Hurried and harassed

Christmas. 85 days away, apparently, and it has managed to be one of the biggest conversations/debates in the office for the past few days. Other conversations in the past week have ranged from the debate of whether Creamy Chicken John is, in fact, Bible John, old television adverts, who the woman with the stockings was, whether Andrea will get hit by a bus as she crosses Cadzow Road, the vast amount of people Craig believes are w**kers and what age Lorna is.
It was her birthday today and she brought us all in a treat to celebrate. A rather tasty dumpling, and today it tasted even better, simply because it was Friday.
I’d been feeling a bit down in the dumps of late but today, even though I only managed a mere four hours sleep last night, I strode up to work feeling a little better. Maybe it was just something to do with the fact that as of this afternoon, I have a week off. Time to relax, chill out, look after Ka and perhaps even get some more painting done.
The bright sun shining down over Scotland probably helped cheer me up too.
The Indian summer has started, the news is saying. If Scotland sees much more than one day, I’m Santa Claus.
After the past few stormy weeks of wind and rain going out at lunchtime was like walking out into a foreign country. The Hamilton shops surrounding the office were busy with summer shoppers as Lorna and myself took a stroll up to the local Marks and Spencers to take advantage of their latest Meal Deal for the weekend. The Marks and Spencers Dine in for Two Meal Deal is always popular and pretty good value for a tenner. The main problem is usually getting your hands on any of it. You get a main, a side dish, a dessert and a bottle of wine, but, unfortunately, not always of your choice.
Fortunately Lorna and myself had headed up the street just a little earlier than noon, hoping to beat the lunchtime crowds, so we had a good selection of meals to choose from. It was getting to them that was the problem.
We walked in and before we could wonder where we were headed, we seen the small crowds, straight ahead, gathered at the busy shelves at the end of the middle three aisles.
Little old ladies everywhere. The majority of the crowds were anyway, the rest were rather pi**ed off looking older men, probably waiting on their wives making a decision.
Patiently, I waited on a space to open and then took my chance to weave myself into the crowd.
As I stood deliberating on what to buy for dinner, I spoke to Ka on the phone, asking if she'd prefer haddock or beef roulades. Just as I was reaching for the beef roulades, to try and work out what their green filling was, the corner of a metal hand basket was jammed into my side. Looking down towards the pain, I yelped as a grim looking old woman looked up at me aggressively from my side whilst I recovered from the sharp, sudden pain in the side of my ribs and the abrupt interruption to my conversation with Ka. Two other women were closing in to my left, elbowing my subtly and a large bloke reared up behind, reaching over my shoulder to get to one of the roulades.
I'm not sure I like being surrounded by aggressive old women and I'm definitely not sure I like large blokes rearing up from behind, especially when they're apparently in urgent need of a bit of beef.
Sensing a disturbance in the call, Ka asked me what was up to which I told her.
“I’m surrounded by housewives and mad old women!” I said, perhaps a little too loudly, into my mobile. Shocked utterances and angry comments were made around me, which spurred me on into making a hurried, and rather harassed decision. I grabbed the haddock and ran for the tills, (run for your lives!), swiping a bottle of white plonk from the Meal Deal shelf as I ran.
Never before has Marks and Spencers felt so threatening. I'd obviously caused a little upset by standing before the Meal Deal shelves, undecided on what to purchase whereas they're all allowed to meander around the shops in their slippers, with their sticks and electric wheelchairs, for as long as they like.
After getting out of Marks in, just about, one piece, my gold tie looking a little bedraggled, I popped into the Hamilton Shopping Arcade's O2 shop to ask about the strange symbols that have started appearing on my phone.
Last week I'd visited the shop to get a new Sim card as my phone had taken a liking to switching itself off and complaining about an “INACTIVE SIM”.
The guy that sat me down at his desk last week to take my phone apart, scoffed at my sim card as he plucked it from the back of my mobile. He shook his head his head and looking at me disdainfully explained I had a mere 2G Sim, which were fazed out months ago, and I should have a 3G. Shrugging, I asked him to sort it out for me and since my new 3G sim card has become active it has successfully tripled all the contacts in my address book and been flashing strange new logos at me on the phone's screen.
The same guy was there today but too busy laughing scornfully at some other ignorant mobile user at the time. Another tall, rather gloomy looking fellow strode up and asked if he could help. This rather depressing looking O2 sales character took the phone off me and looked down at it's screen. As I started explaining about the phone and how, up until last Friday, I'd had a 2G Sim card, the O2 man's eyes started welling up. He quickly rubbed his eyes, trying to act natural as he flicked pages on my phone with shaky hands. My explanation faltering a little, I continued, unsure where to look, before real tears started gathering in his eyes. Quietly, and under my breath, I asked if there was a problem. The guy seemed genuinely upset. The other guy had found it hilarious to the levels of smugness but this guy was obviously the opposite and felt nothing but pity for me. Surely having a 2G Sim card wasn't that distressing.
The guy eventually murmured something about hayfever through his tears as he continued to shake his head and rub his eyes over my phone, making me wonder how my mobile and I could have possibly caused such an outbreak of the allergic reaction. As I considered the dusty old ladies in Marks and Spencers as probable cause, the crying O2 man murmured the phone symbols away as temporary problems to do with internet connections. Hurrying the phone from his hands I quickly said my thanks and left the store before I caused the guy any more upset.
Thankfully, I didn’t upset anyone else for the rest of the day, with the exception of Linda, in Advertising, who wanted a visual done half an hour before the end of my shift.
She had no chance.
I was going home for my haddock.
Which was delicious.
Well worth upsetting the old ladies for.

