Nicholson's chin and the supermarket tannoy

“Customer attention please. Customer attention. Could a Kelly Ann Reid please come to the checkouts please. A Kelly Ann Reid, please come to the checkouts. Thank you”.
The voice reverberated around the aisles of Stewartfield Morrisons today after I failed to find her within the bowels of the busy supermarket on this rainy Saturday afternoon. We were in search of Christening wrapping paper and stopped of at the local Morrisons. I dropped Ka off at the store’s large, pillared front doors and swerved off to the adjoining petrol station to obtain some more ridiculously expensive unleaded while she popped in for the paper. After buying the petrol I drove back to the pickup point, knowing that the paper/card buying area was at the store’s front newspaper checkout and believing that it wouldn’t have took too long for Ka to purchase the required gift wrapping while I bought the fuel.
As always with these things though, nothing is that simple.
The wife always finds a way to complicate things. Ka was nowhere to be seen. We both had no phone on our person so, the car had to be parked. After slotting the car into one of the carpark’s tight, awkward spaces, I started a whirlwind tour of the supermarket’s vast innards. Starting at the gift wrapping/birthday card/newspaper/lottery ticket checkout at trhe front of the store I then proceeded to the main checkouts where, again, Ka was nowhere to be found, so, there was nothing more that could be done, except the obvious. An exploration of the aisles. Fifteen minutes later she was still nowhere to be found.
So, I hesitantly approached what resembled a store manager at the help desk where the tannoy microphone stood waiting.
Ka eventually appeared, tottering up towards the checkout with a basket full of products, which we had not come in for, looking a little disconcerted and embarrassed. Apparently she had been at the fish when the tannoy announced her name. Needless to say a mild argument occurred where Ka voiced her disbelief and I repeatedly gave my argument for approaching the store manager and requesting an announcement for a missing wife.
It’s the end of a rather relaxing week off from work. It’s flown by even though I’ve not been up to anything particularly interesting. Just the usual. Gym, cinema, jogging and painting. Painting of the canvas kind.
I’m three quarters of the way through a Walken, just about finished a Nicholson and struggling a bit with a Pacino.
As I’m sure you’ve guessed, I’ve started painting movie stars. Walken was the first and since then Ka, Pauline and Chaz have all eagerly spurred me on to paint more, so it’s thanks to them I spent the first half of the week struggling over Jack Nicholson’s chin and the bare bones of Al Pacino’s face. I thought Pacino would actually be a little easier than Nicholson, but how wrong I was. I feel like I’ve been painting and repainting the main structure of Pacino’s face for three days now. I’m sure it’ll get there in the end. Wherever, ‘there’ is.
On Wednesday, after a day of trying to get Pacino right, Pauline, my cousin’s ex wife, who just happens to be an old friend from Primary school and is now a good friend of the Mrs, popped round for a 5k jog around the block. Or rather, jog around a few blocks. Both the St. Leonards and Calderwood areas of EK to be precise.
It’s all in preperation for the Big Fun Run taking place on the 29th October. Ka is running it for Sands in memory of our wee Lucy Reid, as are myself, Pauline, our pal Claire, the in laws, Grace and Dougie, Ka’s bro Colin and his Mrs, Jillian and Ka’s sister, Angela along with, I imagine a great number of other folk. (I’ll take this opportunity to spur folk on to please sponsor the Mrs in her 5k endeavour. Please visit this site to sponsor – any amount of pence or pounds is gratefully accepted for this great cause!)
Pauline, who apparently does not run, was keen for a practise jog and managed the 5k easily in 35 minutes and, although we thought she’d be cursing us, she did insist that she still loved us. Well, most of her did anyway.
Apparently her lungs didn’t.
They’ll get over it.
Last night I was back in the O2 Academy for another visitation from The Wombats. Having recovered from her run the two nights before, Pauline accompanied me to the gig, after Ka took a rain check, and the two of us jumped away to the tunes undeterred by the amount of kids surrounding us in the crowd. The Liverpudlian threesome put on another storming performance for Glasgow, playing a lot of their most recent album, a lot of which I wasn’t familiar with yet. I purchased the album months ago and have listened to it about thrice. Don’t spend as much time listening to music as I used to.
Too busy painting, jogging or looking for the wife in supermarkets.

