Wiki-hell, a test of mind and body, yours that is if you start reading this

Yes, we know, its very wrong

Hello Lums,


What about a game of Wikipeadia  Russian roulette.  You perhaps remember that's the game where we select random article from Wikipeadia and see how many you have to go through before any of them have already reserved a little kernel of your grey matter.   I've not attempted that for a while, maybe all the hours of reading zombie lit and playing Gran Turismo will have improved my stats.   So here goes,

1. Askari Mian Irani, some Pakistani painter that designed a postage stamp once, never heard of him, but hardly surprising that is it, I'm no philatelist and having virtually no awareness of Pakistan other than the fact that when I was growing up in Dunblane, there was a restaurant called the Indo-Pak.  This was the 70's, so not that long after the fracture of the sub-continent so I expect the Indo faction, and the Pak part probably didn't get on that well, goodness knows what affect it had on the food and how they partitioned the tips. FAIL: Wiki 1, Lum 0
2. Jan Inge Hovig,  mmm, here we have a Norwegian Architect who's most famous work was the design of The Arctic Cathedral which I'm guessing was made out of ice bricks and had ice bells that tinkled instead of rang.  He married a famous Norwegian TV chef then tragically died a week later of a myocardial infarction, a heart attack, which I'm sure wasn't brought on by anything he ate.  FAIL: Wiki 2, Lum 0
3. Colwich, a little closer to home, but not close enough, its a parish in Staffordshire of four and half thousand souls.  Shugbourough Hall is close by, I like to think that it was founded by someone called Shug.  FAIL: Wiki 3, Lum 0
4. Linsdale Urban District, This isn't getting any easier, its an old council district in Buckinghamshire that was once part of the Leighton Buzzard Rural Sanitary District which was no doubt as horrendous as that sounds, what is a sanitary district anyway? I'm genuinely hoping its not the sewage district, post code SH 1T, with the poorest estate agents in the country, oh well, potentially not all bad then.  FAIL: Wiki 4, Lum 0
5.  Reformed Church of Tappan, Five in and the first religious reference, but not any of the well known ones like er, The Pope, so  no good to me.  Its a church in Rockland County in New York which can trace some history back to 1716, which is probably about the time of the creation in the pastors mind.      It was used as a morgue after the Baylor Massacre which was a gruesome sounding battle during the American Revolution and no doubt makes it a totally creepy place to spend the night in order to inherit a fortune from your long lost mad great Uncle. FAIL: Wiki 5, Lum 0
6. The Consumer First Energy Act 2008.  I know a few Acts,  but not this one.  Its American so I expect it has more to do with the interests of the Texan Oil Barons and less to do with consumers of America.  But since we're on the subject, in 1968, the year of my birth there were 48 Acts of government passed in the UK, including the Race Relations Act, the Theft Act, which hopefully made it illegal, The Caravan sites Act, The Hearing Aid Act, I SAID, THE HEARING AID ACT and The London Cab Act, which repealed most of what was in the Race Relations Act.  FAIL: Wiki 6, Lum 0
7. Concordia Parish School Board.  This is what it says on the tin in Louisiana and apparently it requires all students to wear school uniforms, it doesn't say what the uniform is, it could be white gown and pointy hat for all I know.  It doesn't even make any claims to supersonic flight.  FAIL: Wiki 7, Lum 0
8. Rhionclavis longicaudatum.  A Sea Snail, that requires someone to submit a description on Wiki.  I'll have a go.  A Marine Mollusc Gastropod, about half the height of Ermintrude the Sea Cow, commonly spotted wearing a battered straw boater, red scarf, goggles and snorkel. Often found in the company of Zebedee, an overbearing mustachioed spring that seems to know everybody's business and Dougal, a wasted sea dog of some description who turned to drugs after that night with Florence.  FAIL: Wiki 8, Lum 0
9. Seydliste.  Wikipeadia, you are clutching at straws, Seydlitse is apparently the name of several villages in The Czech Republic, which is and always will be useless to me but it has at least given me a new found respect for the Czech Post Office. FAIL: Wiki 9, Lum 0
10. Raclaw, West Peomeranian Voivodeship.  Nope, this has me beat twice, I've never heard of Raclaw and I have no idea what a Voivodeship is though it did get me thinking we don't use enough Vs in the English language. FAIL: Wiki 10, Lum 0
11. Eye of the Beholder, YAAAS, you beauty, I happen to know this is a film starring Criefs very own Ewan McGregor.  Wiki seems to think it was rubbish, using words like bomb and flop.  One critic called it impossible and muddled and it acheived a score of 9% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is quite an acheivement.  To put that in perspective IMDB has scored it at 4.7 whereas The Last Airbender  which I know is totally shite, scored 4.5, so all in all its almost just as bad.  k.d.lang is in it as well, which should put it in the horror category rather than the thriller. GET IN, Wiki 10, Lum 1.  

