Carl from 'Ghost'

Fame, teenagers, John Travolta, relationships, wives and incidents in Glasgow car parks. Just a few of the subjects discussed by the Liverpudlian comedian John Bishop in the SECC last night. In fact Bishop's main subject was probably his wife. After having been married for the past 17 years, in what sounds like a slightly rocky relationship, Bishop gave us tales involving the many ups and downs, highs and lows, trials, tribulations and arguments with his wife. Usually won or started, in some way or another, by the wife. All these tales, and others, delivered in his usual naturally funny, toothy, scouse manner.
Bishop likes Glasgow too but then don't all visiting acts, taking bookings for venues with well over a thousand bums on seats?
He likes Glasgows history, it's entertaining football scuffles and it's great barn. The barn we were sitting in as we listened to him. The SECC, not the SECC Auditorium, where I thought the night's entertainment was, arguing with Ka on the way into town, driving up to Kelvingrove to find a place to put the car. I'd always thought the Auditorium was part of the SECC. Unfortunately Ka was right on this occasion and apparently the Auditorium was never officially called the SECC Auditorium as I thought it had been (or the Armadillo for that fact). The McGarvas backed Ka up on this, after we met them all in the SECC's front coffee bar. Colin, Jillian, Dougie and Grace all looked at me blankly as I tried to explain my reasoning behind my initial thoughts. As Colin and Jillian enjoyed some of the free whiskies that were being given away, the in-laws all ganged up on me and I didn't stand a chance.
Well, it wasn't that last week on the way back from the cinema.
Ka and myself had just been to see Liam Neeson's latest flick 'Unknown', the story of a man that wakes from a coma, following a car accident to find his identity, life, and even wife, has been taken by another man (the thought of it!). A familiar but little known actor by the name of Aidan Quinn features in 'Unknown'. One of those many actors you see in movies whose face you recognise but whose name you don't know or just always manages to escape you. These actors and actresses seem to be in loads of movies and after spotting them you always immediately, without fail, start pointing at the tv or screen saying things like, "Oh, look, it's him", or "Oh, look, him, he was in that the other day!".
People look at you blankly.
"He was in that thing, with whatsername!" you might click your fingers at this point and look into a far corner of the ceiling. "You know we were watching it the other week and he was the guy that got killed!"
As the frustration mounts this 'unknown' knowledge either puts you off the rest of the current movie your watching, ever time you see him or her, or it makes you have to leave what your doing and rush to your nearest google search engine. If this happens to be in the middle of a cinema screening, so be it. I wonder if cinema workers ever have people rushing out half way through a movie, disturbing their popcorn making, accosting them desperately for the nearest internet outlet with shouts of "It's him, it's him!"?
Sometimes you can't even remember what you were watching when you last seen the actor or actress, you can't remember where you were, who you were with, or even, in Liam Neeson's case, who you were!
Anyway, the argument on the way back from the cinema that night came about because of Aidan Quinn. Ka came out of 'Unknown' under the impression this actor played opposite Patrick Swayze as Carl in 'Ghost', the villain of the piece. Remember? The guy that got Sam killed with the help of Willie Lopez?

Ka said she'd hardly seen Quinn in anything since 'Ghost' and I shook my head on hearing this. Aidan Quinn was not Carl in 'Ghost', I told Ka, that was some other guy.
I knew because I seen the guy that was Carl in 'Ghost' in 'The Last Samurai' only a month or so ago, when I sat up late one night to try and watch it. Unfortunately I had no idea 'The Last Samurai' was six hours long and fell asleep around the two hour mark. That one movie seemed longer than a sitting of the whole of 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy, complete with Special Extended Editions with 'day turning to night and then turning back again' extra scenes and easter eggs.
Anyway, Carl in 'Ghost' didn't even remotely resemble Aidan Quinn so when Ka started growing more and more frustrated with my dissent on the matter I knew I was on to a winner. I mentally rubbed my mental hands with glee, steering home from Glasgow as Ka got more riled up and eventually text her movie expert brother, Colin, on the matter.
Needless to say Colin responded almost immediately, texting back the name of the guy that actually played Carl in 'Ghost'.
I'm sure you can imagine what happened next. Ka went very quiet as she read, refusing to respond to Colin's text and being suddenly hesitant in answering me about what Colin had wrote.
Oh, how I laughed, enjoying the moment. I love moments like that. Sheer, unadulterated smugness. I was right. Michael was right. The wife was wrong. The man of the house won the argument!
We do have better arguments. Bigger, more worthwhile, life affirming arguments. Arguments that don't involve Carl from 'Ghost'. I don't win those arguments.

