The Eurovision Song Contest

15 May 2011 00:56

I’ve just spent the evening watching the Eurovision Song Contest on the BBC. Yes I know I’m a glutton for punishment. It started off so well for the UK but it wasn’t to last. Poor Blue, they had been hoping to come at least 5th but in the end they were 11th and even Ireland’s Jedward beat them.

Still, it could have been a lot worse and let’s face it, it often has been a lot worse. The only way the UK could be placed any higher nowadays would be if we got enormous tow ropes and dragged this island of ours over to mainland Europe so that we would have some borders with them. The rest of the countries always give their neighbours the highest points.

I call it ungrateful, especially when you think that if it wasn’t for us (and the Americans and Russians) they would all be speaking German, the ones that survived anyway. I suppose there must be a statute of limitations on gratitude and I’m just holding on to a grudge too long!

Have a look/listen if you haven’t a clue what I’m talking about. I think London looks quite good in it but you wouldn’t have got me on top of that building for anything.

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Categories: BBC, Rant

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Loch Lomond – the theme park?!!

13 May 2011 12:49

I was listening to the Scottish news a few nights ago and found myself cursing when Jackie Bird said that there would be a report on plans for a theme park on the banks of Loch Lomond. Oh for the good old days when everything was controlled by the local council which ensured that the whole area remained unspoiled.

I suppose it did mean that there wasn’t much for tourists to spend their money on when they got there but I don’t think that’s a bad thing when you think of the tourist tat that most similar attractions are selling. After all the best things in life are free. The scenery,wildlife and atmosphere is the main attraction. It doesn’t exist when you stick blots on the landscape in the shape of massive man-made constructions.

When Loch Lomond was made a ‘national park’ some years ago I knew it spelled a death sentence to the place that I grew up with. Sure enough, what had been a completely unspoiled place due mainly to the fact that the local council refused planning permission for most things, has sprouted shopping centres and golf courses and is quickly losing its special charm.

It’s not what I call progress. The theme park which is being planned for Balmaha is a nightmarish thought and I really hope that it doesn’t come to fruition. But money talks so I suppose it’s a done deal already. It’s sacrilege!

If you want to read more about it have a look here.

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Categories: Current Affairs, Rant, Scenery

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Royal Wedding Fever

27 April 2011 14:03

People started turning up outside Westminster Abbey yesterday so that they would get a good position for the big day. I can’t help thinking about the nitty gritty things like – what do they do about going to the loo?!

This morning on the Chris Evans radio show he spoke to a woman called Donna who had come all the way from Connecticut to bag a good viewing position. Absolutely crazy, and it’s something which she seems to make a habit of, she even came over for the Andrew-Sarah wedding. Let’s face it, the minute that Sarah Ferguson said in an interview that she didn’t know how she was going to cope with Andrew being away at sea they should have called it off!

I haven’t watched any of the William – Catherine interviews but I think they have a much better chance than any of the others of being able to stay happily married. For one thing Catherine’s parents are still together, which is more than could be said for Diana and Sarah’s parents. The other plus is that this time the bride seems to have a brain!

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Categories: Rant

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Library Loot (and mobile phones)

31 January 2011 00:06

I had a phone call from my local library the other day letting me know that a book which I had requested was ready to be picked up so I strolled along there and had a look around to see if there was anything else worth taking out. It’s often quite slim pickings but this time as you will see I ended up borrowing quite a few.

1. The Brandons by Angela Thirkell (Joan Kyler mentioned this author and I thought I’d give her a go.) This is the one I requested.

2. A Matter of Trust by Robin Pilcher. I’ve enjoyed quite a few of his mother Rosamunde’s now so I thought it would be interesting to see what he is like.

3. Still Midnight by Denise Mina. I’ve been meaning to read something by her for ages because she’s from Glasgow and sometimes appears on the Friday Newsnight review.

4. An Expert in Murder by Nicola Upson. Jo at The Book Jotter is reading this author so I thought I’d give her a go.

5. News From Nowhere by William Morris. This one was on a prominent stand shouting ‘borrow me’. I knew that Morris wrote poetry but this is ‘Chapters from a Utopian Romance’ – could be interesting.

6. Secret Gardens (the Golden Age of Children’s Literature) by Humphrey Carpenter. He wrote the Mister Majeika books which were so popular when our sons were wee. I keep having to get this book out to check information, I think I’ll end up buying it.

So, as you can see, quite a haul. Now I just have to read them all.

Making my way to the crime section I had to go past a chap who was just beginning a call on his mobile/cell phone, a bit strange I thought because I assumed that people wouldn’t use them in the library. Silly me! I actually turned away from him and walked to another area because I didn’t want him to think I was listening in!

However he proceeded to yell into his phone whilst walking all around the library. The first thing he said was ‘Hello, it’s about consolidating a loan!!’ I was flabbergasted, he continued to answer all the personal questions that were obviously being put to him – the upshot of which is that and I everybody else within the library couldn’t help hearing it all. Name, address, employment details, personal numbers, how much debt he had – the lot.

