Why Do We Do It ?

I'm sitting here feeling like death warmed up. I'm in my brother's living room looking at the rain as it passes the window horizontally. The seagulls dont have to flap their wings, the wind is doing all the work for them. If it was sunny maybe I'd feel a little better but the driving rain is just depressing me even more. No doubt Robert feels almost as bad as I do but he's not letting on - it's a macho thing I suppose.

I've had a drink and a cigarette to see if the old 'hair of the dog' concept works ....but it's not - so far! My wallet is completely empty, not even a penny piece in my pockets. I dread to think where the money went but I know that I visited an ATM yesterday afternoon and it's all gone. I didn't even have enough to pay for my haircut this morning, an experience which should have sobered me up but didn't. I just sat there and told the girl to do what she liked. And looking in the mirror I think she did! Maybe she was hungover as well?

Two brains can't even work out what we should be doing today. We're just lying on our respective sofas watching sport on the telly. Not talking. Just the occasional groan. We've decided to go for the obligatory Glasgow curry tonight but that's seven hours away - maybe I should just get my jacket on, brave the weather and try and find another ATM which is a bit difficult in this area of Glasgow as they disappear on stolen forklift trucks within days of being installed. Just ram the forklift into the wall, stick the forks under the machine and you're £10,000 richer. Of course, a forklift truck meandering down the road at 2am with an ATM wobbling about on the forks is quite conspicuous but if I'd passed one last night I wouldn't have given it a second thought. It's one of those crimes where nobody really loses out. The bank gets the insurance to pay the 10 grand. The insurance company has probably placed the risk with another insurance company who places it with Lloyds of London who then split up the risk with maybe 50 companies who regard their loss of £200 as just the cost of another city lunch! No problem!

I still dont feel better. The rain has stopped, the sun is out but for how long? My stomach is still churning trying to digest my brother's 10 item breakfast and Chelsea are winning - it's not a good day so far. My brain is struggling to work out what to write and as each word takes about 2 minutes to type I feel I should just stop........and die. Why do we do it?

The 'Boys' From California....

Now there’s a subject. You’ve either closed down my blog immediately or else you’ve dived into the body of the text to see what’s going on. Good for you. I hope you have a strong stomach. 

Now let me state, right at the outset, that I have nothing against homosexuals. I just don’t like what they do in the confines of their pink bedrooms. So now that’s out of the way, why am I writing about them? It’s a long story. 

Like most people, Mandelson, Portillo, John Prescott……(no – that last one is a mistake) ….I’ve had a homosexual experience and it’s one I’ll never live down. Why am I writing about it – well it’s to show people that I obviously have a caring, sensually attractive side to me. Either that or I have a great bum – whatever. 

I’d not long joined BT when they sent me, with a few other BT guys (I said guys), to California to do a deal with a major credit card company who shall remain nameless although it’s not the one with the orange and yellow circles or the one with the greenish corporate colour – that should narrow it down a bit. Once the deal was pretty sure to go through, the lead deal maker  in the US (Paul) hosted a lunch at his ‘lakeside condominium’ just outside San Francisco. The very location should have pre-warned me but I was naïve, although my BT colleagues had previously suggested that there was an undercurrent of male sexuality going on which I'd poo poohed. Anyway, Paul was keen to show me how Californians lived. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I’d already had two house exchanges with a Californian lady so I went along with whatever he suggested -he was the customer after all. He showed me his garden and the lounge, the utility room, but when he offered to show me the bedroom I made my excuses and rejoined the main party downstairs. It was probably a lucky escape! 

Move on a few months and we’re now in London. The deal is all but signed and Visa (sorry – nameless credit card company) are hosting a dinner in Soho (you knew it didn’t you ?) to thank the BT guys for their efforts. I arrived late to find the circular table nearly full with only two places left. Not wishing to delay anything, I sat down at the nearest empty place, next to Paul as it happened. As I sat, I noticed that the Account Director for BT was giving me dirty looks but as he was always doing that I just carried on and started speaking to Paul. A few minutes later, a guy I did not know arrived and was quite obviously upset at being seated across the table from me. As it turned out, and I was later to find out, this was Paul’s boyfriend who had been shopping and who had assumed he’d be sitting next to his loved one. Anyway, dinner started and half way through, I noticed Oliver, (Paul’s boyfriend) pushing a package across the table towards me. Having had a few G&T’s before I’d arrived, I seized control of the situation and opened this ‘present’, again much to the embarrassment of everybody who was in the know (they’d all been briefed before dinner had started) and found it was a book. I opened it up and there inside the front cover was a greeting which I stupidly read out aloud…..’To Paul with all my undying love – Oliver’. Well you could have cracked the atmosphere with a tube of KY jelly. Deathly silence followed and then Paul whispered in my ear that he and Oliver were ‘significant others’. A term I knew from IBM. 

