Category: Blog

Donegal, Sat 20 October

Arrived at the ferry terminal in Cairnryan, 50 minutes ahead of schedule. Should have stopped for breakfast at the Kilmarnock Little Chef we were eyeing up. But we drove past, keen not to overdo the breakfast and end up hurtling down the last stretch of camera-infested road.

Now we would pay, as we settled in what passed for a cafeteria in the terminal. I watched the teabag turn the tepid water slowly yellow, and chewed on a bran scone, while Wiseman downed a cup of black liquid which advertised itself as coffee. I returned to the queue for a newspaper, and found myself behind an innocent bystander who was foolishly pressing the button marked ‘cappuccino’. I thought about warning him off, but held myself back. There weren’t many alternatives after all.

On the ferry itself, I noticed that the bar served Lipton Tea. I can’t help but think that Lipton Tea should not be served on a crossing between what must be the two biggest tea-drinking countries in the world.

Wiseman spent a fair bit of time on deck during the crossing. I suspect he was banking some solo time before having to spend an entire week in my company.

Once off the ferry, everything went smoothly until shortly after leaving Derry – the behaviour of the car made me think we were driving on an extended cattle grid. Turns out we had just crossed the border. The road surfaces in the Republic of Ireland are a wonder. Uneven to the point of corrugation, they can appear entirely normal to the naked eye, while giving you a driving experience comparable in comfort to riding a jittery horse bareback.

Arrived at the cottage in daylight, which allowed us some time to sit and watch dusk settle over the hills across the bay. Eased our travel aches with a couple of beers, before watching South Africa grind down England in the RWC Final. Learnt a new word from the Irish bookmaker who was interviewed for his thoughts before the big game. “Hockeyed”. As in “The last time England played South Africa, they got hockeyed.” (The score was 36-0 that time)

Lying in bed before going to sleep, I heard a familiar sound – the patter of tiny feet. A mouse. It appears to be running around in the room upstairs, or possibly between the floorboards and my ceiling. Looking forward to the girls arriving, as one of them will be sleeping in that room…

This time next week

“Just think,” remarked Wiseman, as we walked to my car this afternoon. “This time next week we won’t be walking along this road.”

Next Saturday he and I embark on a holiday together, which begins with what he euphemistically refers to as a cruise, from Cairnryan to Larne, and then an ocean drive to somewhere in Donegal.

We wistfully considered how, by this time next week, we could be grumpily sitting at opposite ends of our cottage, he sending me a text to let me know that he’d finished using the kitchen, and had cleared away “my” mess. Or one of us pushing a boat out from a deserted beach in Donegal and rowing for home, having had enough. It would be a sad indictment on our friendship if any of this had come to pass by this time next week, since we would only have been in each other’s company for 24 hours or so.

Hopefully it won’t come to anything like that. But just to be on the safe side, we’ve roped in some others (girls, no less) to share the cottage and buffer us from each other. Perhaps they might even elevate the chat to a higher level. However, one can’t be sure, and consequently, the blog may soon be receiving some much-needed attention after weeks of neglect, although wireless hotspots likely being even less numerous in Donegal than well-surfaced roads, the actual posting may prove to be a stumbling block. We’ll see, as my mother always said when my sister or I had asked for something she had no intention of giving us.

Speaking of my sister, she made a welcome visit to Edinburgh last week with young Maggie in tow. Maggie seemed very impressed with my new car, and in stark contrast with everyone I have mentioned this to, was especially excited that I’d managed to secure an SM57 registration. Of the readers of this blog, I expect only The Weir will fully join with myself and Maggie in the appreciation of a classic microphone appearing on my number plate. Maggie confided in me that she would never use anything else on snare drum or guitar amps. She’s very advanced for her age.

Having now replaced all of my stolen items through the kindly insurance company, inevitably I am beginning to realise that there are other things I haven’t seen around for a while. Like my Red Sox hat, and my Leatherman knife. Very disappointing. The police have now removed the thieving bandits from general circulation, which is something. I imagine they’re regretting leaving fingerprints all over my kitchen window. Or perhaps they’re not bovvered.

