Safaris and Stevie Wonder

Over a week since my last post! Good grief - what's happening to me?! I have been off work for a week and enjoying myself in posh hotels, trips to safari parks, eating out in the town, relaxing in the sauna and jacuzzi, spending Wedding gift vouchers and visiting graves. Well, I wouldn't class the latter in the 'enjoying myself' category but it is one of these things that you always mean to do and never get round to doing. I've carried out a few of those 'meant to do' jobs and trips having the whole week off and to myself and it has been great.
Ka and myself stayed in Malmaison last weekend for a five year anniversary treat - and also because we had a voucher given as a Wedding gift by a parent in Ka's nursery. You know your in a posh place when the bathroom sink is on a table and the toilet comes out of the wall and not the floor. A floating toilet seat - amazing. I did manage to pull myself away from the posh toilet seat to go down to Humming Bird on Bath street after our splendid two course meal in the Malmaison restaurant. Another trendy overcrowded bar with a mix of music, cocktails and clientele.
Blair Drummond Safari Park was surprisingly impressive too. We arrived at five to ten on Monday morning with Morgan, the neice, singing in the back seat, eating cheese sandwiches. Blair Drummond proved to be a great day out with talks, shows and enclosures for elephants, lions, tigers, giraffes, chimpanzees, meerkats, penguins, guinea pigs and a dead bear. Morgan informed us the bear was now in heaven. Watching the sea lions wave and jump was quite fun, though a little disappointing if you happen to have already been to any Deep Sea World abroad, the Sea Lions best skill being their rather accurate impression of Stevie Wonder as they stood swaying on their plinths.
The Birds of Prey talk was far more entertaining as a giant eagle of some description done it's best to take our heads off. Morgan seemed unfazed by it all, apparently the overfriendly lamas were far more frightening. Driving through the lion enclosure was surprisingly intimidating too especially when one of the lions jumped up and broke into a run, heading straight for us. I nearly chocked on my chocolate button but fortunately refrained for jumping on the accelerator as the lion in question then decided to slow and settle down at the foot of a tree in the shade.
Tonight Ka and myself are off to another ELU fund raiser involving the old wooden horses on strings ordeal. You never know I may even win some money out of it... certainly more than a visit to the Shawfield Stadium anyway.

A bit of talent

I'm in a minority. Am I the only person that doesn't watch and has no interest whatsoever in the latest bunch of wannabe's and unfortunate souls to take part in the X Factor? Yesterday evening Ka and myself were round at the In-laws for Sunday dinner and the main topic of conversation, among the chaos, was all about, what feels like, the thirtieth series of the talent tv show. Colin, Ka, Grace and Dougie all argued about an Essex boy, the essex girl, the two Irish guys that can't sing for irish toffee and the teacher with the arrogance. Maybe it's the feeling of being completely unable to comment that annoys me more than the affects of this show. The fact I am now offically an outcast in society and the world around me because I have no interest in the latest, half manufactured, supposed talents nodded on stage by Simon Cowell and his minions. However, I must confess to stopping dead in my tracks on my way through the living room yesterday afternoon during Saturday night's repeat. Ka was watching after we had attended a birthday party the night before and as a result missed the big couch lounging decision making episode. I may even have watched the entire episode if I'd known that Kylie Minogue was going to be involved. I stopped halfway through the living at the precise moment when Dannii introduced her big little sister to the waiting hopefuls before her and I gasped alongside the potential singers. Then all the contestants started screaming and talking about how they couldn't believe it and I resumed my trek to the kitchen. How could they not believe it I wondered? Kylie is her sister after all. Kylie is a successful singer, and she has more flamin' right to be judging s singing contest than her plasticated, one hit wonder, grinning sister. I must confess I actually seen more than I'm letting on though... if only Kylie had strolled out with those palm leaves on...

