had only barely started moving when the lift came to an abrupt halt. Pressing the buttons for any of the building's eight floors had no effect. And so it was with some reluctance that we pressed the alarm button.

The gentleman on the other end assured us that help would be on its way imminently. Which left the six of us crammed in the lift with nothing to do except wait.

Having just returned from a strenuous game of football in a hot sports hall, we were all already sweating before entering the lift. But the enclosed space, which had no air conditioning and little ventilation meant that only a short time elapsed before all six of us were sweating buckets. And shortly after that, condensation started pouring down the elevator's mirrored walls.

The banter flowed freely while we were locked in our tiny metal cell. Although when we began to discuss which of us would be eaten first if we were trapped in the lift overnight, and five of us agreed that we'd start with our small Chinese colleague "because he'd be leanest", I could sense that the colleague in question became just a tad more concerned.

Finally, after what seemed a lifetime, but was only really 25 minutes, the engineer prised the doors opne, allowing us to gulp down some fresh air. And bask in a round of applause from our assembled colleagues.

Leaving the office today, I took the stairs.

Legends Join Forces

Neil Young joined by Paul McCartney during his performance of A Day In The Life at Hyde Park two nights ago.

I was at Neil's Aberdeen concert last week, and it was one of the best I've been at in a long time - even without Macca guesting.

Sunday Soul: Michael Jackson - Billie Jean

It may not, strictly speaking, be soul music, but today's video couldn't be anything else.

Mrs Wife and I were due to see Michael Jackson in concert at the O2 Arena in London in three weeks' time, and I'm absolutely gutted that we'll now never have the chance.

This is the King of Pop's live televised coronation from the Motown 25th birthday party, when he performed the moonwalk for the first time in front of an audience.

You Want To See WHAT?

I've posted fairly frequently in the past on the Google search terms that bring you strange denizens of the worldwide interweb to this far-flung outpost.

Two strange search queries directed punters this way earlier today (click on pictures to make them bigger):

First up, "sniffing sweaty jock cups". Beautiful. Just beautiful. Well man, whatever gets you off...
Then, perhaps even more disturbing:

Seriously, why would anyone want naked pictures of Ian Durrant? This search term has actually popped up here before.

You're a sick bunch....

Friday Ten - My Ten Favourite Michael Jackson Songs

In Memoriam.

 

1: Billie Jean

 

2: Smooth Criminal

 

3: Beat It

 

4: Man In The Mirror

 

5: Bad

 

6: Leave Me Alone

 

7: Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough

 

8: Rockin' Robin

 

9: The Girl Is Mine

 

10: Thriller

A Day At The Circus

Music history is littered with over-reaching statements bearing no relation to hard fact.

 

John Lennon claimed, at the height of The Beatles' fame, that they were bigger than Jesus. Keeping up his own Fabs-robbing legacy, Noel Gallagher later went one better, saying Oasis were bigger than the Messiah's own daddy.

 

Paul Weller, upon hearing that John Peel had declared The White Stripes' Jack White to be "the new Hendrix" responded by saying "That old cunt should know better".

 

And though he was a fictional comedy character, Alan Partridge's assertion that Wings were "the band The Beatles could have been" can never be forgotten.

 

So today, when I state that Take That are as close as this generation may get to having its own Beatles, my tongue is only partially in my cheek. And my second assertion, that Take That are the live band The Beatles could have been, will no doubt be ridiculed.

 

When Mrs Wife's friend had to pull out of attending the last of Take That's three Glasgow concerts on Sunday, I was drafted in as a last minute substitute. I had no qualms about attending, but said all along that I would rather see a genuine fan take the ticket. But when no such fan could be found at such short notice, I made the trip to Hampden, little more than a week before I'm due to go there to see AC/DC.

 

We made the mistake of entering the stadium when the gates opened at 4pm, unaware that opening act Gary Go wasn't due onstage until around 7pm. As a result, we spent far too long standing in the heat and in the midst of a crowd that wasn't so much moshpit as menopause pit.

 

But enough of the preamble - why am I making ridiculous claims that Take That are this generation's Beatles?