By this time next week, I won’t be either…

The One Man Crime Hotspot

Monday was a bad day. Mondays are often not good days, but this Monday was especially bad. Two Thursdays ago, it wasn’t a good Thursday either. I returned from watching Jason Bourne break into houses and discovered that someone had done something similar to mine. And made a reasonable job of it, making off with my beloved Powerbook, digital camera, a friend’s camcorder, two iPods, an Airport Express and a PDA.

So here I was on Monday morning, looking at a space in the road that used to contain my car, and I realised that I could add my spare car key to that list.

“Hello, Lothian and Borders Police?”

“Hi, it’s Andrew”

“Hello Andrew, what is it this time…?”

The conversation didn’t quite go like that, but I feel like it could have. I’m getting to know the police quite well, and I have to say they’ve been very helpful. They thought my flat had been thoroughly trashed by the burglars, but I had to sheepishly confess that actually it normally looks like that. They even referred me to Victim Support, and before long a nice lady called me to ask if there was anything she could do to help. I considered asking her to have a hunt around for my laptop, but decided against it. She sounded very kind.

I spotted a Neighbourhood Watch sticker on the window of a client’s house, while out on Monday doing home visits in my colleague Tuckett’s car. I considered, in a moment of ironic genius, stealing it. Then sticking it to my forehead to warn thieves away. I mentioned this to Wiseman.

“When did you last check for the presence of your forehead?” was his reply. Wiseman does not work for Victim Support.

A few people of a more sympathetic nature have commented on how horrible it is knowing that someone’s been in your house. I have to admit this hasn’t really troubled me. I’m quite used to people being in my house, and they usually steal stuff while they’re here as well. But usually only biscuits and maybe the occasional CD.

Somewhat offensively, these thieves didn’t see fit to take any of my CDs. Not a single one. They even left the Denise LaSalle 7″ single. Criminals these days, tsk tsk, no music taste. After the car theft it wouldn’t have shocked me to see the CDs from my car carefully stacked on the pavement beside the empty parking space. But I daresay they’ve been torched with the rest of my car interior.

Still, every cloud and all that. I’m currently shopping for a new company car, and that’s never a bad thing.

I met the Loss Adjuster yesterday. After the introductions – “I am the Loss Adjuster, are you the Victim?” – she perched on the edge of my sofa, trying to minimise the amount of her expensive suit that was in contact with my furniture, and gave me the bad news. I would have to get my new laptop from PC World, unless they didn’t supply Apple products. I tried to pretend I thought they didn’t, even though I knew they did. Was that deceitful? Is it wrong to instead want to buy a computer from somewhere where they know something about (a) computers and (b) customers? I dreamt of marching in, leaning across the counter and growling “Now then spotty, I don’t like you because you’re PC World and you don’t like me because I’m a customer. But here we are, there’s nothing else for it, we’ll have to make the best of it.”

However, being confrontational is not my forte. I struggle to complain in a restaurant, even when the food is rank. And I don’t growl very well anyway. Mumbling is more my thing. Thankfully a trip to PC World has been avoided, as they told her they don’t have much of a choice Mac-wise. I am very grateful.

I am also very grateful that the thieves didn’t take more, or do more damage. And it’s a timely reminder to me that there’s more important things in life than possessions. Just before I arrived at the cinema, I remembered that I had left my iron switched on. Slightly paranoid about coming home to a burnt-out tenement, I phoned my mum and asked her to pop in and switch it off. The break-in occurred after she left, but I don’t like to think about what might have happened if she had disturbed the burglars in the act.

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

These Bible verses often come to mind when I find something in my flat which moths have chewed on. But they have sprung to mind more frequently than usual of late. There are more important things in life…

For a while there my blog mysteriously developed an aversion to the apostrophe, which was distressing – thank you for bearing with me while I had it fixed. And please do not tell the Apostrophe Protection Society – I may have my membership rescinded. And that might be more than I could take…

Radio 2 and the vinyl-buying experience

Another morning of domiciliary visits at work provided another morning’s listening to Radio 2, and Ken Bruce in particular. Since the demise of Popmaster, effectively removed from the show following the BBC Phone-in Competition Shenanigans, Ken Bruce is barely worth listening to. As a decade, the 80s hold a certain number of fond musical memories for me, but there was undeniably a large volume of musical tat produced during that period, and Ken Bruce manages to dredge up most of it up. He finds some from other decades as well of course, but seems to prefer his tat to be 80s vintage.

