Nice...Very Nice...!

Just found THIS ,(It's more suited to Broadband - 1.4Mb) and laughed myself silly!

Good to see stupid people trying to look clever and then falling on their arse....!

...Or head...!

Bloody Hell...!

OK, so time for an update...

On Saturday I was made redundant. It was not a surprise, as I knew The Boss wanted to cut down on the Bar side of the operation and the serving of lunches. Which was kinda what my job was all about! It couldn't have been an easy decision for The Boss to make, and he was as emotional as I was...

But the decision was made, and I'm actually quite happy with it. Just going down-town now to check the local Job Centre and do all those interminable 'Signing-On' duties!

As Yosser would say..."Go on, Gissa Job!"



*If you have any ideas about what I can call the 'Blog from now on, please leave comments!*

Goodbye 'Norm'...

And so it’s farewell, adieu, and good luck to one of the good guys amongst the ever-dwindling population of ‘Regulars’ who attend The Bar – although there are precious few stories involving him (and now he’s going I could easily make some stories up…!), he is one of the guys who I see and have a drink with nearly every day.

He’s only going away for a while; his job is changing so he gets to spend more time with his ‘real’ family – 1 week up here, 1 week down there – so we’ll still have his company quite often. So it’s not really adieu at all!

Good luck Norm!, hope things work out for you!


(Ha Ha! I’m just thinking of some of the stories I could recall about Norm, like the epic ‘Rats…’ story, or the ‘US Sports are better than British Sports’ arguments we have, or the things he told us about when he was in the US Forces! Some scary stuff there….)

Sky Dish Rant...

So last week our Sky dish went on the fritz. Nothing unusual there, it happens once or twice a year for us. We are used to dealing with it….

So The Wife ‘phones Sky – “I’m sorry, but as you live in a Council block of flats, and you have a communal dish you will have to contact your local Council..”

Local Council – “I’m sorry, but as the dish was installed by ‘SkyDishFuckups Ltd’, you’ll have to contact them…”

SkyDishFuckups Ltd – “I’m sorry, but we don’t deal with Sky dishes anymore, we’re now called ‘SurlyBastard & Son, Electrical Goods Ltd’. You’ll have to contact the Council and get the new contractor to deal with it ..”

Local Council (again) – “But, could you not just make do with watching terrestrial telly like the rest of us..?” – WTF? WE PAY FOR SKY, WE CAN’T GET IT BECAUSE YOUR EQUIPMENT IS FUCKED…SORT IT…! “Oh! I’m sorry, but you’ll have to contact ‘Sky Installer & Repairs Ltd’, he deals with the installation and maintenance of communal dishes now…”

Sky Installer & Repairs Ltd– “I’m sorry, but the maintenance guy is on holiday, and won’t be back until the end of next week. Our other guy could take a look at it, but he’s got a bad back…”


We went out on Sunday evening for The Wife’s Father’s birthday – a thoroughly average Chinese meal. Got home at about 11.30pm, just in time to start watching The Ryder Cup highlights on BBC1, cursing that I was unable to watch it ‘live’..

I switch on the TV, and absent-mindedly switch on Sky at the same time, and - Lo! And Behold! – Sky is now working!

We guess that this must be a temporary happening, as no-one in their right mind would come out on a Sunday to fix it. But it continued to work all the next day, until about 1.30am the next morning, when it just suddenly stopped again.

So, nearly two weeks of watching the 4 (incredibly crappy) terrestrial channels that we get. Arse.

There’s been some good stuff on the wireless lately…..

Mr Bent

This story goes back to the fantastic trip to Englandshire that we all went on during the summer of ’93.

Myself, Marty, Jambo, Chris, Fiona and Mark all set off on a wee jaunt to see Metallica (supported by Diamond Head, The Almighty and Megadeth) play at the Milton Keynes Bowl, then on up to Sheffield to see Def Leppard (supported by Terrorvision, Ugly Kid Joe and Thunder) play at The Don Valley Stadium.

Marty was left to arrange the accommodation for us all, and as we’d decided to go down a couple of days early to take in Vic and the Rattleheads in Nottingham Rock City last minute arrangements were made to stay 2 nights in Nottingham. Marty proudly announced - “I’ve got us a good deal in a B&B - £8 a head!” – which should have raised the alarm…

So off we toddle on the long drive to Nottingham.