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.

Beware the chides of March

Ka went to town yesterday with my Mum and sister to do a bit of shopping. While she was there she text me asking if I needed anything. I text back 'A present'. So she obediently brought me a present home. Ka must have went to Frasers, Debenhams, Next and probably passed the front door of HMV and all I got was a pineapple tart. "I've just been to the gym", I thought, "I can't eat a pineapple tart".
A pineapple tart and a mug of tea later, I relaxed. Pineapples must be one of your five a day anyway and I was back in the gym today so I'll have ran it off by now. Still all that cream cake goodness can't be good for the cholesterol. Can't be good for the old ticker - more senses of impending doom.
There's a general sense of doom in the work at the moment too. At the end of March everything is going to change. The lucky twelve who managed to retain a job in the restructured production department are all being trained up for the new system or brushing up on other areas in the department they hadn't previously given much thought for. The others, who did not secure positions, are all making plans, moving on, some slagging the company off as they go. There's a lot of speculating on how long the new, restructured department will actually last. Most, however, are just facing facts and getting on with it with varying states of despondency or 'don't give a sh*t' attitudes.
Late during the Monday evening, for instance, we were all awoken from our late shift slumbers by Cameron who decided to firmly put a foot down. His shift had finished at five and he had decided to wait on for his sis, Diana who works over in ads with myself, for a lift home, to save him getting the train. Diana was also under the impression we'd all be getting out early as there was no work left to do in our department and as a result most of us were sitting twiddling our respective thumbs, belly's grumbling.
After Diana's third attempt in asking if we could head home and Felix's third refusal, somewhere, on the other side of the room, Cameron clicked.
It was like the Michael Douglas movie Falling Down, except without the tie or the firearms (or Michael Douglas).
"Well I'm going home!" Cameron announced, swinging his jacket around his shoulders. as words were exchanged things unfortunately descended into a small, stubborn, shouting match between Felix and himself, Diana cutting in whenever she got the chance. It ended with the brother and sister marching out the office and Felix being left at his computer, thanking them for their input.
Unfortunately both Cameron and Diana are moving on, at the end of March, and I, among others, will miss them. Cameron was the first person in the office, and probably the only guy, to come straight up to me, shake my hand and congratulate me after finding out about Ka and my pregnancy. He's also a fellow sci-fi buff/geek and always has a good movie trailer to show us on the friday afternoon. His sister, Diana, has also been a good pal in S&UN and was my number one office Lost and Doctor Who gossiper when both shows were on the box, especially after big Lost Ian left. Diana also does loads of hefty car adverts which I'll probably have to do after she leaves. Thanks Diana.
A few months back, when I was over on the dark side of the office planning a paper one day, Cameron had been telling me all about how he used to be really bad tempered at work. Unpleasant. Impatient. Angry. Apparently now he was very mellow compared to what he had been. Calm. Patient. Helpful. (Okay, maybe I'm overegging it a bit there...) More at ease with his surroundings, anyway, and not losing the rag half as much, or to half the effect he used to.
There was a story told once of Cameron launching a phone handset half way through the open plan office. Of course, I wasn't sure whether to believe this. Yeah, I'd seen a bit of a temper when he'd spoke to certain individuals over the phone and heard the occasional curse from his general direction, but nothing the rest of us don't do when occasionally faced with a permanently crashing computer, a pile up of amendment sheets or a lack of teaspoons in the cutlery drawer.
Why is it work cutlery drawers always lack teaspoons? One day, a new new bunch of teaspoons appears for everyone to use to stir their teas, coffees or hot chocolates but then after a mere few days of teaspoonful bliss, they vanish. Gone. Snaffled away for the teaspoon mafia.
One morning I ended up stirring my tea with my bic and the flamin' pen decided to burst. It brought a whole new meaning to taking your tea black.
Anyway, I'd never seen any phones getting chibbed around in the office. Maybe just the occasional slam. I certainly can't even imagine anyone in our office being angry enough to chuck a phone handset such a distance. My mind boggles about what the person on the other end of that phone could have done to aggravate Cameron in such a way. Could she have requested the reshuffling of an entire planned paper just for one advert? Could she have been complaining about the non inclusion of a late advert? Could she have disagreed with him on the principles of The Phantom Menace? Or could his pen just have burst in his tea and it was actually nothing to do with the woman on the other end of the phone?
Do you think it would be safe to ask him without being on the receiving end?
One things for sure, S&UN life is going to be quite different come the end of March.
Still, at least the handsets will have a longer life.