I mused on this as he played a Johnny Hates Jazz song without any apparent shame. I once owned a Johnny Hates Jazz album, and am thoroughly ashamed of it. In fact, lots of my early musical purchases are now an embarrassment. Is it just me? The first record in particular. Every time I hear someone on the radio naming the first record they bought, it’s always something by the Beatles, the Stones, Joni Mitchell. Some GREAT song or album that’s endured, or if not then something obscure and therefore by definition ‘cool’. I have my suspicions that they might be making it up. I’ve never heard anyone confessing to buying a tacky one-hit wonder as their first record.

I spent one penny short of 2 Irish punts on my first record – “My toot toot” by Denise LaSalle – in a Golden Discs outlet in a Dun Laoghaire shopping centre. The Golden Discs has probably gone, and the shopping centre is now likely a mall, where people spend their Euro-subsidised euros instead. But they’re not spending it on Denise LaSalle records, or even CDs for that matter. A classic one-hit wonder, except that it wasn’t a classic, and might not even have been a hit, I can’t quite remember.

But I still have the record. It still has the branded price sticker on it, so I daresay you think I read that information off it. But that’s the thing about records for me. I didn’t need to. Buying a record was an event, and a full-size LP, or even a 12” single, provided you with something distinctly tangible for your cash.

Buying a CD has never been the same experience, although even that beats downloading music digitally. Nothing could be more soulless. Browsing through my collection of records sparks memories of where and when they were bought – an Extreme box set from Ripping Records on South Bridge during my student days, a classic Ten Sharp 12” single from a now-forgotten record shop on Great Junction Street, another single from somewhere in North Berwick while on holiday. Lots from Makin’ Tracks in Belfast. A Black Crowes picture disc from Caroline Music in Newry. Most of my vinyl collection bought ‘currently’ – rather than long afterwards from a second-hand record shop – consists of 12” singles rather than LPs. Sadly, even way back in my youth vinyl was dying out. Cassettes were by then the medium of choice for albums. The first album I bought (in another Golden Discs as it happens) was on cassette. It was Curiosity Killed The Cat. No idea what the album title was. It was terrible, but I managed to flog it to a future girlfriend.

I’m resigning myself to the sad fact that the days of significant musical purchases are slipping away in the face of a relentless digital onslaught. Perhaps even the days of the CD are ultimately numbered. The experience will be missed, but maybe I shouldn’t grieve too much. Downloading music can be a very useful option, and burning tracks on to a vinyl-effect CD-R does minimise the pain somewhat… Time moves on remorselessly, and as if to underline the fact, I went to work yesterday without my belt on and my trousers stayed up all by themselves.

Ah, the onset of old age and rotundity. Pass me my slippers and rose-tinted spectacles…

More toilet tribulations

“Would you like a bit of egg?” asked mum, proffering some chocolate.

I was down chez mes parents, sharing some post-prandial conversation. My sister Alison and the wean Maggie were there too. We suggested that, it being July, it was the wrong season for chocolate eggs and was it not actually a Terry’s Chocolate Orange anyway. Dad, or The Lord Cecil, as we like to call him – after a Hackney pub defunct since the day a double decker bus drove into it – whose chocolate orange it was, was graciously unperturbed at it being shared around. Tell the truth, he seemed a little put out that there was no ice-cream to go with it.

Met Wiseman for dinner in PizzaExpress tonight. After some slightly disappointing exploratory main courses (exploratory in that we both deviated from the reassuring familiarity of our customary pizza choices), learning the lesson along the way that spiced beef and mushrooms are not a number ONE topping combination, the thoughts turned inevitably to dessert. Here we often differ. Wiseman regularly goes for the Chocolate Glory. I find the tiramisu keeps me more regular. Tiramisu, indeed, is an old and faithful friend. A bit like a dog. A dog is slightly better, in that tiramisu is sometimes off the menu – this fate befell me, distressingly, on two consecutive visits to PizzaExpress. A long time ago, but it has lodged in the memory. Dogs, on the other hand, are never off the menu, at least not in Hong Kong. They are sometimes asleep, but you can wake them up and they’re not even grumpy about it. How do they do that?

Chocolate Glory is more like a girlfriend. It’s great to start off with, but you soon start to feel sick.