I remember arriving at the B&B (which resembled a basic Council House) and being greeted with the sight of 4 Philipino boys sleeping under a tent in the living room! We were startled to say the least..

So we are allocated our rooms – Jambo, Chris and myself are upstairs in the Triple Room, while Marty is given ‘The Conservatory’ downstairs. Fiona had booked a charming wee B&B around the corner. Sensible lass.

We all go out for a pint or two, and then back to the B&B for some much needed rest. After some bacchanalian buffoonery upstairs, and two warnings from the owner, we settled down to get some kip.

We wake up bright and early, quick breakfast and into town for shopping. Marty then informs us that his ‘Conservatory’ is exactly that. An extension to the kitchen, with sheets tacked up to provide make-shift curtains. He also cryptically tells us “There’s something strange about that place…”, which we understandably laugh off.

Off to Rock City, watch a thoroughly average Megadeth warm-up gig and then back to the B&B again. This time the Conservatory has been allocated to me, on account of my alleged snoring the night before!??! I didn’t mind too much. Marty did offer me some advice though –“Don’t look in the bedside cabinet drawer..”

My first impressions as I entered the dreaded Conservatory was ”Fuck me, it IS a conservatory” with sheets for curtains, a camp-bed and strangely, a foot mirror on the floor at right angles to the bed. It was one of those small square mirrors you get in shoe shops, on a central hinge so they can be angle up at your face so you can see what your shoes look like.

There was indeed a bedside cabinet and tempted by Marty’s warning, I took a peek inside….

German Porn Mags. Tons of them.

I wake up in the morning to the sound of crashes and tinkerings in the kitchen as our host, Mr Gent, cooks up breakfast.

I open my eyes, and the first thing I see is the foot-mirror, and clear as day there is Mr Gent’s face looking STRAIGHT back at me….I froze, and spent the next few seconds piecing things together.

Porn Mags + Foot Mirror. Into which I can see him, but more importantly, HE CAN SEE ME…!

Was the positioning of the mirror crucial to this perv’s intention to catch one of us chucking one off the wrist?

Thankfully we never stayed around to find out. Breakfast was refused, and off we toddled to Milton Keynes for the next leg of our long weekend….

We never asked Marty to organise accommodation after that…..

Monday Rant - Bloody Newspapers

5 days a week I get both The Sun (Scottish version!) and The Daily Record - both of them are as childishly rubbish as each other...

Day after day after endless day we are subjected to lurid tabloid headlines which actually bear no relation to the story behind, unscrupulous tabloid photographer's snaps of b-list female celebs getting out of cars (why are we interested? Because we might see a bit of leg, or a flash of knicker-elastic..that's why?) or pictures of Britney or Christina falling about pissed, or leaving Tesco's with the weekly shopping.

"Charlotte Church In Smoking Shock!" - Who cares? So she smokes? FFS, there must be more interesting thigs to print?

Are we becoming more Americanised (apologies to Americans, I realise you're not all like this!), whereby a 10-second sound-bite is all we are interested in? A quick scan of the headlines is all we want? Anything more and our attention wanders?

No wonder, when the publishers constantly dish up such worthless fare, that we are becoming more and more tolerant of the pap culture that passes for the 4th Estate these days.

And don't get me started on reality TV.....

But the Great Unanswerable Question still remains - Why do so many of us buy this crap?

...Coming Back From Marty's Wedding...

I have to admit, I am not a good traveller. I have suffered from motion-sickness since I was a child. Even the shortest journeys can leave me nauseous to the point of 'poly-baggage'. Especially when a hangover is added to the recipe.

So going to (Lorna and) Marty's wedding was never likely to end any other way, I'm afraid….

DaveMo volunteered to drive us (me and The Wife) there and back (a good 300 miles each way), so I should really have offered a warning.

To be honest, the journey down to Falkirk wasn't that bad, just a few instances of queasiness on the A9 north of Inverness, but that was about it. Everything was going excellently.