Wrong turns and red cards

"I think I've taken a wrong turn", I growled as I pulled up alongside Glasgow's Royal Infirmary after leaving Colin's house in Kirkintilloch for home.
It could be the current roadworks on the A80 or it could just be my navigational skills but leaving Kirkintilloch to join the motorway proved itself too confusing for me last night. Especially being in the darkness, surrounded by traffic cones and countless 40mph signs, glaring everytime your headlights hit. For some reason I decided to take the road for Glasgow, believing that to be the best route back to EK. Of course I was wrong and if I'd stayed on the traffic cone filled road coming out of Kirkie, I'm sure I would have come across a road for Carlisle, somewhere through the plastic orange forest. These roadworks on the A80 feel like they have been a permanent fixture for years. It certainly feels like years driving up it, having to stay at 40mph the whole way. Still, nice to see the Motorway Maintenance employees are keeping their jobs.
Kenny and myself had been invited by Colin to watch the old firm game in his new pad. We had a good night. Colin was the perfect host, serving up a big footie buffet comprising of pizzas, sausage rolls, mushroom tasting scotch eggs and enough onion rings to feed a stadium along with plenty of beer, coke, bru and he even took requests for tea and mulled over the possibility of a bovril.
I'm not really into football in any big way and never have been. I always yearned to be a good footie player and enjoyed playing when I did but never could quite get the hang of it. I was always the last, or the second last, to be picked for the playground teams. I even tried to get into the school team at one point, under the watchful eye of Mr Stevens, the Janitor (a big, tall, scarey guy with a shock of grey hair who shouted at you if you tried to throw your lunch in the bin). When the other guys in school were all collecting the Football Panini stickers, desperately trying to swap for their favourite player, I was collecting the Star Wars stickers, trying to get the Millenium Falcon. I guess I was always just too much of a geek.
As a result, I've only ever had a feint interest in the sport of the masses, watching only the occasional game or getting excited about a World Cup and then watching a whole four matches. So I turned up at Colin's house not even knowing who played for what team. Bougherra? Was he not in the Jungle Book? With Baloo? (nose). It's been months and months since I last sat and watched any game of football. The World Cup final was probably the last football game I actually made a point of sitting and watching and last night reminded exactly why.
Last nights performance was more of a circus than a football game. Overpaid, over hyped egos, pouncing about a pitch for 95 minutes, doing their best to look aggressive, baring some teeth, squaring up shoulders, waving hands about whilst screaming and swearing, knowing full well most viewers back home, young and old, are more than capable of the odd lip reading session. One minute acting like cavemen, and the next rolling around the grass after being tapped on the shin.
One Rangers player spent five minutes talking to a rather embarrassed looking injury man desperately trying to make it look as if the bounce he'd suffered on the back of the head, from a passing thigh, was actually, in any way, painful.