Speaking of regularity, some seagulls appear to have no problems in the waste pipe department, as my car can testify. They have managed to deliver several consignments onto the driver’s door, one of them right on the edge of the window, nearest to the handle. So every time I get out of the car I push the door shut and… yep. If you meet me in the street avoid shaking my hand.

And while we’re on such matters, I believe Broon has recently had to purchase a new toilet seat for her house to replace a broken one… it would appear that the phantom toilet-seat destroyer has struck again. The Admin Supremo has been recently spotted in the North Fettes area carrying his own toilet seat around with him. It’s all very curious. Perhaps we could make it into a TV mini-series. (Q. Do they still have mini-series on TV or is it all mind-numbing “reality” stuff nowadays?)

Room 65 kicks off this week, which must mean that I’ve been numbing your minds, those of you that are still reading, for over a year now, since I remember mentioning it in the blog last time around. Am guesting on piano again, which means more ill-timed glissandi and misleading introductions. But I’m sure we’ll all muddle through. Feel free to drop in to the café at 65 High Street if you’re bored of an evening.

And with that I’ll bid you goodnight.

I hate cricket

The problem with cricket is you wait 3 or 4 weeks for the rain to stop, then you finally play a game in a muddy field, and are brutally reminded that you’re actually not very good at it when you get out for a very low score.

Indoor bowls is becoming a more and more attractive option. Apart from being immune to the vagaries of the British summer, there’s sartorial considerations to be taken into account.

I discussed this with my sister on the phone the other day, and we gradually built up a picture of me in a pair of grey slacks with elasticated waistband, flat shoes, and a diamond-patterned jumper.

“In lemon. With socks to match.”

It’s a seductive image.

Wiseman might find such a makeover beneficial himself, given that his blog character page has not been receiving many hits recently. I have caught him murmuring idly about appearing on Celebrity Big Brother in an attempt to restore his public profile. I trust it won’t come to that.

Meanwhile, at work, a state of emergency has been declared after we arrived this morning to discover a small loch in one of our consulting rooms and a waterfall coming through the ceiling. It transpired that the boiler in one of the flats above us had no overflow pipe as such, apart from the interior of the building.

Dish, perhaps unable to work in such conditions, or possibly in French-style solidarity with the Edinburgh postal workers who have just gone on strike, tossed her head petulantly and stalked out. But we coaxed her back in with some biscuits.

No cricket this weekend, due to music commitments at church, and so no chance to improve on my dismal average.

I don’t really hate cricket. It only takes one or two days after a catastrophic batting performance before you’ve forgotten all about it and are itching to get playing again. That elusive half-century is only a few scratchy boundaries away, after all…

Freestyling and Strawberry Tarts

Well, the weather’s been rotten. Not as bad, mercifully, as that suffered by many parts of Englandshire, but depressing nonetheless. Many cricket games have been called off. Wiseman suggested I take up an indoor sport instead. “Like carpet bowls.” The day will come Mark, but it hasn’t come just yet. However, I did venture indoors for a spot of skiing a week or two ago, with my good friend Filipeedadooda. Leaving straight after work, we bombed through the rain to xscape in Glasgow, and arrived just in the nick of time for the start of the freestyle session.

Freestyle means there are a lot of unnecessary obstacles littering the piste, seriously reducing the amount of white space available for sensible skiers such as myself. I cannot include Filipideedooda in that description as she is not even sensible in shoes, never mind on skis. However, she hadn’t been skiing for a few years, having joined the Forces of Boarding Darkness a while back, and was taking it canny to start with, so we both used the strange contraptions as markers on the piste rather than objects with which to impale ourselves.

Naturally there was a high proportion of the uni-planked ones strutting their stuff, clad in varying shades of outlandish boarding gear, jumping on and off these obstacles with some success. DC, should he have been there, would’ve loved the hip hop soundtrack pumping out overhead.

On one side of the slope was a glass-fronted restaurant, the other side had a long glass-fronted bar. There were two poma tows, one on each side of the piste, which trawled you up in front of one or other of these establishments. After a few runs and tows back up each side, Filipadooda suggested we go back up the right hand side. “The snow’s better,” she reasoned. She was right. The totty on view in the restaurant was also much better than that in the bar, but I neglected to highlight this.

