Picnics, barbecues, beaches and tomatoes

My not insignificant forehead has been red raw this week and is only just recovering. For the first half of the week it felt like I'd had a particularly heavy injection of botox as I was finding it difficult to lift my eyebrows (and spending days on end with the inability to lift your eyebrows is most inconvenient – a look of surprise is misconstrued as a look on constipation).
The sun had once more got the better of me. After a day spent lounging about a beach on Elie harbour without any form of protection I suffered. I should know by now that even though the sun may not be obvious at times, it's still there. Quite often, as soon as I've set foot on a beach, be it Ibiza, Lanzarote or Largs, I’ve turned a violent shade of red.
The family, or in this case, families, were all gathering in the Fife coastal town of Elie for a beach barbeque. My Aunt Anne had arranged it with the extended family of my Granpa Reid’s sister’s, my Great Aunt Nan’s, side as, unfortunately, we only ever seem to really see each other when somebody dies. Anne had got talking with a few of her cousins at the last funeral, my Aunt Maureen’s, and had decided enough was enough. She was determined to bring the two families together for something that wasn’t a death.
So Dad, Mum, Lynsey Ann, Ka and myself all jumped into Dad’s citroen on the Saturday, and travelled up to Leven, and to the Caledonia Hotel, a half hour drive from where we were headed the next day. We arrived at around half past eleven and, as check-in wasn't until after one, we decided to take our picnic, organised and provided by Mum and Ka, down to the waterfront. Unfortunately the weather wasn't up to much and as soon as we climbed down the large stone steps on to Leven's short sand beach, the rain started to fall.
Not just normal rain though.
This was large, big, splodgy dollops of rain which made a fantastic attempt at soaking us before we ran for shelter, cowering under the shelter of a large tree, we'd spotted earlier, back up towards the streets, alongside some park benches. As the rain eventually lightened, Mum and Ka quickly started preparing the tea, coffees and sandwiches, the Firth of Forth stretched out before us under the continuously moving clouds.
After our lunch, we decided to take a wee walk around the seaside town.
It didn't take very long.
We walked up on to the rather neglected looking High Street, not even paying any attention to the decorative signposts which pointed the way to the town's various hotspots. Not that there was much in the way of hotspots.
The bigger hotspots consisted of the local Lidl, which stood opposite our hotel for the night and served as our picturesque view from our hotel window. An indoor swimming pool stood lay, across the road from the bus station, at the end of the short High Street. A Sainsbury's sat across the road from that. There was an Arcade amusement shop, a bounteous amount of charity shops and a few pubs.
My Dad and I left the women in a wool shop and wandered further up the street and came across and slightly more curious looking little shop which displayed examples of it’s wares in it’s window. World war helmets, military caps, uniforms, nazi war medals, gas masks and beer flagons were just a few of the collections adorning the shelves and walls of this particular shop all leading you into a false sense of security as you ventured forth into the back of the shop and found a bog standard second hand book shop. Dad bought some Michael Connelly books for a pound each (cheaper than the charity shops) before we headed back down the street to find the women in the hotel buying in the drinks.
Following check in, during which we checked over our basic, but clean, rooms admired the view of the local Lidl and unpacked our small cases of belongings, we headed out to Crail to meet up with Tom, Linda and the just arrived Jim who had driven all the way up from London. We arrived at Tom and Linda’s camper van just in time to see Cavendish and his team get beat in the Olympics cycling road race and decided to head up to Crail’s Main street and a pint in the Golf Hotel where Anne and Ian caught up with us and Mum noised up the barman for not delivering Ka’s coffee.
We headed back to Leven for the remainder of the evening, driving through the pouring rain, which seemed to suddenly only exist outside of Crail, and enjoyed dinner with Anne and Ian in the Caledonia, where the waitresses had neglected to book our table and then nearly forgot to take our dessert orders.