Scary but true

Happy Halloween everybody! Thankfully there's been no pesky kids in rubbish costumes, chapping on our front door, annoying us for sweets, enabling Ka and myself to slouch before the tv, recovering after Gillian and Craig's Wedding yesterday.
It's been a busy week off with plenty to keep us occupied. Stage shows, cinema, hotels, dinners out and plenty of catching up with friends has taken up the majority of the past week. It all started with a Wedding and ended with a Wedding.
Last Saturday Colin McG, Jillian, Ka and myself went to the capital for the day to see Spamalot in the Playhouse, Monty Python's musical stage production, 'lovingly ripped off' from The Holy Grail. Marcus Brigstocke, comedian and tv presenter, played Arthur, King of the Britons, aided by his humble servant Patsy, Mark Fowler from Eastenders. Sexy dancers, fish slapping Finnish peasants, killer rabbits, black Knights, French soldiers and, of course, the cow. The show had all the killer ingredients for a great Pythonesque tale with some very funny moments, brilliant songs and enjoyable performances from all involved, all being what looked like around twelve people or so, many of the supporting cast doubling, tripling or quadrupling up roles. After finally retrieving the Holy Grail from under seat D2 in the stalls (unfortunately neither of us were sitting on D2 so missed our chance to get up on stage, some wee embarrassed woman in a cardy being dragged up on stage instead) the show ended differently from the unorthodox way the Holy Grail movie ended.
Disgruntled at her lack of a part in the second half, the Lady of the Lake had elbowed her way into the story again by coming up with the excuse of marrying King Arthur which is how the stage play wrapped up, the Lady in question played by Amy Nuttall, and not the scary Jodie Prenger as we'd all thought was going to be the case.
However, we hadn't got off lightly. Jodie Prenger popped up later in the week, when Colin McG, Jillian, Ka and myself went along to the Clyde Auditorium to see John Barrowman. Yes, it had been a while coming but the night was finally here, when Ka and Jillian got to drag Colin and myself along to the SECC to see the tooth sparkling american, scottish born, singer himself. Beforehand, of course, we met in the pub and all had a couple of pints in The Goose, Ka drinking ginger beer as her alcohol substitute while Jillian shrieked in excitement with anticipation for the coming show. Colin and myself drank down some pints, needing some kind of dutch courage for the night which, I hesitantly admit, actually turned out to be good fun and surprisingly entertaining. Yes, the guy is cheesy and crazily camp but it was just simple fun, light entertainment. Scary but true. As was Jodie Prenger who strutted on stage half way through the set, just to make matters a little worse, to help celebrate Barrowman's 20 years in showbiz.
The second Wedding of the week did not involve Jodie Prenger, thankfully. Gillian and Craig tied the knot in Glenskirlie, Stirlingshire yesterday and we all had a great day at the ceremony, the reception and the following party, highlights including the usual speeches, the brilliant food, Craig kicking his boxers off from underneath his kilt in the middle of the dancefloor and them ending up wrapped around Cheryl's head and my rather drunken but fantastic rendition of the Time Warp back in the hotel room, Roslyn, Claire, Martin, Iain and Ka my entertained audience.
After all the scary incidents this week, however, there's nothing more scary, unsettling or uncomfortable as that of the thought of going back to work tomorrow morning...