Dinner continued and things became a bit more relaxed, now that everybody knew that I knew. Wine flowed and the conversation returned to the deal. I noticed Oliver becoming bored and I manfully (note the term) started a conversation with him. I apologised for being late and taking his seat and he replied that he had been late because he’d been off buying Paul some new shoes – some burgundy brogues in some fancy shop somewhere. Paul overheard this and complained that nobody wore burgundy brogues these days, whereupon, in the absence of all logic and shame, I professed to actually wearing some that very night. Chaos ensued as Oliver strode round the table, pushed my chair back, lifted my right leg into the air and showed everyone my burgundy brogues. I don’t know who was more embarrassed, me, Paul or the other diners but again within a few minutes normality (if that’s the correct word) returned and dessert arrived. 

After coffee and liqueurs had been served it was time for me to apologise (again) and set off for home. I don’t recall the exact reason why I was leaving before anybody else but I stood up and bade my farewell. Again, Oliver got up, strode round the table, grabbed my face in both hands and started snogging me. 

I was apoplectic but logical thoughts raced through my mind. How dare he. But he’s the boyfriend of the main customer. What will my colleagues think? What will Paul think? Is the deal now dead? BT will kill me. 

All I can remember in those awful few seconds (it seemed like an eternity) was Oliver trying to push his tongue through my clenched teeth and me thinking that women do have a point when men with a growth on their chins try and snog them. It was horrific. 

So, I’ve done it. Been there and got the t-shirt but didn’t like it one bit….and that was only a snog!  

Why Did They Wait Until I’d Left?

I should take it as a slight but I’m not one to hold a grudge. Anyway, I wouldn’t know who to phone or e-mail. If you wanted to write to someone in charge of your native city it would probably have to be, in the case of my beloved Glasgow, The Lord Provist. But he’s just a figurehead. A guy in a robe and a bit of ceremonial bling hung round his neck who attends shop openings and the like. One of the previous incumbents of this post was a guy called Kelly who was a fervent Celtic supporter and let everyone know it. In a city carved apart through the last 100 years by the sectarian divide dressed up in scarves of blue or green, this, in my opinion was a monumental mistake. But as usual I digress but only slightly this time. 

The problem you see, is that for the first 30 years of my life I lived in all that was bad about Glasgow. The slum tenements. The smog created from the industries encircling the city and which belched out black smoke. The overspill housing estates with no public amenities other than betting shops. The rampant aggression and violence, where to be on your own in an unfamiliar part of this once second city of the British Empire, was to advertise that you were fed up with life and wished to depart. The callous disregard for quality of life which soaked its way into every fabric of working class society. 

And then I left. Heading for bright lights of London (well the suburbs) where the sun shone and you could own a car without being called ‘posh’. But it wasn’t this backward look which caused the angst, it was the fact that as soon as I left, as soon as I’d got on the A74 and headed south, they started to remodel the whole city! First they took the city centre and revamped it, turning once manic streets into tree-lined pedestrian precincts with coffee shops on the pavements. Coffee shops! Glaswegians didn’t drink coffee. It was tea or booze, usually the latter. Wonderfully familiar department stores had their insides ripped out and replaced with mezzanines and exotically planted atriums. Glasgow may once have been the second city of the empire but this was the first time it’s inhabitants had ever seen a palm tree in the flesh – so to speak! 

The east end, where I was born, was completely flattened (unfortunately they did not include Celtic Park) and once it was rebuilt with shopping centres and new, wide roads, was completely unrecognisable apart from the newly refurbished off-licences which still had grills inside the shop through which the shopkeeper would peer at you and then pass you your bottles of booze in exchange for cash – no cheques or credit cards here.  However, the improvement in infrastructure did not wholly translate itself into an improvement in people’s lives – the average male life expectancy is still only 54 – below some African and 3^rd world countries! But hey – let’s not quibble. The new roads were great! 

So what is causing this sudden look back in anger. Actually it’s not anger, just misplaced pride. You see yesterday a deal was signed which will give Glasgow probably the finest hotel in the whole of the UK. Forget the Grosvenor House or the Intercontinental on Park Lane, this place will be fantastic. Six stars they say, which is quite an achievement since the UK hotel industry only recognises a maximum of five but then Glasgow always did overplay its hand! It's being built by the people who own that fantastic sail-shaped place on the Gulf of Dubai. Maybe they heard there was a gulf in Glasgow - the sectarian gulf more like! 