So there you go, a score of 10-1.  This is good for me, I must be getting brainier. 

Still, its a sad day when you have to turn to Wikipeadia for some inspiration in your life. 

Lang may yer lum reek

Is that a ninja midget on your back?

Whoa Lums, whats happened to Blogger, its went all clean and tidy and modern, well, from where I'm sitting anyway, it may just look like the usual dross from where you are.

I have just returned from an entertaining night away camping with my work colleagues.  
Camping, when I think of it means country side, waking to birdsong or perhaps a bubbling brook or gently breaking waves, not any more.  Now when I think camping I'll think of the dawn chorus of the clattering old diesel engines of  the resident labourers as they all go on their way at 6am, I'll also remember the constant and consistent roar of tyres on the M25 which was only a drive and a six-iron away.  
This place looked like the last stand of the gypsies. Those silver streaked caravans with a transit van outside every one. Scrap iron and barking dogs.  One, I assume he was the gypsy King,  had a big articulated caravan called a Big Horn, I couldn't decide if he was parked next to a skip or it was his hot-tub.  Still, once it got dark, and as long as we all faced the other way into the field opposite, the one with the buzzing pylons, then it wasn't so bad.  
We built a fire, put someones carelessly insecure old wardrobe on it that burnt an attractive greeny blue flame which suggests it was dangerously toxic and sat around boozing and telling daft stories.  
Best joke of the night goes to Miss Hardy-Annual (names have been changed to protect the innocent)

" There was this farmer with a talking sheepdog, he says to it, go out and round up the the sheep, it says rrr-ok then-rrr, an hour later its back and says to the farmer  rrr-thats that done, there was 40 of them-rrr, thats funny says the farmer, this morning there was only 38, the dog says rrr-you told me to round them up-rr" Boom,Boom.   


One of the activities was to go on off road Segways through a forest, organised gamely by Mrs Wall-Banger.  First time on a Segway, I've got to say, their brilliant.  Its the first machine I've ridden that actually feels like an extension of yourself, its intuitive, reactive, can be deceptively quick and seems like such a simple thing.  Never mind for a moment the fact that the man that owned the company fatally drove one off a cliff, they must be hard to fall off considering none of us did. 


The drive home was a nightmare only partly because I was navigating.  My issue was the little blue ball on my phones google maps app was not keeping up with the car, therefore I kept missing turnings, still, its fun driving through Piccadilly Circus at the weekend.  It did give us time for some interesting conversation. 
Miss Hardy-Annual and I were having a discussion where we both concurred that the fossil record discovered to date only accounts for about 10% of beasts that were thought to exist in that time.  Mr Marcus from Eldorado asked, fairly at first, "how do they know?", well they just do was my reply, a little pathetically.  Well, its the like of you , he says, bandying about unfounded stats that accentuates our lack of understanding, or something like that anyway.  First of all, I replied, I don't think me mentioning it to three friends in a VW Polo is bandying it about.  Maybe if I'd painted it on the side of a big blimp and floated it through London, tethering it to the Natural History Museum, or perhaps even just borrowing a million or so pounds from the bank and commissioning my own radio show devoted to the 10 % of the fossil record discovered, I would call it, Hardly Any Fossils FM, that might have been bandying it about.  I then apologised for not being more knowledgeable on the subject, and its unfortunate I did not do that degree in Paleontology that I almost certainly would have done if only I had anticipated this very discussion was to happen 25 years in the future.  That seemed to settle that and we returned to playing Pub legs, which I won after spotting Horse and Hounds and The Three Famous Kings, only a little more than 10% of my smugness was evident. 