 

Firstly, the show itself. Based around a Circus theme, in tribute to the band's latest album of the same name, I have never seen such a vast and complex set up for a gig. I've seen stadium gigs by The Rolling Stones, The Eagles, Bon Jovi, Oasis and U2, but the shows put on by all of those members of the stadium rock elite pale into near insignificance when compared with the sheer scale of Take That's Circus. A troupe of dancers, jugglers, trapeze artists, acrobats, tightrope walkers and other assorted circus performers formed an intricate part of the show. As did a full-size mechanical elephant that rose from the second stage.

 

The opening sequence saw these circus performers take a long walk from the main stage to the second stage, evoking a psychedelic take on a Victorian circus that brought to mind The Beatles' work around 1967 - think Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite turned into a Yellow Submarine-style live action movie and you're getting close.

 

Amongst all this hoo-ha, a vast cloud of balloons made its way to the second stage, and at the crescendo of this introduction, the balloons rose to reveal the four members of Take That dressed in black militaristic uniforms that fell somewhere between those worn by The Beatles on the cover of Sgt Pepper and those sported by My Chemical Romance in their Black Parade phase.

 

And it's that showmanship that leads me to my claim that Take That are the live band The Beatles could have been.

 

If, instead of splitting, The Beatles had gone the way of the Rolling Stones and become a massive globe-touring stadium band, I can imagine that their show, or sections of it at least, would be similar to what Take That put on for Circus - pageantary, the idea of making a show a real event, a huge psychedelic video screen as a backdrop and a lot of matey, self-deprecating banter.

 

So perhaps you'll forgive the comparison - is it so difficult to imagine The Beatles, had history played out differently, playing to a million people in the space of a month on a UK stadium tour, backed by one of the most lavish stages ever built?

 

But that still leaves my second claim unanswered - that Take That, musically, could be as close as this generation will get to a Beatles of its own.

 

First off, I don't mean for a second that Take That have anything like the genius of The Beatles.

 

But few bands ever rise to a stage where they can play to packed stadia night after night. And while there were definitely considerably more women in Hampden last night, there was also a substantial number of men - all of whom, I'd imagine, could probably name 10 or more Take That songs (and, dare I say it, sing along).

 

The only other British band of a similar age group to Take That with the ability to effortlessly fill stadia and have all 55,000 people sing along with their songs is Oasis. But Oasis perhaps don't have the same across the board appeal - you can't imagine two parents taking their primary school age son and daughter to see Oasis, can you?

 

And so it comes to pass that I, a massive Beatles fan who should definitely know better, have just spent a rather lengthy blog post discussing Take That without actually mentioning any of their music - including the rather special Back For Good and Shine, both of which could probably slot fairly comfortably into The Beatles' back catalogue - and reaching the conclusion that they're the post-Millenial Beatles.

 

I'm blaming the Scottish summer sunshine....

Sunday Soul: Sam and Dave - Soul Man

We couldn't have some Sunday Soul without featuring this soul anthem at some point. Cracking live performance from Sam and Dave in Finland where they "are giving it to the grumpy Finns the hard way".

Need For Speed

Classy new advert from Vodafone featuring Lewis Hamilton, Heikki Kovalainen and Barry from EastEnders.

Classy Lady

Click the picture to read the wonderful post from local listings site Gumtree.

Wear It With Pride

In the face of the horrendous news that Nick Griffin's band of fascists has managed to return two Members of the European Parliament, the Royal British Legion has taken him to task for his abuse of the poppy.

(That makes it sound like he has a heroin addiction. He doesn't, at least not so far as I'm aware.)

Back In Blue

Mike, who blogs brilliantly over at Auld Reekie Rants, sent this video of Links Park to me. It's interesting to see how the ground has changed since the year I was born. The worrying observation is that, aside from the replacement of one stand with a more modern version, it hasn't.

Star Man

I'm shamelessly stealing this from another blog (which I can't link to, as it's open to a select few only.

If you ever think that your daily commute takes too long, this might put the distance in perspective.

Sunday Soul: Nina Simone - Ain't Got No - I Got Life

I'm loving this live version of Nina Simone's classic Ain't Got No - I Got Life, which includes a funkier rhythm and the lady herself on hammond organ while singing about her boobies.

Not Approved

Now featuring on Disapproving Rabbits - Mrs Wife's twin destroyers of the Dungroanin' furniture, Dylan and Pepper.

Best of British

Xfm has published its list of the 100 greatest British songs.

 

Before I start on a rant, I acknowledge that all such lists are entirely subjective and essentially pointless.

 

But I'm a man, I'm a geek, I'm a lover of lists and I'm a music snob.