Chipmunk and tea coseys

Ended up in the SECC last night at the MOBO awards, shaking my thirty odd year old hips to Keri Hilson and trying to figure out why people kept ranting about Chipmunks. It was all very different seeing an Awards show in the flesh - quite a lot of flesh as it happened with the Glasgow glamour factor turned up to a volume knob defying eleven. After arriving and making our way through the spangly crowds, Ka and myself had to make a quick stop at the loo before entering the main MOBO Arena (or Hall 4 as it's usually known in the SECC). It just so happened that the female loo was right next to the exit of the VIP lounge and after visiting the male loo I moseyed on over to wait on the other half just as the VIP doors were flung open. A parade of VIP guests then made their way out from the purple curtained interior, leading the way Scotland's own Kaye Adams. Yes, Kaye Adams! Anyway, a whole army of VIPs followed her out, most of which were dressed up to the eyeballs in their finest, from the glamorous to the downright horrendous. Duncan Bannatyne, in a usual black suit, sauntered by my elbow in mid chat. One of those 'I know him from somewhere and only realising when he had passed' moments. Probably just as well or else I would have probably jumped out infront of him shouting "Duncan, Duncan Bannatyne, are you out, get it, out and about?!" The permed red haired woman that walks around Scotland on tv getting soaked was also there adding to the Scottish celebrity class alongside a lot of other fashion victims. One of the women that emerged from the shadows of the VIP room had, quite possibly, the biggest bust I'd ever seen, somehow fractionally suspended from within, what can be loosely described as, a dress. I suspect some of these rich folk got dressed in the dark before they left the house and maybe even tripped over their dog on the way out.
It was refreshing to witness an Awards show being recorded live, seeing the presenters twiddling their thumbs through the videos and try to read from the screen at the back of the hall. We were on the left of the hall alongside the tables of afore mentioned celebrities, shouting and cheering. In Beyonce's case jeering, when she appeared on the big screen to accept her Best Video award and mentioned about not being able to be there. Dizzee Rascal wasn't even there and he only lives in London?! This did leave room for the likes of Tinchy Stryder and others to take to the stage who may not have got the chance if the bigger stars had been there. Peter Andre got one of the biggest cheers of the night from the gathered in the SECC hall and he only appeared talking on screen, a live video feed from backstage. The three piece N-Dubz won two prizes so that will hopefully enable Dappy, the wee guy, to buy more tea cosey style hats. The X-Factor runners up JLS (or JLC as I kept mistakenly calling them) also dubbed their way through their song onstage whilst the actual winner, Alexandra Burke had to make do with merely presenting an award. The performances were mostly pretty good with David Guetta and Kelly Rowland for me stealing the show with the brilliant 'When Love Takes Over'. The Michael Jackson tribute was a bit of a let down though with Jermaine Jackson coming on and singing a version of 'Smile' after that wee guy from some Talent show sang his bit in the same grey suit he wore at the Official Jackson tribute concert. I think I was expecting something a bit more theatrical or collaborative with all the other artists coming up on stage and having a good singalong, Live Aid style, but that was saved for the Warchild single at the end, a dreadful version of the Killers' 'I've got Soul'. It is for charity though so I'd better not slag it off too much.

A round in Mosquito

Kenny stood in the centre of the Mosquito bar in Glasgow on Saturday night practising his golf swing. After pulling on his newly bought Pringle jumper, polo shirt and cap he found a small clearing in the centre of the bar and readied himself for a shot. Dad had taken the family out to dinner in the excellent La Laterna Restaurant on Hope Street and treated us all to a slap up three course meal with a good few glasses of wine, finishing with a liqueur which Kenny ordered with a flourish of the hand receiving only an nod from the miserable looking waiters. Perhaps taking slight assumptions as Dad was picking up the bill.
Mosquito was busy, the clientele it's usual mix of ages, from students to older blokes, like me. Ka, Kenny and myself headed in after leaving Mum, Dad and Lynsey to jump on a 66 and met up with Andy for a few drinks. It was then that Kenny decided to pull on his newly bought Golf gear and start practising his golf swing. His shot was not up to much, probably due to the fact he was using an invisible club and ball, but the Dr. Pepper shot was better. A Dr. Pepper was a glass of Amaretto dunked in a half pint tumbler of coke. Very nice to drink and not in the least unpleasant but for some reason we had to down it in one which I did not quite manage and deserved a slagging for. After three Kenny and Andy left Ka and myself standing outside Mosquito after some drunken goodbye cuddles and danced off down Bath Street with their carrier bags of golf jumpers. We called a taxi and unsurprisingly Raymond from the Auldhouse came out to pick us up. Raymond was one of the regulars from the Auldhouse Arms, when I worked there, and now drives a taxi having rescued us from the chaotic, post club hour, streets of Glasgow after a night out on many an occasion recently. As we waited outside the Kings Theatre, watching the road for a Mondeo, a countless number of near collisions between taxis, other passing vehicles and chip eating drunkards entertained me. A growing throng of passengerless taxis piled up as they turned the corner from Elmbank Street swerving, honking and growling as the Glaswegian mini skirted zombies milled around the kerbs of the theatre. Luckily within ten minutes Raymond sped up in his big Ford, various bodies getting knocked to the side as he pulled over after spotting us. Ka and myself dived into the back seat as a few members of the surrounding crowd clocked on to the waiting taxi and we sped off on to the Kingston Bridge. A bad choice of place to get our taxi, Raymond told us. I must owe him a few drinks now for the amount of times he has rescued us from the streets of a Saturday night. I never heard if Kenny and Andy made their midday teeing off timeslot...

