Useless Article No. 4
January 28, 2007 at 8:53 pm | In Useless Articles | 3 Comments
My Conscience
Mr Patel, my landlord, has a laundry room which all the tenants of Heartbreak Hotel can use.
The washing and drying machines use tokens for which he charges a pound a pop.
I spend a tenner a week on them.
My new tubular lock picks open the slot mechanism in which these are deposited and kept.
I know this because I tried.
Ah couldnae fucking steal any though!!!
My values wont allow for it.
Ma mother done too good a job on me
Useful Article No. 3
January 28, 2007 at 8:37 pm | In Useful Articles | 4 Comments
Tubular Lock Picks
I managed to get my hands on a pair of these. I got them out of curiousity. They almost completely take the skill out of picking tubular locks. Thats the kind of locks people have on motorbikes, cycles, drink dispensers etc.
They work.
Almost frighteningly so.
Makes you feel a bit like James Bond so it does.
They aint illegal to own but they are not allowed to be used for illegal purposes.
Thats a bit daft.
… Tempting, aint it ?!
My Loch Ness Monster Story
January 28, 2007 at 7:21 pm | In Work | 3 Comments
Awrite, Hows Yersel?
In this post Im gonna share a story that Ive been telling for the last ten years whenever the subject of the Loch Ness Monster comes up in a conversation.
It does happen sometimes!
Here ye go …
When I was in my late teens/early twenties I took a break from the chef’ing game and tried my hand at office work. I managed to get a job within a certain department of The Scottish Office … it proved to me one thing and one thing only – I CAN NOT WORK IN AN OFFICE ENVIROMENT … it almost killed me.
No Joke.
I spent most of my time ducking and diving the mind numbing data capture by nipping downstairs to chat to the buildings receptionist.
No, she wasnt some mindless dolly bird who was easy on the eye … she was a respectable woman in her fifties but she had a brilliant line of craic and I would have quite happily spent seven hours a day just spraffing with her. Unfortunately the terms of my contract of employment dictated that that was not one of my duties.
One morning while we were talking a reasonably high ranking civil servant entered the building and joined in our conversation.
For some reason we had got onto the subject of the monster and I had told them that I thought it was all just a myth perpetuated by the local tourist industry to keep those Americans coming over and injecting some big yankee dollars into the economy.
To my amazement, the civil servant told me that he use to be of the exact same opinion as myself until he witnessed the “monster” himself.
I was expecting the receptionist to start to mock him in a good natured way but she didnt. Far from it. She urged him to tell me more.
It turns out that in 1971 there was a sighting by 4 different people at the same time from different points on the loch. They had all described exactly the same thing, a large animal moving at great speed through the water. This civil servant had been one of them.
He told me that he was the closest to it, he had been driving along the road that snakes along the loch, and he became increasingly aware of something moving at almost the same speed as his car in the water below. He initially thought it was some kind of boat, until there was a break in the trees and he managed to get a clear view of it.
His exact words were “I dont care what any scientist or psychologist says … I saw something in the loch that day that nobody can explain away”.
He went on to tell me that he wished he didnt see it as he was caught up in a bit of press furore. He even considered not telling anyone but thought why shouldnt he. He saw what he saw and why deny it. He had nothing to lose or gain from the matter.
Eventually I had to get back to work and left the two chatting. I have to admit that I thought he was just a wee bit quirky and he was having me on. But on further invetigation I found out that he had told exactly the same story to almost everyone in the building.
Fruit Cake!
But he wasnt.
I ended up working quite closely with the guy doing some basic admin duties for him. The more I got to know him the more respect I had for him. He was just off retirement age and was a very well educated engineer … he was employed as the Clerk Of Works for the whole of that branch of the Scottish Office. He had travelled extensively in his youth and had became a “lay” preacher for the Free Church of Scotland in his forties.
He was a man not prone to fanciful flights of the imagination to say the least. ( apart of course from his belief in a heaven above! … but thats a standard deception really)
He is probably one of the few people I have ever got to know that I could say … “They would NEVER lie”.