With the rain finally giving itself a break, we took a short walk afterwards, ending up in one of the pubs we’d passed on our walk earlier in the day. Now it was a little livelier and the Saturday night entertainment was in full swing with the pub’s DJ and karaoke machine. The karaoke only made up half of the entertainment though as we were introduced to the lively residents of Leven’s Molly Malones. Most of the singers were awful, successfully destroying perfectly good songs. One of the guys, who would probably have ate himself if he had been chocolate, could barely sing the last three words of each screen, struggling to keep up with the colouring text. A few girls attempted Lady Gaga and the like whilst one of the biggest karaoke stars of the night turned out to be a lady called Margaret.
At least we think she was a lady.
Usually Margaret is a lady’s name so we opted for the female option. This ‘lady’ would strut up to the microphone in her suit jacket and belt out the hits with a deep, but not completely tuneless voice, and was overjoyed to hear the cheers from Mum and Anne following her various song interpretations. Insinuations were even made the next morning about Mum getting a few heavy winks from Margaret.
After a quick drive across the road to Lidl, where we packed a couple of boxes full of chicken, burgers, ribs and wings along with wine, juice and a couple of large bottles of water for the beach feast we headed out to Elie.
Arriving at Ruby beach, Sarah Jane turned up with Yvie, Christopher and Daniel before Anne and Ian drove up and met us where it was decided we should change location and we settled down on a small section of beach in a rocky alcove on a southern point of Elie harbour.
The sun was out but the wind was strong as we started setting up camp. Tom kitted me out with some shorts and a pair of spiky soled sandles as I’d left the shorts at home not expecting much from the Scottish coastal weather, much to Tom and my Dad’s disbelief. Earlier, on the Saturday, Dad almost swerved off the road with incredulity when I told him that I’d not brought any shorts.
Anyway, tents were built (and never used), barbecues were laid out ready for use, canoes were blown up, windbreakers were erected and a couple of castles were built as the family gathered to meet the more distant, extended family. Granpa Reid’s sister, my 87 year old Great Aunt Nan, soon appeared on son-in-law Stanley’s arm, the majority of her family, all following soon after.
Considering I only see these distant relations briefly at funerals I still find myself getting names mixed up, if I can even remember the names in the first place. There were a number of occasions on Sunday when I had to ask reminders from Mum, quietly and subtly whenever I think none of them are looking. There was Paul married to young Nan, Joan married to Stanley, Allison married to Ken, Kathryn married to Vince, Claire married to… Paul… I think it was Paul. Gawd, see, there I’ve started forgetting the names already?!
Anyway, on the day mixing up the names and relations didn’t get in the way of the food. Before long the BBQ’s were lit, the cans were cracked open, the wine unscrewed (we realised in Lidl that we had no bottle opener) and Linda’s trifle was out whilst the sun shone down, the strong wind succeeding in fooling us into being cool, whilst the occasional shower pestered us from time to time.
In all there was probably around 35 folk crowded round that small piece of beach before some of the blokes disappeared off to the Ship Inn for a pint, or to see the hanging baskets, as some were claiming, and to watch the game of cricket taking place further along beach. Apparently Elie’s hanging baskets are lovely at this time of year, I suspect they’re even lovelier when there’s a pint or two involved.
Unfortunately for me I made the unwise decision to stay on the beach and get merry with the wine, my Dad only realising later that we could well have been breaking the law.
It wasn’t until I got back into the back seat of the citroen at the end of the day, after returning the shorts to Tom and spending around an hour saying goodbye to people, that Mum turned a fetching shade of scarlet, Dad got dizzy and tripped over a wall, Lynsey Ann started to feel a little drowsy and my whole head started buzzing with heat. It wasn’t until the next morning when I awoke that I realised I could no longer look surprised, let the water from my shower hit my head or dry my hair or head without screaming in pain. I walked into the office with a head resembling a expertly polished tomato. Now, a couple of days later, and after copious amounts of after sun cream, that tomato is now peeling.

