Catching up

20 August 2010 12:20

I’ve been busy this week trying to catch up with all the things around the house and garden which are neglected during the school holidays. So I’ve been hard at it cutting back a lot of growth in the garden which is mainly the result of the amount of rain which we’ve had recently. This time last year I ended up with a frozen shoulder because I overdid it in the garden and by Christmastime I could hardly move my arm at all, so I’ve stuck to using the pruners and steered well clear of the saws.

I didn’t even get around to reading The Guardian so this morning I did some catching up. We always buy The Guardian but you can get most of it on-line I think. Unfortunately they don’t put the cryptic crossword on the site and we both love doing the crossword, it’s a bit of an addiction really.

There was an interesting article about biofuel. They are experimenting with by-products of the whisky making industry at Edinburgh Napier University. Apparently it can be used in cars without having to adapt their engines. Sounds good. I’m wondering what it smells like. It would be fine if it smells like the finished product, but some of the smells created by distilling whisky aren’t so good.

I was brought up in a distillery town where they made Ballantines, J&B and many more, but the smell could be pretty nasty at times.

I’ve heard that if you adapt your car to run on old cooking oil from fish and chip shops then the exhaust fumes have that distinctive chippy aroma. Very confusing if you’re in need of a fish supper and you don’t know where your nearest chippy is. You used to be able to rely on your nose to sniff one out!

Take Back Parliament Demonstration

17 May 2010 09:53

It has taken me 50 years to take part in a demonstration and I didn’t really know what to expect. We all gathered at St. Giles Cathedral on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile as you can see in this photograph.

The turnout wasn’t bad really, probably about 300 people. I’m sure there would have been far more people if we had had more notice of the thing, but that couldn’t be helped, I’m sure. I know folks who couldn’t make it but would have liked to have taken part.

Eventually the purple flag holders moved to the front and we set off up the Royal Mile and round into The Mound and along to New College. I wouldn’t call it a march, more of an amiable amble really.

We were a motley mob, aged from babes in arms to elderly gents in kilts. Nearly everyone was wearing or holding something purple to signify justice/equality.

So it wasn’t a long amble and when we reached our destination there was some speechifying from about five different people, including one Edinburgh M.P.

The organiser seemed to be pleased with the turnout. But we can only hope that the whole thing will gather momentum, we were asked to try to get five people that we know to join in the campaign. I’m not a fan of chain letter type things but in this case it’s the only way to go forward.

So if anyone reading this post is, like me, fed up with my vote never counting and completely scunnered with the terrible system of voting that we have in Britain – please sign up to Take Back Parliament. Oak trees from little acorns grow and all that!

Fair Votes Now.

The Election

8 May 2010 10:10

I’ve spent my time this week plodding around the place with Liberal Democrat leaflets – a lot of those letterboxes are lethal but amazingly I do still have all of my fingers and thumbs.

I didn’t expect the Lib Dems to win in Kirkcaldy, I doubt if it will ever be anything other than Labour and of course it is Gordon Brown’s constituency, but you’ve got to give it a try.

I’m disappointed beyond belief at the outcome of the Dunfermline and West Fife vote though. Duncan was an intern for the Lib Dem M.P. Willie Rennie there before getting his job at St Andrews. But he continued to help out at the constituency office in his spare time. What with Willie being a really great M.P. plus the surge in Lib Dem support recently, we really thought that Willie would be re-elected. They all worked their socks off too, but to no avail.

Apparently, on the day before the election it was noticeable that people who had been supporters were taking fright, mainly because of the tabloid newspapers reporting that it would be an outright win for the Conservatives.

Why they thought that they then had to ditch the Lib Dems and vote for Labour is a mystery to me. I hope they are all feeling thoroughly ashamed of themselves for voting in a complete stranger to the area, whose only interest is getting into the House of Commons.

So I’m feeling very fed up with the whole thing and the only thing that is cheering me up is that I know that some time in the near future they will regret voting him in. Hell mend them – as we say!

Too late for poor Willie Rennie though, and the workers in his constituency office who are now unemployed.

If I weren’t a bit of a lady – I’d spit.

And another thing. We had helicopters circling around our house for hours during the night, because we live near where the count was taking place. They were tracking Gordon Brown’s car as he left his house for the count. On T.V. all you could see was a black screen and a teeny wee dot of light, it was completely unnecessary, a terrible waste of fuel, and it must have woken people up. Not everyone feels the need to watch the election programmes.

Some good news.

19 November 2009 23:22

The firstborn son got the job that he really wanted yesterday. He will be starting as the website editor of a very old university soon. This has been a long time coming as he graduated over a year ago and there has been absolutely nothing coming up in the jobs market for graduates.

So, we are all thrilled to bits. I’m hoping that things are looking up for everybody else now as this recession is getting beyond a joke. It is so depressing, especially for young people who have spent years studying only to find nothing for them at the end of it all.

I wish that everyone who is arguing over how much student tuition fees should be would just remember that they got their education for free and they had student grants too.

The younger generation is going to have a hard enough time ahead of them what with paying for the mess that the irresponsible bankers have got us all into. And they probably won’t even have any sort of old age pension to look forward to at all.

2 February 2009 22:28

I’ve been thinking about starting a blog for a while now and it has taken this to galvanise me into action.

Gordon Brown calendar

Gordon Brown calendar

Living in Kirkcaldy  I have Gordon Brown as my M.P. Last week the above calendar plopped through our letter box. Well I wasn’t too happy about that at the time as it seemed like a waste of paper to me, especially as it arrived 3 weeks into the new year.

I noticed that it has ‘KindlySupported By Unite the union’ emblazoned on the front. I wondered if Unite union members realised that their union dues were being used to finance this.

Yesterday I heard Gordon Brown slagging off Unite members on the news as they are protesting at Lindsey and Grangemouth.

Maybe Unite should be more choosy who they give their money to.