He reminded me of Magnus Magnasson (Who, interestingly enough, I once spoke to on the phone during my time at the Scottish Office … but thats a whole other post entirely!)
Now he wouldnt lie would he!
So from that day onwards, despite all scientific conjecture, I have believed that there is, or at least was, something in the waters of Loch Ness.
And whenever it has come up in conversation I am compelled to tell this story.
I believe in the Loch Ness Monster.
But I dont believe in God …
… That would be silly of me.
A Wee Bit of Romance …
January 27, 2007 at 10:42 pm | In Wimmin | 1 Comment
… does ye good so it does!!!
Earlier in the week I met up with that Polish girl I got friendly with at the party in Aberdeen.
We had a day out together in Inverness … everything went great too.
I wasn’t even gonna say anything in ma blog about it but ahm fair delighted so I am!
What can I tell you about her? … 25, shes a nurse and shes fit … What more could you want!!!
After gettin the boot fae the ex, attracting any new female company was not high on my agenda … but it feels pretty good so far.
When you spend a fair bit of time with the same burd and it aint working you tend to tar all women with the same brush … theyre all bitches … whats the point in taking another one on?!!!
But theyre no all the same … no even close.
Thank Christ
Not that its anything remotely serious at the moment … but Im meeting her next week again and there has been a steady stream of email and phonecalls between eachother since the party in Aberdeen.
Shes intelligent too! … Gunter Grass and Lech Walesa were subjects of conversation the other day … makes a change from Richard & Judy and Deal or No Deal eh!
No offence to the ex, but she really was a bit dim.
Ive heard through the grapevine that she and the guy she works with are now living as a couple … she dont hang about eh! … then again, fuck knows how long she was seeing him behind my back. The latest empirical evidence suggests about 5 months.
Who Cares?
No BawBags thats for sure!
He is welcome to her … they are well matched.
She has respect for Victoria Beckham and he has deep understanding of neon under car lighting. They can lie in on a Sunday morning tucked up all cosy with back issues of MaxPower and Take A Break …
They can drive to work together and exhbit public displays of affection while walking across the car park, they dont need to worry about being seen now … BawBags is oot the game and oot the picture.
Living with her was one thing … but working with her too? … Jesus Christ!
He must be a better man than me.
Im just glad I escaped with some of my soul intact.
Anyhow, me and my current female companion ended up taking a trip out to Loch Ness as she had always wanted to see it. The weather was atrocious and we ended up just having a coffee at the visitor centre.
It was good craic and it also gave me the opportunity to reel of MY Loch Ness Monster tale. Ive been telling it to anyone who was prepared to listen for the last 10 years and now, dear reader, Im going to tell it to you!!!
Tales of the Unexpected
January 25, 2007 at 3:39 pm | In Neighbours | 4 Comments
Are you ready for a tale of Murder In The Maghreb !!!
Its a long post so make sure you’re sitting comfortably!
Well, as ive mentioned in my blog previously, I have been doin the good Samaritan bit of late…Helping out the alky who lives downstairs through a bit of a rough patch (Well… a rougher than normal patch!). Just giving him a few meals out of the restaurant on the fly to save him from worrying about how he’s gonna feed himself.
Its nice tae be nice after all.
Anyway, I sat with him for a while the other night as he seemed to be in much better spirits and I think he fancied gettin a wee bit of the craic.
Poor auld cunt hadnt been oot the flat for nearly a fortnight … that malky he got has really shaken him up and I reckon he’ll still be suffering long after his ribs have healed … he deadbolts the door now and he never use to before.
Then again, Im fully aware that he is holding the pot dealers stash somewhere in his flat … so that may be the reason for the deadbolt.
Mad eh? … The webs we people weave.
So there I was sitting there trying to think of something tae spraff about but I just couldnae come up with anything …
I noticed that a large rip had occurred in the wallpaper just above the door of the living room. It had obviously began to peel from the damp as he had tried to repair it.
No with paper or paste … no no no … not with any o that shite.
