And another piccy slot

Granite Steps - Woodlands Crescent (and kitty)



Scientology protest - Buchanan Street

Time for another picture slot

Traditional fronted chemist shop, Glasgow

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The only way is up - or possibly down

People often ask "Hey Alan, why are you so fab and groovy?", obviously not to me personally but I'm sure to various people named Alan who don't look anything like me and frequent trendy, fab and groovy places.

What they do ask however is "Hey Alan, why are you always going up mountains, munros, corbetts, hills and anything else of an upwardly inclined persuasion?" (Or downwardly inclined if you happen to be a mountain goat, although having never been asked the question by a mountain goat I am unable to confirm if they would be in the least bit interested in by direction of vertical travel.

Having spent a considerable amount of time pondering this question, or at least the length of time it takes to realise that Alistair Darling is a bit of a tosser who probably thought that Northern Rock was a confectionery factory in Blackpool (although rather ironically in the same sticky situation), I have came up with the answer......

To cut out the middle men.

You see I occasionally attempt to play golf and just spend all day climbing hills searching for the golf ball. I sometimes go ten-pin bowling and invariably spend most of my time walking back to my seat pissed off having managed to be shown up by the annoying teenagers in the other lane. I sometimes play badminton and spend all my time running around, falling and missing the shuttlecock. I sometimes go swimming and spend all day climbing the stairs to the top of the flumes so I can wreck my trunks on the way down.

So I figure why not just cut out the searching, getting pissed off, falling or wrecking trunks parts and just go straight to the climbing and walking bit. Plus you can't have a flask of soup and a sandwich in a swimming pool, you cant go for a pee behind the badminton net when you're caught short, you cant take muddy boots into the golf club bar and you can always trip up any annoying teenagers and blame their fall on the rough terrain.

The four "F's" of the apocalypse

After a particularly crappy day in the office I have deduced in true Dan Brown style, far fetched tenuous and implausible, that the four horsemen of the apocalypse already ride among us...but not on horses.

What academics and theologians have overlooked is that the horses are actually a metaphor for things that do great dollops of shit or to be more precise cause shit to happen.

The word "four" is both a numeric symbol and a mispronunciation of the Latin fūtuere which over the years became foutre and eventually the double meaning "Four".

"Four" also has hidden symbology and signifies the four F's of modern man.....

And behold the four things that are the deliverer of all evil f...ing shit:

1. Fones
2. Faxes
3. Fotocopiers
4. F...ing Computers

My next novel, entitled the Xerox Code, will follow a deranged communications manager in his quest to uncover the secrets within an ancient photocopier manual and the location of the long lost paper jam that it protects.

Waiting for a bus?

There's a guy in Glasgow who can often be spotted sitting on a camping stool in the middle of a traffic island on Jamaica Street with a shopping trolley staring straight up the middle of the road.

Now, the first time I saw this guy I thought that he was so unfit that he literally had to carry a seat in order to punctuate his shopping journeys with little pit-stops wherever it took his fancy. I watched him for a bit to see if he was okay then noticed that he was sipping out of a thermos flask and waving at the buses in quite a jolly manner and so, with a brief inner monologue something along the lines of ....."hmmmm", I buggered off back to work.

But a few days later there he was again his arse planted down on a camping stool, shopping trolley beside him and giving the thumbs up to every bus that passed him.

"Could this be the ultimate in door to door bus services" I thought to myself, "do your shopping, pop yourself down wherever you fancy and flag a passing bus to take you home" but decided after careful consideration and half a packet of Monster Munch .........nah.

So I stood and watched him for a while longer and realised he wasn't just parking his bum down in any old place just for the sake of it, he was actually taking photos of the damn buses that went past!!!

Now there are quite a few things that are universally considered to be sad including train spotting and collecting air sickness bags but .........BUS SPOTTING !....... C'moan, that's just wrong.

How many variations of the Auchenshugle bus can there be for crying out loud ?

I can only image the thoughts going through his head "Oh look, there's one with four wheels".........."Oh.... oh, there's another, wow two in the same day, I can't believe my luck".