350 friends

I spent three hours on facebook the other night updating my profile page to it’s new ‘timeline’ design before it’s forced upon me on the 12th of March. Suddenly that date is suddenly almost upon us I thought I’d better get it done before the wonderful programmers at facebook take it upon themselves to mutate my profile page and pick layout to their own liking, probably slapping some tagged picture of my mug up, massive on my profile, for all to see.
I haven’t spent such a long time on facebook for ages. In fact, I’m very rarely on. I usually pop in to wish Happy Birthdays and pop back out again. It’s great for keeping in touch with people you rarely see in day to day life, such as a brother in Australia. Drinking, partying, sky diving, bungee jumping, nighty wearing.
With the exception of the occasional brief visit, I’m rarely on facebook. Especially recently. Everybody on my home page, who I haven’t hidden from view in my preferences, seems to be having babies at the moment. Either that or just talking about what their babies are doing, in minute detail.
Before you think it, it’s not jealousy, I just have no interest in what a fb friend’s wee Baby had for dinner and why he or she (or it in some cases) looked so cute eating it. Some folk on facebook struggle to talk of anything else other than the latest movement or noises their baby is making. Do they have nothing better to talk about? Politics, sport, the war in Afghanistan, art, independence, cinema, the state of the block’s wheelie bins even? None of these subjects seem worthy enough.
If Lucy were around I wouldn’t be boring everyone that’s befriended me with endless stories of how Lucy belched at the dinner table.
Why do facebook have to keep modifying things anyway? They’ve been messing with the design for a while now. Adding bars, pop up screens, new newsfeeds, new buttons, preferences, scrolling effects.
And how many times do they need told that no, I don’t know that person that somebody else does and no, I’m not interested in gaining their friendship just because someone else is.
I suspect there are people that do aim for that though. You come across folk on facebook that have 350 friends.
That’s just not possible is it? How can you have 350 friends? I’ve got about 3.
Excluding family members of course. They’re friends whether they like it or not.
But then facebook friends and Friends, real friends, are very different things. The word ‘friend’ is a very loose term of phrase online.
There must be loads of folk out there that just add and befriend folk for the sake of it, just to make their friends list look attractive and popular. The place to be, like they’re involved in some kind of game to see how many hundred facebook friends they can get?
When I get a friend request from someone I don’t know from Adam (whoever Adam is?) I send them a polite question asking them who they are exactly and how they know me, just in case I have known them in a previous life and have just managed to forget all about them (if that was the case, would you even be interested in befriending them?). This usually gets ignored and I lose out on another +1 to my friends list, a fact which I do struggle with at first, but usually manage to come to terms with over time and persevere onwards with my life.
Twitter’s a good one for that. If it’s not complete strangers, it’s scantily clad girls in provocative poses (thankfully not involving sheep), looking at me hungrily on a profile picture telling me they’re now following my tweets. Then there’s the completely crazy followers you somehow obtain. Twitter emailed me one day, informing me that Coronation Street had decided to start following my tweets for some reason. Why Coronation Street was interested in following me I’ll never know (perhaps they mistook me for Norris or something?).
After changing my facebook profile page to it’s new timeline set up, I looked over it to make sure there was nothing too embarrassing on it.
How did facebook know when I got engaged? I couldn’t even remember when I got engaged! (because it was such a blur of joy and happiness!!)
A low profile on facebook is getting all the more unlikely.
The timeline documents the birth of my brother in 1983, yet there’s no mention of Lynsey, my sister, who was born in 1980 or all the other family members that have confirmed by a simple click that, yes, to their misfortune, they are indeed related to me.
Admittedly I do quite like the new timeline profile. It allows for a little more creativity for your profile page. If you’ve got a particularly stunning picture that you’d like to show off you can now make that you’re main, cover picture. My cover picture is not particularly stunning but it is a rather nice shadow photo of Ka and myself walking over Saint Peter’s Square in Rome on our Honeymoon (I wonder what my facebook timeline remembers about that?). Of course it just looks like a couple of shadows over a stoney ground on it’s own, but at least I know what it is.
Looking back, the old profiles were pretty boring giving you only the one smaller profile pic to toy with alongside the small photos that you’d either uploaded yourself or had been tagged in by other happy snappers (Jillian!).
But even the old profiles were a struggle for some.
My Mum phoned me the other day while I was at work. She needed my help. I had been attempting to tell her over Yahoo Chat how to upload images from her phone by connecting it to the computer via USB and then navigating to her device’s memory drive on the computer and lifting the photos from there. Mum had wanted to upload a picture of herself from her phone to use as her new Facebook profile pic.
Unfortunately she must have got a little muddled on the way.
I answered the call to Mum howling over the phone. I mistook the howling for crying which immediately made me panic and think the worst. After a few moments of a rather strange, undecipherable conversation, I realised it was uncontrollable laughter and with the few words I eventually managed to piece together what had happened.
In attempting to upload a new profile picture from her mobile she had successfully uploaded something quite different from the computer.
My Dad’s letter of discharge from the hospital, following his heart scare last year, was now her profile picture.
Jillian, who had been on Facebook at the time, seen this new update and clicked the ‘Like’ button assuming it to be a happy statement of rejoice from Betty for her husband’s good health, be it six months later.
Needless to say I had to log in under Betty’s name and sort it all out for her.
This was the same day my Uncle Jim left a Happy Birthday message on my profile page. Moments after I started getting a little excited about my birthday I realised that Jim had his Michael’s mixed up. It was my cousin’s birthday, not mine, which I quickly pointed out to him, just so he had enough time to give the right Michael his many happy returns.
My ambiguous, evasive brother, currently adventuring in Oz, even found the time to comment on that. When not exploring, working, partying and dressing up in nightys, Kenny has now decided to start jumping out of planes.
Now that does make a good profile picture.