Today marked Tony Blair’s last day as Prime Minister in the UK. Tributes were paid by friend and foe alike. Perhaps the most touching of these came from my boss, a long-time Blair fan, who bought several boxes of cakes to celebrate his departure. Come 4pm, all that remained were two strawberry tarts.

“I couldn’t possibly eat BOTH of them,” complained Dish.

This was met with the same sceptical raised eyebrow as greeted her comment earlier this week:

“I don’t eat THAT many biscuits,” before hastily adding “In the morning.”

Finally, your help is needed. Check out fifty ways… Something to keep you occupied on a rainy day. And if you’re in Scotland, you won’t have long to wait for one of those…

Fifty ways…

So, we were listening to Paul Simon one evening, and it was noted that his song “Fifty ways to leave your lover” only actually contains FIVE. Thus:

Just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
Don’t need to be coy, Roy
Hop on the bus, Gus
Drop off the key, Lee

We thought this a poor show and started coming up with some others. It would make for quite a long song, but anyway. We didn’t quite make it to 50.. including Mr Simon’s contribution we’ve got 46, 47 if you include Jen’s rather lame one at the end.

DC then made the salutary point that we might be barking up the wrong tree. We can worry about ending a relationship when we’ve got one to end…

Still, the list is below and your suggestions are welcome…

6. Send her a text, Lex
7. Catch yourself on, John
8. Get on the train, Wayne
9. Get rid of that beau, Mo
10. Stop being a slave, Dave
11. Get out while you’re still alive, Clive
12. Run for the hills, Bill
13. Time to move on, Don
14. Just take your leave, Steve
15. Find a new crew, Lou
16. Find a new lady, Adi
17. Don’t go to the altar, Walter
18. Get on your bike, Mike
19. Escape from the noose, Bruce
20. Two’s too many, Kenny
21. Find a new man, Anne
22. Time to be departin’, Martin
23. Time to pack, Mac
24. Sling your hook, Luke
25. Get on the plane, Jane
26. Take a new path, Kath
27. Wash him out of your hair, Claire
28. Hit the trail, Gail
29. Start a new story, Rory
30. Lose the pratt, Matt
31. Time to get picky, Vicky
32. Quit stallin’, Colin
33. Say goodbye, Di
34. He’s not that great, Kate
35. Change the lock, Jock
36. Move abroad, Maud
37. Lose the miss, Chris
38. Cross the sea, Dee
39. Don’t let her rant, Grant
40. Stop being a mug, Doug
41. Ride off on your Harley, Charlie
42. Don’t let her follow you, Bartholomew
43. The bus leaves at 7, Kevin
44. Find someone more cuddly, Dudley
45. Drive away in your Clio, Leo
46. Make a new start, Bart
47. Get a new phone, Joan (this was Jen’s suggestion and we didn’t think it was very good)

Lie-ins and bowel movements

Woke up on Tuesday morning at 7.50am. Jumped out of bed, suppressing expletives in various languages and pulling a muscle in my back as I did so – that one under the shoulder blade. 7.50 is the time I normally leave the house in the morning. Decided this time not to leave the house, given the distress which would have been caused to onlookers by my state of undress.

Shortly after arriving at work at 8.30 on the nose, discovered that our receptionist had also slept in when I joined her in the queue for breakfast in O’Brien’s.

The backroom staff at work have had their numbers boosted and their biscuit supply disproportionately depleted by the arrival of Dish, freshly arrivée from France and still blogging, much to everyone’s relief. Having spent a whole year picking up working practices in France, we are anticipating her going on strike at any moment, but in between spells on the picket line she will be helping the Admin Supremo in his tasks – primarily coffee-drinking and causing civil unrest. And cheerily replying “Super Dooper Doo” when asked how he is by people on the phone, shortly before ferociously devouring them for applying the wrong tax code to our invoices or some such.

Mum, meanwhile, has gone south for the summer, or at least this week, to spend time with my sister and little Maggie. Share the love, I say. It would have been rude of me to keep all of the nagging to myself for the whole year. Dad, having been notified that I would be staying with him while mum was away, immediately booked himself a week in the most expensive nursing home he could find. I fear I may have messed up the porridge production one morning during my last stay, and my dad has a long memory when it comes to the quality of his food provision. Initial reports from the nursing home have been encouraging: the desserts have been of a very high standard. In fact he almost fell out of his chair with excitement while describing them. Dad takes his desserts very seriously.