Chamber of secrets

The sun was out over George Square as various nutters jumped from a small metal cage suspended high above George Square from a ginat red crane. Screaming yelling and swearing these guys plummeted and then bounced on the end of the bungee cord with onlookers craning their necks whilst eating their Greggs and feeding the pigeons in the square below. Maybe it was just my imagination but there seemed to be far more tourists than usual strolling around with their cameras on Saturday but it could also have had something to do with Scotland's Open Doors Days which Glasgow had over the weekend in which many of it's buildings and locations, which are usually closed off to the public, were opened for us to explore. I discovered the surprisingly impressive City Chambers on the eastern side of George Square with it's large marble staircases, archways, balconies, halls, rooms and stained glass windows. Some of the hallways were like something out of a M. C. Escher painting (without the impossible diagonals). I felt as if I was back in Italy as most of the decor seems to be of great Italian influence alongside the murals and the domed ceilings of the Banqueting Hall. It was also quite interesting walking down the Upper Gallery, under the glass domed ceiling, viewing the many different portraits of the various Lord Provosts that Glasgow has had through the ages. Walking down the hall of paintings you can't help notice the portraits of the seventies and eighties seemed to favour the simpler, more boring, drab, option of a photograph after the magnificent painted portraits of the past. Now, in more recent years, the classical portrait has been embraced again with the likes of Peter Howson's Pat Lally and Alexander Stoddart's Liz Cameron. Stoddart's painting came as a bit of a surprise as this guy is more of a classical sculptor but you could see the resemblance in the approach he took to the portrait.
After the City Chambers I walked over to the GOMA and had my first wander round the Gallery in a good few years. After a wander round the galleries inside, and getting extremely dizzy by simply walking up and down before a Bridget Riley for half an hour, I lurched back out into the square and had a look at the paintings on the railings. Every time I pass the 'paintings on the railings' sales I always end up hating the artists selling. They're so flamin' organised and talented. At that moment I then made another promise to get back to my canvases. Not that I'm as talented as those guys... well, most of them anyway. Come to think of it, there were a few dodgy bowls of fruit...

