Saturday, March 21, 2009

Quit yer moanin'


Enjoying a hand rolled cheroot outside the hotel my mildly lubricated equanimity was disturbed by a couple emerging from the front door having a full on domestic.

'Why the fuck did ye book us in for three nights if there wuz no spa treatments! There's fuck all to dae, and I'm bored trailing around after you and your swally ya bastud'

'You're startin' up aboot nothin you miserable coo, if I wasnae still workin' you'd be down the bingo. Quit yer moanin'.

Some folk are just plain miserable, and (although I hate to generalise) people from the east coast of Scotland have elevated gurning and general ignorant bastardness into an art form.

It's Perth, for fucks sake. It's elegant and prosperous and you're staying in an hotel when a lot of folk are getting their homes repossessed. Did you not notice the sprinkling of closed shops and the big farewell note slapped up in the Woolies window and signed by all the staff who are now scraping by on £60 a week Jobseekers Allowance?

Wankers.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Considering the Artichokes

Kebab fever overtook me the other day, but then I glanced at the Cypriot Turk's 'Munchie Box' selection and felt compelled to avert my gaze.

I want salad but somehow I can't warm to it; it's just a bit curly and frayed about the edges, the sad cherry tomato exiled in a sea of wilted lollo rosso, the desultory splash of North Sea vinaigrette, the lonesome sweetcorn kernel suffering a serious bout of ennui.

Salad fails to excite me. What I want is roasted flesh served on a V12 bed of turbine smooth excellence. Maserati would do, with a dose of Sophia Loren draped across the cylinder head. Failing that a reasonably intact Hermann Goering era Merc or a full on Mussolini fuck off Alfa would suffice.

Perhaps I'll settle for this:


Cool as fuck and on the hunt for Benzes and BMW's the Bristol is a gentleman's conveyance of inestimable elegance with a massive Chrevolet V8 engine and crafted English cow scrotum.

I want one.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Seaward the Great Ships

Glasgow is the only city on earth to have grown and prospered on a great river and then turned its back on it with a contemptuous shrug.

The great ships no longer loose their chains and birth themselves in the River Clyde, chapped hands no longer clap, the champagne remains in the icebox. True, the Govan Yard is recruiting apprentices and ther are faint stirrings, but a renaissance cannot be founded on defence contracts.

Belfast, with it's mighty cranes, restricts itself to its pathetic sectarian huddles and forgets that it once looked west.

Rivets are in our blood, even if they are obsolete. The tang of the salt air should resonate with steel crashing into the surf.

It's all we're skilled in.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Bob's yer uncle, unless he's called Paddy in which case he isn't.

The National Museum of Ireland.

"Is there anything interesting in here?"

"Yes, there's me, I'm interesting".


Anyhoo, I'm as pissed as a recalcitrant guttersnipe so here's Spike taking the piss out of the Oirish.



He was related, God help him.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Gardening Leave


Gardening is one of the activities that I associate with terminal eccentricity: an inexplicable obsession with loamy soil; string bean training; an evangelical zeal to praise the soil aerating activities of earth worms.

I suppose it's fairly harmless as hobbies go. It certainly isn't as embarrassing as sado masochism or train spotting, and I'm sure potential partners could be sourced from the personal ads if the phrase 'herbaceous border' was artfully inserted among references to GSOH and WLTM.

Personally I don't garden; I haven't even dabbled in window boxes, fearing that a little herb cultivation may prove a to be a link drug leading to stupid floppy hats and corduroy.

Should Armageddon arrive I am afraid that I will have to rely on my stockpile of tinned ravioli and aged Scotch. When the shutters finally come down on civilisation I intend to go down smiling while the gardeners wave their sticks of celery fruitlessly.

Did I just mention fruit? No, I don't grow that either.

Saturday, March 07, 2009

The Pass at Thermapolae

I felt an urgency in my bowels today which was less an omen of impending terminal cancer than an indication of my fervent desire to sit on my 'Business Solutions Manager's' face and fart long and sonorously.

He's quite normal looking in a brain dead CLYDESDALE BANK kind of way, but there are clear traces of the journeyman tattooed on his forehead. This time server is staring obsequiously up his bosses bum and worshipping at the tiny alter of his time served pension.

Nasty demanding letters are being dispatched to lots of people I know threatening withdrawn overdraft facilities, hiked interest rates, and worse.

As a Gladstonian liberal who believes that 'money should fructify in the pockets of the people' I want the banks nationalised for a time, and quickly.

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Vampires


I have some rather pale guests staying at the moment. They aren't full on Goth in a Robert Smith wearing a fright wig kind of way, but they do apply a little eye-liner and dress exclusively in black.

Thing is, they haven't gone outside for the last three days. I'm beginning to suspect that I may have agreed to be mien host to a couple of the undead, their obvious aversion to daylight a clear indication of vampire tendencies.

I'm going to have to think of an excuse to knock them up, but short of procuring some virgins to tempt them into the great outdoors I'm short on ideas. Perhaps I should just stake (geddit?) the place out in case they decide to clear off without paying

I'm not scared because I've been eating lots of garlic and shall breathe over them if they attempt to disturb my beauty sleep. Anyway, vampires are infinitely preferable to werewolves. The Lycans keep the other guests awake with their howling and invariably chew the table legs and leave hairs all over the soft furnishings.

Sunday, March 01, 2009

Pop Will Eat Itself


I saved feverishly until the Saturday when I handed over the cash for the gate fold sleeve LP. The bus saw the unveiling, the first scan of the lyrics and sleeve notes; a prelude to the consummation almost carnal in intensity when the stylus hit the groove.

Then along came CD, followed by Mindisc and the bewildering MP3napstertwaddle. The joy afforded by the physical artefact was replaced by mundane file sharing, the storage of 1000's of songs on an iPod. Something got lost along the way. Shelves were no longer filled with alphabetically arranged (if you were anal) LP's, a quick scan of which could instantly appraise you of someone's musical taste, or lack thereof. A spine containing the words 'Duran Duran' or 'Top of the Pops Volume 19' was a clear indication that the person was a clueless numptie and best avoided.

I'm not a total Luddite though, and have embraced spotify. Music now exists in the ether, is available instantly, and streams free of charge. I may miss album sleeves, which in some cases were works of art in their own right, but I'm more than happy not to have to pay for what I consume.

Will I be streaming the preview of the new U2 album? You betcha I won't.