 

So, to the list. Oasis take the top three spots, perhaps giving an indication as to the voters' demographic.

 

The Beatles don't feature until number 18, and then with Hey Jude.

 

They don't feature again until number 31, with Come Together.

 

Feeder and Snow Patrol both feature. Queen don't. (I'm no fan of Queen, but I would have thought Bohemian Rhapsody might have made the list).

 

Should The Jimi Hendrix Experience feature, given that two thirds of their members were British?

 

I realise that by even commenting on the list, I'm validating it. But it all just seems so wrong.

 

Incidentally, here's my Top Ten:

 

1. Strawberry Fields Forever - The Beatles

 

2. Here It Comes - Doves

 

3. While My Guitar Gently Weeps - The Beatles

 

4. 20th Century Boy - T.Rex

 

5. Paranoid Android - Radiohead

 

6. Made of Stone - The Stone Roses

 

7. All You Need Is Love - The Beatles

 

8. Supersonic - Oasis

 

9. The Devil Walks In The Sand - The Cooper Temple Clause

 

10. The White Room - Cream

 

So, having found fault with the inclusion of Feeder and Snow Patrol in the list, I stick Doves, T.Rex and The Cooper Temple Clause in the Top Ten. But that's because I'm right.

Terminated

I'm no businessman - I like the security of a full-time job and a guaranteed pay cheque at the end of each month.

But I think I'm savvy enough to know that, when naming a company, it's probably best not to name your business after the fictional company from one of the largest film franchises in movie history.

A quick search for the Cyberdyne - the company from the Terminator films that is ultimately responsible for creating Skynet, which builds the titular robots - reveals that several firms around the world share their name with the fictional entity.

There's Cyberdyne Gauges, based in New Eagle, PA. (The ONE by which ALL of the others WILL BE GAUGED!)

Then there's Cyberdyne Systems, a software consultancy firm based in England.

Then, finally, there's the Japanese Cyberdyne, which, worryingly is building robotic suits....

Just A Rock Band

This trailer for Rock Band: The Beatles is a bit special.

Sunday Soul: Bill Withers - Ain't No Sunshine

Please Contribute!

I've been hammering posts out at this farflung outpost of the worldwide interweb for a few years now, and hopefully I've kept some of you entertained during that time.

With that in mind, I'd be very appreciative if you could all find it within yourselves to purchase this ludicrously extravagant 20th anniversary edition of the greatest album ever - The Stone Roses' debut - on my behalf.

All contributions gratefully received!

A Touch Of Class

Champions

I Have No Shame

Those of you who visit this humble outpost of the worldwide interweb on a regular basis (have you nothing better to do?) may recall that I am no fan of erstwhile Celtic and Wales striker John Hartson.

In this post, I placed him third in my list of most disliked Mhanky Mhob players. And in this one, I compared his dazzling good looks to those of the fatally wounded Darth Vader when he removes his mask at the end of Return Of The Jedi.

But last night, on a night out for Mrs Wife's birthday, we were in the VIP bar at Fat Sam's in Dundee, where our fellow drinkers were Rangers midfielder Charlie Adam and Hartson, the latter presumably in the City of Discovery for punditry duties at today's clash between Dundee United and Rangers.

Anyway, I clearly have no shame, as here I am with Hartson. It's very rare that I'm the thinnest person in any photograph, especially when the other person is a recently retired professional athlete:

Friday Ten - The Ten Best Football Matches I've Ever Been To

1: Rangers 3-1 Aberdeen, Ibrox, April 28 1996 (Rangers come from behind to beat Aberdeen through a Paul Gascoigne hat-trick to win the Premier League.)

2: Real Madrid 2-1 Bayer Leverkusen, Hampden, May 15 2002 (The Champions League final that was lit up by Zinedine Zidane's match-winning volley.)

3: Brechin City 6-4 Rangers, Glebe Park, April 29 1991 (The first game I ever attended, a testimonial for Brechin's Dougie Scott in which Ian Durrant scored a penalty and Mark Walters also played.)

4: Brechin City 1-2 Hearts, Glebe Park, August 19 1992 (1903 fans cram into Glebe Park to watch high-flying Brechin score a dramatic equaliser against Premier League Hearts, only for John Robertson to grab a late, and cruel, winner.)