It didn't stop with the injury time along with the red and yellow cards though. After the final whistle the managers started haranguing each other, Ally McCoist and hired ned, Neil Lennon, almost starting a boxing match in the dugout. The two, supposedly professional, bosses exchanging words and then growling at one another, spitting venom as police and trainers rush in to break them up. Or rather just before they would have had to actually hit each other which, let's be honest, was never going to happen. You wonder what they would have done if everyone had just left them to it. They would have angrily looked into each others eyes for a while longer and then looked around for suggestions on what to do next as Jim White got all excited in the commentators box.
Neil Lennon called they're little exchange 'passion' today. A wonderful statement. Scottish sports fans all over the country, watching and listening, believing it's okay to act like a complete kn*b becuase it's merely considered 'passionate'. You wouldn't appreciate the game without the 'passion'. A great example of Scottish football to set, not only the West of Scotland but, the rest of the football watching world.
34 arrests were made in and around the stadium for a variety of racial, breach of the peace and sectarian offences.
Stamping out sectarianism in Scotland, the big battle Alex Salmond is trying to win. It certainly won't be helped by those two numpties having a go in the dugouts.
Like I said though, what do I know, I was never into football.
Glad of it.
Saying that, I did win the first sweepstake based on the first player to score so the 95 minutes was not a complete waste of television time. £5 I won. Kenny, you owe me a pound.