Did Boba Fett brush his teeth?

Another Sunday night dinner at the McGarva's tonight. We all arrived. We all ate Dougie and Grace's food. We wrecked the place. And then we left.
Okay we didn't literally wreck the place, as such, but thanks to us and the kids, the place was left in a bit of a state as we all said our goodbyes. Colin and jillian were the first to escape, using that old excuse of having to catch a train, and then the rest of us followed. Morgan and Joshua were piled into the car by Angela and Ka and myself grabbed our various belongings including slippers, sunglasses and Boba Fett helmets, jumped in the car and were off home. Yep, a Boba Fett helmet. They always come in handy when you need a spot of Bounty Hunting done.

A genius birthday present from Colin and Jillian, which I only just unwrapped today. Ah, geek mode once more as I spend the next ten minutes trying to get the electronic helmet out from it's box. It's even got Boba Fett voice recordings which you can activate by pressing some disguised buttons on the helmet's side. "I am the hunter. You are the prey" is one of the quotes that emit from the helmet as it's antenna lights up. You never know, it may come in handy?
Of course, my only problem now is, where the hell do I keep it? Probably the first thing that popped into Ka's head, groaning inwardly, as I unwrapped it. I did suggest that I simply wear it all the time, thus eliminating the need to even find a place for it in our wee one bedroom flat. But that would probably not work so well. Living my day to day life with a Boba Fett helmet on would probably freak a few people out and as Jillian pointed out tonight, how would you brush your teeth with it on? I suppose Boba himself must have taken his helmet off occasionally to brush his teeth. Assuming he had teeth, of course. Perhaps the helmet he wore had a tooth brushing app installed in it's casing? Did Boba Fett even have teeth? Or hair? Or even a face to speak of? Who knows? Maybe he lived his entire life, up until the unfortunate incident with the sarlacc pit, without taking his helmet off. He was a hardened, universally feared bounty hunter after all. Surely he didn't really give a damn if his prey gave his breath a sniff before they were disintegrated or encased in carbonite?
Did Stormtroopers and Darth Vader still brush their teeth, come to think of it?
Before such questions arose in Uddingston, we were in Chapelton seeing my folks and Uncle Jim, who had travelled up from London on business, in possibly the biggest car I've ever sat in. A beautiful Bentley which, whilst sitting in, felt like travelling in some kind of supercar. A giant black beast of a car which you could only dream of tearing the roads up in. Jim also collected his DVD of his 50th Birthday weekend which I'd put together for him, a short film made up from the clips and footage I took on our trip to Banstead in March. Jim and Dad were off to play a few holes round at the local golf course after we left, enjoying the brilliant Scottish sunshine while we have it.
Later in the evening Dad, Mum and Jim sent a picture back to us in reply to a phone picture taken in the McGarva household of me, trying to look threatening in a Boba Fett helmet. Their picture, after at least ten minutes of squinting, turned out to be my mother in some kind of ice hockey mask, complete with clenched fists pointed threateningly at the camera.
The last time I seen a hockey mask that scary was watching Friday the 13th. Jason Voorhees came back from the dead with a hockey mask on, in no less than twelve movies, and slaughtered many a screaming teenager in many a wild, imaginative and gory way.
Who needs Boba Fett, the universally feared Bounty Hunter, when you've got Betty in a hockey mask? Scarier than any horror movie, surely?

