Letting the brain take the strain.

A right reeking new year to you both,

The Glasgow-London Darjeeling Express, there's room for a small one

I've started writing this on the train south, heading back to  Mt Olympus.   The train is packed out, like one of those you see in India with people squatting on the roof and clinging like limpets to the side as the telegraph poles brush past their arse.  
I have a seat though, I pitched up early as soon as I realised I had no seat reservation, in fact, because of my ungainly canter along the platform I was first on the train and had my pick of pews in the unreserved carriage.  It wasn't until I attempted to reach the canteen car that I realised how bad it was.  
There were people stuffed everywhere, standing, sitting, lying wherever they could, with suitcases, bodies and bags blocking every door and passageway.  I struggled through for a flapjack and a latte and nipped into the toilet on the way back, the 3rd world travel experience was reinforced in there.  The sink was full of water which meant that it slopped over the side every time the train rounded a corner or in fact moved at all, flooding the floor and seeping out into the passage.  I pitied the squatters huddled around the door as I exited, they've probably paid a hundred pounds for this experience. 


Its that time of year when we're encouraged to consider resolutions and self improvement plans, in a hope the coming year will actually see something achieved.   Mine are simple enough, lose some of my 14 stones of weight, a stone and a half to be precise, and balance the books.    
I'm going to achieve the first by sticking to a low carb diet, cutting out bread, potatoes, rice and pasta.  Easier said than done when you rely on convenience food at work, its all sandwiches, pasta salads and shit that fills you up for an hour.  
The second I will attempt by judicially noting every pound of spend and hopefully that will depress me so much I'll be happier locking myself in the flat rather than go anywhere spendy, like The Slug and Lettuce.   


Oh, nearly forgot the most important one, bear in mind I'll be out of a job about the same time the final Olympic closing ceremony firework falls back to earth, I need to GET A JOB. 


Lang may yer lum reek.  

Kenny Rogers Kung Po

Thank Lum its Friday and with that in mind, a truncated reek today.

Yes, its Friday, hurrah, though it loses a bit of its significance when you don't work all week anyway.

But this Friday is significant for the Reeking Lum, for this Friday I attend an old colleagues get together in Glasgow, where because I no longer work for the worlds largest alcoholic beverage producer, I can get irresponsibly drunk on unfamiliar brands. So tonight its Magners, Murphys, Belvedere and Bombay Sapphire all the way.

What could be construed as another blatant attempt by Reeking Lum to attract a following of millions in China, I am off to Shanghai Shuffle. Glasgows premier Karaoke party restaurant. The choice of venue obviously brings its own pressures, and not just picking the party streamers out your Kung Po. Choosing the right songs that I will sacrifice on the alter of karaoketainment has been distracting me for weeks. When I should have been tramping the pavements looking for work and writing pathetic pleas for employment, I have instead been trying to come up with a song that I can get through without any catastrophic failures.

My usual choices are getting a bit tired. The Gambler by Kenny Rogers and Little Ole Wine Drinker Me by Dean Martin are fine tunes, my Gran would have loved them but they wont cut it in the white hot heat of Shanghai Shuffle in front of a baying crowd of blotto twentysomethings brought up on X-Factor and American Idol. So, after much deliberation and a bit of practice within the confines of my i-pod buds, I have plumped for Just Cant Get Enough by Depeche Mode and Way Down by Elvis Presley. Best of it is, Karaokes terrify me, but after 3 pints I'd quite happily sing at Wembley.

A quick stock take of the week.

Jobs offered: Nil

Jobs applied for: 1

Bike miles cycled: at least 5

Green smugness gained: Lots

Stupid injuries:2

Cars purchased:Nil

Must do better next week.

By the way. "What Katy Did Next", unless its jump off a high bridge, I'm not interested.

Lang may yer lum reek.

Burns, Buses and Backpacks

Reeking Lums,

Its not highlighted in my googlecalendar, but it is obviously National Stupid Injury In The Home Week. First I sustain a head injury from our Artexed ceiling that made me look like I had just exited a car through the windscreen and now I have received horrendous napalm like burns to my left hand.

Let me build a picture, as if we were in some horror end of season Holby City, of the terrible sequence of events.

The Reeking Lum, faced with the challenge of making tea for himself and a fussy 12 year old and not being blessed with the talent or charm of Nigella Lawson, sneaks into M&S and procures some vital dinner in a jiffy ingredients. 2 steak pies (20 mins at 180) , 1 tub of M&S ultimate mashed potatoes (20 mins at 180) see what I did there, its all in the preparation, and finally, I microwaveable tub of carrots and peas (3 mins at full power in an 850W microwave). So, following the fool proof instructions on the back all the elements of the plan start to come together. Until that is I chose a totally implausible and unsuitable implement to remove the tub of mashed potato from the oven. I almost had it over to the touchdown zone, when my eyes were drawn to the black sooty pastry on the steak pies, and the inevitable happened. The tub of near molten potato toppled off the flimsy fish slice and I, some would say foolishly, I say instinctively, moved my hand to catch it, which, unfortunately, I did. I caught it all over my palm, and for a moment, i had a clear and unobstructed view of what hell is like. There is a lot of swearing in Hell.

But that was yesterday, today requires a trip into the metropolis for the Reeking Lum.

Part of my severance package includes some coaching on the finery's of getting a job and today's sessions included "Advanced LinkedIn" which is like Facebook that you don't have to hide from your boss, and " Surviving Psychometric Testing and Assessment Centres".

It got me thinking about a presentation I made at an assessment centre years ago. It had Latin in it, a bit of Sun Tzu, a folksy tale about a bus on the way to the seaside and how some of the people on board wanted to drive, others to read the map and direct and some just wanted to sit up the back, smoking and flashing there backside out the window, and of course a liberal sprinkling of fib, and a soupcon of shameless self promotion.

I remember a pal telling me that a guy he was interviewing for a role, when asked to give an example of an inspirational leader and why said Hitler, cos he got things done. Well, he certainly got that right.

The journey to town, on one of the promised 21st Century mass transit carriers felt just like the journeys I remember the last time I was on a bus in the 1980s. A little less shoogly perhaps. I would have had confidence that Mr MacMillan would have had no idea my homework was completed on the journey to school. One curious aside and a consequence of the buses all carrying a pile of Metros at the front is that on one occasion a little old man, though I've got to say, sprightly, sprang aboard the bus, lifted a copy out the box, and sprang back off again. He probably does it every day, its like a paper shop that goes right past your window. Great that, I want one.

It was refreshing to be in Glasgow after a week and a half in Indian Country. Its always nice to see people that don't obviously come from a very concentrated gene pool and of course an opportunity to have my regular 6 syllable Starbucks.

Though come on Starbucks, when are you, and everyone else for that matter, bus companies, The London Tube, Oxford Street, going to ban people wearing huge and unwieldy backpacks that require rear view mirrors and reversing beeps to manoeuvre safely and without incident around other things. Honestly, they may be great for hands free grappling up the North face of The Matterhorn with the knowledge that your lunch box is safely stowed inside, and they are also great for banging you in the face on tubes, taking up two peoples space in lifts, and as today, very nearly knocking my Tai Chai Latte all over me. Only my lightening reactions and the fact that, after the week I've had, I had predicted that very thing happening as soon as I saw him come in, avoided a disaster. But it didn't really matter in the end, because I dropped it outside as I tried to get my brolly up without putting my bag down in the puddles. Brilliant.

Lang may yer lum reek