Revolting, its so this season

Good evening my revolutionary reekers, don't either of you think of trying to topple No1 Lum.

The Spring Revolution Season is upon us.

All over the Middle east the common man is waking up to the years of democratic slumber and shaking out

the sheets of oppression.

Like military coups, a good revolution has been a rare find these last few years, a few courageous efforts, like Burma, but by comparison to the 70s, a very poor offering. A true revolutionary golden age, fuelled mostly by the Cold War and the plans for world domination hatched in the anonymous offices of Washington and Moscow. But every cloud has a silver lining, it did marshall in some stunning uniforms.

I noticed a picture of Gaddafi this week, in a giant square shouldered be-medalled military jacket. Big glittery stars, cummerbunds and sashes, those brush like shoulder adornments, he had it all going on. The Rock star sunglasses he has a thing for jarred a little, and detracted from the overall look he was trying for, unless it was for a kind of General Jim Morrison theme but still, a Sterling effort. Mussolini is the contemporary inspiration I think, he did for uniforms what Chanel did for the little black dress.

The King of undeserved baubles must be Idi Amin, the Kampala cannibal, he must have awarded himself a gong every time he climbed some stairs. The African Dictators generally also liked to give themselves titles to go with them, not the regal and dignified Grand Master and Principal Knight Grand Cross of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath as our own privileged mob might, and in fact do, give themselves, but the vulgar and comedic His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC,[C] DSO, MC, Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular". I don't even think he ever was a Doctor you know.

Or Zaire's Mobutu who impressed the girls and frightened the boys of the Congo with "the earthy, the peppery, all-powerful warrior who, by his endurance and will to win, goes from contest to contest leaving fire in his wake" and "the cock that covers all the chickens in the coop". Though strictly not a title, more a translation of his name apparently.

The personality cult, learned from 2000 years of successful religionism, is something else they embrace. At one point in Mobutu's regime, every television broadcast was preceded with images of him, transcending through the clouds above, and no other person was allowed to be mentioned by name, only the position they held in society. I shouldn't be too critical though, we have our own Kate and Wills personality cult going on.

I got into conversation with an old CIA man once, no, honest I did, you meet some interesting folk in my job. Anyway he said, while working in Zaire in the 70’s he was at an ambassadors reception where he met the countries minister for transport. While making polite chat, the minister explained that he was quite new in the job, my American acquaintance asked him what he did previous to being the Minister for Transport, and without irony or any sense of the abnormal he said, I was the driver to the Minister of Transport. Right place, right time and in Zaire, right tribal background.

The communist revolutionaries were much less ostentatious in their choice of uniform. Unmistakeably inspired by the military, but taking the cue from Castro. Khakis, functional and plain, you’ll see Chavez in this get up nowadays. More religious parallels there, just as Protestantism adopted black and itchy hair shirts as opposed to the silk and bling of the established Catholic order so the Communist revolutionary didn't want to associate themselves with the aristocracy or wasteful order of undeserved wealth that they had just shot up against a wall.

The problem a lot of these dictators have is that they are often in charge for so long, surrounded by yes men and toady's, they begin to believe their own cultish hype. They begin to think they are chosen, regal and born rightfully to rule, then they try and create a dynasty, with son following father, in effect, creating what they destroyed 30 or 40 years before, no wonder the people get upset. Even if it takes a bit of a while for it to bubble to the surface.

A bit like Chlamydia, and to tug the analogy just a little further, Gaddafis probably wondering how the hell that happened, one minute things are ticketyboo, next minute he’s getting bad news from the Dr. Sure, he’ll say, I did a few things in my younger days, but I've been a good boy for years and years, ever since Ronald Reagan bombed by bollocks off.

Chlamydia sounds like Victorian parlour plant, I expect Alan Titchmarsh to get enthused telling me of its fragrant blooms and whether it favours sun or shade. Syphilis isn’t a word, it’s a sound you make when trying to get the attention of a cat. That’s not right. Such blights should have appropriate names like blisterscratchia or oderousdischargastia. The only one to get it right is gonorrhoea, now that certainly sounds like something that would crawl up your willy and wreck merry hell.

