Tag: Wiseman

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…

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…

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…

Melancholy and chicken kebabs

Melancholy. What a word. I was discussing its beauty with Judith, a lurker on this blog, this morning. So beautifully… poised, it whispers sweetly of the warm darkness you find deep within a slough of despond. I have recently discovered some new melancholy music (it’s new to me, folks, ok?) in Quasi and Ray LaMontagne. The latter’s album ‘Till the sun turns black’, as if that wasn’t mournful genius enough by itself, includes songs with lines such as:

“I never learned to count my blessings
I choose instead to dwell in my disasters”

Gorgeous. Then there’s Quasi.

“Life is full life is grey:
At its best it’s just OK.
But I’m happy to report
Life is also short.”

Came across Quasi on Cully’s iPod. Cully is a maverick musician/artist who works as an arts staff worker for UCCF. Cully’s iPod is an unplumbed depth of exotic-sounding bands like the Violent Femmes. Exotic, and unheard of, to a boy with a sheltered Church of Ireland upbringing. Anyway, Cully does a good line in quirky songs himself, and played a great set at a gig a few Wednesdays ago. The gig was held in order to raise funds for UCCF’s CU Leaders Training weekend (CULT, as we like to call it) which took place last weekend. I was doing sound at both the fundraising gig and the weekend itself, which is how I came to be in charge of Cully’s iPod. So now you know.

After that gig, I dropped sound kit off at various locations, including my church (where I set the alarm off at about 11.45pm – apologies to any local residents who may be reading), and then stopped off for a chicken kebab, having gone to the gig straight from work and therefore being reasonably peckish at this point. On exiting the kebab emporium at about 12.15am, I weighed up my options. The thing about kebabs is, they leave a bit of a pong (on your clothes, breath, and in the room where you’ve eaten them), often only really noticeable the morning after. So I did the sensible thing and headed down to my mum’s. Mum, of course, was awake. With me in the kitchen and her tucked up in bed, she insisted on holding an inter-room conversation.

– “Did you have a good night?”
– “What?”

– “Did you have a good night?”
– “Yes.”

– “Are you having your supper?”
– “What?”

– “Are you having your supper?”
– “Yes.”

– “Would you not rather eat in the living room?”

Now that is a superfluous and irrelevant question to be asking at 12.25am. No. I feel bad enough for stinking out your kitchen never mind your living room.

– “No, I’m fine here, thanks.”

One Saturday, not long after this, I popped into my mum’s for lunch. No mention was made of the foul-smelling kitchen. Parents can be so forgiving at times. Just as well, really.

Over lunch we discussed funeral plans, cremations and choice of songs for same. Dad fixed his gaze on somewhere unspecifically distant.

– “I would like ‘Crown Him with many Crowns’, and ‘the Irish one’.

– “Whiskey in the Jar?” I volunteered tentatively, but I think he meant ‘Be thou my vision’.

In other sad news, Wiseman has got a girlfriend. What’s more, another friend, Jamie, has just got engaged. I began to wonder if I’m the only sensible/stubborn one left.

Then I remembered DC, and smiled. A cursory glance at him and I feel reassured that I won’t be alone on the singles shelf for some time yet.

Time the great stealer

Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all its sons away. It can also pinch an hour from your life, if you’re not watching. I speak from personal experience.

In Spring every year, the clocks in the UK advance forward by one hour. The balance and equilibrium of the space-time continuum is maintained, however, by the altogether more pleasing effect of the clocks going back by one hour in Autumn. As indeed they will tonight. So far so good.

In March 2005, I lost an hour’s sleep, along with the rest of the UK, at the end of March. A week later I flew to the States for a couple of weeks. The first weekend after I arrived in the US, I discovered to my horror that their clocks went forward that weekend, i.e. two weeks after the UK. Accordingly I lost yet another hour’s sleep that weekend. Disaster. Back in the UK in the Autumn, I gained one of these hours back, but that still left me an hour down on where I should be. The USA, to my knowledge, turn their clocks back the same weekend as us, so a quick Autumnal flight there and back over a weekend won’t solve anything. It truly is distressing. I have lost an hour of my life and will probably never get it back. I am convinced this is why I seem to gain consciousness (cf waking up) an hour later than everyone else in the mornings… it’s a major discontinuity in my life, I’m out of sync, my life’s very fabric is stretched and distorted as a result.