Talk about being cavalier with your own security! I couldn’t believe it. I’m not a great one for speaking on the phone much and to me a mobile phone is for emergency use only. It’s beyond me why people use them for such inane conversations, like the people who block up the aisles in supermarkets while they phone someone to ask what sort of frozen peas they should buy. Birds Eye or Tesco’s own brand? they yell. Make a bloody decision, I scream. In my head.

For some reason a lot of people who have their phones clamped to their heads most of the time seem to think that nobody can hear what they’re saying and so they’re completely unaware that they are invading other peoples’ space.

I think it’s similar to people who think that nothing bad can happen to them because they have a camera in front of them, or they think that they can’t get in the way of people, like that idiot photographer who jumped in front of a marathon runner to get a photo of him and tripped the poor runner up.

Heigh-ho! I just felt the need to share that and have a bit of a rant. Now I’m off to get some reading done.

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Categories: Books, Rant

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Statistics

7 January 2011 12:36

I used to work in an Information and Statistics department in the National Health Service,so I’m well aware that things are often very different from what they would first appear.

Which would explain why the Scottish Government is claiming that the influenza rates are much lower than they were at this time last year. The young people in my own family have been hit badly by the flu this year, from my sister’s grandchildren aged 8 and 10 to my own sons who were ill at Christmas and they are in their 20s. As none of the older folks have succumbed we’re presuming that it is the swine flu.

Duncan got it really badly and by Hogmanay most of his friends had it too. They crawled out of their beds to celebrate the New Year at ‘the bells’ but they didn’t have any energy and Duncan ended up coming home not long afterwards, clutching a bit of coal to bring us good luck for the coming year.

Due to the fact that it all happened over the Christmas period nobody has been to see a doctor, so they won’t appear in any statistics. It can take two weeks to get an appointment anyway, unless they think that you might die, so people tend just to stay at home and cosset themselves until they feel better.

So unless Fife has been more badly hit than the rest of Scotland I think we can take the statistics with a pinch of salt.

I’m also annoyed by the weather statistics because the weather people keep telling us that it should be about 2 or 3 Celsius here but my garden is telling me something very different. It’s still frozen solid and it has been like that since November. It was -12 C in Dunfermline during the day not long ago but according to the weather report it wasn’t anything like that cold.

Apparently it was the coldest December in Scotland since records began 100 years ago. I definitely believe that statistic!

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Categories: Current Affairs, Local interest, Rant, Weather

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Condensing gas boiler

16 December 2010 22:06

We had a new condensing gas boiler installed last year at great expense – £3,500 to be precise. We renewed our boiler because the old one was about 40 years old, very noisy and expensive to run. However when we opted for a condensing boiler (actually British Gas didn’t give us any choice) nobody told us that the damn things seize up in the cold. They sense a blockage and shut down.

Last week we were without heating and hot water for a day because the outlet pipe which drains water from the system to the outside froze up. This is what happens in cold weather apparently!

Have you ever heard of anything so daft? So on the very coldest days when you most need central heating it’s very likely that it won’t be working. There are actually people holding hot water bottles to their boiler pipes in an effort to stop them from freezing.

Despite the fact that the heating has been all day, it still froze up as the temperature plummeted even more this evening. We’re thankful that we have a gas fire in the living room and we’re wrapped in blankets sitting in front of it, taking turns on our Netbook.

At some point we’re going to have to brave our ice-box of a bedroom though. I’m tempted to buy an electric blanket or at least hot water bottles. Even if it does make me feel absolutely ancient.

We’ll be having the family back here for the Christmas/Hogmanay holidays and if the heating freezes up then – you’ll be able to hear me screaming, even if you’re on the other side of the world!

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Categories: Rant, Weather

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Cuts, cuts, cuts.

22 October 2010 00:11

Why is it that the Conservatives only ever have one thought in mind when they get into power? And why is it that the voters of England don’t remember the horrendous damage that the Tories inflicted on us the last time.

These savage cuts will have no effect whatsoever on the fat cats who caused all the mayhem and as usual it’s the small people who will hurt more than anybody.

What did Tory voters think was going to happen when they gave power to a bunch of old Etonian millionaires? And that includes the Lib-Dems too. Sorry Nick, was it Westminster School?

I thought that we had it bad when we were young. We bought our first house just before Maggie Thatcher got into power and by the time the house was finished and we had moved in a few months later, the mortgage interest rate had shot up, which doubled our monthly mortgage payments.

But the youngsters nowadays can’t even dream of buying a house. They are drowning in their student debt and most of them can’t get a job after university. Unfortunately it is still a society where it isn’t what you know, but who you know which is important. And we can’t all have contacts at Buckingham Palace like Cameron had when he was looking for a job after he graduated. I feel heart sore for young people nowadays, their future seems so miserable at the moment.

So, all these cuts are going to mean loads more unemployed people and there are places in Scotland, such as Fife, which still hadn’t recovered from the last recession.

I’ve always avoided the ‘big dipper’ because I don’t have the stomach for that sort of thing, but it looks like there’s another BIG DIP coming. So hold on to your hats folks!