Come the revoltion, Lang may yer lum reek

Hell seats 58 and is diesel powered

Evening Lums,

Kenny Dalglish, what a man, away from the white heat of management at the top of the professional football game for 10 years, he breezes back in, steadies the Liverpool ship, infact, not only steadies it, but somehow turns them into the the best to watch side in the league, sells the star striker for £50m and buys two for £58m and still sounds like he left Govan yesterday.

The Scottish accent is incredibly robust and resilient. I've met old Scots that have been down here for 25 years yet you would swear they had just gotten off the train at Kings Cross, its not just here though, it could be Australia or California or anywhere, mind you 3 months in Canada seems to have an affect on some vowels.

The Irish accent is similar, why is that, do we try extra hard not to lose it?

I think we do make a concious effort to sound as homely as we can, especially the further we get away from home itself. Its maybe like a little beacon we give out, hoping that another travelling Scot will recognise it and engage you in shortbread talk and a mutual moan about the price of things in London or Tokyo or Los Angeles or somewhere.

I was at an event a couple of weeks ago, at Wembley Stadium, Hardeep Kohli was there, doing a little 15 minute stand up routine, I say stand up, but he died on his arse, what he said may not have been funny, but he's got an unmistakable Glasgow accent, not like Dalglish or Ferguson from Govan, more BBC Bearsden than Barrowlands but appealing all the same.

I met Dalglish once, and McQueen, Jordan, Rough and all the greats of the 1978 World Cup Squad. They were training at the Queen Victoria School in Dunblane before jetting off to Cordoba. Me and my pals bunked off school, I was only 9 and and a half, and went to watch their training session in the afternoon. Ally McCleod told is to get away from behind the goals because " these baws are really travelling" . I know, and you know, the net or Alan Rough was meant to stop them but he obviously knew more than we did, on reflection, that wasn't a good sign.

Wembley stadium, impressive, but so it should be at half a billion poonds, they should have been able to build it on the moon at that price and I don't know, maybe I was expecting too much but the atmosphere might have been better there too. I don't mean when its full of people, I expect its fine then, but should you not feel a tingle of excitement when you see the grass of a grand stadium, its the history, the moments that have occurred and been etched in millions of memories. It leaves behind a trace that you feel, like walking through the finest of cobwebs, its all around and everywhere you look, not here though, I was left a bit underwhelmed, I could have been in any of a dozen stadium in the country, apart from the seats spelling WEMBLEY in 20feet high letters. The highlight of the day was meeting the X-Factor voice over man, who is a thoroughly nice bloke with time for everyone.

I have one memory from the last few weeks though, indelibly scratched into my sub-conscious. When I'm old and senile, I will rock back and forth mumbling about it, I'll carve it into my room wall with the sharpened end of my catheter, maybe shuffle around the wards ranting at the moon, the nurses and other inmates wont know what terrible ghastly experience I had endured. What I'll be howling is NATIONAL EXPRESSOOOWoowooo!!

Because January is traditionally a very long month with an extra week between pay-checks, I had to impose my very own austerity budget with some very difficult decisions to make. It makes me think of those geese that fly across the Atlantic twice a year, making it across with the final beat of their wings, I would probably, if history tells me anything and I stretch the analogy just as far, plop into the ocean 100 yards from shore exhausted and starving and in need of a beer.

The Ministry for Transport bore the brunt of the cuts with the usual Ryanair flight to near Glasgow, but not that near Ryanair, being replaced with the National Express bus through the night. It made perfect sense, £25 return, a comfy reclining seat, 8 hours undisturbed sleep as I am cosseted and gently rocked by the motion of the er, road liner, and the reassuring damped thrum of the engines as the professional and highly trained coach pilots navigate the M6 through the gloom, delivering me refreshed to Glasgow as the sun comes up, probably waking me with a hot towel and the juice of a freshly squeezed Seville Orange.

Only one of those descriptive flourishes is remotely accurate, it was actually £26 because I paid for priority boarding. Now, apart from the obvious risk of parting with one shiny pound to get on first only to find that everybody else has as well, I mean, its only a pound, why wouldn't you. The second, less obvious risk is maybe why. You see, with priority boarding, you have no say in who sits next to you, this is important on a 10 hour journey, 10 hours, I flew to Bangkok in 10 hours once. This thought came pounding into my head like two Biggest Loser contestants racing to Greggs.