Now, a reeking rant. What is undoubtedly the biggest risk to public civility the developed world has ever seen?  
It has the where with all to turn the most mild mannered soul into a Michael Douglas Falling Down, Postal nut job capable of the most unspeakable tut tuts.  
I am speaking of people wearing backpacks on public transport.  Now, this is an environment where each lucky commuter in London has one square foot of floorspace to inhabit for the hellish duration of his journey, be it bus, tube, train or whatever.  
Now imagine that,  while the fellow next to you carries an aggressive little midget on his back, one that likes to kick and punch every passing thing, taking special delight in knocking your hot coffee, or bumping the book from your hand so that it falls on the floor and loses the page, not that that matters because you, the reader, is never going to be able to pick it up and see it again, oh no, not when your standing in an effectual one square foot, 6ft high box.  These midget bearing bulldozers have the spatial awareness of a delusional bulimic bull in the proverbial china shop, they have no idea how much space they are hogging.  


Now that I have saddled and successfully mounted a high horse, I have to say something about electric mobility scooters.  
These are taking over our pavements, once a safe place to peruse and perambulate.  I once got stopped by the police for riding my bike down Dunblane High Street, very gently and carefully on the pavement.  Nowadays I could career down it at up to 12 mph in an electric vehicle about the same weight and pedestrian friendliness as an Aga oven.  
The folks that drive them have mobility problems, though regular readers may remember a previous reek about them mostly being lazy, but if they do have mobility issues, its just as likely its a meagerness of mental mobility they suffer, hence the car keys being taken off them, as well as the remote control for the telly and any matches. 
After a quick afternoon of research I discovered mobility scooters have caused one pedestrian casualty in the UK, a poor 90 year old woman gamely trying to walk somewhere on a pavement with her legs before being mowed down by a reckless young mobility scooterist in his 70s, probably high on Werthers.  
Another case I read about was a little 2 year old being run over and caught up in the wheel arches as the criminally immobile pilot callously ploughed on towards the post office or wherever.  The child, I expect, making the same whirring sounds we used to get when we shoved plastic cartons under the mudguards of our bikes to make them sound like TT Racers. 

Anyway, enough, its time to reclaim the road tax free zone of the pavement.  Put them on the roads like we did in the 70s when they all used to ride around in little blue 3 wheel cars, they were helpfully called AC Invalid Carriages, you may remember them from old match of the day shows, all parked up around the pitch, and anyway, its isn't right that we have a mobility scooter on the pavement with the means to make more injured and immobile people, its whats called a conflict of interest, if your interested.   
Last thing, its raining which means brolley wars will have begun.  Remember the midgets on the backs of passengers in tube trains, well when it rains they climb on to peoples heads and try and jab peoples eyes out with knitting needles, having an erect umbrella these days is more a defense against this than anything weather related.  


Lang may yer lum reek. 

Restless Natives

Peace loving Lums of Planet Blog,

I am whispering these thoughts from the cupboard under the stairs. As London descends into anarchy and the loot thirsty hordes scavenge the land for shiny things, the only guidance I could call on was that old Protect and Survive cartoon http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/films/1964to1979/filmpage_warnings.htm

we used to get as kids to deal with nuclear war with the Russians. So, I've whitewashed the windows, stockpiled beans under the floorboards, taken all the doors off and stacked them in the cupboard and hid under them covered in factor 50 ICBM grade sunscreen.

Actually tonight, I feel a bit foolish crouching in here, in the dark. It all seems quiet outside, no screaming sirens, no frantic searching helicopter overflights and no gangsta talk outside my window.

Apparently there are four times the number of coppers on London streets tonight than normal, keeping the cheeky little urchins at home with their mums. A good deal of those extra policeman have been drafted in from office jobs and old DIs from the Sweeney that have had to dust down their old miners strike riot gear and hope it fastens in the middle, still, good luck to them.

What we have seen in the last few nights in London is a brief glimpse of the future. The social breakdown that will occur virtually minutes after, or before if our rulers give us warning, a meteor strike, super volcano or zombie invasion. Old scores settled, materials gathered for the upcoming struggle, the weak being preyed on by the strong and bold, cupboards under the stairs will be in demand then, I tells ye.