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Categories: Politics, Rant

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Tony Blair – A Journey

7 September 2010 22:23

This is a wee bit of a rant. I tried to stop myself but it got the better of me in the end.

Tony Blair came to my notice some time before he stood for the Labour leadership contest. I had given him the nickname of ‘The double-glazing salesman’, which I now think is a slur on all such people but at the time it seemed appropriate.

So you’ll have gathered that he was never my favourite person and I remember standing in the school-playground at the time telling my friend Molly just what I thought of Blair. Molly rather liked him, thought he was a good guy. I just couldn’t stop myself from pointing out to Molly that she was already divorced twice, so maybe she wasn’t the best judge of character. I can be a bit of a bitch at times.

He turned out to be even worse than I could possibly have imagined and it just amazes me that people are still taken in by him. I’ve been trying to ignore all the hoo-ha about his book because just thinking about him isn’t good for my blood pressure I’m sure. But I’ve heard along the grapevine that people in shops and libraries have been moving his book to the horror/crime sections, and that really cheered me up.

Originally I thought that whenever anyone buys a copy of the book, it should be put into an extra strong bag, something that could double up as a sick bag in fact, as I’m sure it would make me feel quite ill. But having heard that there are quite a few sex scenes in it, I’ve amended that idea and I think that every purchase should have a free bucket given out with it. I don’t think a sick bag would be adequate for me anyway.

I can’t tell you how angry I was when he said that he was nearly in tears when he met a young war widow, but he is still talking up a war with Iran. He hadn’t been in power long at all when you could see that mad look in his eyes. Just to be even-handed here, I must say that it was the very same look which Thatcher developed too.

I’m not at all impressed by the fact that he is giving the money from the sales of his book to charity. As conscience money, it won’t go very far and no matter what he does in the future, despite his conversion to Catholicism, there’s only one place for him to go when his time comes and that’s straight to HELL, or as my mum would have put it, THE BAD FIRE!

In the same week J.K.Rowling announced that she was giving 10 million pounds to Edinburgh University to set up a clinic to carry out research into Multiple Sclerosis, in memory of her mother Ann Rowling who died of M.S. at the age of 45, which is the age that J.K. is now. She has always been incredibly generous to charities and an all round ‘good egg’. She’s brought joy to millions of children of all ages and encouraged a lot of young people to read books for pleasure, when they might never have done so.

Conversely, Blair has brought grief to countless numbers of people, and I mean countless because nobody bothered to count the Iraqis

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Categories: Books, Politics, Rant

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The BP Disaster

26 June 2010 00:20

I’ve got no doubt that when they get down to the investigation of the horrendous accident in the Gulf of Mexico, they will discover, as ever that it was caused by the oil companies’ penny-pinching ways.

I’ve lost count of the number of oil rig accidents which have occurred in the North Sea. The companies are completely uncaring of their employees’ welfare and people die because of the sheer greed of the companies.

Even although the profits which the oil industries make are eye wateringly enormous, they can’t bring themselves to spend paltry sums of money on maintenance. I’ve seen photographs of pipelines which look like badly patched quilts and obviously the only safe thing to do is to replace the broken pipe. It must be terrifying to work on an oil rig under such conditions.

The first disaster which I can remember which concerned oil was when the oil tanker Torrey Canyon ran aground on rocks between Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly in 1967 when I was 8 years old. You can read about it in an article which was published in The Guardian yesterday.

I can’t see how the oil is ever going to be cleaned from the sort of coastal grasslands which I have been seeing on TV.

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Categories: Coast, Rant

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FIFA World Cup

6 June 2010 17:23

My husband has been pining for the FIFA World Cup to begin. He doesn’t have long to wait now as it starts on Friday, and he’s going to be watching as many of the matches as he possibly can.

This is the Association Football world cup – the biggest sporting event on the planet bar possibly the Olympic Games – played with a round ball as opposed to the game that men play with funny shaped balls and lots of padding.

As I would generally rather watch paint dry than view a football match, I’m going to be a bit of a ‘football widow’ for the next month or so. Somehow I think I’m going to get a lot of reading done then.

Unfortunately, Scotland didn’t qualify to take part this time. My husband says that the good thing about that is he can watch the whole thing and just enjoy it with no pressure and stress. I bet the hospitals are looking at it that way too as there should be fewer men admitted with heart attacks.

As ever, England are in the easiest group. (Scotland are always grouped with Brazil, Germany, Holland and the like.) According to the pundits on the radio though, they are all terrified of their first match, which happens to be against the U.S.A. on Saturday June 12th.

Those are the very same commentators who drive us (Scots) round the bend with their arrogance and assumptions that England somehow have a right to be the winners at everything, just because they aren’t ‘Johnny Foreigner’. I bet with the first touch of the ball they’ll claim they’re going to go all the way.

So, not that I’m racist or anything – but just for that day, I’ll be supporting the U.S.A. – for the sake of my sanity as much as anything else.

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Categories: Rant

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