We're doomed

It's been a strange week. I spent the first half of the week lying on my back, on some occasions with my legs in the air. Various positions included lying, legs in the air, clutching the head, the cradling of an arm, holding a thigh, shaking, shivering, collapsing and keeling over in various different ways, all of which required a certain amount of acting. Perhaps not Oscar worthy acting but acting all the same. This was First Aid Training for the British Red Cross. An acting class with a difference.
Based in a smelly YMCA building in Bellshill, myself, along with another ten lucky contenders, battled through the three day course involving demos and quizzes (more quizzes!) in order to gain the nod, pin badge and certificate from the British Red Cross to say we could aid in a work emergency situation involving bandaging, the recovery position, the ever reliable comfortable position and even with moments involving an overall sense of impending doom. This sense of impending doom cropped up in more than one occasion in the three day course, the number of instances matched only perhaps by C-3PO in the Star Wars films or the googly eyed doofer from Dad's Army. In fact, as a kid I, sadly, used to quote C-3P0's "We're doomed" quite a lot, especially if there was a Maths test coming up. Heart attacks are one thing but Maths tests... they're different.
This sense of impending doom was only one of the main symptoms of a heart attack, of course, along with the more traditional clutching of the chest, grimacing and collapsing to the ground. To illustrate the heart attack we were shown a past advert by the British Heart Foundation starring Steven Berkoff which, whilst giving all the symptoms of the attack, managed to scare the bejeezus into you as a viewer. The bejeezus was especially scared out of me as I myself had woken up with chest pains, sweat on the brow and a sense of impending doom during the night a few weeks back. Thankfully Steven Berkoff had not been standing in the dark of the bedroom battering the crap out of me as I had slept. That would have been even scarier. Still at least I'd have known how to put myself in the recovery position.
For the three days I was in a team consisting of another two people. Margaret and Irene, from a bank somewhere in Motherwell, who spent their time heckling opposing teams during the quiz sessions, like a female Statler and Waldorf. They also spent considerable time complaining about aches and pains and shoving me forward whenever a volunteer was needed for all the demonstrations, overseen by Dale, the instructor. Arthritis, sore legs, dodgy elbows, low cut tops, all were excuses for these bankers. Irene also seemed to suffer from that strange condition of appearing deaf whenever I made suggestions or gave answers to the quiz questions which more often than not turned out to be the correct answer whenever her wonderful written response gained nil points. Another I would add to the list would be bone idleness, a condition not mentioned in the extensive First Aid manual we were given upon arrival, but then I'm not sure First Aid manuals should be made available for bankers.
Once that was all over with Kenny, Chaz and myself drove into town on Wednesday night to see 'True Grit', the Coen Brothers latest flick based on Charles Portis' 1968 book. The movie was brilliant with great performances from Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon and the lead female, Hailee Steinfeld. It's been broadly complimented for it's cinematography and you can see why with the sweeping, western landscapes with their varying colour, atmosphere and detail.
Even with trips to the cinema, there was still that sense of impending doom with me and it was not any heart attack. Ka and myself had our follow up appointment at the hospital on Friday, following the passing of Baby Lucy. Rather thoughtfully, the hospital thought it was a great idea for this meeting to take place in the same offices where we went for the first joyful scans of Baby Reid. Gawd knows why.
We were meeting the Head Consultant from Wishaw General and Ka's home midwife, both of whom were not involved in any way with the birth and eventual death of our baby. Thankfully they'd listened to our earlier concerns regarding this matter and asked Doctor Yelisetti, the Registrar, along too, someone who was actually present during the ordeal. Doctor Yelisetti was excellent, providing some answers to our questions and was a familiar, reassuring presence in the stressful, upsetting situation whilst the Consultant and midwife seemed generally flummoxed.
Some minor questions were answered, other larger questions remain unanswered. Lucy's passing remains somewhat of an enigma to us and to the hospital. The Consultant informed us there had been one similar instance, with similar symptoms, in an Edinburgh hospital two years ago and that a new protocol had been introduced over there to try and ensure the same events did not happen again. One question that immediately sprung to our mind was if this protocol had been introduced in Edinburgh, then why not, at the same time, in Wishaw General?
So, after a rather depressive day on Friday, we got up on Saturday morning to nothing in particular and as we got ready for the unplanned day ahead a knock on the front door disturbed us. As Ka was in the bathtub at the time, it was down to me to answer the door as I struggled with the fastening of a belt. Swinging the front door open, I found myself staring into a giant bouquet of flowers.
"Mr Reid?" the flowers said.
"Erm... yes?" my reply was more of a question, as I looked over the bouquet in the floating glass bowl before me.
"These are for you". A pair of hands finally came into view below the glass bowl and the flowers moved over into my unprepared, receiving hands. As I heard the flower delivery man take his leave behind the foliage I retreated back into the flat immediately showing Ka the new bouquet and plucked the card from the small plastic stick among the lillies and leaves. They were from Pauline. She'd known about the meeting the day before. Suddenly that sense of impending doom did not seem quite so doom-laden.

Quiz show hosts and lumpy custard

35 years is a long time. Imagine being married for 35 years? Amazing. That's my Mum and Dad, as of last Monday.
35 years married and still together. Even more astounding is that Grace and Dougie, Ka's Mum and Dad, are hitting the big 3-8 this year. All these years and yet both couples still get confused over some of the most basic facts about their lives together. Facts such as the first thing they do when they get out of bed in the morning, their most romantic holiday destination and the mother in law's birthday.
Following the game Tricia hosted on the previous Sunday, I, in my eternal wisdom, thought it would be a great idea to have a Mr & Mrs game following dinner on Friday night. We were in dire need of a soundproof booth as the two Mums and Dads battled it out whilst I did my Nicholas Parsons, asking the questions, like the family quizzes of old (not diving about in suspenders, I might add, which was the last time I seen Nicholas Parsons, playing the narrator in The Rocky Horror Show).
Things got off to a slightly confusing start as I started asking the questions incorrectly, leading the Mums and Dads to think that the two answers they had to give for each question was their answer and what they think their partner would answer about them, rather than simply answering their answer and what they reckon their other half's personal answer would be (if you get what I mean?). I bet Derek Batey never had these kind of problems.
Derek Batey, as I found out by visiting a Mr & Mrs website, was the original presenter of the quiz show on tv, not Parsons. According to the website he once tried to calm an Irish couple before appearing on the show:

Batey: Did you have a good trip over from Ireland?