Speaking of falling out of chairs, the toilet seat at work has cracked again. Reluctant to speculate on the identity of the guilty party, I can only report that all members of staff used the facilities on the morning in question, and none reported any problems getting purchase. Nor, indeed, was any damage noted or commented on. Perhaps their circumspection can be attributed to a desire to not feature in a blog entry…

Time for bed. Don’t want to sleep in again. Angry Mac Guy describes a blog as a generic layout filled with details of the writer’s every bowel movement. Apologies if this one’s been a bit like that, I like to think it usually isn’t. Come to think of it, my blog normally has details of other people’s bowel movements. Not sure that’s any better. Ho hum…

Wiseman’s Back, and Broon the Parsnip

The Northern Ireland trip passed off peacefully. It was great. In fact it was dead-on, so it was. There have been some changes since my last proper visit (where a proper visit is defined as lasting more than 24 hours). The now relatively well-established peace (I describe it thus with some caution, as our Admin Supremo, volatile enough to spark a civil war in Switzerland, is actually holidaying VERY NEAR to the province at this very moment) has caused house prices to sky rocket. However, some things remain the same. You still get offered a choice of chips or rice with your Chinese takeaway.

I made my escape back to Scotland and drove straight to the Strathclyde Hilton, where an old friend was having a ceilidh to celebrate her recent marriage. Needless to say, with dancing to be had, much of the chatroom was present. Jen, on her way rather predictably to the bar with a couple of friends, where she was no doubt planning to convince someone to buy her a drink, was accosted by an older gentleman and his mates.

“It’s alright, ladies, I’m HERE,” he announced.

“YESSSS!” replied Jen, rather more audibly than she might have planned, while punching the air triumphantly. Whether the trace of sarcasm in this response was picked up or not was unclear, and she spent the rest of the night looking nervously over her shoulder.

Wiseman, out of circulation of late due to spending time with the missus, no longer has a missus to spend time with, and hence had to make do with our company instead. Having booked some rooms at the hotel and stayed overnight, I got up early and sneaked into the gym the next morning to watch the great man at work.

A picture speaks a thousand words, they say.

Tonight I made my yearly visit to my mum’s GB Display. The GB is an organisation for young girls that gives them something to do besides buying shoes and talking about Big Brother, namely playing games and learning about God, and their Display is the annual end of year show. I realise that openly admitting that I spent the evening watching young girls cavort about a hall might not do any good to either my credibility or my status with Disclosure Scotland, but I can only protest my innocent involvement as the musician. Don’t shoot me, I’m only the piano player. I might hope that Broon, who was also present, would back me up here, but realise that my acerbic character profiling might just come back and bite me on the bum. Oh well, such is the lot of us satirists.

Mum, who is captain of this particular company of girls, waited until halfway through the minister’s opening prayer before deciding to check if the radio mic was working. She switched it on and blew hard into it. It was working, what’s more it was turned up quite high. After the subsequent explosion she turned and smiled, apparently pleased that the whole hall now knew the PA was switched on.

We moved on to the first song, during which my music book made several attempts to pitch itself headlong onto the keys. My playing wasn’t that great, I’d be the first to admit, but I didn’t consider it so bad that the music book itself would seek to intervene and call an abrupt and atonal end to matters.

These evenings tend to include games with audience participation. Early on in the night we witnessed a game which involved one of the leaders “making soup” by waving her arms vigorously as a number of girls-pretending-to-be-vegetables ran round her at speed, before they shot off back to the corners whence they came.

“You got the idea?” she asked the audience, confidently. I chanced a look across to Broon, skulking in the back row on the opposite side of the hall. Broon clearly had as much idea what was going on as I did. Which was unfortunate, as shortly afterwards she was deemed to be a leek and was summoned onto the floor. It wasn’t long before she got confused and tried to pass herself off as a parsnip (no-one was fooled), and ended up back in her seat red-faced.

And that’s about it. Colin Eye informs me that the pesky IT people at his workplace have blocked his ability to make comments. Perhaps they have read your comments, Colin. One can only surmise how long you can remain in the Cabinet without being able to make comments… shame really, since you’ve just made it in. And it’s such a nice photo…