Sunday, March 21, 2010

Push button to open


Captains carmel log, stardate Saturday.

Reeking Lums.

I'm off on a trip today. The heirs to the Reeking Lum fortune reside in Alloa and Saturday is the day Daddy visits and I often try and imagine doing it in somebody else's shoes. Andrew Carnegies to be precise as he attends a "how far can you philanthropiss up a wall contest" with John Paul Getty and Howard Hughs.
Now with a car, its a good 40 minute drive away, but with only my trusty nearly new bike , the proposal becomes akin to those early efforts to find the root of The Nile.
It has to be the train, but Lenzie appears to be a station that is governed by the laws of randomness, and its never easy to predict when you have to be there to catch the train of choice, as a result, I have to sit supping lattes in Lenzies trying too hard coffee shop. The ball that is my plans for the day, is already on the slates and I've only been out the house 10 minutes.
I phone ahead to allay fears that I may have been kidnapped for ransom and a suggestion is made that unsettles me further. My daughter, who normally is very smart, is adamant that you have to pay a half to get your bike on the train and seeing as I have just bought my ticket and a latte leaving me with 30p in my pocket, that's not going to happen.

Lenzie is actually quite nice and a lot like Dunblane in some respects in that they both had growth spurts with the arrival of the railways and your wealthy turn of the century merchants and professionals from Glasgow were encouraged to buy or build houses in these new commuter zones. That means a lot of these big old Edwardian piles and people are generally pretty loaded. I saw a boy getting dropped off at School a few weeks ago in a Rolls Royce Phantom, the thing could hardly get up the street it was so big, it was like those pictures of giant ships squeezing through the Suez canal.
A little while ago there was a news report on TV comparing the life expectancy of Lenzie residents with those in one of Glasgows grimmer reservations and the difference turned out to be something like 23 years. Now that's quite a shocking stat, that we can all cope with if its Chad or Somalia, but not Black Hill which is only about 7 miles away.

I meet and get chatting to a little old lady on the train, who was off to visit her brother in Alloa. She was registered blind, and had to be helped on the train by the guard. She was tiny and frail and kind of perched on the edge of her seat like a sparrow but when we got talking you could sense there was a lot to admire in this lady. I hope I',m like that when I'm her age. No, not a woman, or blind, but intrepid and fearless and still have the belief the world is as much mine now as it always was, and I'm off out in it.

One bonus of travelling with your bike on the train, for free by the way, is having to sit in the 21st century equivalent of the guards van and the entertainment you get with the w.c facilities on these new trains. Its a push button world these days, and train toilets are no exception. You push a button to open the door, you push another to close the door, but what many do not realise is , you push one more button to lock the door. So, if you are extremely unfortunate, as a surprising number of people were on the 11:30 Saturday train to Alloa, somebody else comes along the carriage, desperately wanting to enjoy all the trains facilities, and pushes the button for open, exposing some poor floundering soul right in the middle of ,well, whatever. Its wrong, I know, but particularly funny when its a woman, sitting there, unable to move and relying on a charitable passenger to push the close button for her, then there is the seemingly endless wait for the hydraulics and things to do there work and slowly slide around her again. But the hell isn't over yet , she then has to come out and face us all as she hurries back to her seat.

I'm fond of Alloa. Historically it was a real hive of industry with brewing, distilling, engineering, shipbuilding, textile mills, coal mines and iron works. It was like a microcosm of the entire Scottish economy in one town. Its nearly all gone now though, only a glass works and some whisky left. The last 25 years have not been kind to the town or its residents. If Geldof pitched up in the High St, within 20 minutes he'd be on the phone to Bono and have a record out in a week. You get the feeling though that its on the up.

"There's money in your old mobile" I've just had reminded to me by a vulgar ad on TV. I stick my old unwanted mobile in a bag, send it off and I will get up to £200 straight back. Up to is very much the key here, after 50 seconds research I discover that the £200 promise, is only for unused Apple i-phones???? So who would do that exactly. Well, in Alloa it would be those twitchy menacing junkies that you see darting among the shadows half an hour after they've stolen it from your bedside drawer.

For somebody that makes a mess of drawing curtains, I was totally blown away and impressed with my daughters art exam submission. Theres no feeling like the feeling of pride your kids give you from time to time.

Back home in Kirky and one of the neighbors must have a teenager either celebrating a birthday, or celebrating their parents being out the country with a noisy, boozathon. Being young looks like loads more fun now than it was when i was young. Did the 40 somethings of 1988 wonder the same thing you think, surely not. When they were teenagers they had The Beatles and The Stones, free love and flowers in their hair, the promise of jet-packs and hover cars.

Another Saturday in its death throes and I seem to have been particularly curmudgeonly today, so it as good a time as any to mention some telly I wasn't quick witted enough to avoid.
Heros??WTF. This show is unwatchable. Most notable for the motivation it provides to become a cornea donor, immediately. Secondly their is an actor in it with the first name Carlease. Now, Iv'e heard of people flicking through the phone book for inspiration when naming a child, but not the yellow pages.

Lang may yer lum reek





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