DJs and Jack Russells

Another Wedding with Jane and William getting hitched at the weekend in The Byre, East Kilbride's newest bar/restaurant. Jane is one of Ka's bosses and William is the brother of Claire, Ka's mate from the same work. In the short times William did talk to me he was calling me Scott Mills. Apparently I look like the Radio 1 DJ now. The last time I met William he was calling me Shakin' Stevens as I was wearing jeans and a denim shirt (I probably deserved that though). I'm not sure whether this name calling is because of some unfounded dislike for me or not but I suppose he could be calling me worse names though I'm not sure about the whole Scott Mills lookalike comment. I'm sure Scott Mills would be more than a little offended.
After the wedding celebrations Claire, Martin, William and Jane were all heading off to Ibiza with their kids to enjoy some sun, coincidentally on the same day that Scotland had it's sunniest day of the year. Saturday was roasting and we were all sitting in The Byre's beer garden, or rather beer decking, chatting in the good weather. As far as I can remember the best weather since May when we got a brief few weeks of great weather quickly replaced by the rain of the following months.
The women were not long in going off to their own table leaving us blokes to talk amongst ourselves. Conversations over the large beers ranged from the dire state of the property market, BMWs, jagermeister, encounters with strippers, saving people's lives whilst fishing and the rise in the price of drink. Apparently the latter two were closely connected with an instance Ian experienced on the edge of a cliff somewhere up north overhanging one of the larger rivers. After The Byre most folk ended up in Chris' house, another of Ka's work colleagues. Chris, along with her husband Jim, own possibly the biggest house I have ever been in that I have not had to pay an admission for. Doing the housework would take a week in that home. They also own a friendly Jack Russell. Something I'd never encountered - a friendly Jack Russell. I've had some quite bad experiences with various Jack Russells in the past, the majority of them involving this particular breed of dog wanting to bite my face off. In one particular instance, when I was around thirteen, and delivering papers a Jack Russell literally attacked me as I delivered it's owners newspaper and I literally had to fight it off with a paperback I had been reading at the time. The paperback, and my trousers, barely survived the vicous onslaught and gnashing incisors. Thankfully Chris and Jim's dog was surprisingly amiable though and no trousers or paperbacks suffered in the meeting. Perhaps Jack Russells have a liking for Scott Mills these days.
Chris ordered in pizzas and kept us all fuelled with alcohol until the end of the night when Ka, Sara, Margot and myself piled into Chaz's car leaving Carol singing to her Romeo from Chris' balcony. Chaz was the Romeo in question in this case, (well, as is usually the case), and he replied by quickly starting the engine. Not quite how Shakespeare would have intended things to happen...

Brick by brick

Some of the admin women in the work have just discovered my website and are now offering their services as life models. This was before they knew that life models get a pretty decent wage - or at least so I was led to believe back in Art school. Not that I was ever offered the chance of baring my body for the easels I might add. The admin women were also offering themselves up as photographic models after the arrival of my new camera yesterday.
My brand new DSLR camera arrived at the office yesterday and I have been toying with it ever since. The operator's manual has the dimensions of a reasonably sized paperback and being the slight perfectionist that I am I have decided to read at least a good quarter of it before I have any reasonable attempts at photography even though I know I'd probably work it all out easily enough. I've never really understood why people charge into the building and working of things without even glancing at the instructions. Men, for some reason, have a bit of a reputation for doing this. As a man I don't really see anything incredibly unmannly about reading some instructions myself. Our living room came together enjoyably quickly because of the instruction manuals (thank you Ikea!). When our living room furnishings arrived four and a half years ago from the giant furniture store I swept Ka to the side with a - "Don't worry my dear, I'll deal with this!". Ka was happy to continue cleaning as I pulled the various instruction manuals from each of the boxes and knuckled down to some hard labour. If I had not used the instruction manuals you can be assured that I'd have finished building it all with at least one table leg and twenty screws leftover and wondering why the hell Ikea would supply me with so many spare parts. As I put my tea down I'd frown confusedly as the table tipped over and collapsed into pieces behind me. The Ikea instructions are especially easy to follow not unlike the instruction books you used to get with your Lego buildings and pirate ships as a kid. Both companies are Scandanavian, of course, and both now multi million pound companies and it's all probably down to their instruction books. An Ikea pirate ship? Go even further - an Ikea Space shuttle?! Imagine the possibilities! Apparently that third bloke from Top Gear, James May (the one that is not Clarkson or Hammond), was making a house out of Lego for a series he is working on at the moment. He intends to live in it for a short time once it's finished. The Lego house would probably be far stronger than any piece of housing Ikea could come up with. I wonder if he's using an instruction book? I'd say it's a safe bet that he is, considering he hopes to have a flushing lavatory in it along with other various lego built applianes.
Talking of property, Heather from Your Move was round yesterday looking over the flat making sure it was marketable. She left leaving me optimistic for a quick sale when the time comes. Ka and myself have plans of upgrading in the property market. I wonder how much James May is selling that Lego house for? That's a model I'd like to take a picture of and, I dare say, a property that would be great in for Ka and myself to build our lives together.