Beware the chides of March

Ka went to town yesterday with my Mum and sister to do a bit of shopping. While she was there she text me asking if I needed anything. I text back 'A present'. So she obediently brought me a present home. Ka must have went to Frasers, Debenhams, Next and probably passed the front door of HMV and all I got was a pineapple tart. "I've just been to the gym", I thought, "I can't eat a pineapple tart".
A pineapple tart and a mug of tea later, I relaxed. Pineapples must be one of your five a day anyway and I was back in the gym today so I'll have ran it off by now. Still all that cream cake goodness can't be good for the cholesterol. Can't be good for the old ticker - more senses of impending doom.
There's a general sense of doom in the work at the moment too. At the end of March everything is going to change. The lucky twelve who managed to retain a job in the restructured production department are all being trained up for the new system or brushing up on other areas in the department they hadn't previously given much thought for. The others, who did not secure positions, are all making plans, moving on, some slagging the company off as they go. There's a lot of speculating on how long the new, restructured department will actually last. Most, however, are just facing facts and getting on with it with varying states of despondency or 'don't give a sh*t' attitudes.
Late during the Monday evening, for instance, we were all awoken from our late shift slumbers by Cameron who decided to firmly put a foot down. His shift had finished at five and he had decided to wait on for his sis, Diana who works over in ads with myself, for a lift home, to save him getting the train. Diana was also under the impression we'd all be getting out early as there was no work left to do in our department and as a result most of us were sitting twiddling our respective thumbs, belly's grumbling.
After Diana's third attempt in asking if we could head home and Felix's third refusal, somewhere, on the other side of the room, Cameron clicked.
It was like the Michael Douglas movie Falling Down, except without the tie or the firearms (or Michael Douglas).
"Well I'm going home!" Cameron announced, swinging his jacket around his shoulders. as words were exchanged things unfortunately descended into a small, stubborn, shouting match between Felix and himself, Diana cutting in whenever she got the chance. It ended with the brother and sister marching out the office and Felix being left at his computer, thanking them for their input.
Unfortunately both Cameron and Diana are moving on, at the end of March, and I, among others, will miss them. Cameron was the first person in the office, and probably the only guy, to come straight up to me, shake my hand and congratulate me after finding out about Ka and my pregnancy. He's also a fellow sci-fi buff/geek and always has a good movie trailer to show us on the friday afternoon. His sister, Diana, has also been a good pal in S&UN and was my number one office Lost and Doctor Who gossiper when both shows were on the box, especially after big Lost Ian left. Diana also does loads of hefty car adverts which I'll probably have to do after she leaves. Thanks Diana.
A few months back, when I was over on the dark side of the office planning a paper one day, Cameron had been telling me all about how he used to be really bad tempered at work. Unpleasant. Impatient. Angry. Apparently now he was very mellow compared to what he had been. Calm. Patient. Helpful. (Okay, maybe I'm overegging it a bit there...) More at ease with his surroundings, anyway, and not losing the rag half as much, or to half the effect he used to.
There was a story told once of Cameron launching a phone handset half way through the open plan office. Of course, I wasn't sure whether to believe this. Yeah, I'd seen a bit of a temper when he'd spoke to certain individuals over the phone and heard the occasional curse from his general direction, but nothing the rest of us don't do when occasionally faced with a permanently crashing computer, a pile up of amendment sheets or a lack of teaspoons in the cutlery drawer.
Why is it work cutlery drawers always lack teaspoons? One day, a new new bunch of teaspoons appears for everyone to use to stir their teas, coffees or hot chocolates but then after a mere few days of teaspoonful bliss, they vanish. Gone. Snaffled away for the teaspoon mafia.
One morning I ended up stirring my tea with my bic and the flamin' pen decided to burst. It brought a whole new meaning to taking your tea black.
Anyway, I'd never seen any phones getting chibbed around in the office. Maybe just the occasional slam. I certainly can't even imagine anyone in our office being angry enough to chuck a phone handset such a distance. My mind boggles about what the person on the other end of that phone could have done to aggravate Cameron in such a way. Could she have requested the reshuffling of an entire planned paper just for one advert? Could she have been complaining about the non inclusion of a late advert? Could she have disagreed with him on the principles of The Phantom Menace? Or could his pen just have burst in his tea and it was actually nothing to do with the woman on the other end of the phone?
Do you think it would be safe to ask him without being on the receiving end?
One things for sure, S&UN life is going to be quite different come the end of March.
Still, at least the handsets will have a longer life.

