The naked neighbour

Friday night was Comic Relief night and Ka and myself were once more in the McGarva household for dinner with Colin, Ka's bro, and Morgan, our neice. We burst into the McGarva household, Ka sporting a rather fetching curly red wig and all her clothes inside out. My dressing up involved merely wearing a red nose. The red noses this year were the best designs yet, though you still had slight difficulty in actually breathing, but as Morgan discovered, they also bounced, an added bonus. The whole red nose thing was obviously new to Morgan, however, as she kept insisting on shouting 'Happy Halloween'. The charity managed to raise over £57 million, the best year yet, considering the deadly credit crunch hanging over us all.
As if things were not expensive enough, at the moment, the Government is now talking about upping the price of alcohol to a minimum of 50p per unit in order to tackle the country's alcohol abuse. What about those of us that do not abuse it and merely enjoy the odd pint now and again, an occasional bottle of wine at the weekend and the odd occasional night out? Why should we pay more for our booze just because the town centres are full of neds and buckie drinkers?
Talking of neds and buckie drinkers, our downstairs neighbour had a few friends round to watch the football yesterday. Following Celtic's victory over Rangers, a small commotion in the downstairs porch area of our block echoed up the stairs. Ka and myself were awaiting the arrival of my Mum and Dad for dinner and I was on the look out for them arriving. At the bedroom window I looked down to see if there was any sign of the loud commotion at the front porch as Mum and Dad arrived, pulling up in the Citroen. Just as I raised my hand to wave a welcome hello to my Mum our neighbour from the downstairs flat strode out on to the pavement, completely naked, except from a sock, (which unfortunately was in the usual foot area). Striding out into the street our neighbour did not realise the car directly before him had just pulled up, giving my parents the best possible view of the goings on. On noticing the two gawping people sitting in the Citroen the guy turned and immediately scrambled back for the door retreating back into his flat with his jolly crowd. My parents politely gave them some time to escape before eventually appearing at our door, a little taken aback by their welcoming committee. We came to the conclusion that it must have all been some kind of bet resulting from the football score. Why he couldn't just eat his hat like any other normal person I don't know. Dad mumbled something about Calderwood riff raff. Still, at least it makes a change from the usual beatings and riots that go on following these football games, though i can't see it catching on. Byres Road full of naked football fans, wandering around following an old firm game. Maybe we're better off with the riots and beatings? In both cases it boils down to one thing, alcohol intake. Maybe there is logic behind the hike in the price of alcohol after all.

When they were up, they were up

The nice people at Fasthosts sent me an email today. A receipt for the direct debit charge for my annual website renewal. I've just swiftly pointed out that they have actually, already charged me, approximately two weeks ago. I think I must have called their customer care department around five or six times that week. Idiots. There are warnings all over the web about Fasthosts but did I listen to them, no. Numpties. Looks like yet another phonecall to yet another customer care division is called for.
Just watched two hours of comic relief related telly with the celebrity climbers going up Mount Kilimanjaro followed by The Apprentice for Comic Relief which had a team of male celebrities up against a team of females. the girls were led by Michelle Mone, the Glaswegian lingerie entrepreneur, now based in EK, the boys by Gerlad Ratner, a jeweller... or something. Jack Dee, Jonathan Ross, Alan Carr and Gok Wan were the other members of the male team, Jack being his usual hilairious self. Jack sat on the couch and worked out the whole presentatio whilst Jonathan Ross jumped about the couch, firing water pistols and bouncing on those bouncing ball things with antlers. What are they called? Each team had to create a toy for 5-8 year old boys and girls. The boys came up with a great belt idea with which kids would have to collect figures for each of its clips. Each figure looking like something designed by a Japanese cartoonist. The girls had an idea of a suit made of velcro. The velcro suit won... Yeah, I'm sure I would have loved a velcro suit at that age... Turning up at a birthday party at that age and being told to put on a velcro suit, in order to jump about the floor and stick to both girls and boys, would have probably made me leave, sharpish.
The trek up Kilimanjaro looked far more challenging and had a far better result with all the celebrities making it up to the top. Even Chris Moyles and Cheryl Cole made it (whai aye man!). They've apparently raised well over one million by doing it too so good on 'em! I thought climbing the odd Munro was challenging. At times that climb looked like hell. Especially for poor Cotton.