I had already scoped some of my fellow passengers in the waiting room during my desperate futile search for the business lounge.

At least half my passengers look like they had just arrived in the country, in the back of a container, but that's OK, though the ones with shouty crying babies didn't fill me with optimism of successful multi-cultural integration in the next 10 hours.

There was a clew of students, an Abu Hamza look alike minus the hook, an old Polish man with the biggest hearing aid I've ever seen, a walking stick in one hand and a big rattan bag of Big Issues in the other, he was the one I was most concerned about, mainly because of his rocking back and forth, random rants and he seemed to like to poke things with his stick.

But there was worse, a passenger that would be less welcome than flatulence on a moon walk.

A tramp. A real genuine tramp, not just somebody that chooses not to adhere to the normal washing conventions, or a chirpy man of the road, with a red spotted hanky on a cane and crooked top hat, this was the genuine article.

I spotted him in the bus station, I just thought he had come in out the cold and would stretch out on the seats once we were all away. He had about 5 old jackets on, the top one a high vis overcoat he's picked up in a building site skip, mind you, how many tramps get run over in the dark in a year by bin lorries, sensible move that when you think about it. Filthy jeans that were too short and probably didn't fasten, old black shoes, a great big extravagant moustache that hid his mouth and was stained with the nicotine of a million salvaged fag ends, a manky bald brown head that looked like an old foosty Malteser that's been left in the sun then cooled again, nicley set off with a red'white and blue headband that gave it the look of an egg in a cup, a rank one mind you.

You can imagine the state of mind I was in, as I smugly peered out the window at my less fortunate travelling companions, safely in the seat of my choice as the bus slowly filled and saw him at the end of the queue to get on, what if the seat next to me was the last one, he would have to sit there.

What was he even doing on a bus to Aberdeen anyway, going for a job interview with BP? He didn't sit next to me, a porky student did thankfully , but I sensed him as he shuffled up the bus, the nose sense especially picked him up as went past.

I was already a bit fraught and we hadn't even moved yet, it only got worse, non-reclining seats, knees jammed in the seat in front because they were designed for Fantasy Islands Tattoo, I thought I'd rest my head on the window frame and try and sleep, but the vibrations knocked a couple of fillings out my head.

First stop, the only reason I think was to let the drivers have a smoke was at a place called Norton Canes, I've no idea where that is, but I remember it because the Chinese lady behind me opened a big bag of beef Monster Munch as we left.

Next stop was because the unfortunate passengers sitting near the tramp thought he had pissed himself and the drivers made us all get off to check, he hadn't apparently, but it was an understandable misconception. And so it went on until we reached landfall in Glasgow, a more miserable 10 hours its hard to remember enduring, even when I had a job working a giant dry ice making machine, in a corrugated shed, during the harshest winter for 25 years.

I finally got back to Kirky about 8am, it was a lovely morning, sun just coming up, light mist shrouding the church steeples, I felt like Bilbo returning to the Shire, and then shit, I had it all to do again to get back to London.

Come to think about it, that tramp would have gotten to Aberdeen about lunchtime probably, a stroll about town, a walk on the beach then back to the bus stop for the 14 hour trip back to London, two nights out the cold and a trip to the seaside for £25 quid, you wouldn't get that in the Capital.

After an emergency spending review, I can happily report that Ryanair has been reinstated as the haulier of choice.

I have reserved a spoonful of bile for my new most annoying ad character on TV, now that GoCompare man seems to have finally been rested, though I hope assassinated, MoreThan Freeman, what is that all about, why a French Horn and coffee cup, why does he stand on the roof of things, why did Morgan Freeman agree to this puerile miasma , why why?

Lang may yer lum reek

Thats the sound of an AK-47, the chosen weapon of your enemy

But Lummy, thou reek no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

Hoots man, a wee bit o Burns fir aw ma reeking lums, seein as its Burns night or there aboots.

That's enough off that, this last wee while has been a bit of a mixed bag for Lum No 1.

Biggest thing first though, I've decided to move abodes, from South East London, to East London, cor blimey guv'nor.