Mind you, don't believe any of them when they say its some kind of social reaction to hardships and disenchantment. This isn't a revolution, this is a smash and grab, a blatant rush for something for nothing and the childish thrill of breaking things, add the swarm mentality and frenzy feeding instinct to get as much down your throat before the opportunity goes and well, there you go.

I remember the riots of the 80s and 90s, in similar locations, Brixton and Toxteth for instance. Those instances seemed to come from a different place with real and justified things to say, if not do. There was looting of course, but it was secondary and a by product. Looting seems to be the primary objective of this series of eruptions with do-gooders and two-bob over analysts trying to tag some social ill onto it.

Tell you what though, there has been some entertaining news stories coming from the foreign press, the Russians claimed all the animals had been let out the zoo and never mind what you think of the Iranians, they have a sense of humour. They have called for the police to show restraint in dealing with our protesters and an independent international body to look into police brutality. Its hard to imagine an Ayatollah chuckling, but I managed it when I thought of them coming up with that. I expect old Qadaffi would like to request UN resolutions to send an aircraft carrier to sit in the Thames estuary, dropping baseball bats and scaffolding poles for the London rebels to legitimately get rid of mad dog Cameron.

Other news in my time away from the lum. A number of London tourist attractions have been visited in the last few weeks, here's my very brief and too quickly formed opinion of them.

1. Buckingham Palace, very worthwhile, and a real treat to see how well my and all my ancestors taxes, blood and toil have been so well spent and invested in worthwhile treasures like Fabergé cigarette cases, that incidentally I don't think will fit filter tipped fags, just those woodbines  King Edward smoked so I expect the value has dropped a little. It really is like a, well, a palace I suppose, fit for a queen, er, yes well, you get it, marks out of 10, 9.
2. Madame Tussauds, if I had qued for two and a half hours to get in and also paid 30 quid each, well, I may well have wanted to decapitate every wax dummy in the place and carry the heads home to use as interesting centre pieces for the dining room table, just to feel like I hadn't been robbed and processed like a veal calf in a French sausage factory. There is an in door marked entrance, from this point there is a solid worm of humanity, snaking through the humid interior for about a mile until you're ejaculated into the gift shop. Perhaps on the way you may have seen some dummies that looked vaguely familiar, in a shiny sort of way, but so would the one thousand Japanese tourists who are sharing your section of worm, so the camera flashes and squealed  Japonic Shinto art direction means you wont have seen them for long. They were shit anyway. 2/10, only cos I got in for free and didn't queue.
3. Imperial War Museum, this was very good, at times I felt like I was in a big airfix diarama, big tanks, planes and guns all with history and stories behind them. If we keep having wars though they will need to build an extension. 8/10
4. London Zoo, thankfully before the rioters had released all the man eating lions and tigers and bears. I love a zoo, so I'm easy to please, a little delighted that the zoo of the empire that once covered the world hasn't any caged chimpanzees to see going slowly mad, or elephants, Christ, if Billy Smart can have one I'm sure the Zoo could be allowed one, but otherwise, very good. 7/10

That's all from this edition of Visit London.

Lang May Yer Lum Reek

When vegetables attack

Lums about to Reek, I salute you,

So, as deadly E-Coli sweeps the continent like a modern day brown death, what was responsible? Was it Colonel Cucumber in the conservatory, or Baroness Beansprout up the backstairs? I don't know, but I do know one thing, never trust a tomato.

Born a fruit but somehow managing to convince the vegetable community to accept it into the salad bowl. Not to play second fiddle to the old vegetable elders, potatoes and cabbage you understand, but to be culinarily embraced, with its plump but firm body and glossy red skin. The magic X factor in everything from a Caprese salad, to a Margarita Pizza to a Bloody Mary and despite its fruity heritage, successfully integrating itself into the union of veg.

It wasn't always so easy for Tomato. There was the disputed parenthood, the arguments and denials and of course the fateful day in court. Yes, Tomato had his day in court.