Surely rather than spot buses a more worthwhile pastime would be shopping trolley spotting, that way you could combine your hobby and your weekly messages into one and think of the variations you could come across:

• Choice of supermarket brand
• With or without child seat
• Wee/medium/big trolley
• With or without shoogley wheels
• In the canal/skip/back-garden

Just as many options as your average bus and with all of the associated saddo stigma.

Why you should never buy anything from Curry's.

Ask any computer or hi-fi geek (I include myself here) and they will tell you to never ever buy anything from DSG which owns amongst others Curry's and PCWorld.

Why, I hear your ask...because they really haven't a clue about anything they sell other than what's on that wee card sitting in front of the product.

Case in point, today I was shopping around for a new flat screen TV and being the expert haggler decided to nip into the above mention den of ignorance to negotiate a deal.

The ensuing conversation twixt the salesperson and I went something along the lines of......

Me, "Hi, I'm looking for a 26 inch flat screen TV for my bedroom, what deals can you give me"
Salesperson "Well, we have this 32 inch model for £599"

Me, "Ah..., that would be excellent if it were 6 inches smaller"
Salesperson "So you're looking for a 20 inch model?"

At that point I decided, before he pointed me in the direction of a Dyson, to take my leave.

[Note from author - The above scene happened in Curry's, Argyle Street, Glasgow.....don't say you weren't warned now]

Arguing with the sat-nav

You know you're having a bad day when you start arguing with the sat-nav. I even went an alternative way just to prove the smug git wrong.

Next week I intend to argue with a toaster, why should it be allowed to decide 3 is medium and 5 is burned.

Churches and The Omen

Ever noticed that even though churches are a place of refuge and safety from all manner of evil the churches themselves quite often take on an eerie and foreboding manifestation when pictured in black and white. Even the most innocent of trees that grow in the church grounds seem to transform into tentacled and twisted specters.

Or has that scene in the Omen where Father Brennan gets speared got a lot to do with my train of thought ?


St Margarets Church, Knightswood

How to build a bridge

To the makers of the infamous Squinty Bridge in Glasgow which is currently having to undergo major structural repairs after only being open for about 18 months.

Just have a look at the other bridges in Glasgow such as the South Portland Street Suspension Bridge, which I took a stroll over today and grabbed a few snaps of, which has been open since 1853 and at least lasted until 1870 before needing repairs after which it has been pretty much tickety boo ever since.

Neds - A positive note

A surprisingly positive side effect of your nedicus commonus or greater chequered chav is their rather curious need, no matter what the weather is, to completely cover their faces with their mating plumage a.k.a. the Burberry scarf.

Now whilst many might see the covering of the face as being rather sinister it does have the rather splendid spin-off that nobody has to contaminate their eyes by catching sight of the glakit heid the baw underneath said scarf.

Aw right ya bawbag

Slow News Day

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Just waiting - For a Pigeon?

Memories Of Largs

Even though it was only a short train ride from Glasgow I was never taken to Largs as a child, in fact the first time I recall going to Largs was when I was in my early twenties in my first car.

Back then, and up to a few years ago, Nardinis on a Sunday was the place to go on a visit to Largs for a coffee accompanied by a tasty cup cake and possibly a knickerbocker glory ice cream.

I can still remember its glass top tables, waiter service, thick red twisted ropes that ran across the seaview windows and the pastry and cake display in the far corner. If you didn't want to sit in there was also its take away stall bedecked with all manner of boilings, ice creams of every flavour and even a choice of postcards to send back home.

After your coffee a refreshing stroll along the esplanade , lit throughout the year with coloured outdoor tree lights, was the order of the day finished off with a visit to the amusement arcade with its traditional one arm bandits, penny push and shooting ranges.

Sadly, due to bitter family feuding, Nardinis is now an empty shell with nothing but the distant echos of happier times sharing a space with the pigeons who fly in through the crumbling roof. The amusement arcade has lost its traditional seaside charm and is now just like every other run of the mill arcade found in every city centre up and down the country.