The jolly Reids' outing

It was a bit of a jolly Reids' outing over the weekend as 12 of us jumped on an easyjet flight to Gatwick, early Friday morning. As snow started falling once more over Scotland Ka, Lynsey Ann, Kenny, Dad, Mum, Aunt Anne, Uncle Ian, Aunt Tricia, Uncle Tommy and myself along with Dougie and Grace, Ka's Mum and Dad, all headed to Glasgow airport early on Friday morning.
It was Uncle Jim's 50th birthday and we were all heading down south to Banstead in order to attend his surprise 50th Birthday Party in his local Cricket Club, organised by our cousin, James, among others.
Aunt Ann came over from Fulham on the Friday to stay with Tommy and Tricia who had the run of Tommy's sister's house while she was on holiday, somewhere around the same area.
Colin and Jillian travelled over from another part of London in their glow in the dark car, on Friday afternoon, where they had been visiting Jillian's sister Claire and enjoying a bit of theatre in the city centre and to complete the family gathering, Uncles Tom and Laurence jumped in the car on Friday evening and drove down to Birmingham to hook up with Aunt Maureen on the friday night before heading on further down to Surrey, from her flat in Knowle, on Saturday morning.
For the whole of the friday afternoon we were unsure how we were going to make our presence known to Jim. James was on the other end of our text messages, no doubt stressing as he desperately tried to keep our travelling down a secret. He had planned for us all to surprise Jim on the Friday night, perhaps having us all sitting in his living room as he came home from work that evening. However, James explained that earlier in the week Jim had took the notion to start doing a bit of DIY, taking off the kitchen cupboard doors for instance, getting rid of some wobbly furniture legs, replacing them with piles of books and pulling carpets up. Plans also went a little astray for James when Jim contacted him during the day informing him that he'd be staying in London with business pals. Some blatant lying ensued and James sorted it out with the help of the business pals, who I assume cancelled their plans with rubbish excuses.
So on Friday night we made sure we were all in his local, the Woolpack, for his after work drinks. The Woolpack was a cosey, friendly pub on the Banstead High Street and turned out to be a rather busy meeting point to surprise someone.
After the women, perhaps inadvertently, intimidated some chatting couples away from the largest table in the bar, we all took our seats to wait, at first unaware that we'd picked the chairs closest to one of the pub's larger windows which looked directly out on to the car park. At around twenty to eight, cousin James rushed into the bar, breathless and a little stressed, blurted something about being back in half an hour with Jim and rushed back out again. It was his job to deliver his Dad round to the pub for his first surprise of the weekend. The Reids, Symingtons and McGarvas all waited patiently for another half hour, keeping ourselves busy with some beers, most of us not noticing the incredulous face of Jim appearing in the window at our side a little later as James tried and failed to rush him through the door without seeing us. Our first rendition of 'Happy Birthday' rang through the pub as he entered, laughing, embarrassed and confused. Tricia, Tommy and Ann turned up an hour or so later to join in the Birthday fun, the rest of us greeting them with a more general shout of "Whay-hey!" which turned heads around the pub once more. It certainly must have been one of the Woolpack's more livelier of recent nights.