1893 the year, Nix v Hedden the infamous adversaries. "Just because he has seeds, it doesn't make him a fruit" I can almost hear the plaintiff plead. There were star witnesses, pea, cucumber, squash and bell pepper on one side, throwing off their labels to seek botanical asylum in the vegetable patch. Potato, parsnip, cabbage, carrot and bean also taking the stand to claim that its not what we are, but how we are used that defines us, and sure enough, the judges gavel came down in agreement and from that day forth, Tomatoes belonged to the vegetable side of the supermarket aisle.

Yet somehow not quite getting into the whole vegetable thing completely. No muddy fields, or being buried neck deep in manure, no dull earthy colours and the need to be thoroughly cleaned and boiled before consumption, instead, warm greenhouses on fragrant vines and even the appearance in the occasional cocktail.

Does it have some sinister hidden agenda or did it only want to be a vegetable so it could be the most glamorous one. Lets be realistic for a moment, it was never going to achieve that in fruitville, not with mangos, pineapples and pommegranates parading about the place . By the way, you'll often find mushrooms hanging out with tomatoes, more proof of the tomatoes fickle ways, keeping an ugly pal to reinforce how utterly gorgeous it is, well, mushrooms are not a vegetable either, don't let anybody tell you any different.

I applied for tickets for the big global village school sports day next year, not for me of course, I'll be far too busy, but thought some family could benefit. So Reeking Lum went into the hat for Equestrian, diving, tennis, gymnastics, football and ceremony tickets. 14 in total with a value of about £700.

The tombola spun and out popped £46 from my sweating, anxious bank account to pay for tickets for something. It is obviously two £20 tickets which leaves only the opening or closing ceremonies, or football at Hampden Park to watch Cambodia U23s play Tajikistan U23s or similar in a preliminary round, I'll assume its the unattractive football tie. Despite the fact that if I had gotten all the tickets I had applied for my bank account would have been so fatally holed beneath the water line I would have disappeared up my own overdraft quicker than you can say Lehman, I cant help but be disappointed, nay, furious that I don't have at least one London event to go too. All that'll be left is Greco-Roman wrestling and pistol shooting or something.

Anyway,

Lang may yer lum reek.

Campings unhappy campers

Hello all you lucky lums?

Well, if your reading this we've survived another week in a world that has a thousand and one ways to see us off.

Its especially noteworthy as this is the week that was meant to bring the rapturous end of the world for all us sinners and unbelievers, or those that hadn't yet made a contribution to Harold Campings Viagra kitty. Now, I'm not really up to speed with the whole message he was peddling, but apparently Jesus was being born again, all the true believers, only a couple of hundred thousand it seems, would be risen to heaven and the rest of us would perish in horrible ways.

Two hundred thousand is a bit mean, I don't know how they arrived at that figure.

Logistics I expect, maybe the security team at the pearly gates imposed that figure because they were worried about queue times and unnecessary crushing, or is heaven nearly full? That would be a worry when you think that the history of the world is marked by the number of evil nasty bastards that have marched across it. Generally people are a bit more good now, and I expect qualify on those goodness grounds for an all park pass to the hereafter.

The other thing that bothered me, that's not to say only one other thing, but just another thing, was this reborn Christ. Presumably hes coming back to earth as a baby, not a fully grown, lanky haired bearded joiner, that would just be weird, and painful for his mother. So, if he is coming back, using the tried and trusted method of immaculate conception and being born in a golden, starry aura we won't know its him, and also presumably, he wont be able to speak, he wont be able to tell us anything, never mind anything profound. He could be born a baby of course , with a fully developed vocabulary and some witty anecdotes, I think that would be just as weird though he'd be a shoe in on Americas Got Talent.

The first thing he should do though is raise and shake his little baby fist at all those Middle America preaching shysters, there just competition for him, sucking up all those contributions from superstitious country folk who would have been happy dancing around a straw man not so long ago. It still seems a a lot to expect a baby to do in his first few months on earth.

What struck me most of all though was the shock and incredulity felt by Harolds heavenly bound followers when nothing of note actually happened. No ravenous earthquakes, no plagues or meteor strikes. Some of them sounded pretty disappointed that we were all not now going to die slow painful deaths and descend to Hell, where it would seem there is much more room and access is better organise. That annoyed me a bit. It reeks of desperate need to have your lifes beliefs confirmed, looking forward to the hour they can say " so long suckers" all those hours praying and thousands spent really have gotten us a seat on the lifeboat. That would suggest self doubt and a deep seated lack of faith, no wonder they weren't chosen for the country club in the clouds.

