Soggy Feet, Doosh-doosh & Slurpy Coffee

There's times when I just hate the train, this morning being one of those particularly hateful days.

The daily trudge to the railway station was, as ever, a joy as I listened to the 4 cylinder symphony of cars careering along at 1mph with their drivers under the delusion that taking the car was the quickest way to get to work. The fumes from the cars only helped to dampen my already wet demeanour which was largely brought upon by my wholly inaccurate prediction that I wouldn't need a brolly and the west of Scotland penchant for pissing with rain at a moments notice.

As always, Scotrail have this theory that their rail carriages are manufactured in Gallifrey by the Timelords Intergalactic Train Suppliers or T.I.T.S. for short which ironically is rather apt as only a tit could possibly think that 150 people will fit into a carriage designed for 50.

Conditions onboard the train were what could best be likened to currently sitting on the Labour party front bench..... uncomfortable and with lots of squirming to see who can get nearest to the door to jump off first.

Having climbed over the mandatory numpty who always thinks that one train ticket actually purchases 2 seats, one for their arse and another for their bags, I managed to get a seat across from the doosh-doosh guy with his annoying headphones and a female with a cup of hot coffee who either must have been stung in the lip by a bee or who had just been given a touch of botox.

Watching coffee woman and her interesting pout was amusing to say the least. She was managing to drown out doosh-doosh guy with her slurping by inventing a whole new technique for drinking coffee from those annoying lids with the little hole, you know the ones where you need to generate the suction power of a Dyson in order to extract the equivalent of a pigeon poo's worth of coffee without burning your lips or at best dribbling and creating a whole new pattern on your shirt tie.

She had, instead of electing to drink out the wee hole, decided to bite a larger hole in the lid which had the odd effect of turning the whole thing into a sort of liquid generated kazoo with every slurp causing the sides of the lid to vibrate and buzz. It was like sitting across from a tuneless marching band on a Red Bull overdose.

Doosh-doosh guy just sat there happily perforating his eardrums while treating the rest of us to the doosh-doosh song.

Why is it that no matter what type of track is playing on an MP3 player it always just sounds like "doosh-doosh". Maybe if you listen to it backwards its actually morse code for "Satan is a deaf bastard and likes to annoy everyone on trains with this doosh-doosh song".

..................I hate commuting.

Bogshead Revisited

In a follow-up to my world famous exposé on the pointy fold that hotels put in their bog rolls I have since discovered the elite of pointy bits....

The pointy bit with freshness guaranteed sticky thing.

While undertaking my ablutions I thought long and hard over this, the pointy thing that is and not the other task I was undertaking, and I can only conclude that the sticker's only useful purpose is to ensure the guest that no other person has wiped their arse since the maid cleaned the room.

And so there we have it, a posh hotel can only be truly posh if it's lavvie paper is security sealed.

Walk along the Kelvin

Few piccies while walking along Uni Avenue today enjoying the Autumn sunshine..

The Glasgow Kelvin Hall in the background.

Mr E. Presley, taken in Glasgow's museum & art gallery.

This week's picture slot

This is the famed "Jinty's" at the back of Byres Road and not being one to pass the opportunity to rest my weary feet took refuge in the noble ale house.


And the vista from said ale house although it should be noted that many a drinker may not recognise this view from eye level and might be more familiar if I had taken the picture at ground level.

Nae Arses Please

It would appear that the parking of ones bahookie** in the Hillhead area of Glasgow is now frowned upon and the locals have taken a rather heavy handed approach to ensure no unprohibited placing down of the arse.........



**Bahookie....arse, bum, rear.

Byres Road Fruit Stall

There's a greengrocer at the top of Byres Road who always takes the time to really "arrange" their outside display. Today's was too good to not take a piccie...

Sannnie Bolas Theory

There's an odd tradition in Glasgow that I'm pretty sure must get replicated throughout the UK and the rest of the world wherever there are either overhead street telephone or lighting cables.

I speak of the curious sight of the pair of training shoes dangling in mid-air from the overhead cables for all the world to see like a left-over Christmas street light decoration.

Maybe they're up there as the owner has a particularly pungent pair of feet and requires vigorous outdoor airing of their shoes.

However my preferred theory is that whilst walking along the street a passer-by happened to spot a low flying bird of prey that was threatening small children and pets and they thought.... "I know, I'll take off my Nike's and fashion them into rudimentary bolas and using the skills of my forefathers knock that pesky predator from the sky".

Unfortunately, their forefathers being shipyard workers and not knowing much in the way of the hunting skills of the South American Gauchos obviously overlooked the overhead telephone cables in their attempt to prove their hunting manhood thus leaving the predator to go home unharmed, the sannies** to be left dangling and them having to hobble home shoeless.

Oddly you never actually see any real bolas hanging from these cables which can only mean that you don't find many Gauchos hunting in the Glasgow Maryhill area for large birds of prey.

**Sannies......Glasgow terminology for training shoes.

Cute Cop

Grabbed this candid at the Cenotaph in London while waiting on the Queen going past the office for the state opening of parliment.

Lest We Forget

Took plenty of the queen going past the Cenotaph outside the office but then thought this one meant so much more.

Underneath the arches

Yours truly has been a bit busy of late and Swansea feels like its rapidly becoming my second home due to the amount of time I spend down there so apologies for not updating the blog of late.

However I was back home in Glasgow tonight and not one to be afraid of dark spooky places dived under the Glasgow Bridge on the way home and grabbed this shot.



Aside from one or two interpersonal communications consultants working on a strictly cash only basis I didn't get mugged, accosted or approached by any unsavoury types as I fumbled about like a numpty with my camera.

Although I have been asked by the lovely ladies working to the strictly cash only arrangement to advertise that Monday nights are usually quiet and so they are currently promoting their £5.00 special which , if I took them correctly, seems to involve the provision of a French lesson which I thought seemed quite reasonable given that my local community centre charge upwards of £15.00 for foreign language classes.

Fudged again

I can't believe some sod actually nicked my Welsh fudge from the in-flight overhead locker today.

Sadly my counter espionage attempts at recovering it , which involved edging up to everyone who looked dodgy at the baggage reclaim like a spooks extra and checking them over, also failed.

Next week I plan to transport my sweeties in one of those armoured briefcases that gets handcuffed to your wrist........

No bugger's getting my swedgers again.