After the surprise of finding a reasonable fraction of his family in the Woolpack, Jim had immediately started worrying about the contents of his cupboards and the state of his flat unaware that he had bigger surprises to follow.
After a short wander around town on the Saturday afternoon, we finally managed to settle Jim down in a small social bar on the Banstead High Street whilst James nipped home to await the arrival of Tom, Laurence and Maureen in the big Volvo. After Jim getting us all signed in for 50p a head we got the drinks in, Jim being made to sit with his back to the front door, thusly unaware of Maureen, Tom and Laurence nonchalantly strolling up behind and wandering up to our table to greet us. Once more I had the camcorder out and captured the moment as Jim laughed. James, standing at the side enjoying his Dad's reaction, rubbed his hands with a conniving smile. 2 surprises down, 1 to go.
On the Saturday afternoon, Mum, Grace and Lynsey Ann worked on the cold half of the buffet for a good few hours whilst James had organised Cindy and her Mum to work on the cooked half. Apparently Mum had a great wee sandwich making production line going on in her room whilst the rest of us where, you guessed it, in the pub. The Kingswood Arms to be precise, a short walk through the forest and down a posh street from our Inn. Another nice looking, traditional english pub, with timber frames around stone and wooden walls, burning log fires, nooks and crannies in which to hide and big club sandwiches. the kind of pub you always seen Inspector Morse supping an ale in.
The Banstead Cricket Club, although less attractive on the inside, was the main reason for the visit, of course. The Club lies just across the road from Jim's house, along a dark path, unlit at night until you hit the Club's steps, at which point a spotlight beams down on you as you arrive. This location made arriving at the party in secret slightly problematic.
Tom, Laurence, Maureen, James and James' girlfriend, Sophie, were all in the house getting ready to head round to the restaurant James and Ka had supposedly booked earlier on. Our taxis all pulled up outside his house, making us all have to disembark with trays of sandwiches and salmon crackers and then run across the playing field in the darkness as quietly as we could, avoiding the light shining out from the windows behind, in which familiar Reid shaped shadows moved.
At around quarter to eight in the evening, Jim finally wandered into a darkened Cricket Club behind Laurence and James only to find a large gathering of friends and family waiting for him. Cue another rendition of 'Happy Birthday', more laughing followed by the shaking of head and shaking of hands. Needless to say, everyone had a great time. More drinking, a bit of dancing, (mostly from the Scottish contingent I might add), a few speeches, heckling, the great buffet, photo opportunities (taken and lost), shots of sambuca and old man's vodka, wine spilling, Scottish translating, bear hugging, first aid, slagging, introductions and small talk. Everything a good party needs. All the while I darted round with a camcorder trying to take in some of the atmosphere, recording a few birthday messages, whilst getting a lot of dirty looks and mutterings from the less camera friendly.
Even after the main event, back at Jim's flat, the birthday boy himself was moaning at me to put the camera down and my Aunt Maureen growled for me to get 'outta her face'.
I've got some great memories for him on that camcorder, though I doubt he'll need the help to remember it all. As my Dad said to Jim in the Social Club on the Saturday afternoon, he'll never trust James again.