I got the chance to share a flat over in Stratford, a little bit cheaper, a little bit nearer work, a little bit nearer my usual escape route of Stansted Airport, all adds up to a big bit of sense. Stratford, no, not Shakespeares one, is a busy place, lots going on, most of it I will try and avoid like the plague but it will be a welcome contrast to Hither Green, the only town twinned with a brand of sleeping pills, Dozidrom (TM).

The street I,m moving too is bookended by two pubs, The Railway Tavern, a Queen Vic type of place, full of locals, mostly from Poland and the Balkans. The proximity to the Olympic Park means a 5 o'clock its full of dusty blokes with tool bags and high-vis vests, you don't want to be in here when it all kicks off, nothing worse than a nail gun shootout. The other end is a place called The Cart and Horses, which interestingly is billed, very proudly, as the Birthplace of 80s heavy metal icons, Iron Maiden.

I had never wondered what gave birth to Iron Maiden, or where, but guessed it wouldn't have been a village hall in some leafy English parish, with ladies from the Womens Institute bringing in scones during rehearsals.

No siree, on reflection I imagined some kind of bloody gore fest from Alien or Lambing Live and this pub, at the end of my street, is exactly the kind of place this lot would have been spawned. First up , it smells, I couldn't make up my mind if it was the toilets, or what they use to clean the toilets, if it was the latter, they shouldn't bother and save a few bob and maybe spend it on some furniture.

Opposite the door is a long bar, running the entire width of the place, in the middle of the space in between, normally filled with tables and places to sit , is a pool table, the sitting arrangements confined to the two available walls, the fourth taken up by an impressive stage, all decked out in Iron Maiden imagery and ghoulish cartoons. I thought I had walked into a Wild West Saloon, all that was missing was a piano player that stops when I swing open the doors, and some shifty card game going on in the corner.

Where I sat myself, there were knot holes in the wood, where you could peer down to the sinister depths of the cellar, I thought I saw an eye, staring and bloodshot glaring back, and some scurrying, that could only be made by overlong toenails on beer kegs, I poked a couple of Quavers down, but didn't hear anything more, maybe it was Eddie.

The barmaid was from the east end of Europe of course, not the east end of London and the few patrons really did look like the Unforgiven. Maybe that's why Iron Maiden came here, no distractions during band practice. The place across the road looks more appealing, The Thailander, which is the first pub of that name I've seen anywhere, it has made me curious though.

I've not been feeling myself either this last week, I blame it on a lazy dinner I made. Hotdogs, a favourite snack, maybe at the pictures or the baseball game, but as a rule, ones enough. There is no need to test this rule by eating a whole packet of Red Dog hot dog sausages, with accompanying fried onions on five finger rolls, that's a whole hand, because I have already done that and have decided it is not desirable. Infact, when I see that packet of Hot Dog sausages now, in Tescos, I see something totally different. I see me slapping them into an AK-fartyseven like a magazine of cheap Chinese knock off bullets, the kind that can go off, randomly through the night, spraying there malodorous malice all around the room, but mostly under the duvet. Waking you up, like gunfire in the street, the crouched dart to the panic room, well, in this case the toilet, and safety, at least until the next time. They say Hotdogs get their name because the end of the sausage poking out the bun looks like a dog with its tongue out, I don't see that anymore

We started with some Burns, the egalitarian poet of the peasants, but lets not end there. Consider now for a second this little piece of here and now I read in The Times, written by the wife of Michael Gove, our minister in charge of education and ensuring all our children, from all our backgrounds are given the opportunities that merit brings, and not the ones that privilege do, she says " Like all angst-ridden working mothers, I live in terror of upsetting the cleaner" . What unthinkable horror, and I thought it was all canapes and Klosters up the other end of the spectrum, I thank the heavens I was born working class.

Land may yer lum reek.

When 12km isn't

Hello reekers,

The week started with some belly splitting mirth, I laughed so hard and for so long that once the hyperventilation kicked in, I had to breath into a brown paper bag for an hour and a half. This was comedy writing at its greatest, with the ability to dilate pupils, palpitate hearts, get your endorphins in a fizz, induce wonderment at the creativity, make you doubt everything you thought you knew about anything with its sheer imagination and boldness. What could have reduced me to this comedy wreck?