Mysterious parcels and murdering

Whilst the Chile miners are being rescued from the depths of the Earth people in the work think I'm buying porn. Parcels have been arriving for me for the past week, various different bodies of the office, collecting it in the mail from the front desk and bringing it up to my desk with a suspicious, high eyebrow, look about their face.
The boss strode up to me halfway through the morning, as I sat working on Slater Hogg, with another parcel and announced, slightly too loudly;
"Michael, here's your porn!"
Julie almost made the wrong move in her latest game of PC solitaire and Margaret nearly choked on her banana loaf. Laughing uncomfortably, I couldn't argue as the real answer was equally embarrassing. An answer I can't go into at the moment as it's all part of some early Chrimbo shopping (yeah, the 'c' word?!).
Barry eventually got the answer out of me, walking away humming to himself about naked pictures. Barry, who, along with Craig, informed me the evening before that I was driving about with a screw embedded in one of my rear tyres. The bu**ers probably planted it in there themselves, perhaps in an effort to interfere with my next murder.
Yeah, you read right. For some inexplicable reason, both Barry and Craig are under the impression I go out at nights, stalking helpless young girls, murdering them and burying them in the nearby forest of Calderglen. They've obviously got nothing better to imaginate.
So I've got one part of the room that calls me 'Doc Brown' and another that think I'm East Kilbride's answer to Dexter. Then there's Gareth, who thinks I lead a very pathetic life.
'Pathetic lives' and 'egocentric', three words included in Gareth's rant during the Tuesday shift about blog and facebook users. Once again he started on yet another 'oh so subtle' tirade against me and that large portion of the population that find some solace and some fun in an online existence. A tirade that was, as he quickly pointed out, in no way aimed at myself, sitting at the luncheon table next to him. Yeah, sure, I thought. In the same way that spinning envelope wasn't aimed at the back of Jeremy Kyle's head.
Jeremy Kyle. Now there's someone that is egocentric and pathetic, hiding behind his bouncers. He's also someone that many people would probably love to murder and bury in a forest.
Not that I'd ever condone murdering anyone, or indeed burying anyone in a forest.
Anyway, I'm off to watch The Apprentice. A programme about egocentric folk that bitch and moan about their work and their colleagues behind their back. Pathetic. You'd never find me doing that.

Initiation's over, Michael. Time to join the club!

On Saturday night Ka and myself cracked open the bottle of Spanish Cava, a gift from her Mum and Dad from Salou, pulled open the Curry flavoured Sensations and sat and watched the classic eighties flick, 'The Lost Boys'. What a classic. Eighties films were just great. Great atmospheres. Fantastic, over the top effects. Brilliant music. It's great to watch one of these old movies and still enjoy it fiftieth time around. Think of how many classics the eighties spawned? Especially if you're around the age of thirty and these movies were the first, great experiences of the video recorder and big screen. You had so many kid classics like 'The Goonies', 'The Karate Kid', 'Labyrinth', 'Wargames' and 'Flight of the Navigator'. Then you had the slightly older, teen, aimed movies like 'Weird Science', 'Gremlins' and 'The Lost Boys'. All the 'classic' dance movies to which Ka has a penchant, "Dirty Dancing' and 'Flashdance' all have that quintessential eighties quality about them.
'Blade Runner' is one of my favourite all timers and that was made in '82. The first of all the dystopian future science fictions but a film I did not discover till well into my teens. And the rest! The Indiana Jones movies, the Star Wars sequels, The Terminators, The Predators, the Alien movies, the Lethal Weapons, Robocops, Beverly Hills Cops, Ghostbusters, Poltergeists, The Nightmare on Elm Streets, the Chevy Chase comedies and the brilliant Back to the Futures. There's just too many to mention. Okay, not all of them were classics. A lot of them were quite cheesy in places, a bit too American corn in others but all stir so many memories for me.
Robocop for instance was the very first eighteen certificate movie I was officially allowed to watch, thanks to my cousin Craig and his pals. I think it was a sleepover and when we were going to watch this VHS that Craig had hired out my Aunt Ann advised me to phone up the parents to ask permission to watch it. This crazy, violent, futristic thriller about a man that gets half slaughtered and then tranformed into a kind of Frankensteins monster cop machine to roam the streets of LA (at least, I think it was LA?) seemed like such a big deal at the time. Looking back I'm realising it may well have been this one film that got me hooked on science fiction. The way it could be crazy, terrifying, horrific and somehow based in the 'real world'. However, I've not watched it in many years and suspect that if I ever did go back to Robocop I would probably switch it off after half an hour either bored or embarrassed, completely disillusioned.
This did not happen on Saturday though as Ka and myself sat through 'The Lost Boys'. We quite enjoyed the dog attacks, the flying camera work, Kiefer's early acting skills and Granpa's car horn whilst eating our curry Sensations. Not to mention the exploding vampire in the bathtub. Fantastic. They don't make 'em like they used to! Gawd, the eighties were twenty plus years ago?! That realisation is a bit of a horror story in itself. I'm off to watch Ashes to Ashes.