Still, they shouldn't lose hope because Harold Camping apparently didn't carry over his one or whatever and made a mistake with the dates and we are now scheduled instead to die very quick horrible deaths in October. Third time lucky Harold.

One day life on earth will come to an end, Prof Cox told me that and I'd rather believe him, and I expect right up to the end someone will be spouting this apocalyptic message and gratefully receiving pointless donations but at least somebody someday can say I told you so. I hope he's not near me in the queue.

While we're on the subject of Life on Earth, somebody published a list of new species discovered recently, yep, there still discovering things and I'm glad there discovering them but somebody has to answer for them. I mean, there is something called a Pancake Batfish that looks like joke vomit with half finished eyes, a jumping cockroach, brilliant, they'll be riding bikes soon, yet another big horrible spider,a Bark Spider, presumably because it lives on trees and not because it sounds like a St Bernard and a new kind of leech called a Tyrant Leech King, which is a pretty impressive name tag to pin on your suit if your a leech at the annual leeching conference , but guess what, it lives up peoples noses. Now, WTF, that's not doing anyone any good is it.

Terrorist groups the world over will have noted this week that the Presidents Beast of a car can't go over bumps. Dastardly plans will already probably be hatched to take advantage of this design oversight. Luring the presidential motorcade to the upper levels of a shopping centre car park, or perhaps to a car boot sale on an old semi-cleared demolition site. Sounds like the plot for my next movie screenplay provisionally titled, Bump and Grind, bear with me, I'll just do a quick google search to make sure no-one else has made a movie called Bump and Grind....

Nooooooo! OMG, how is that even humanly possible, thats like a two litre bottle of coke and those are what I imagine a dead heat in a zeppelin race would look like.

Lang may yer lum reek.

The mass Gonk extinction of 79

Good evening Lums,

Who can remember Gonks? Those lovable fairground giveaways from the 70s, a golden age when you could get your picture taken with a terrified monkey, take home a goldfish in a polythene bag and purchase toy cigarettes that glowed at the end when you sucked on them.

A Gonk, if you need reminding , and apologies for jumping straight into the biology of one, was a toilet roll, wrapped in a dubious day-glo furry material that was undoubtedly harmful to 99% of organisms and had a half life of a million or so years. They had comedy paper eyes stuck on the front, normally their only facial feature. These were usually the first to go, giving the unfortunate creature the look of a crow pecked corpse that had wronged the King of the Gonks and swung from his castle gates, Castle Gonk, probably. They had oversize cardboard feet and sometimes a little tuft of hair, which was packed with carcinogenic qualities and the No1 reason for the rise in child asthma. After the eyes, a middle aged Gonk, say one about 20 minutes old, would begin to suffer gonk pattern baldness. An unwrapping of its hairy pelt because its securing dab of glue had dried up and lost its bite.

I don't know where they originated from, they didn't have a TV show like the Wombles or Banana Splits, they had just always been there, visiting once a year with the fairground gypsies. Then they disappeared, like the Mayans, no trace, no mass Gonk graves or Gonk memorabilia turning up on Antiques roadshow. Their place eventually was taken behind the cocunut shys by inflatable hammers and big annoying balloons on an elastic band.

Even finding a picture was difficult, the specimens displayed above are with the Gonkkenheim museum, I had to get special permission just to think about this rubbish, not from the museum, from my mental health therapist.

Sometimes , in Spain or somewhere I would see what I thought was an evolutionary offshoot of the gonk, a bendy, mouldable blob, with those familiar friendly eyes. These creatures were usually full of flour, I know that because my daughter tried to bring one back into the UK but it burst, actually , exploded is more accurate, all over a number of humourless passengers on the plane. At least, I think it was flour, that's what the Colombian fella that sold us it at the airport said.