Although maybe a glimmer of hope remains as the last I read there was talk of a consortium reopening the famed seaside cafe that was once the heart of Largs tourist industry. Maybe, just maybe people will be able to once more enjoy a slice of nostalgia while they sip their latte.

But even without these seaside icons from a time when life was a little more innocent Largs still has its charm. Its brightly lit , perfectly manicured esplanade still attracts families and couples of all ages who stroll along on a pleasant Sunday afternoon, ice creams in hand, enjoying the views across the sea towards the isle of Cumbrae and beyond.

Anyone for a double nougat ice cream...???

White training shoes

If my calculations are correct the world isn't facing a population crisis but in actual fact a white training shoe crisis.

I reckon there must be, not including all the pairs in JJB Sports, at least 5 pairs of white trainers per member of the population.

If this is allowed to grow at an exponential rate it won't be global warming we need to worry about but where do we get enough odour eaters to hide the poo of smelly feet.

Badger Porn

I've begun to notice, with increasing regularity, the number of nature programmes being broadcast showing all manner of animals from badgers to budgies going about their daily lives inside dens or cages like an Animal Magic equivalent of Big Brother.

The current penchant seems to be the jolly badger being filmed in their natural habitat in the middle of the night but how many badgers do you know of that are security conscious and normally have CCTV installed in their dens as part of their "natural" habitat?

And if that's not weird enough the badgers then invite everyone around for tea to watch their home videos?!

Ah, but Mr Badger isn't daft and knows that if the cameras are on he and Mrs Badger tell the kids to be on their best behaviour and not to play with their toys in the living room. Then once the kids go to bed they get to have a right old laugh at our expense and we end up all watching the X rated badger equivalent of Debbie Does Dallas.


Without knowing it we've become a nation of badger voyeurs.

The flaw in carrier bag tax

Pardon me for thinking but is there not a serious flaw in Darlings first budget and the proposal to impose a backdoor tax on the use of carrier bags by making shops charge for them or face a fine. Presumably this cunning plan is to force us all to use traditional reusable shopping bags and cut down on the production of plastic and therefore greenhouse gases.

But if you're like me and everyone else on the planet whats the most common use we put our carrier bags to when we get home.........yes that's right we all use them to put our household waste in and means we don't have to go and buy er.......big bin bags made of plastic.

Now let me get this right...........because we're all going to be charged to buy plastic carrier bags we're now all going to stop putting our shopping into plastic carrier bags and instead buy even more plastic bin bags to put our rubbish into instead.

And because the plastic bags you buy for bins are usually a lot bigger than the bin itself we'll all invariably take it out of the kitchen bin before its even half full and pop it outside or, we leave it until its full and stink the place out which I doubt any houseproud person will accept.

So in fact rather than reducing the amount of plastic produced to make bags we'll actually end up making even more and the only people who will win are the bin bag manufacturers and the shops themselves who will see an increase in bin bag sales and a reduction in overheads as a result of no longer supplying free carrier bags.

Would it not not have made more sense, rather than to have gone off half cocked and just placed a "tax" on the public, to have also proposed a bill forcing local authorities to only collect refuse sacks made of 100% biodegradable material and to also replace their plastic bins with galvanised steel ones that we can dump our rubbish into without putting in a bag first.

All he's managed to do is to remove the carrier bag problem and replace it with a bin bag problem.

One word Darling.....Duh !!!!

Lavvie pot plants

Why do people put pot plants in toilets?

It cant be to mask the smell of one of your aunties legendary dumps as no amount of freshly cut roses could mask a minger of that magnitude.

So why give up a piece of prime real estate in what is usually the smallest room in the house to a geranium?

Maybe in an attempt to balance the ecological harmony of the cludgie some think that any pollutant "gases" released into the atmosphere will be somehow counteracted by an ivy in a plastic pot.

Personally I think they're an evolutionary leftover from when we wiped our arses with big leaves in the middle of the forest which would explain why many of the pot plants i've seen in toilets look like shit.

This.......

Is NOT to be confused with this.....