But life goes on. Albeit an hour ahead of where it should be. Wiseman and I are developing our Brian Lara Cricket 2005 PS2 skills slowly but surely. The first Test between Bangladesh (me) and Australia (Wiseman) was all over within a day, but the Second Test lasted well into the third day (granted, we lost a day to rain), and the Third Test is now underway. It’s 2-0 to Bangladesh in the series, should you be interested. Ah, there’s nothing like the rhythms of Test cricket.

Only 25 days ‘til the Ashes…

The exciting life of a single man

Allow me to introduce my good friend Paul. Paul has expressed an interest in hearing about the exciting life of a single man. This is because he is married, and life is, as you can see above, somewhat devoid of excitement. So much so, that for kicks he sometimes wears a Superman thong. On top of his trousers.

Admittedly, tonight I am not setting new records in Friday night excitement. However, sometimes a cup of coffee and an Empire biscuit are all that’s required. Add Van Morrison to the mix, chuntering away in the background about a throne of Ulster day, and Wiseman on the (other) sofa setting the world to rights, and … jings I could be married. I have served Mark his coffee in the mug with ‘BIRD’ emblazoned on the side. It’s good for the mug to get an outing every now and then, even if it’s not a real bird using it. I must get out more myself.

Last night I got out, although only as far as John Sneddon’s for tea. Johnboy is the King of blue. He owns more blue clothing than an acolyte of the Temple of Darkness. He is also an excellent cook, and treated me to a great meal, after which I availed myself of his blue bathroom. He informed me that he had recently had a clearing out of his flat, and ditched a couple of pot-plants that weren’t quite up to scratch. One suspects that their demise was hastened by an inability to produce blue flowers.

It’s been a relatively quiet week. Managed to get my car washed, visit Stephen and Louise for the first time since they got married (in April!), give blood, and put some poison down for the mice, since the little darlings have made a reappearance. It has remained untouched for the last 24 hours, which is unlike them, but am not too worried as on this occasion the mice have chosen not to run around under my floorboards in the middle of the night. Which makes for a more restful night.

Tomorrow, Dunfermline await the might of Holy Cross 2nd XI. We lost last week, I eventually discovered, by 10 runs or so. Must win tomorrow. Am also working tomorrow, in the morning. Feels like I’ve worked every Saturday in the summer, probably because I’ve been away a few weekends recently, and so whenever I’ve been in Edinburgh at the weekend I’ve had to work. Normally it’s one in three or so. Had a look at the diary this week and realised that I haven’t had a full week off work for over a year now. Still, my week off in September is looming larger on the horizon. I think I’ll be ready for it when it comes…

Manchester, Day 3


Pakistan 119 & 222, England 461/9 declared. England win by an innings and 120 runs.

The bars at Old Trafford opened at 11am. This photo was taken at 11.05am, and neither of these beers was for me. The man has an enormous capacity for beer.

So, England wrapped up the 2nd Test today with a fine bowling performance, ending up winners by some distance. Great result. Mercifully, the sun only made brief appearances during the day, otherwise my arms would have been in severe pain. The rain also came, but didn’t stay for long, and not much play was lost.

My enjoyment of England’s success was tempered slightly by the presence of two young lads to my left, who meticulously tore up a newspaper into tiny pieces between wickets falling, and then threw them about a foot into the air when a wicket did go down, so that the vast majority of them landed on my head. I felt like I’d just got married.

Speaking of which, myself and Wiseman were reflecting on our friendship on the way back up the road (actually at our obligatory stop-off at Annandale Water services). Being sans girlfriends at the moment, it occurs to us that one of us ‘plays the woman’ from time to time. By that I mean, changing our mind frequently and without warning, avoiding making decisions and then complaining at the decision the other made, this type of thing. We’ve yet to adopt the classic “What do you mean you don’t know why I’m upset?” behaviour but I can feel it coming. It’s like having a relationship without the good bits… 😉

Today, 29 July 2006, is significant not only because England romped to victory against Pakistan in t’cricket, but also because it marks 10 years to the day since I started work at with my current (and, to date, only) employer. No doubt if I was working for a recently de-mutualised company I would gain an extra 3 weeks’ holiday and a large TV to mark this milestone, but I daresay I’ll just have to settle for the kudos… 🙂