I stole ten minutes at work to book some flights home in February. Ryanair, the rapid livestock movers of choice were offering tax free flights to go with their frill and service free flights and I was directed mistakenly to the page that describes the destination I had chosen, Glasgow Prestwick. Where I read this little piece of fantastic fiction

" Ryanair’s low cost flights to Glasgow Airport land 12km from central Glasgow in the wild and lovely west of Scotland".

It encourages you further by promising you a 20 minute bus ride into Central Glasgow.

Hold on, I've only been away nine months, I'm pretty sure the tectonic plates don't move that quickly, if its only 12km, why does it take me 45 minutes on the train, its not Stevensons Rocket, its not got a man with a flag walking in front of it to warn the horses. Plus, I don't know what kind of bus is on that route, maybe they are rocket powered hover buses, driven by Nikki Lauda on a custom built designated arrow straight road, I'm pretty sure that's not the case though.

After I'd recovered from the seismic shock that I,ve maybe been measuring everything wrong, which could have depressing consequences for me, I decided to investigate a little.

Glasgow Prestwick airport is next door to Troon, the same Troon as the famous golf course, on the south west coast of Scotland in Ayrshire. A very pretty part of the country, none of the drama of the highlands but a romantic rolling landscape that gave birth to Robert Burns and Robert the Bruce, Alexander Fleming, John Dunlop and James McCosh. Reeking Lums may not be familiar with the last of those men, but he was a noted philosopher of the Scottish School of Common Sense. They say common sense is the least common of all, so this seems like a worthy pursuit, it must have been because his common sense led him to becoming the president of Princeton University.

The thing about Troon is, its 31 miles from central Glasgow, that's 59km, not 12. To make the bus trip in 20 minutes, the bus would need to travel at an average speed of 1.83 miles per minute, that's about 110 miles an hour, optimistic. Where did the 12kms come from then, bear in mind Ayrshire is also where the famous Electric Hill is, now that's the contourious oddity where the road looks like its going downhill, but your actually going up, and if you stop your car and take your foot off the brake, you'll roll gently uphill, which is very strange but perhaps there's also a road where 47kms can disappear, mmm? doubtful!.

I can only think that is the distance between central Glasgow and the very northern tip of Ayrshire, which is a teeny bit of a liberty, still, £36 return, cant argue there, that's my kind of common sense Mr McCosh.

Lang may yer lum reek.

O.A.Ps with A.D.D

Greekings, Lums of earth,

Another weekend in south east Londinium and this week, rather than lie like a coma patient I managed to drag myself to the front door, and once some muscle memory returned to my legs actually go out. Its not like I'm some 21st century hermit, I'm just skint and down here their are millions of people demanding payment for services or things that may constitute weekend fun, so I tend to avoid them by not having any. But I needed the air so out I went to have the paper money sucked from my pockets in Greenwich.

I had a Masala tea in Monsoon Cafe and a mooch about a little flea market where I bought two second hand dvds for the same price HMV sell you new ones. The dvds got me in the mood for a movie and by chance Greenwich Picture House was just warming up its projectors for their afternoon matinees.

I could have had Gullivers Travels, in 3D, er no thanks. I like Jack Black, well I did in School of Rock but I heard this was rubbish, and not in a teeny totty way. Also, 3D, I'm still not convinced. Its just another distraction for directors, rather than intriguing plots and fizzy dialogues and creative cinematography they have to worry about giving us things to duck from. Its gotten too lazy, too formulaic, not always of course, but most of what gets the longer runs at your local odeon-worldplex will be.

In their smallest screen, and this is only a small 4 screen picture house, they were showing The Big Sleep with Bogey and Bacall. I've never been to a classic movie screening before and didn't know what to expect, apart from expecting it not to be busy, I got that right.

There was film student girl, I'm sure she was taking notes in the dark and the professor, at the end of my row who reminded me of that old TV boffin Heinz Wolfe, was that his real name you think? Come to think of it, Heinz Wolfe reminded me of Professor Pat Pending in Whacky Races. Behind me a few rows was a curious woman, I called her, in my head of course, not conversationally The Widow. She was about 60 and alone, but big, blond and brassy and the last type I would have thought to see in an old Film Noir screening.