Soap on a rope

I was still in a nostalgic mood tonight and while taking a bath I recalled that 80's icon of cleanliness - soap on a rope.

Always one to ask the question "why" I tried to figure out who actually came up with the idea and compiled a short list of front runners.....

1. A paranoid male rugby player in a communal shower.
2. A paranoid male prisoner in a communal shower.
3. A pissed off mum who ended up wrapping the soap around the neck of their soiled sibling.
4. A compulsively clean suicide victim.
5. The owner of an extremely claustrophobic shower cubicle.

When did Caramel Shortcake become trendy?

It just struck me today whilst having my frothy coffee sitting in the now mandatory comfy sofa courtesy of "Friends" that the traditional Scottish recipe biscuit of Caramel Shortcake or millionaires shortbread has, over the years, become trendy.

My grannie used to buy this for me from the local bakers in Portknockie along with a host of other "fancies" for about 3p a slice but it has mysteriously over the years become the mainstay cake in almost every coffee shop across the U.K. where its trendiness has also been given a trendy price at nearly £2.00 a slice in a particularly well known chain of coffee shops.

So next time your nibbling on that posh cake while sipping on your dolce latte just remember that what you're really munching on is a humble Scottish biscuit which has reached worldwide export proportions up there with malt whisky, the Tunnocks Tea Cake and The Krankies.

[Note from Author - Whilst The Krankies have actually yet to achieve global export status most Scots born around the late 60's would be only to happy to help them on their way, preferrably in a sealed box marked "Do not open until 2020". ......Fan dabby bloody dozy.]

Price comparison websites

Is it just me or is there now so many internet price comparison websites kicking about that there should really be a price comparison-comparison website??????

I really need to get out more ?

Where do vampires shop?

Bit bored tonight with sod all on TV except a crud vampire movie and it was while watching it that the thought struck me.

Where exactly do vampires buy their clothes and furniture from?

They cant nip out to the GAP during lunchtime, they cant buy mail order as they'd always be asleep when the postie comes and even IKEA shuts at 8pm.

So all that's left is ASDA and TESCO open when they're up and about but I've never seen a vampire that looks like a model for ASDA George living in a semi detached house furnished with nothing but reclaimed shopping trolleys.

Now one might say "hey Alan, vampires aren't real" and that would be a very strong argument but none the less I think the movie studios have been able to get away with the whole vampire/domestic arrangement oversight for far too long.

They might even discover a whole niche market in horror/obsessive-compulsive disorder crossover movies.

And another thing, if vampires don't cast a reflection how do they shave without cutting themselves or manage to put their mascara on?

Escalators

The only place on earth where, in public, your eyes can stare straight at the shapely bum of a complete stranger of the opposite sex, at a distance of less the 30cm and you don't get slapped by anyone.

I take the stairs to avoid any frustration.

Zombies - Where do they come from

Despite the best efforts of myself and Heidi by buddy Davids girlfriend David managed to win at the toss of a coin the choice of movie at the cinema last night.

What was his choice from an array of Oscar and BAFTA winners.......only f-ing "Diary Of The Dead" !!!

Being honourable people we tried for best out of three but he wasn't for having any of it and it was with heavy heart that we asked "three please for the zombie movie"

After being subjected to 90 minutes of dialogue equivalent to listening to a goose farting in the fog and all the excitement of a turd in a toilet bowl I can now reveal the answer to the question "where do zombies actually come from"........

The cinema audience.

Just how long do you hold

So........

You're walking into a shopping centre, push open the door, walk through and look behind you. Someone is just 5 steps behind so you hold the door open for them.

You're walking into a shopping centre, push open the door, walk through and look behind you. Someone is just 10 steps behind so you hold the door open for them.

You're walking into a shopping centre, push open the door, walk through and look behind you. Someone is 20 steps behind so you pause for a second and wonder "should I hold the door open for them".

So is there a universally agreed distance where it is NOT considered impolite to NOT hold the door open for someone or is there a door-distance-gender-age ratio where you have to, within a millisecond, calculate that if the person is aged A multiply that by the distance in meters away from the door B then divide AxB by Gender where Male=3 and Female=2. Then using a lookup table if the resulting score is....................... You see my problem.