Kind you'd like to meet

Congratulations to Craig and Gillian for their engagement and the success of their engagement party on friday night. We all had a great time in the Rolls Royce club. A few drinks, a few dances and a few songs. Everyone was there to wish Craig and Gillian well. At first it seemed like a reunion night for Ka's work colleagues, past and present, but I soon relaxed as they're all a cool bunch. Maybe I relaxed a little too much as, for some reason, after a couple of beers, I plucked up the courage to get up on the dancefloor and perform 'Oh Pretty Woman' through the karaoke machine. Unfortunately, mike in hand, I felt the need to try and get the dancefloor shy relatives up and asked for all those accompanied by 'pretty women' to get up on the dancefloor with their own 'pretty women'. None of the relatives moved. Failing this I then shouted, 'get off your arse and dance!' at Craig and Gillian's relatives. Needless to say they did not look very appreciative of my comments, some of the older guys growling from behind their pint glasses. I'm not even sure if Gillian and Craig appreciated me shouting at their aunties and uncles in such a fashion. I suspect not. I think I just got a little too carried away. The girls at the ELU, including Chris, Margot, Amanda, Roslyn, Cheryl and the rest, helped me out though and filled the dancefloor the best they could. I'm not sure what possessed me to get up and sing karaoke as I was not even drunk and usually hate the bloody things. Looking back I suspect it was the fact that it was the same few people on the dancefloor all the time and stupidly thought I could do something about it. What a time to suddenly gain a rockstar ego! Feeling slightly embarrassed afterwards I ran for the safety of our tables and hid for the rest of the night. I did receive some compliments with regards to my singing talents, however. Maybe I should try X Factor next year?
When last orders were shouted and everyone started filing out we piled into Chris' car. With Margot, Bev, Ka, Amanda, myself and Chris driving we set off to the forever excellent Centre Point. When I say forever excellent I am of course being sarcastic - but it was a last resort. However, once inside we ended up having quite a good time, dancing to classic tunes of the nineties. Rhythm is a Dancer, Everybody's Free, Key the Secret, mixed in with some Prodigy and such like. Some really good tunes so a complete surprise to go into Centre Point and enjoy yourself. Almost weird.
Ka and myself met the great Martin Darcy with whom I used to work behind the bar with in the Auldhouse Arms many moons ago. Leaving Ka in the taxi queue I ran down to the nearest grease shop and ordered a portion for us to share. A comment was made over my shoulder whilst I stood waiting, leaning on the warm metal counter to which I looked round. I knew I was in trouble. His name escaped me completely and he had to gently remind me with the help of some swear words and the odd barrage of abuse. He was not best pleased but he got over it when he met Ka outside at the bus stop and started accusing her of insanity for agreeing to marry such a person as myself. He was having a laugh, of course, and let us escape to a taxi.

Nightmares

After a particularly busy day at work, tonight I had more car difficulties. A flat tyre. I had to change a wheel on the Audi A6 Quattro I'm driving at the moment after coming out of work at half past eight. You would think this would be straight forward enough, but no, there were four of us working through it. We all reckon that the wheel's bolts had been superglued. Paul, Craig and Lost Ian were all excellent help in removing the flat wheel and helping me replace it with the spare one from the boot. If it hadn't been for them, I would most certainly have been there till at least midnight. Paul with his surprising mechanic skills, Craig with his strength of a bear and Ian with his indispensable socket spanners. Thanks guys, owe you one! Chaz, the ever helpful car salesman that he is, managed to get me the Audi last week, little did I know it had a flat though. Thanks Chaz! Drives like a dream now but eats petrol like a nightmare.
A very real nightmare of a more serious and saddening nature was in the news yesterday, about the charity worker being gunned down in Afghanistan by the Taleban. She spread the word of Christianity, that was what the Taleban claimed was their reason for this latest murder. Gayle Williams worked for a charity organisation called Serve Afghanistan which primarily aided in the education and help for people with disabilities and special needs. A couple of guys sped up to her on a motorbike, as she walked to work, and shot the South African six times at close range, killing her immediately. She gave her life for the cause and highlights the plight of all the aid workers out in these war torn countries. By not taking the bodyguards offered her, Ms Williams obviously did not value herself enough and underrated her own importance and her own heroism. These needless deaths and terrible incidents always bring it all home and make you wonder why your bothering worrying about things like the price of bread and petrol.