I'll Go And Be A Lodger

O why the deuce should I repine, And be an ill foreboder?
I'm fifty-three, and five feet nine, I'll go and be a Lodger!
I gat some gear wi' mickle care, I held it weel thegither; But now it's gane, and something mair- I'll go and be a Lodger!

Dedicated tae Richard and his new hame, The Cavendish;

Or Jurassic Park as we used tae call it.

The World Turned Upside Down.

British Subjects indulging in their right to demonstrate.











Bloody illegal immigrants, send 'em back I say.












No, I didn't get the captions wrong.

Thanks to Hog Day Afternoon for nicking his idea.

Old Mortality

I've been thinking about mortality quite a lot lately; I've been ill and people I know my age have been dying like flies, just like when I was a teenager...

When I was a ba' hair off forty(a few years ago now!), I grew my hair long again and got my leg over a motorbike after a hiatus of a dozen years.

At an illegal speed on the road tae Lithgae, doing my best Wallace and Grommit impersonation(no scarf) a sense of deja vu hit me.

It was the seventies again and me and the mates were meeting up at a pub we'd heard about before going on a run.

I got there second last(My bike was crap, it sounded like someone rattling a spoon in a tin of catfood), so we sat and waited in the warm summer sun, taking the piss out of each other.

And waited...

Twenty years later I sat outside the same pub, the bike's engine ticking as it cooled.The warm weather was the same, as was the smell of hot oil and rubber, the bike and the beer much better.

Yet I was alone, there was no teenage banter...and I could not remember his face.

I was at that pub lunchtime today.

It's a gastropub now, and all the customers were middle-aged middle-class couples, some with their grandchildren.

I joked with my wife "Three times in thirty-odd years; I'm a regular."

We got home and I received a phone call saying an old friend had died.

I've been thinking about mortality quite a lot lately.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdfPER5Cgm8

Red Radge

2008

So, is this blogger stuff worth doing then, Gordon?

2009

So.This blogger stuff is worth doing then...Gordon?... Gordon?

Guns! Huh! What are they good for!?

Interesting post by James Kelly along at SCOT goes POP!

James got himself entangled in an American blogger's site in a discussion about gun control.

He reminded me very much of AM2's early posts on the Scotsman, surrounded on all sides by people who refused to accept his argument; yet he stuck to his guns, or indeed lack of them.

There seemed to be a complete dearth of understanding on both sides.

The Americans were completely outraged about British householders being charged by the police after using force on vandals or housebreakers.(And quite rightly so, in my opinion.)

And yet...most of the Americans could not see that if guns are too freely available, then they are more of a danger, not a protection.

We in Scotland at Dunblane, suffered a madman with his legal firearms doing something horrific to our children.

In the US, and recently Germany, it seems to be the children doing the killing...

The current case in Edlington, Yorkshire is a case in point; what if those little nutters had had access to a firearm?

And yes I know I shouldn't have had my finger in the trigger guard...

Deus ex machina I

Conan pulled out the cattle prod he had liberated from Niko's room, oh so long ago...

The creature's insane eyes widened and said

"Ermf oh atsh wayt ent."

"Eh?" Replied Conan eloquently.

A mask was unzipped. "Yew were wot nicked it, when yew dun over my gaff yew cant."

"Pardon?" Said Conan, equally mystified.

"Dreadfully sorry old chap, trying to stay in character, don'tcha know."

It all clicked in Conan's head.

"You're S.I.S...." He gestured at the bodies. "But they were on your side..."

"Don't be a fool!" Spat Niko, pulling of his mask and with a hint of regret, tossing it onto the pony-tailed shambles behind him.

"Haven't worn one of those since Oxford...no, they were getting a bloody liability old boy."

"Stupid MI5 wankers! They were doing more harm than good, practically recruiting for the damned SNP!"

"So they had to go..." Mused Conan, "But the rest? Subrosa, Brownlie ?

"Subrosa? Deep undercover for the Dundee W.I. She got away...Very jammy that one."

Conan hazarded a guess "Spook is Mossad?" A nod. "Then Brownlie is...?"

Niko frowned " A total kno-" "No! Who he works for!"Shouted Conan.

"Why Conan, he works for The News of the World..."

Conan gasped in horror "...Well at least it's not the Scotsman."

To be continued.

Again.