Anything particularly amazing

What an great day! Ka and myself are off work for the week and we didn't do anything particularly amazing at all but it just felt great... does that make sense? Perhaps it's just the joys of not being in an office and simply spending time with my lovely wife... and the tv.
We both slept till 9am, not caring when we slept till. We had a marvellous breakfast in the form of Ka's cheesy scrambled egg but then almost fell asleep again watching Philip Schofield on the forever dreadful daytime tv. Saying that, 'This Morning' is not the worst of daytime tv, there's all those horrible bargain shows on the BBC channels and the horrifying woman panel show 'Loose Women' but, needless to say, I made sure the remote didn't even flick in that direction.
Going out we decided to take full advantage of the sunshine, and headed for the gym. On Saturday, lying on a beach in Ayr, I heavily burnt half my head and face. I woke up on Sunday morning, moaning, looking like a bad impression of Harvey (Two-Face) Dent from the Batman movies after the acid attack. The heat in the skin affected seems to tingle and burn everytime I venture outside or edge near a window so I was quite happy to avoid the sun for most of the day.
Spent an hour and a half in a quiet gym, which was something different in itself as we seemed to have the run of the place. Following this we then went for a swim in the club's pool, inadvertantly annoying some old ladies that obviously usually have the pool to themselves on a quiet Monday afternoon. How dare we swim in their club pool when there's only three free lanes. These ladies made a point of crossing lanes a few times, together with exaggerated splashing, as we swam the lengths. I splashed them back, growling with my burnt face.
We then came home and I attempted some gardening out in the front lawn before a bit of housework. All this hard work quite rightfully earned me some brownie points so I sat and watched the football. A rather unexciting Japan v Cameroon game, followed by the highlights from the Denmark/Holland game. Turning the channels after this I found an episode of Who Do You Think You Are? which centred on the wonderfully irascible Jeremy Paxman coming to terms with the fact he's half Scottish. His Great Grandmothers family, on his mothers side, grew up in the slums of Glasgow, just as I mother's side did and then emigrated to Canada just as my Gran and Granpa almost did.
After this I again flicked the channels to find an episode of the sixties cult classic 'The Prisoner' with the late, equally irascible, Patrick McGoohan. Then, dinner in the form of some superb tacos followed by the Italy v Paraguay game. Possibly the most football I've watched in one day ever. In fact, today was possibly the most tv I watched in one day, for a long time. However, I did somehow manage to fall asleep watching Italy. That was the dinner's fault though, not the football. Not that Ka had laced the tacos with sedatives or anything! I don't think she's that fed up with me yet... it's only Monday after all, she's still got another four days to go!

Admirers, abs and apes

Popped round to the town centre yesterday to visit the local Registry office and enquire about a marriage license. I had no idea you had to obtain a license to be married up until a few months ago. Obviously there is the marriage certificate or statement which you sign at the end of the ceremony but I did not know there was an actual license and and application from each person needed to get it. After paying £26 per person (usually two when it comes to marriage) filling out a large form and handing them in to the local Registry office your name, alongside your fiance's, goes up on a list outside the office which entitles anyone, who happens to have a problem with the situation, to protest. Yes, it would seem people can object if they are unhappy with the idea of the two of us getting married. How this would happen and what would follow, I have no idea. It's quite a nice idea though is it not? That someone would contact the authorities to try and stop Michael Reid marrying? Maybe a secret admirer or some other female who has harboured a secret, yearning for me. Just walking by on her way to the local shops, beauty parlour or model agency and stopping suddenly when something catches her eye. Upon reading the notice placed outside the registry office she would cry out in outrage, shock and horror, her scream echoing around the dull concrete surroundings of the Civic Centre. Tearing the A4 note from the wall she would read again and again, just to make sure her eyes were not deceiving her and then run into the Registry office, flustered and panicking. I'm writing hoping that it would be a female, of course. The same goes for the other half. Ka probably has a few secret admirers out there. The guy she went on her first ever date with goes to our gym. They went to see Waynes World together all those years ago. Occasionally I get suspicious when I see him on the treadmill next to her. Sometimes losing my footing and ending up a tangled mess among the barbells and dumbells.
Talking of the gym, I woke up this morning feeling like that gorilla had been sitting on my stomach the whole night. You know the one? He comes into your bedroom at night while your fast asleep, throws you about a bit, messes up your hair, maybe slaps you across the face a bit to get you to slobber slightly on to your pillow? Yeah, him. Ka and myself put ourselves through the abs class last night, moving, jumping and flailing about on exercise mats for half an hour. Some of the exercises making you look like beetles that had accidentally rolled over on to their back. As a result I struggled to get out of bed this morning and my lower abdomen can barely move without a twinge of pain. Serves me right as I had not done the abs class for months. A good lesson to vary your routine. You can go to the gym three times a week but still stress some muscles by jumping into something different too quickly. Muscles which you had completely forgotten about.
A headache was also the first thing to greet me this morning on waking up, which is always a lousy start to the day. I had been dreaming one of those troubling, tormented dreams. I was abroad, on a beach somewhere, trying to meet someone, or be somewhere... not sure. I opened my eyes to the world with a dull pounding head. Feeling the pain in my abs and my thudding headache I groaned. That Gorilla must have been playing Phil Collins' drums again. Except this time in my head! Damn that gorilla... damn them all to hell! As I got up and out of bed I looked up to see my New York Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt hanging on the door drying... the Statue of Liberty's face and torch facing me...