With sellotape …
Aye! Just plain see-through sellotape … in big long strips with teeth marks at either end!!!
It made me feel hell of a miserable and I started to feel itchy all over … Id decided to finish my coffee, make my excuses and leave, then head up the stairs to return to my only marginally better decorated flat.
I was ready for the off.
But then a program came on the telly and it was about all they African immigrants risking their lives every day, trying to get across the Mediterranean in tiny flimsy wee rowing boats, just to escape the poverty.
I mentioned to him that I had spent some time backpacking alone in Morocco in the past.
“Aye? … Ive been oot that way masel” he said.
I was dubious about it to say the least.
“Fuckn Africa … shit-hole … wouldn’t ever go there again, even if ye paid me” … he was quite agitated at the mere mention of the continent and I was interested to find out why … it certainly wasn’t just a case of latent racism, the kind that most british people in their 50s have.
“How the fuck did ye end up oot that way?” I asked … and he went on to tell me this wee story.
In the mid 1970’s, when he was 20 odd, he had been a bit of a free spirit and had taken himself off to see a bit more of life, more than Glasgow could offer him anyway.
He ran off a list of countries to me and it felt a wee bit surreal hearing things like Fjord, The Dead Sea and Constantinople coming from this jakeys mouth.
10 minutes previously, I would have staked my life on him having never ventured further than the post office – to pick his giro up … and then a wee bit further down to the off licence – to put his giro down.
There you go eh! … Never judge a book by its cover BawBags! … No matter how disheveled it is!
I didn’t even know what Contstantinople was!
“Constantinople was Istanbul … before Istanbul became Istanbul”
“Aw … right!” … I live n learn eh!
He somehow managed to get a job “crewing” on yachts while he was in the Cote D’azure … just general duties like washing the decks down and preparing food.
He got in with the in crowd amongst the “crewing” fraternity and was offered a two month job on a yacht that was going on a tour all around the Med. It belonged to the son of some kind of big shot american oil executive and the pay and perks were great he told me.
“Cannes, Genoa, Corsica, Sardinia, all down the Italian coast and Sicily then over to Tunisia … fuckin magic so it was son!”
” … and the stuff the guests were getting up tae mate … you wouldnae believe it! … Pot, Cocaine, Women … and all the rest of it!!!”
There was a wee glint in his eyes that to me suggested cocaine fuelled orgies … I wanted him to divulge a bit more on that one but he was on a roll and he was obviously wanting to get to the crux of the story, sitting down and drawing out maps in the air for me with his fingers – no mention of his broken ribs now.
It was good to see … so I just let him flow.
Good craic so it was.
They had dropped all the guests of in Tunisia as they were all flying back to France. It was the 5 remaining crew members jobs to get the yacht to Valencia for a scheduled re-fit and from there they had flights to Nice all bought and paid for them as part of the deal.
They were on their way and everything was going as planned till they got hit by a freak storm one night, the yacht was damaged and they were taken seriously off-course to just of the coast of Algeria. All of them were seriously shaken up and the skipper decided to take the yacht as far into the coast as possible … find a suitable area to anchor in … and get onshore to consider their options.
This they did quite easily but the only thing was that it was in the back of beyond!
“Fucking nothing anywhere around! … couldn’t even see a way out of the cove we had landed in … steep as fuck it was!”
Then all of a sudden they saw a whole line of horses pouring down a path that snaked its way down from the cliffs above …
“Couldnae believe my eyes … there must’ve been about 20 of them all being ridden bareback by wee boys … the sun was shining on them and beautiful they were, like stallions, and they thundered past us with the wee boys just laughing at us … “
Along came an arab looking guy and he spoke perfect English. Turns out they had landed no far from a racehorse stud farm and this guy was in charge of the running of it. There was nothing else around for 40 or 50 miles he said and he invited them back to stay until they had decided what to do.
“Like something out of a fairy tale it was son … it was an oasis, and it looked like how you imagine an oasis to look like! … apart from this big house and all the stables dotted around it”
They were made more than welcome and the hospitality they were shown was way over the top he said.