5: Nottingham Forest 3-2 Bristol City, City Ground, April 11 2008 (Stunning match that saw Forest come from behind twice before Dexter Blackstock's injury time winner to push the club towards safety from relegation.)

6: Rangers 4-0 Celtic, Ibrox, March 26 2000 (Rangers romp to victory over a piss-poor Celtic side with two goals from Jorg Albertz and one each from Andrei Kanchelskis and Giovanni van Bronckhorst.)

7: Hibernian 6-2 Hearts, Easter Road, October 22 2000 (A Mixu Paatelainen hat-trick helps Hibs pummel a hapless Hearts side. It's not often you score twice away from home in a derby and still lose.)

8: Rangers 4-0 Raith Rovers, Ibrox, January 13 1996 (It may only have been Raith Rovers, but Brian Laudrup rips the Kirkcaldy side to pieces, although he fails to get on the scoresheet himself.)

9: Everton 2-1 Charlton Athletic, Goodison Park, April 15 2007 (Three goals in the last ten minutes see Everton take the lead, Charlton equalise then James McFadden win the match with a stunning solo effort.)

10: Scotland 0-1 Germany, Ibrox, March 24 1993 (OK, maybe it was no classic, but this international friendly was the first time I saw Scotland play. Duncan Ferguson hit the crossbar with an overhead kick, but Germany won thanks to Karl-Heinz Riedle's goal in the first half.)

Shit Hits The Fan

Whoever said that getting hit by bird shit is lucky has obviously never had such a gift from an Aberdeen seagull.

It's like getting shat on by a flying alsatian.

Turn The Page

I've been reading a lot since I moved from being a car-bound commuter drone to a train-bound commuter drone, and I've tried to get a broad range of reading material - fiction, non-fiction, humour, biography and history.

 

And seeing as how this far-flung outpost of the worldwide interweb is supposed to be an outlet for my opinions, here are my short reviews of the last few tomes I read.

 

Yes We Have No - Nik Cohn: Disappointing travelogue of a tour around "alternative" England, including travellers' camps, National Front members, witches and an Indian boxer. Promised much more than it delivered.

 

Trussed - Shiromi Pinto: Entertaining, fast-paced novel about three intertwined lives - Sri Lankan dominatrix Vinda; her cousin and Elvis impersonator Angel; and bail bondsman Regis. Read in a week and thoroughly entertaining from beginning to end.

 

The Final Whistle? - Harry Reid: Interesting, well-argued look at the problems facing Scottish football and the possible solutions to those problems. A few years old, so some things have changed - Gretna's demise being the most notable. A few strange idiosyncracies in Reid's style, surprising in a former editor of The Herald, were infuriating, but all in all, a worthwhile read for fans of Scottish football.

 

Gangster - Lorenzo Carcaterra: Fantastic novel about New York crime boss Angelo Vestieri's rise from sickly immigrant to the most powerful man in America. Written by the same author who wrote Sleepers, the book followed the standard Godfather/Goodfellas route, but was all the better for it.

 

The Great and Secret Show - Clive Barker: Sprawling fantasy novel recommended by a colleague, who said it's her favourite book. Describes the interwoven lives of people touched by "The Art" - the secret key to unlocking the mysteries of Quiddity, the true heaven. Strong start and finish, but a lull in the middle of a very lengthy novel meant it was a struggle at times. Worth a read, but never going to feature in my favourite books list.

I Thought I Had My Own Key

Now that I've entered the final few months of my 20s, I'm at a curious "man child" stage in my life, or so it seems.

 

There are strange factors of my life that would seem, on the face of things, to be incompatible.

 

I have a mortgage and several pension plans, but I can regularly be seen wearing Oasis, Supergrass, StarWars and Batman t-shirts.

 

I read The Times and an average of one novel or work of non-fiction a week, but also read comics and graphic novels.

 

I spend eight hours a day analysing the worldwide oil and gas industry, examining trends and predicting how things will progress over the next five years. But I know far more about British and European football, and can still recite with relative ease the host nations and finalists of every World Cup since the first competition in 1930.

 

Rather than visit the historic cathedrals and battlefields of the Midlands while on holiday this year, I instead attended two football matches and spent a day on Skegness' fairground rides.

 

What does this all mean? That I'm a well-rounded individual who can leave the office behind at 4.30pm every day and instead immerse myself in the alternate worlds created by Marvel, DC, Nintendo and Sony?

 

Or that I'm a big kid who needs to grow up?