We arrive at the hotel, change and get tore in about the Bar. An evening's drinking follows, meeting up with all the guys whom I hadn't seen for some months. You know, general Wedding Dance-y type stuff. Oh, and more drinkies….

An enjoyable evening was literally put to bed at around 3.30am.

I wake up bright and early, with a bit of a sore head. And off to breakfast, where I manage some dry toast and some 'fresh' orange juice. Then back up for a wee kip while we waited for DaveMo to drive us back up the road. Sore head getting worse by now. Beginning to tremble.

About 11am we went back down to the hotel foyer where everyone was beginning to gather, Marty's Mum and Dad, Lorna's family, all the lads, it seemed as if everyone was there…..

By now I am particularly green about the gills, sweating a wee bit, so I try to quietly slip away to the bogs for the inevitable. Now you know those hotel bogs, all tiled floors and echoey walls?

So the gathered ensemble in the foyer is treated to the sound of the violent retching and spewing of a man in obvious distress. I come back out when finished to see the whole company staring at me…..

The wife is obviously concerned at my ashen-faced appearance, and knowing me as she does she is filled with dread for the journey home. She knows what happens next. Luckily she has come prepared, and has a plentiful supply of plastic bags.

The journey home is one which I can tell you little about, as I spent it lapsing in and out of consciousness, in between throwing up every 15 minutes into a succession of carrier bags. By this time, there was nothing left in my stomach, and all I could throw up was a black acidic phlegm type substance. And nothing else. (I've often wondered exactly what this stuff was. Stomach lining? I thought it could be the diet-coke-concentrate-stuff that they insisted on putting in my vodka. More likely it was just black acidic phlegm! It didn't want to stay where it was, that's for sure!)

I remember we stopped at Aviemore, where DaveMo and the wife were glad of some respite, and I was offered some food. It stayed down for less than 5 minutes….

The rest of the journey passed quickly for me, but agonisingly slowly for my long-suffering companions. DaveMo pushed his car to the limits in an effort to get us home (and out of his car!) as quickly as possible.

We got home at about 7pm, gratefully dropped off at the door, where immediately I am beginning to feel better. I'm sure our driver was feeling much better about things too. It must have been pretty hellish listening to me peffing into a carrier bag for nearly 6 hours straight….

But the day was not yet done with our hapless chauffeur…

On the short 5 mile trip through the countryside to his pleasant cottage, DaveMo's car finally gives up the ghost, and promptly dies on the spot. In his rush to get us home, he'd ignored the fact that cars need water to cool the engine, and the radiator had gone.


Needless to say, I've never been in a car with DaveMo since….


(Belated apologies to DaveMo for killing his car, and for contributing so much to an utterly horrendous journey.

Sorry mate.)

"Land of mountains, Land on the river....."

I have marvelled for a long time now at the memory of the wunderbar Austrian team that played in the France '98 World Cup.

Not for their silky football, nor for their stereotypically dogged national spirit, but purely for the size of their numbers....

Go on, have another deek....

They're bloody HUGE! This is what we want from International competition...a battle of number-size! Christ, that number is nearly as big as his shirt!

It doesn't get any better than this, I can tell you......

(By the way, I have no idea how the Chil-e-an guy ends up in that position?)

The 'Real' Derby.....

This is a story about one of the fleeting characters in the life of the Bar....

Willie (or was it Johnny or Davie?) was a mid-30's labourer working away from home, and he'd got himself involved with one of the 'local' lasses.

In fact she wasn't local at all, but a fat lass from Newcastle, and when he was here he stayed in her Mum and Dad's house, quietly trying to not rock the boat (or the bedsprings apparently....).


Anyway, he used to come into the bar on Saturdays and Sundays and get as pissed as he could (in his situation I would have done exactly the same!), and as a keen Glaswegian he was obviously a Manchester United supporter. But a football fan nonetheless...

So this one Saturday 'Willie' says, after scanning the TV-Quick mag, "OK 'Man Behind The Bar...', are you going to be watching the Spanish Football this weekend?".

To which I reply - "Absolutely..".

"Excellent" he says, "You know, it's the 'Real' Derby this Saturday"....

To which I respond - "...??..."


"Aye, it's Real Madrid versus Real Zaragoza....."


Cue astonishment......