He got the impression that a lot of the people working there had never even seen a white European before … all the wee kids kept trying to touch their faces.
That night they were treated to a impromptu acrobatics display from the kids … “Happy wee souls they were”
They were all of Berber origin and the boss explained to him that the parents just give them over to the stables cause they cant hope to feed and look after them properly.
If theyre fit and healthy, they are put to work and learn all about looking after horses in return for food and accomodation.
It wasnt like an official adoption thing … this was Africa … none of them would ever see their parents again.
They put the five of them up in an outlying stable for the night … and they all slept on the hay without blankets happy as larry.
That night, however, something terrible happened.
One of the horses was killed when a stable caught fire … nobody knew how.
He was worried that they would turn the blame on the crew.
But they didnt.
The boss of the farm seemed ok about it the next day and he invited the whole group to join him while he visited his neighbour. It took about two hours in a land rover to get there and when they arrived they received the same reception as they did the night before. Loads of food and drink and there was also copious amounts of hashish this time.
“We were all smashed son … none of us had anything like it before … I couldnae feel anything from the neck doon!”
The neighbour insisted that they take a healthy bag of hashish back with them … he kept thinking they were gonna get forced into paying for it and it was all an elaborate ruse to get any money they had off them … but no, it was all for free – a gift of goodwill.
By the time they got back to the farm it was late and they were all very stoned, the boss even had to help them out of the land rover and into the stable so they could kip for the night.
But it was a different stable than before … much further away from the main farm.
“Christ! Why did you ever leave mate! … sounds like a good place to me!” I says to him.
“Aye?, wait n hear this though” he replied
Later that night he was beginning to feel really dodgy … his stomach was bad and he thinks he was just beginning to hullucinate a bit … it had never happened to him before.
He freaked out and left everyone sleeping where they were and made his way along the track to the farm in the pitch dark.
“Fuck knows why! … I was out of it!”
Eventually he got there but couldn’t find anybody. He didn’t want to bang on the door as it was so late so he began to walk round the back of the big house to see if there were any lights on.
Before he turned the corner he heard a racket coming from behind. He quietly laid down and crawled along till he could pop his head round and see what it was.
About 30 yards in the distance stood all the stable boys in a line crying … the boss and a few other adults he hadnt seen before were pacing up and down behind them shouting in Arabic.
“I couldnae move for fear mate … I got the feeling something bad was gonna happen … but I couldnae do fuck all aboot it … I still wisnae sure if I wasn’t just imagining the whole thing!”
He realised what they were standing in-front of – they had one of these wee boys pegged out by his ankles and wrists on the ground.
“He was screaming son … really screaming … but I couldnae hear it properly cause my ears were playing up … it was like they had water in them or something … everything kept fading in and oot”
They doused the wee boy in gasoline, took a few steps back, and threw a match at him.
“I never wanna see or hear anything like that again son … horrific it was … my bowels and bladder just let go at the same time and I was struggling to breath through fear … ah shat masel”
“… and the worst of it was – these adults seemed to be forcing all the boys to watch their wee pal burn to death.”
It must’ve been a punishment for the death of the horse.
Fucks Sake.
Suddenly he got a hold of himself and managed to stumble his way into the night and found the stable with the rest of the crew in. They were all still asleep.
He woke them up and tried to explain but they were all wasted.
The next thing he knows its daylight and he’s waking up back on the yacht with the rest of the crew.
They told him he was being fucking hysterical the night before, running around naked and screaming and making no sense.
They ended up tying his hands and feet together and that made it even worse … so they had to sedate him with fuck knows what.
They were on their way to Morrocco by keeping as close to the coastline as they could to put the yacht into a port for a tug to take it to Valencia.
“Two weeks later I was back in Glasgow and ahve no been oot of Scotland since, and ahve no touched any drugs since then either … ” he told me.
“So there ye go son … Fuckin Africa … Lifes cheap over there boy … Fuckn cheap”
I was blown away by the story …
I kept sayin … “…Fuckin Hell” and he kept saying … “…Aye”.