The Furby I think is some kind of a relation, part machine, a bionic gonk I guess, but unable to jump over buildings and run at 60 miles an hour, it could flap its little stubs about and wobble energetically on its feet. It was meant to have the gift of speech and be able to learn language as we spoke to them over time, like a sinister mechanical parrot, learning all our secrets, hearing all, knowing all. In reality I've since discovered they left the gonk mechanical anthropomorphous engineering facility with only about 100 words programmed into their little gonk brains. So, you could chat away to it like a lonely widow, read it everything from Boswell to Billy Connollys Gullibles Travels and after 25 years it would still only be able to squack" Furby wuv" " Furby Worried" and "Please Stop".

Those frightening little troll dolls from the 90s are sometimes referred to as Gonks, which is plainly ridiculous, they are a much closer relation to Smurfs.

Lang may yer Lum Reek

King Zog and Begbie in one sitting

Reports of No1 lums death are greatly exaggerated, there are embers yet.

Yes, the lack of a decent Internet service had forced me temporarily into exile from the connected world, to North Korea probably, or maybe Hoxhas Albania. Albania had a King you know, King Zog which sounds like he belongs in Flash Gordon and probably everyday when he opened his palace window, wished he did.

Speaking of our mighty God anointed superiors, our own privileged little caste had a chance to dust themselves down and step into the blinding, unforgiven light of the 21st Century for Bill and Kates wedding. A posh do, I hope the father of the bride wasn't paying for it. I expect he offered to make a contribution, "you've done so much already your majesty, at least let me organise the cars". That would be great, an old white Merc ex taxi for the bridesmaids and his pals new Mondeo with ribbons on it for the bride and groom, just because its new and has a valid MOT. The press were of course in a frenzy, the headline writers so busy they probably talked in headlines when they got home. POTATOES SLIGHTLY UNDERCOOKED, SHOCK!

I read one, i think the evening before the wedding that said " Kate waves for fans". Not to fans, or at fans but for fans, like the monumental effort of her raising her noodle arm and shaking it about for 2 seconds was something all the congregated saddos will forever be eternally grateful for, probably giving them the greatest 2 seconds of their life and making spending all their months pension money getting to London and the nights sleeping in a subway in London with the junkies and meth head prossies worth while.

The press were at it again a little later with the news of Osama Bin Ladens, from now on known as OBL, just because I don't have enough acronyms in my life, overdue demise. The general reporting media must have been slobbering like Pavlovs Dogs with a feast such as this on the table, but they were impatient for facts, they wanted to be the paper detailing how the op went down. So, they would just make it up and hope some of it was close enough. One report I read had OBL spraying his twin AK47s from the hip like Rambo, shouting "death to infidels" and laughing insanely as the bullet casings fell in slow motion and special forces abseiled in the window like ninjas, barrel rolling across the floor and dispatching the fiend with 50 bullets, one for each state in the federal republic.

In reality he was probably cowering behind something, his arms out stretched and fingers splayed as if trying to hide behind them, I expect totally shitting himself. Maybe he was half under his bed, not trying to hide, but to get rid of his porn collection before the Americans got it, how embarrassing is that. I wonder what Taliban porn looks like anyway, I guess all the women will be wearing veils and scarfs, I bet the readers wives section looks a bit samey.

What else have I missed while stranded on the Island of los connectos. That's right, didn't Scotland take a Salmond leap forward to independence, yes, I believe it did. I'll admit, it causes some anxiety, like the kind you get when leaving a job you've done for a long time, not really sure how it will go, but it could just be the best thing you ever do and you'd spend the remainder of a lifetime regretting it if you didn't. I mean, what if we had been independent when the banks went tits up, given that they were Scottish banks primarily, I don't think that would have been a good thing. We would have been like Iceland, reputation in tatters and selling our arse in Europe like a Chinese hooker just out of a container in Hamburg. It will go to the people in a couple of years, if the SNP keep governing responsibly, win the confidence and faith of the older folk, they already have the younger ones I think, then who knows. Its a rare chance, you don't know when or how the next opportunity will arise, maybe its time.