Me of course, with this beard I'll take the name of Hobo, they probably thought I was just in to get out the cold and right next to me, even though there were about 100 empty seats all around us, sat Hinge and Bracket. Easily 150 years between them, the scent of Lily of the Valley overwhelming. I mean, I bought a box of popcorn but half way through I thought it was a big bag of Parma Violets.

Before the start they were chattering away, and one of them nudged me and says " em,em, emm , what is this" as she dismissively gestured at the screen. "Its a Trail-er" I said, a little loudly and over pronounced, I immediately grimaced a little, they were probably called something else in her days, she wont know what I'm on about and she'll ask again and I'll have to explain and I'll miss the trailers. I don't even think they had trailers back then, any free time was filled with Pathe News reels of Jackbooted Nazis stomping into Czechoslovakia or steamboat willy in that rubbish little tug boat, toot, toot.

"Its a little long" she came back with, as if I was wrong. It wasnt by the way, it was a pretty standard length for a trailer and then of course it ended and it was obvious it was a trailer, she looked a little happier then but still never even said thanks, such is the way of the upper classes, I know that from the 3 minutes of Downton Abbey I had to watch while standing in Yummy (The Chinese Takeaway). That's still a stupid name for a Chinese takeaway, I feel I have to explain in brackets what it is even though regular lums will have heard me go on about it before.

But how impatient do you need to be to get agitated by a movie trailer. I thought when you were old the world sped up and everything went by in half the time. Trust my luck to get the only pensioner with attention deficit disorder sat next to me, she's probably got restless legs or something I stressed to myself.

It reminded me of a couple of old dears on the docklands light railway one weekend, they were on the way to Greenwich to watch a play. They were obviously concerned about making it on time so one of them, the oldest one, got to her feet, not easy when your shoogling along at thirty odd mile an hour and approached the attendant in a doddery kind of way, DLR trains are driverless, so he was their only hope. Imagine the Queen Mother speaking, that's what she sounded like, "my man, can you make this go faster" "What? he replied, incredulity dribbling off his chin when he had finally closed his mouth "we're going to be late, we'd like it to go faster" she clarified helpfully. He just laughed and walked off up the carriage, which I thought a little disrespectful but then so was she, risking my death in a mangled derailed toy town train, maybe even a Coronation St style catastrophe in Mudchute just so that her and her old biddy, who did look a little mortified, could take their seats before curtain up.

So, what of the movie, The Big Sleep. Magical, that's what it was and on the big screen I just got totally immersed in it. If I watch a film like this on TV, I end up being jolted out the story because the special effects or staging is unconvincing to my 21st Century film goers eyes, but at the cinema, you forget all that, you appreciate every little thing especially the characters, the words they say and the lines invested in even fairly junior characters. Speaking of trailers though, I saw one for the Coens True Grit. It looks great, I was a little worried because they are tramping on hallowed ground with this one, The Duke, Rooster Cogburn "Fill yer hands ya..." the eye patch, I loved that movie, I watched it again recently and loved it, every character in it is a joy, even Robert Duvall playing the baddie gets some sympathy. It looks like the new one is going to be good though, I cant wait to see it.

Fitting really because this beard I'm allowing to grow on my face will have me looking like Jeff Bridges Rooster Cogburn by the time it comes out, If I get an eye patch, I'll maybe get in the pictures for free. At the moment it makes me look more like the pencil drawn guy from The Joy of Sex.

Lang may yer lum reek.

Apocalypto ho ho.

Happy New Year Lums,

My resolution is too reek more sooty haverings up the lum in 2011 so, expect a blizzard of nonsensical bunkum from me for the next three weeks, then nothing till May or something, that's normally how the resolutions go. Or is it just me that's incapable of shaking off all the undesirable habits that have attached themselves to me in the past forty odd years, like barnacles on a ships arse, each one unwelcome, slowing me down and laying me lower in the briny sea.

I'm ill equipped to deal with the apocalypse the Mayans predicted is coming. When society falls, I'll have to come up with a plan. Its alright for people with skills. Joiners, butchers, doctors, they'll be alright, they'll be sought after. The rest of us, I guess we'll be food or fertiliser, probably both.

Now we're all in the appropriate mood, let me share with you the highlights of my Christmas break at home, if I say it started with a funeral and ended with a speeding ticket, and then remind you that I said highlights, you'll be well on the way to the conclusion that this may well have been a most miserable Christmas, and it mostly was.