No paying, no gain

Sitting on the hammer press last night, in my gym, staring at Louise Redknapp's belly button, I began wondering, is it all worth it? All these people sweating and groaning in pain and hardship, some stressing themselves with dumbells or desperately trying to keep up with the moving tracks of the treadmill. Some on a quest for the perfect body and others, like myself, just after a bit of exercise and keeping in some sort of semi-toned shape? The advertisement poster of Louise Redknapp and her sports gear on the wall is obviously supposed to spur us all on to work as hard as we can, either that or just help sell her skimpy tops to anyone whose that easily led. But are all us gym members easily led? Is going to the gym the best way to keep fit? It's certainly a 'fashionable' thing to do these days, joining a gym though that's not the reason I did it. You do see some people who obviously did for that reason. I usually just trail into the gym with any old t-shirt and shorts on but you'd think, by a quick look around my gym, that some of the members think they're on some kind of machine strewn catwalk. Some of the girls come in with a face full of make-up, perfect hair styles and the most up-to-date in gymwear covered in logos of popular brands which all match meticulously, head to £200 trainer covered feet. Don't these girls realise they're going into the gym? A place where you supposed to tire and sweat? Don't they realise when they finish they'll all look like the melting wicked witch of the west? Their hair styles wirey and messed, the make up running down their faces and their top brand gear covered in body perspiration? That's if they do a proper work out of course. Some women go the gym to simply stand around and chat. They even have the cheek to tut at you if you excuse yourself as you pass them to get on to a machine which they are milling around as they talk about Debbie in the work. When they do get round to doing some exercise it usually doesn't stop them gassing. It always amazes me how two women can have an extrememly detailed conversation (probably about Debbie in the work) not taking their eyes off one another on adjacent treadmills rattling away at high speed. I need to concentrate on running in a straight line most of the time?! There's a wee woman in my gym who makes, let just say, "noises" on the treadmill or cross trainer. Now I know your supposed to feel good after a workout... but during? A treadmill has never made me make that kind of noise before. Another woman who attends my gym reminds me of Bet Gilroy from Coronation Street. She has a giant blonde, haircut and wears tiger skin leotards and always goes in with her giant bangles and necklaces on. I'm always surprised there is never a cigarette holder and am still listening to hear her call one of the gym attendants "cock". Some of the guys are just as bemusing with their growling demeanors and punching palm aggression. Some guys take it all way too seriously as they frown at themselves in the mirror whilst lifting the dumbells up and down, breathing loudly through their flaring nostrils. Some of them visually strain themselves with the weights they attempt eventually having to let them clatter to the ground, the noise echoing through the gym. It's only then the massive guys become sheepish edging away from the dropped weights in an effort to make it look like it was the small, puny guy working next to him (probably me). Honestly, some of the guys belong in the land of Mordor. Another thing, why do the gym attendants have to shout all the time? Talking to groups or taking classes is fair enough but when it comes to passing them in the corridor or in the gym sometimes they should take a sound check. Yes, the gym can be quite a loud place from time to time, but saying hello doesn't need to be heard by my Gran up the road. Still, at least they're friendly enough. They should be the amount you pay for being a member of these places nowadays. I can write and sit and complain about it but I still go three times a week, a glutton for punishment. It is a good place to keep fit and a good place to exercise. It wakens you up and invigorates you after a tiring day at work and hopefully does work in the fight against fat and heart disease. You could argue that a good run around the block would do the same but would you run around the block of your own accord everytime? Doubt it. For the moment I'm happy for my gym fee to force me fit. No pain, no gain, as they say (that pesky group called 'they' again, cuh!)