He said that he’s only ever told that to a handful of people in his life …
“Ahm no even sure wether ah just hallucinated the whole thing … Mad eh?”
Bloody Mad Alright!
Id been sitting there almost two hours with the guy so ah made ma excuses and left.
When he showed me to the door I couldn’t help but notice that his hands were all clammy and there were beads of perspiration on his face.
“Keep it tae yersel though son, eh?”
When I got back into BawBag Towers I went straight into the shower and then to bed. I lay awake just thinking about it all.
Lifes Rich Tapestry eh?
I love it so I do.
Then something else dawned on me.
That pot dealer who lives across from me aint got nothing to worry about!
That Jakey is NEVER gonna dip into his stash for a fly smoke!
Nae Bloody Chance!
Africa, Africa … so much tae answer for.
Meals on Wheels
January 24, 2007 at 8:45 pm | In Food, Neighbours, Work | 4 Comments
Aye, Ive been a right wee charitable soul lately!
Ive been popping in to the jakeys flat downstairs every night with some food from the restaurant.
Hes still recovering from that kicking he got the other week … broken ribs are a nightmare Im telling you! … they cannae do nothing about them … they just diagnose it and send you oan yer way with a wee packet of painkillers.
Hes up and about now though; but he cant sit down properly – too painful he says.
He spends all day either flat on his back watchin the racing or standing stiff as a board shuffling about his pokey wee flat.
Hes never eaten this good in 15 years.
Porterhouse Steak … Chicken Ballotine … Monkfish in Parma …
Christ!, he even got two Turbot Steaks the other night … 30 quid it woulda cost him in the restaurant.
“Whits this?”, he says
“Turbot”
“Whits that?”
Christ, he disnae know!
“Its a fish mate, but no just any fish … its the BEST fish … get it down you cause you wont ever have it again in yer life!”
“I’ll get the ketchup” he says …
“Like fuck you will !!! … eat it the way it is … I cooked it”
“Ahm havin ye oan son! … yer cookings magic so it is” … he pure lapped it up!
“Fair beats the Spaghetti Hoops eh?!”
“Aye Bloody Right son”, he says,
“Bloody Right”
Useless Article No.3
January 22, 2007 at 7:13 pm | In Useless Articles, Wimmin | 2 Comments
” … Taxi for Miss Goody”
Jade Goody is a Neo Nazi !!! – or so half the world would let you think
Aye shite!
Shes just a daft wee burd wi a silly big mooth.
Get a grip and leave the White Power out of it … lynch her for a valid reason!
Heres one …
… she pulled this guy out of illiterate nothingness straight into our living rooms.
She should be hung, drawn and quartered for that.
I cant keep wondering what it was like when they first met … the first conversation … the earth mustve shook eh?!
Jesus Christ!!!
At all costs dont let them reproduce … imagine the bairn !!! … poor wee thing wouldnt stand a chance.
The Mac Is Back!!!
January 22, 2007 at 6:14 pm | In Apple | Leave a Comment
Oh Joy!
Oh Rapture!
My MacBook is back …
… expect blog updates aplenty!
Lots to tell ya!
Hasta La Vista, Baby
January 14, 2007 at 10:47 pm | In Apple | Leave a Comment
Taking a wee break from the blog … Ive decided to put my MacBook in for a new fascia … the one I have has started to stain and discolour … apparently its a production fault that was present in the first batches produced … nae bother cause Apple is going to do it for free.
Next blog will hopefully be next weekend.
Fingers crossed.
I love my MacBook.
They Kick Ass!
Dont let anyone tell you any different!
Haste ye back!
Injury Report
January 14, 2007 at 10:46 pm | In Neighbours | 1 Comment
Hes back from the hospital.
3 broken ribs and a broken nose.
Ive told him to take it easy and no worry about food … Im gonna put a coupla plates by from the restaurant and pop them into him every day.
Hes hell of a shaken up by it all … Poor Cratur.
Its nice tae be nice.
Blog at WordPress.com. | Theme: Pool by Borja Fernandez.
Entries and comments feeds.