Lets start with the very sad departure of My uncle Mickey McDonald after a short and sudden illness. When I was a small boy, I suppose he wasn't much older than I am now, I remember the visits to see him and auntie Cathy. Even then, I recognised the humour of the man, he always had a grin, he was always kidding you on and had an inextinguishable twinkle in his eye every time I saw him, which was always a treat, I'm sure everyone he met saw it too. Even when older, he hadn't changed, the same Mickey, having a laugh and a carry on with my dad, like they were boys again. One of the last times I talked too him at any length he told me about his time as a Royal Artillery Gunner in the Korean War, the battle of Imjin River and how he had to swim across in a freezing Spring of 1951 with a million China men chasing him. Over a thousand allied troops lost their lives in the three days of the battle, it was one of the fiercest fought since the end of WWII and my old uncle Mickey was there, a long way from the Gareloch. Anyway, well done Mickey, you were a cracking man.

Funerals are quite rightly, sombre affairs, and often the only time you see old faces from the past. The relevance of them long forgotten, but the sight of them stirs some deeply buried memory. In my case the memory is normally from old school hogmany parties at my Granparents house in a little village on a Clyde sea loch. The kind when the door gets knocked every ten minutes after midnight, with another man from the village bringing a dram and a song. No music playing, just singing the usual play list unaccompanied, Danny Boy, I'll take you home again Kathleen, There was a Soldier, that kind of thing. No fancy vodkas or anything coloured blue then, just bottles of whisky and a jug of water, and it went on and on, sometimes for days.

Anyhoo, the faces I remember from those nights, when I was just a boy, peeking around the door, or pretending to be asleep up the back of the room. A few of them were there, at the funeral, not ruddy cheeked and beaming new year smiles, belting out Jim Reeves or laughing at the Big Yins patter on Big Banana Feet, but old, worn out and hard to imagine them as they were once, but I guess that's just the way of it.

Can I order one apocalypse please, for delivery the day after I get old.

So that was Christmas Eve, Christmas day passed with the usual hilarity, first of all the gifts. What do you get the man with everything? Well, if by everything you mean aftershave, underwear and chocolate, you get him more of the same. I did get a very nice Ted Baker shirt, from the Shirley Crabtree collection. Imagine if you will, buying your wife, that you love very much, an expensive dress for Christmas, the one you spotted her eyeing up in the window, you may even have imagined her dropping you a couple of hints to buy it like " don't ever buy me clothes " or "remember to keep receipts for everything". So you buy it, and can hardly contain your self as your size ten wife eyes the fabric, the quality of the finish, especially around the size fourteen label and ultimately ten hours later on return from casualty, the stitching around your nostrils where she rammed the hanger. I, being a man, took it a little better, with a discrete, its a little long in the sleeve, maybe you could change it for the size below.

Between Christmas and New Year is like a dead zone. Like the festive period is passing through the Oort Cloud or something. It slows and becomes unimportant, the only thing keeping time is the TV schedules, but even now that's gotten a bit fuzzy with the number of repeats and catch up channels there are.

I avoided TV totally, apart from a bit of darts. I didn't mean too watch, but it sucks you in, darts. Its so quick, a game lasts a few minutes, a set maybe ten and entire match can be done in half an hour, you have no time to get bored, the commentators are entertaining and the players are a joy to behold. Just ordinary blokes with tattoos, an extraordinary skill, no punishing gym regimes, no playing since he was three or "he only wins because he has the best arrows" carry on. Just guys that picked up three darts at some time and found they could throw them quite accurately, more accurately than anyone else in the pub/town/county/country or even world.

I didn't shave for the week so I thought I'd keep it going and see what kind of beard I get. I thought I'd get one of those that looked like I've just trekked across the pack ice from the North Pole, it would make me look rugged, travelled and interesting, instead it looks like a raccoon is raping my face. Its the unwelcome grey, all around my chin which is inviting comments like "very wise" and "distinguished". I'll keep it going and see if its just a barrier that has to be crossed for the first time beard grower, but if I start looking like McGrew the Trumpton fireman, its coming right off.