It will have roof-top cocktail bars and an infinity pool and its restaurants will no doubt present the highest levels of cuisine to all those Glaswegians who prospered after I left. Am I bitter? As they say in Glasgow - is the Pope a Catholic? 

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland/New-6-star-hotel-announced.4590750.jp

Here's To The Heroes

I sat on my terrace yesterday afternoon waiting for John and Sandie, our lunch guests to arrive. I’d had a glass of rose and was sitting waiting for them, looking up at the glorious blue sky which was dotted with paragliders who jump off the mountain behind our house. It reminded me of a presentation I did in BT about ‘Courage’ (please don’t confuse me with Gordon Brown), when I said that when a paraglider jumps off the mountain, he or she does so in the knowledge that they either take off ……..or they don’t! If they do (take off) they are generally ok whilst if they don’t, it was a nice funeral. That’s courage. 

Just as I was thinking this, the music I had put on suddenly bust into ‘ Here's To the Heroes’. Not a great classical hit but something which stirs my soul and, I’m not afraid to admit it, brings a tear to my eye.  

I looked up above and thought of my neighbour, Rene, who was a paraglider. I say, ‘was’, as he used to jump off of our mountain, Les Courmettes, but one day he missed a thermal, his  wings folded and he hurtled towards earth. He tells me that there were two choices given that the was too low to deploy his parachute. He could either land on his back or his legs. He chose his legs………and ended up in Cannes hospital for 6 months. He’s fine now but has given up jumping into fresh air and now does gardening and cycling – much safer! 

As the song progressed and the lyrics became more synonymous with personal achievement and the music became more emotional, I thought, ‘Why did they not play this when the Olympians, or Paralympians returned home’? Why is this song not played when our returning heroes from Afghanistan and Iraq step off a plane? We’re crap at this sort of thing. We’ve no idea how to celebrate heroism. OK – they go to Buckingham Palace sometimes, but in America, they are welcomed back into the community, despite some films portraying the opposite, as heroes. The flags are out and each town welcomes its returning heroes. They’ve done their country proud and they are celebrated for their sacrifice. 

Listen to the song and think about our guys fighting in distant lands. 

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=658KDwu0soY

The Daily Mail

As I said in yesterday’s blog,, reading the paper over a relaxed lunch is one of my pleasures. I read the papers online every morning but the Daily Mail has a crap site which forces me to buy their paper whenever I’m at a loose end with a glass of wine – I’m sure it’s a marketing ploy….which works! Tan , my neighbour, reckons I like the Mail because it’s a right wing rag and because it has loads of pictures in it, but I actually read it because it’s got a good sports section and some excellent (right wing) columnists. Normally, I can get through the Mail in about 20 minutes (when I ignore the pictures) but on Friday there were loads of articles which made me chuckle out loud, much to the annoyance of those Froggies reading the Nice Matin. 

Let me share some of them with you…… 

(1)   The Big Picture – normally a double-page spread which shows some subject in glorious technicolour but on Saturday they had a wonderful picture of the Palladium Mansion at Stourhead, Wiltshire with the accompanying text – ‘What Better Sight is There Than Nature’s Glorious Show of Autumn Colours’. All very well….. but it was in black and white!  

(2)   Then there was the article about Iceland (topical because Iceland has gone bust) which stated the following facts…..Iceland has twice as many sheep as people (poor sheep I say). The traditional dish is made up of a Sheep’s Head, Shark Meat, Dried Fish, Pickled Salmon and Salted Lamb – yuck! And children believe in 13 different Santa Clauses. Is this a ruse to get more presents?

(3)   There was a woman of 105 who stated that her longevity was down to having no sex in her life – ever. Having seen the picture of her I don’t think it was her choice.

(4)   A brilliant cartoon by ‘Mac’ showing some British soldiers in Afghanistan approaching their commanding officer and stating that…’The Taliban are prepared to surrender en-masse if they can get a nice big house like the woman in Ealing’. See yesterday’s blog about the Afghan immigrant who gets £170k per year in benefits including a £1.2m house.

(5)   An article on ‘Brew Your Own Biodiesel’ to lower your car fuel costs. Given that my brother is in the business and I get all the problems ad-nauseum – e..g. – collecting hundreds of gallons of the stuff, boiling it to remove impurities, filtering it and then trying to get the smell off of your clothes (you end up smelling like a chippie - sorry Janie), it’s just not worth it….unless you live in the West of Scotland where the average Scot goes through several gallons a week in their quest to deep fry their internal organs.

(6)   And finally (and I know I shouldn’t start a sentence with ‘and’), the allotment owner who was told he couldn’t put up barbed wire because it might hurt the thieves who continually raid his vegetable plot. 

So, a good edition on Friday. I’m still laughing.