Oh no, its the MacKintosh's

Welcome to a new week Lums.

There is nothing like wakening up on a Sunday to a chorus of the first lawnmowers of Spring to ruin your day. Our new little house and all the houses around about have bigger gardens than we are used too, which means, on a sunny Sunday, a plethora of petrol mowers all revving up and tearing up and down their lawns. It sounded like Brands Hatch. It served to strike home too that I have not yet procured a lawnmower but it did move a criteria of selection right to the top of the pile. Noisiness. I'll be asking for decibel levels and in store demonstrations to make sure that it spits out enough of that annoying rasping buzz to ensure my handy green fingered neighbours also get to experience the joy of someone elses Sunday morning thrash around the garden.

So that was that, up at the 0.45 horsepower crack of dawn, nothing for it but to take yappy out for a stretch of her little legs and pick up a Sunday Paper. I opted for the Scotland on Sunday for no other reason other than it was that or The Guardian. Now, I, with the help of my socialist bigotry used to look upon broadsheet readers as all a bunch of superior feeling Tories who liked a big paper so they could roll it up and give the servants a right good whack with it. But as I have grown much older and a little wiser I realise its because it lasts all week, and occasionally there is a gem of a story in it that catches your imagination. As there was this week for me.

Scotland has more than a few old ruins but Rait Castle must rank one of the more special old piles. First up , its 800 years old, even for a ruin, that's pretty old. Secondly it belongs to The Thanes of Cawdor, of MacBeth fame so it has celebrity connections, we know how important that is. Finally, it is the best preserved 13th Century great hall castle in Scotland, and its the best preserved for a gruesome reason. It was abandoned in 1442 after a party went pear shaped. It wasn't down to a cigarette burn on the carpet, or somebody bringing 6 cans of Kestrel, but drinking 6 cans of Stella. Back then the castle was lived in by the chief of The Cumming clan, and he thought he would mend some bridges with his neighbours, the MacKintoshes by inviting them around for some dinner, a few drinks and then murdering them all. But old Cumming didn't know that one of his daughters was secretly knocking about with one of the young MacKintoshes, and she warned her young rain coated lover of the dastardly plan. Now, the MacKintoshes still went along to dinner, but went tooled up and it was the Cummings who got slaughtered over dessert. All except the old Chieftain, who being understandably upset with his daughter, she was probably a teenager, chased her up to the top of the castle, where the young girl tried to hide by hanging off the battlements, but this only worked for so long, especially after her father cut off her hands at the wrist, well, that was that. The castle was abandoned that very night, and locals believed it was cursed and haunted ever since, so nobody ever went near it, hence its survival till now. It is beginning to fall apart now though and needs some help. Go and see for yourself. www.saveraitcastle.org

One piece of speculation did upset me though. The Alloa Beer Festival is a twice a year, well, festival of beer, and is consistently a right good night out. Big Al sent a text over telling me its on the 7th of May and to clear the diary. Not that I can drink any of that stuff, It all tastes like something you would flush out radiators with. Parsons Pecker and Old Toms Fungal Infection or whatever, who names them as well, that bunch of beardy blokes in the cable knit jumpers?

Its in Alloa Town Hall which is a grand big civic building paid for by the wealthy Victorian Textile barons of those times. But already our immature plans are under threat from Westminster with the hint that a general election might just be called for the 6th.

The telly is terrible just now. I have never gotten that Dancing on Ice. Particularly when their skates hardly touch the ice on the final show and they do all that pantomime flying about and fireworks. Dr Who, I've never got my head around that either, even as a boy. Dr Why it should be called.

The television was saved from the skip by an inspired choice of DVD. Layer Cake. First time I've seen it and thought it was great. Typical Guy Ritchie effort, but without Guy Ritchie funny enough. Wideboy Londoners, dangerous foreigners, no messin northerners, ruthless kingpins and of course, the obligatory, deal gone bad. Daniel Craig's excellent in it though and I can see the attraction for the Bond casting people and seeing him as the perfect Bond to take it back to a Conneryesque 007.

No job of course means no life insurance, a perilous state of affairs when you have a newborn mortgage to nurture. So I picked up a leaflet from Asda and went online this morning. All very normal. What was not at all normal was the phone call I received immediately, and I mean immediately, my browser hadn't even opened another page. It was from Asda Life Insurance asking if I needed help with my insurance query. It was chilling, I had to look around out the window to see if they were watching me. Maybe they have their own spy satellite peering down through my velux window.

I need a bit of luck and at Shanghai Shuffle the other night I obviously thought the fortune cookies would give me it because I stuffed a load of messages in my pocket where I found them all this morning. Lets see the luck I can look forward to at some unspecified time in the future.

"A cheerful letter or message is on its way to you"

"An important word of advice may come from a child"

"Pray for what you want, but work for the things you need" Great, rub it in.

"A merry heart doeth good like medicine"

"A friend asks only for time, not for money" I'll second that.

"Speculations will turn out well"

"Confucius say, the signs are there for you to win the lottery" I don't think Confucius would know what a lottery is, would he?

So there you are, I'm all set, lottery wins, cheerful messages and important advice from some kid, I cant wait.

Lang may yer lum reek.