I've been on a few trains lately, and I have a new least favourite people type that shoots straight to the top of the list for immediate dealing with when I become King of the World. They are the strangers that sit opposite you then proceed to talk and blether like the best of friends about alternative travel routes and likely times they will get home, what made it worse was they were so ill matched, a cob webby old spinster lady I imagined to be a retired teacher and a younger guy with a comedy beard and annoying affected accent that was trying to be Bearsden but sounded more Bathgate. He even came back from the saloon car with a bottle of wine and two plastic cups, I mean wheres mine, you've known me for as long as her, but she gets the wine, bastard. I would have quite happily fire hosed them with Blackberry Jam then shoved them into a big bucket of bees

I had to travel from Glasgow to Newcastle on Virgin trains, the train I got was the Glasgow to Penzance. It was due to leave Central Station at 10.30 am, do you know what time it was scheduled to arrive in Cornwall? 11.5 hours later, that's a long journey, you could fly to Bangkok in that time, I made a note to self not to fall asleep and miss my stop.

Earlier in the month I went to watch a little of the London marathon. I arrived at the 23 mile mark just as the first of the speedy little stick thin Africans sped by, he didn't even look like he had a sweat on, I think he went on to break the world record, and I witnessed about 4 seconds of it. Then eventually the sweaty multitudes came rolling by, like the flotsam on that tsunami wave in Japan. I noticed a few guys with blood down there tops, obviously from bleeding chaffing nipples, then horror of horrors, I saw a guy with blood soaked shorts which evidently was coming from his red raw nob, chaffing in his shorts, so that was that, just as I was feeling inspired, the will to do anything like it was sucked violently out of me again, hopefully forever.

Am I the only one that cant understand a single word Dizee Rascal sings about, I've tried, really concentrated, watched his lips and everything. There is no Smash Hits any longer so cant go and buy that and read the lyrics. Everyone else seems to get him, or are they just pretending?

There is nothing more entertaining than arriving at a cold, wet and windy Glasgow airport for your commuter flight to London and encountering the returning holidaymakers just landed from Tenerife or wherever. The first thing they do of course is rush outside for a fag, where they brace themselves against the wind, their shoulders so hunched up, the head looking like its trying to retract to the warmer climes of the central core, it must be a shock after two weeks in Calete de Fuste. Of course, you can see that scene outside any office or city centre pub of a miserable spring evening, what sets this off as visual poetry is the clothes. The coral white trousers, the azure blue vest tops, sandals and sunglasses perched on the bronzed dome. Each item carefully chosen before the holiday had begun to show off their expected Arabic hue on their return. The Scots in general, still like to get dressed up for a flight. Tell you what though, if the plane did nosedive at 60 degrees into Endrick Muir they would have a right job identifying the body parts, all those tracksuits, the crash investigators would think it was the Fuertaventura athletics team.

As I write this on the flight south, Robert Carlyle is sitting in the seat in front of me, I’ve always liked him, but he’s a film star, and as such, he gets the full celebrity treatment from me, which is to totally ignore him,. I’m fearful of feeding his ego and making him think he’s something special, I’m sure he appreciates it, so, no looking, no double takes, certainly no nods, or heaven forbid , words, just a well practised adoption of a policy of polite nonacknowledgement, if he speaks to me, I will of course be civil. I expect we may have a bit of a coming together when we go for our bags in the overhead, I shall say, “on ye go pal" or something. But no starry eyes.

Lang may yer lum reek.

I can offer a conclusion to the Robert Carlyle episode. We did indeed have to converse, as I let him out his seat. I went for " There you go mate" and he said "Thanks", kind of in a whispery, didn't want to be over heard way. Some crass fellow passenger started talking, probably completely inanely to him as we walked through the terminal at City airport before I lost sight of him, he's only little. Then he popped out at the smoking area for a quick fag before getting his cab. There was no eye contact as I stuck firmly to policy, I'm sure if he had looked my way he would have recognised me from an almost identical situation about 3 years ago and he would have said " don't I know you?". Anyway, off we went on our separate ways, me pleased that I hadn't inflated the egos of any actors between Glasgow and London and I proudly shared my non-experience with my flatmate when I got in. I got a bit of a row and felt just a tad guilty as she pointed to the complete box set of Hamish MacBeth she had just not two weeks ago bought and went on to proclaim herself Hamish MacBeths biggest fan. I should maybe amend policy to exclude Robert Carlyle in future, I'm due to share a plane with him in 2014, I'll make sure I have a pen.