Irish contestant: Yes, thank you.

Batey: Did you arrive today or did you stay over last night?

Irish contestant: We came across yesterday.
Batey: Did you fly or take the ferry?

Irish contestant: I don't know - me mammy booked the tickets.

I'd always thought it had been Nicholas Parsons that hosted Mr and Mrs but apparently he only presented Sale of the Century (A Sleeper song?). Both of these shows were before my time, or just finishing a few years after I came into the world, so it's no wonder I can't tell one from the other. In fact, looking at these online pics, Derek Batey looks a lot like Nicholas Parsons. Same grins, same silver hair, same suits, same ties.
Could there have been a giant Quiz Show host factory somewhere, perhaps in Dagenham, in the seventies, churning out these cheese grinned, middle aged maestros?
A giant machine, not unlike a steampunk Bertha, sitting in the dark factory innards, a giant conveyer belt running from the machine's mouth like exit. A small army of silver haired, stripey tied, Quiz Show Hosts, straight and tall, only leaping into action after stepping down from the end of the conveyer belt, grinning with a tooth twinkling grin and immediately shouting "Come on down!".
Leslie Crowther, he was another one. The guy in the blazer and glasses who was the father of Thin Lizzy's girlfriend. He'd call audience members down on to the stage with that ecstatic call through his big square Deirdre lenses. What was that one..? The Price is Right! (I looked that one up too...)
And Bullseye of course. Now there was a quiz show. I'm not sure Jim Bowen was produced in the same factory though.
Bullseye reminds me of lumpy custard. It was always broadcast on a Sunday after the footie and we usually got custard with our Sunday pudding. That and Super Gran.
Gawd, Sundays were rubbish.
Together with Paladin the talking lamp I'm surprised I could bear to watch the telly at all. I hated most of those Glen Michael cartoons. You could tell, even at that age, they were all cheap rubbish. Like those cartoons your Mum or Gran used to buy you on VHS from the Poundshop or What Every Women Wants. Fantastic titles such as 'The Book of the Jungle', 'The Beauty Sleeping' or 'White Snow and the Seven Wee Men'.
Anyway, Friday nights Mr and Mrs game went well and played with great enjoyment considering there was no prize.
They certainly deserve a prize for 35 years of marriage. I wonder if Ka will put up with me for 35 years?
Maybe we'll have more of a chance if I stop spending my time writing about Nicholas Parsons, ancient quiz shows and complaining about lumpy custard.