And to make matters worse I feel guilty for letting a door go no matter how far away someone is but the resulting impracticalities of holding a door open ad-infinitum would be far to many to list here although my bladder requirements would be somewhere at the top of it.

Maybe being impolite has a lot going for it?

How to talk crap and get paid for it

I'm sure I'm not the only person who works for a large firm or government body that has over excessive use of consultants who frequently bedazzle us with their ability to tell us things we already know but in a language we don't understand.

Having to frequently put up with some of the utter tosh consultants come up with, usually written in consultancy speak in an attempt to hide how weak their knowledge or understanding of the problem they're trying to fix actually is I have now compiled a brief insight into my current pet hate consultancy terms to help you beat them at their own game.

Deep Dive
We haven't a clue whats going on so we'll visit a site with as many of the people who have hired us, say nothing and later just repeat what they tell us the problem is.

Socialise The Idea
We've written a paper that we known is total and utter pish so we'll send it out to as many of the people who have hired us and just use the comments they give us which will hopefully also contain the solution to the problem they hired us to solve in the first place.

Drains Up
The solution we provided last time was a total arse up and we haven't a clue how to solve this so we'll have a meeting with as many of the people who have hired us, let them take the blame and with a bit of luck they will provide us with a decent solution. Later if that doesn't work we will just say we were under direction to implement their solution and had nothing to do with the secondary arse up.

As you can see a clear pattern is forming in the client / consultant relationship, the cunning consultant however knows about this chink in their armour and has developed a tactical counterstrike weapon.........the Powerpoint presentation.

What any consultant worth their salt will do to detract attention from the fact they're just regurgitating what their client has already told them is to completely repackage the information in flashy, branded PowerPoint presentations with excessive use of various types of charts.

A particular favourite is the multi format chart using both lines and bars, the more lines the better, to camouflage the fact what you're looking at is actually their profit and growth margins over the last financial year creamed off from your company and has bugger all to to with any performance improvement from the solutions they have provided.

So never be afraid when in meetings with consultants to stand up and tell them to:

1. Speak in plain English.
2. Explain how they derived their findings.

Doing so will immediately get them on the back foot and sort out the bluffing consultants from the decent ones who may just be able to actually work for your money.

Pound Shops

A strange retail phenomenon is rapidly spreading across the country in, what appears to be, the high street retail equivalent of Trotters Independent Trading specialising in all things cheap and extremely nasty.

You know an area of town or a shopping centre is spiralling into decline by the number of pound shops there are selling everything from chocolate biscuits to ladies pants.

Although I'd like to put on record that I'd hate to see the misformed arses that could fit into some of the double gusset, semi detached drawers I've seen scattered around the shelves in those places. The poor shop assistants don't know whether to stack the damn things in the clothing aisle or the camping aisle as a single man tent such is the quality and cut of the pound pants.

But don't let me stop at the pound pants. For surely anyone buying anything out of a pound shop must question that if its only a pound AND the shop is still making profit what does that tell you about the quality of that £1 frying pan that you're about to buy that's more likely to melt before the bacon has had a chance to even think about getting remotely warm. Or that packet of batteries that would be better put to use as paperweights for all the energy that's stored in them.

What's even more ludicrous is that there are even posh pound shops in the shape of Poundland that try to fool the shopper with their branded polythene bags, smart uniforms and electronic till points but they still can't hide the fact that it's the same load of shite that all the other pound shops sell.

And you can't use the argument of that is all some people can afford because it only takes half a brain to figure out that the whole concept is a rip off. You could buy, for instance, a washing line out of the pound shop that is more than likely going to leave all your washing in a nice orderly row on the ground due to having all the tensile strength of a piece of wet spaghetti than the £3 equivalent from your superstore.

But how many people will take the dodgy washing line back and instead just say to themselves "oh, it was only a pound anyway" and then end up going and paying more money for a decent one.

Such is the phycological bluff of the pound shop.