As I ponder this nonsense there has been a murder, some poor girl in Bristol but the police enquiry all seems a bit odd, there are profilers, psychics and theories galore, now police are hunting a pizza and a sock, whats all that about? If they discover the pizza is a vegetarian one, is anyone else thinking they'd like to know the whereabouts of Heather Mills that night?

The other news creating a bit of a tizz is these birds falling out the sky dead in Arkansas, now been joined by a load of fish in a river from not much further away, not falling out the sky of course, that would be odd, but floating to the surface, which I suppose is the equivalent for a fish, but not as sore.

Arkansas is of course right in the good ol bible belt and these biblical style occurrences are fairly putting them all on hyper thump down there. Mind you, it is a bit strange, but before we start blaming the Wrath of God lets bullet the alternatives and randomly pick a likely cause, it seems to do the trick at work, so lets try it here.

• Aliens in their very specific wildlife bothering spaceships,almost definitely
• Secret US weapons testing, kill all the little birds and fish and the North Koreans will have nothing to eat, I bet frogs and dogs start turning up dead next
• Solar flares, cant be that, have you seen the weather.
• Magnetic disturbances at the centre of the earth, where the core has stopped spinning and we're all doomed. Don't think its that, I'm sure the Golden Gate Bridge falls apart in that movie.
• Virus being spread in the pollen of killer plants. M Night Shyamalan, nuff said.
• Racial crime, they were all blackbirds after all, but why would white supremacist doves go after fish, unless they had swum down from upstate New York to help organise some kind of blackbird civil flights rally. That would make sense
• Suicide, got to admire their coordination if that was the case
• Angry God, jeez, what eating him, mind you he seems a little less pissed off than the time he sent the tsunami. Maybe somebody bought him a new white smock two sizes too big.

Happy New Year, I hope 2011 is as long as you expect it to be and

lang may yer lum reek.

Saturdays,

Hello Lums,

I love Saturdays. I love Saturdays mostly because I can lie in bed as long as I like, no alarm clock, no commute and no commuters. So why the hell was I wide awake at 0700 on Saturday 6th November. Staring at the ceiling, definitely awake, but not wanting to believe it. I could have been having the shittiest dream ever after all.

I remember being like that at school. Having to be dragged out of bed with shire horses and not really wakening up until about 11 o'clock, but on Saturdays I was springing out of bed first thing, dont know what for, Noel Edmonds Saturday Swap Shop probably, but I think it was an instinctive manly desire, to make the most of doing F-all.

It did give me time to appreciate the early arrivals at Heathrow airport lumbering over the house. The Qantas super-jumbos with the exploding engines and the cargo planes with the ballistic photo-copiers, timed to go off over big infidel cities, like Hither Green.

London, did you know, is the only major city with an airport that has its approach right over the top of the main centre of population, I'm just saying.

Speaking of which, the press should stop calling them ink-bombs. That sounds like something Oor Wullie would lob at Fat Boab frae the back 'o'the class.

I thought I'd log on and take a quick look at the Internet news feeds, to see whats happened in the world in the four hours I'd been asleep. CNN caught my eye, SEAL caught smuggling arms!! I thought, that's a bit of a career change, I know he's not had any best selling albums or mercury music prizes for a while, but gun running? But no, it was a US Navy Seal who managed to bring back some souvenirs from Afghanistan, 83 guns to be precise. Whats a Navy SEAL doing in Afghanistan anyway, is it not land locked and pretty much waterless?

When I was in Oman we visited a Wadi, an Oasis if you will, and our guide Masoud says there was more fresh water in it than all the other fresh water in Oman altogether. I was expecting something like Loch Leven or maybe at least the Lake of Mentieth, but I reckon there would have been more water in the old Stirling baths. I expect Afghanistan is much the same. Oh Oh, just noticed, I've used the words, Afghanistan, bomb, US, infidel, guns, ballistic, super-jumbos and airport all in the same blog. An alarm will be going off at GCHQ when I post this and I expect I'll be up early tomorrow again, when MI5 burst my bedroom door in.

I nipped into Greggs today for a sausage roll, good but I had a remorseful pang when I realised how much I missed a scotch pie. I also miss square sausage, my kids, my dog, my car, king ribs, my dad and sisters, fresh northern air and my S and everything that goes with her, though not necessarily in that order of course.

Lang may yer lum reek.