Cookies on call

Just back from Dunblane. Ka and myself stayed at the Doubletree Dunblane Hydro, a monster of a hotel perched on a large hill at the edge of Dunblane village. As Ka and myself drove up the winding road towards the front of the building we couldn't help but be impressed by the large Victorian structure with it's towering height standing over us like a traditional hollywood style haunted house or murder mystery setting. One of the best things was the greeting at reception.
Standing on the plush carpets before the tall wooden panelled reception desks we were greeted with, not only genuine friendly smiles and offers of help with luggage, but also, most importantly, a large, steaming hot chocolate chip cookie straight from the oven wrapped up in a thin paper envelope. The receptionist had just pulled them out from a small storage unit under her desk. No wonder she was all smiles. What a fantastic perk to the job. Chocolate cookies on call. As we waited on the elevator to take us up to the top floor, the beautiful stench of cookie filled the air. The need for tea grew within me as we waited with the cookie smell wafting around me. The champagne we'd brought for our overnight stay could wait. Tea had to be made immediately in order to accompany this smoking hot baby.
Of course, Ka opted for coffee, (that ain't right is it?) and after enjoying our 40 grams of fat in cookie form we thought we'd walk the dietary sin off by exploring Dunblane. A town we'd never visited before and were curious to have a walk around. We returned to our rooms an hour later, considering a trip to Stirling. From what we could see, Dunblane has a Cathedral, and a Tesco. Oh, and a Railway Station, presumably for escaping by, sorry commuting by. That's about it.
After our short walk we opted to stay in the hotel and take advantage of it's amenities enjoying a dip in the pool and a sweat in the steam room, all the while I mulled over the location of the Doubletree chocolate cookie factory. Could it have been in the Hydro's basement, with small serving lifts rising the cookies up into the receptionists desks, just in time to serve to the lucky arriving guests?
Could Celebrity tv chef, Nick Nairn have had a hand in creating the cookies?
Ka and myself dined in the luxurious setting of The Kailyard, Nick Nairn's Restaurant, housed within the hotel. Beautiful meals of duck and tagliatelle served with a nice, crisp Pinot Grigio (crisp, hmm, I may become a wine connoisseaur yet). We then retired to our room where we danced to the final tunes from a dying iPod and ate strawberries with champagne.
The breakfast, this morning, was immense. Tables of cereal, freshly cut fruit, bacon, sausage, egg, scrambled and fried, potato scone, porridge and whisky, racks and racks of toast and baskets of chocolate chip muffins. Muffins, but no cookies. The cookies were disappointingly absent at breakfast.
After breakfast we went for another swim in the hotel's pool which was more of a challenge than yesterday, as it seemed far more difficult to keep myself afloat after my platefuls of food in the past 24 hours, not to mention champagne and wine.
All in all, not bad for a short Valentines break.
A Valentines all kicked off on Sunday night by a visit to Tricia and Tommy's.
Tricia was on a mission. Ka, Lynsey Ann and myself walked into her house only to be bombarded by a plethora or hearts. Tricia had transformed her living room into a Valentines wonderland with candles, confetti, balloons and paper hearts hanging from the ceiling in coloured, curving, twisting, acetate papers. Tricia had went to town with it all presumably just stopping short before she had painted it red. Christopher and Martin hummed in quiet but amused disapproval, well used to their Mum's fantastic enthusiasm. After dinner Tricia had organised a game of Mr & Mrs for the gathered couples. All two of them. Tricia and Tommy themselves and Ka and myself. Chris, Martin and Lynsey Ann opted out, thankful, for a change, that they were single.
After around twenty questions, with a possible 300 points up for grabs, Tommy and Tricia managed to win the game. Winning only by a mere five points I should add but with totals, which Chris quickly pointed out, that were not even a third of the possible total. A miserable performance by both parties. As a luxury item of clothing I thought Ka would have preferred a pair of her boots to underwear but hey, what do I know? Not enough, as it would turn out. It was the iMac on a desert island and the purple pants that tripped me up. How was I to know that particular desert island would have no electricity supply?
As a result of the Valentines games we all won a prize regardless of how bad our result was. The girls all got various items of smelly stuff and chocolates whilst I got a large, heavy wrapped box. Puzzled, I started unwrapping my present, nervously laughing upon revealing the Mr. Men Library. A boxed collection of every Mr.Men title by the late, great Roger Hargreaves. The reason I was nervously laughing is because I immediately became slightly emotional as the Mr. Men Collection had been the one thing I had informed Ka would be the first purchase I would personnally make for Baby Reid's own library. Obviously I did not bring everyone down at the dinner table by mentioning this as Tricia started telling of how she always used to read the tale of Mr Tickle to me as a wee tyke.
Mr. Tickle had hands on enormous long arms, with which he could reach people from far off and give them a damn good tickle. Mr Tickle could also lie in his bed and reach downstairs, into his kitchen and get himself a cookie from the jar. He'd have loved the Dunblane Hydro!