Where all the jakies go

Uncle Jim was up from London for the weekend so this proved the perfect excuse for a wee get-together in Glasgow. A rare get together for the majority of the family and a good opportunity for a catch up. Twelve of us at a round table in Lakota, munching mushrooms and doritos, struggling for elbow room when the main courses arrived. Afterwards we all headed down the street following suggestions from Uncle Ian for the Scotia Bar for a bit of folk and entertainment. We ended up opting for a bar, a little closer, central and easier on the feet. Not that most of us would have minded walking all the way down to the Scotia but for the women in high heels it may have been a bit of a challenge. Ka was also a little dubious about the whole Scotia Bar idea. Upon hearing our suggestion her eyes grew wide and she blurted "the one where all the jakies go?!".
On many a trip from EK in the Number 20 bus we've seen more than a few drunken 'characters' stumble off at Stockwell Street, falling straight through the black doors, disappearing into the ancient, dishevelled looking Scotia. I've still never had a drink in the place and suspect it's perfectly respectable inside. I imagine it to be like the Monty or the Auldhouse in EK with old fashioned furnishings, ancient dusty optics and beer taps, various pieces of antique farming equipment and weaponry adorning the walls and a man playing a mandolin in the corner. Perfect for the tourists. The brave, ignorant tourists with no sense of smell that is...
We ended up in the Drum and Monkey on St. Vincent Street, with it's comfy chairs, friendly atmosphere and helpful barstaff. The comfy chairs we couldn't get any of thanks to pushy middle aged Sex and the City wannabe middleaged women pushing Craig, innocently trying to save a few for his Mum and Aunties, out of the way. The atmosphere was ruined on more than one occasion by strong farts, people diving for cover, asking who did what and the barstaff being particularly unfriendly, especially when asked for a Pinot Grigio rather than the 'automatic' Sauvignon Blanc.
As the witching hour approached we all went our seperate ways around half eleven and headed for our various buses and trains, some of us a little drunker than others. Illustrated perfectly after we met our cousin Chris on the bus and I started calling him his brothers name halfway through the conversation. Chris, being Chris, ever polite just looked at me and chuckled, his mates looking at me as if I was a complete drunken dork (as if!). After my retreat upstairs to join the others at the front of the top deck we were then entertained on the way home by a couple getting it on up on the back seat of the bus. With a groan of warning Kenny alerted us to the quiet, bouncing couple up the back. Most of us politely attempted not to watch via the reflections in the rain drop covered windows as the bus lumbered up towards EK. After a brief attempt to start up a drunken rendition of 'The Back of the Bus Cannae Sing' and being given a shut up elbow by my lovely wife I considered that that is always the great thing about the night buses, you certainly get plenty of entertainment. Not all of it welcome though - just ask Chris.

A trip to Brussels

Well, Brussels. What can I say? What a great weekend. Plenty of booze and plenty of food in a great city. I've only now just about recovered. Dad, Kenny, Colin McG, and myself headed over on the plane meeting up with Jim and James on the Friday evening who tackled the Belgian traffic to be there on road. Colin Main then met up with us on the Saturday afternoon,jumping off the Eurostar, after much wandering around the main train station, which then made a motley crew of seven.

Greatly impressed by the city and it's people, I found the city folk all generally, very friendly towards us roaming Scots but that was probably something to do with the fact that most of the locals we did converse with were all after our money being bartenders, waiters and ladies of the night (only kidding with the last one!). The only grumpy folk we met were the rude female hotelier, who would have easily got a job at Fawlty Towers, and the tramp in the underground hurling abuse at the passers by (but all cities have one of those anyway don't they?). The Delerium cafe was a must for any visitor to Brussels with it's vast bar of supposed 2000 different beers. Perfect for a stag trip but not sure how many we tried of the list of 2000. We did see plenty of the town, hitting a few pubs in the European sector on the Friday night up beside the new Pariliament buildings. On our travels the following days we done plenty of walking through the famous medieval town square of Grand Place which houses the gothic town hall, old guild houses and market areas. Although we did not manage to see the statue of the peeing boy, Brussels' own kind of mascot named Manneken Pis, we did see the female version, the Jeanneke-Pis, a statue of a peeing girl. The only reason we found this was probably due to the fact she was sitting outside the Delerium Cafe surrounded by gawking or offended tourists.
So after another late night on the Sunday we all headed home on our respective routes with cloudy heads but entertaining memories of our time in the Belgian capital. A capital definately worth a future visit.

