Its tongue is how long?

Happy Reeking Easter Lums

Yes, here we are at the weekend again, at the end of another long and exhausting week of shiftlessness. I did of course manage to secure some monthly wages for the next couple of years, which is good and don't worry lums, with what there paying me , the Olympic budget is likely to be safe. But the weekend means a tramp up to Stirling, The Gateway to The Highlands to see the little lums, and Auld Lum up in Dunblane. I had hoped to have a car procured by this time and have promised to take an unused motor off the hands of an in-law, but it would appear that it is unused for a reason.

The reason being that it wont go, which is quite a good reason. It is at the moment still with the highly trained team of auto-electricians who are no doubt applying all their know how, drinking tea from oily mugs and flicking the dogeared pages of grubby pornomags, to come up with a car that starts and stays started. Maybe next week.

This weekend being Easter and with plans for the beginning of the week that requires a car with more than 2.3 seats in it like Susans little extravagance, I have had to hire a car.

I am no stranger to the hire car, having often felt the need to gratify my needs with them in the past. Well its a job, and as long as their clean and my own car doesn't find out, there's no harm done. But my experiences have never been very good. I never get upgraded to the shiny end of the car park where the Mercs and big Volvos are. When I press the keyring, always silently praying under my breath, BMW, BMW, BMW, its always something totally anonymous and boring. Focus, Kia, Fiat, a role call of motoring anaesthesia. Once I was pointed at a Toyota Prius and after 20 minutes of trying to start the thing, I had to call for help, positive it was broken and about to demand a great big Audi as compensation, but it wasn't broken, I was just being old and dim so once the pre-start up and launch procedures had been explained, I selected forward, and hummed away, near silently as quickly as I could, which wasn't very. This hire car was no less disappointing. A two years old, Vauxhall Astra which had the slightest hint of the odour of travel sickness about it and seemed to be made out of double thickness bacofoil or something. Though top marks to Vauxhall, making car seats that are so full of static electricity, I can only assume its for charging the battery or something. Still, for this weekend, its better than the bike and I'm grateful for it.

The roadworks between Glasgow and Stirling as just as overwhelming as ever, they must go on for about 15 miles. You will recall, a couple of weeks ago, I ran out of fuel in the middle of them. But I hardly ever see anyone working on them. Occaisionally you see a squad of workmen usually made up of the following group, it must be a union stipulation or something. 1 man in a machine, 1 man shovelling/raking something, 5 men watching leaning on brushes. I cant help thinking, I might be wrong because I don't have the benefit of a London School of Economics degree, but maybe, if some of the men leaning on brushes maybe did a little road building it could perhaps, its just a thought, be finished a little more quickly.

The kids and I went for a quick jaunt through the shopping centre in Stirling and ended up in Waterstones. While I was waiting on the two of them to choose something worthwhile to read I couldn't help but notice the number of vampire books and stories are in there. There are whole sections devoted to vampires and blood sucking and werewolves called Dark Romance. Not one of the vampires on the covers looked like a vampire should, well not like the Count from Sesame St anyway. I expect there is some oblique angsty teenage meanging in it all that I am too old and senile to get. Good, I hope it stays that way.

I love spending time with the young lums, there sense of humour is almost as stupid as mine and I can talk utter nonsense with them and they don't seem to mind. Little mini-me has obviously been learning about whales in school, WHALES, not Wales, why and what would anyone need to learn about Wales? Anyway, according to him, a whales brain is the size of a small family car, a Class C Vauxhall Astra perhaps, and its heart is as big as a Class D Ford Mondeo and its tongue is 100ft long. Wait a minute, says I, "100ft long, are you sure? Why does it need a tongue that length?" So we spent the next 10 minutes wondering what peculiar kink of evolution could have given a whale a 100 ft tongue and what does it do with it. Maybe they swim right up to the edge of the ocean and catch dog walkers with their tongue on the shore like an Iguana, or gather around the end of the runway at Kai Tak airport in Hong Kong picking off the low-flying airplanes as they come into land. We finally decided, seeing as we hadn't heard of any of these incidents on the news, that he was talking mince and it wasn't that length at all.

Having a car for the weekend feels a bit like the patients in that film Sleepers must have felt, you wake up out of a years long coma, and knowing you could slip back into it at any time, you just want to get as much done as you can, so I grabbed the opportunity to go get a quick Easter Sunday haircut at City Barbers in Glasgow. Every haircut these days is quick, not like the old days when I had to take a magazine with me to Hairways in Dunblane for my cut n blowdry. The barber, as is their wont to engage you in meaningless conversation, mentioned that he was flitting into his new flat today, in The Merchant City in the City Centre, which is a great location in town I would have thought. But then, when I thought about it a little more, my haircut took about 5 minutes and cost £7, £9 with my generous tip, if they were all like me he would be on £108/hour. Now, obviously not everyone is nearly totally baldy like me, so lets say, some haircuts take 10 minutes, remember its a barbers, not John Freidas place, that's still £50 an hour or so. Astronauts wont be on much more than that.

I was grateful they were open right enough, Easter seems to have grown in significance as a holiday worth celebrating since I was young. The old sceptic I am has cynically put it down to the shops wanting to sell more tat of some description or another. Now, the religious and the church going community can of course get right into it, and good luck to them, I hope they enjoy it but I cant be bothered with the phoniness of those that are not, I feel they are trying to create a little Christmas.

Easter Sunday of course meant an Easter dinner at the in-laws and a desperate last minute frantic rush to Dobbies Garden Centre to buy a gift of some kind for the host. Dobbies at the weekend is like the foyer of some hotel for 100 year olds, as the guests all get gently pushed up and down the aisles by there helpful bellboys, in this case, their sons and daughters. Or, if they still have their sight and strength in their thumb to control an electric wheelchair then they can of course career around in one of those, like a bump n go toy that has just had new batteries put in it. I managed to peel off the main search party and amuse myself for a few moments around the books and DVD section. There were some real treasures in there for the man of beige. Gems like " The Book of Knots", "The Illustrated Guide to Steam Tractors" and "Britains Signal boxes". It was all too much, I thought I 'd try the DVD section, I'm a big film fan, I might uncover a masterpiece. Arthur Askey has a couple of films out, filmed in trendy black and white, Spielberg probably directed, called Band Waggon and Back Room Boy, which I'm sure isn't as gay hardcore as it sounds and there was one copy remaining of "100 years of Buses and Trolley Buses". It was good of them to make the distinction, I don't think anyone could have taken it seriously if Trolleybuses were just lumped in with Buses. With only seconds remaining before my absence was surely discovered I came across the computer games stand, one of those revolving wire things, that you buy postcards from at the seaside. Maybe I'll see a copy of Grand Theft Auto, Liberty City Stories, but no, all I could see was Railway Simulator, though, that might have been stimulator.

Dinner was very nice with a particularly stunning dessert, well done Mrs. Though I have to say, one member of the party chose to share with the throng the fact that The Reeking Lum was sitting among them. The reaction was surprising and even embarrassing for even me, as you would think I had just revealed to them that I was on the waiting list for transgender surgery. I felt I had to justify my musings and my haverings and explain that its good therapy and I find it, well, rewarding. Still, horses for courses, if we all had the same sense of humour, then I would laugh at fart jokes. Philistines.

Lang may yer lum reek.

No Lum for a few days as some R&R away from the front line has been won, though I look forward to a right good reek when I return. Also, thanks to all that offered congratulations and good luck in my new job, wishes to me, its a lovely thing to receive and I did so warmly and gratefully.