Future trips

Our honeymoon has now been booked. Woohoo! A week in Italy. Four days in the capital, Rome, followed by three days in the City of Water itself, Venice. Aeroplanes, taxis, water buses, speed boats and gondolas all included to ensure a pleasant, organised and safe journey. Okay, maybe not the gondolas (apparently they cost a fortune nowadays). Time to get the Lonely planet books out again! Brush up on the old Roman history before we head out. Of course, the trip wont be all museums and sightseeing but I'm sure we'll do some walking over there. Unlike Brussels, where I'm heading for the stag weekend. Kenny has organised the stag weekend with Dad and Jim and we'll be heading down to Belgium in mid June. Again, that should be fun though I very much doubt I'll end up remembering much of it! Kenny, Colin McG, Chaz, James, Colin Main (hopefully!), Dad and Jim will be heading out there with me. David, the boss in the work, was quite impressed with the idea of the stag, congratulating Kenny on his great choice. Apparently it has some brilliant pubs which he has experienced first hand on more than one football trip. Again, I cannot say I know a great deal about Brussels, and I'm certainly not sure I'll learn a great deal more. Kenny has warned me he will not be organising any Museum or Art gallery trips so I'll be on my own there.

No man is an island

Kenny is in charge of my stag night. I'm worried. My brother, being the best man, is now taking email addresses to try and get some suggestions off folk for my stag night, weekend, or week. A while back Chaz suggested Las Vegas. Other suggestions have been Estonia (Uncle Jim) and Magalluf (Kenny himself). I think most of these have been ruled out due to budget constraints. On mentioning a stag night at teabreak, DVD Andy came up with a cheaper suggestion. A pub at the end of his road. It does a good pint apparently. Not wishing to cause offence I nodded politely and said I'd suggest it to my brother. Gareth came up with a rather novel idea. He'd heard of a friends friend doing this. Basically you hire a dwarf for £800 and handcuff him to the groom. The dwarf will then, inevitably, have to follow the groom around everywhere he goes on that night. It's difficult to believe such a hiring service exists but he assures me it's true.
Degrading, strange and surely uncomfortable for the parties involved. But then so is the horribly traditional hiring of a stripper. I've just googled it and apparently, in some cases, the dwarf is painted blue and dressed as a smurf. I've heard of being handcuffed to a lamp post, but a dwarf..? Very odd.
Talking of odd, Lost is back on our tv screens! At last. I've missed it. A lot of people got fed up after half a season but I honestly reckon it's the best thing on tv. It's definately veering into science fiction territory now though which I suspect a lot of the more 'normal' or casual viewers may get a little inpatient and disappointed about. I was quite surprised when there was a bit of a backlash a few seasons ago when it dawned on the viewing public this may not be a normal tale of a bunch of survivors on a desert island. In what way had the viewers not suspected as much after watching the first few episodes. Polar bears in the jungle, dead people getting out their coffins, smoke monsters chasing survivors. Not exactly straight laced drama was it? Always veering on the crazy with some of these incidents, the show has always kept its feet on the ground with the performances of the brilliant cast members. Interesting, troubled,
tortured, human characters brought to life by the likes of Matthew Fox, Terry O'Quinn, Dominic Monaghan, Naveen Andrews and Michael Emerson to mention only a few. All great actors who, along with the great writers, have created and shaped these characters, fleshing them out with very different yet sometimes interweaving stories, constantly haunted by aspects of their past, present, and future, as they struggle to get free of the island and it's strange powers.
Not entirely unlike the old sixties show 'The Prisoner' which was another favourite of mine in the nineties when I watched it all on DVD around 27 years after its original transmission. Starring Patrick McGoohan, who sadly died two weeks ago week, the show was about a man who had resigned in his position as spy or agent of some kind in london and was almost immediately kidnapped and held captive in a strange and mysterious location known enigmatically as the Village. Many of the themes are very similar to Lost. The psychological drama that the characters go through together with the science fiction elements of each of the shows' which are different, but still deal with strange, seemingly other worldly forces, mysterious leaders and scrutinized, controlled locations. It will be interesting to see how the new, modern, version of The Prisoner, in production at the moment, will work. The Prisoner awakens in a strange place, wearing odd clothes,
being asked countless questions by a unsympathetic authority figure, all the time looking for some kind of an escape. Not unlike the day following a stag night, I suspect.