Picnics, barbecues, beaches and tomatoes

My not insignificant forehead has been red raw this week and is only just recovering. For the first half of the week it felt like I'd had a particularly heavy injection of botox as I was finding it difficult to lift my eyebrows (and spending days on end with the inability to lift your eyebrows is most inconvenient – a look of surprise is misconstrued as a look on constipation).
The sun had once more got the better of me. After a day spent lounging about a beach on Elie harbour without any form of protection I suffered. I should know by now that even though the sun may not be obvious at times, it's still there. Quite often, as soon as I've set foot on a beach, be it Ibiza, Lanzarote or Largs, I’ve turned a violent shade of red.
The family, or in this case, families, were all gathering in the Fife coastal town of Elie for a beach barbeque. My Aunt Anne had arranged it with the extended family of my Granpa Reid’s sister’s, my Great Aunt Nan’s, side as, unfortunately, we only ever seem to really see each other when somebody dies. Anne had got talking with a few of her cousins at the last funeral, my Aunt Maureen’s, and had decided enough was enough. She was determined to bring the two families together for something that wasn’t a death.
So Dad, Mum, Lynsey Ann, Ka and myself all jumped into Dad’s citroen on the Saturday, and travelled up to Leven, and to the Caledonia Hotel, a half hour drive from where we were headed the next day. We arrived at around half past eleven and, as check-in wasn't until after one, we decided to take our picnic, organised and provided by Mum and Ka, down to the waterfront. Unfortunately the weather wasn't up to much and as soon as we climbed down the large stone steps on to Leven's short sand beach, the rain started to fall.
Not just normal rain though.
This was large, big, splodgy dollops of rain which made a fantastic attempt at soaking us before we ran for shelter, cowering under the shelter of a large tree, we'd spotted earlier, back up towards the streets, alongside some park benches. As the rain eventually lightened, Mum and Ka quickly started preparing the tea, coffees and sandwiches, the Firth of Forth stretched out before us under the continuously moving clouds.
After our lunch, we decided to take a wee walk around the seaside town.
It didn't take very long.
We walked up on to the rather neglected looking High Street, not even paying any attention to the decorative signposts which pointed the way to the town's various hotspots. Not that there was much in the way of hotspots.
The bigger hotspots consisted of the local Lidl, which stood opposite our hotel for the night and served as our picturesque view from our hotel window. An indoor swimming pool stood lay, across the road from the bus station, at the end of the short High Street. A Sainsbury's sat across the road from that. There was an Arcade amusement shop, a bounteous amount of charity shops and a few pubs.
My Dad and I left the women in a wool shop and wandered further up the street and came across and slightly more curious looking little shop which displayed examples of it’s wares in it’s window. World war helmets, military caps, uniforms, nazi war medals, gas masks and beer flagons were just a few of the collections adorning the shelves and walls of this particular shop all leading you into a false sense of security as you ventured forth into the back of the shop and found a bog standard second hand book shop. Dad bought some Michael Connelly books for a pound each (cheaper than the charity shops) before we headed back down the street to find the women in the hotel buying in the drinks.
Following check in, during which we checked over our basic, but clean, rooms admired the view of the local Lidl and unpacked our small cases of belongings, we headed out to Crail to meet up with Tom, Linda and the just arrived Jim who had driven all the way up from London. We arrived at Tom and Linda’s camper van just in time to see Cavendish and his team get beat in the Olympics cycling road race and decided to head up to Crail’s Main street and a pint in the Golf Hotel where Anne and Ian caught up with us and Mum noised up the barman for not delivering Ka’s coffee.
We headed back to Leven for the remainder of the evening, driving through the pouring rain, which seemed to suddenly only exist outside of Crail, and enjoyed dinner with Anne and Ian in the Caledonia, where the waitresses had neglected to book our table and then nearly forgot to take our dessert orders.
With the rain finally giving itself a break, we took a short walk afterwards, ending up in one of the pubs we’d passed on our walk earlier in the day. Now it was a little livelier and the Saturday night entertainment was in full swing with the pub’s DJ and karaoke machine. The karaoke only made up half of the entertainment though as we were introduced to the lively residents of Leven’s Molly Malones. Most of the singers were awful, successfully destroying perfectly good songs. One of the guys, who would probably have ate himself if he had been chocolate, could barely sing the last three words of each screen, struggling to keep up with the colouring text. A few girls attempted Lady Gaga and the like whilst one of the biggest karaoke stars of the night turned out to be a lady called Margaret.
At least we think she was a lady.
Usually Margaret is a lady’s name so we opted for the female option. This ‘lady’ would strut up to the microphone in her suit jacket and belt out the hits with a deep, but not completely tuneless voice, and was overjoyed to hear the cheers from Mum and Anne following her various song interpretations. Insinuations were even made the next morning about Mum getting a few heavy winks from Margaret.
After a quick drive across the road to Lidl, where we packed a couple of boxes full of chicken, burgers, ribs and wings along with wine, juice and a couple of large bottles of water for the beach feast we headed out to Elie.
Arriving at Ruby beach, Sarah Jane turned up with Yvie, Christopher and Daniel before Anne and Ian drove up and met us where it was decided we should change location and we settled down on a small section of beach in a rocky alcove on a southern point of Elie harbour.
The sun was out but the wind was strong as we started setting up camp. Tom kitted me out with some shorts and a pair of spiky soled sandles as I’d left the shorts at home not expecting much from the Scottish coastal weather, much to Tom and my Dad’s disbelief. Earlier, on the Saturday, Dad almost swerved off the road with incredulity when I told him that I’d not brought any shorts.
Anyway, tents were built (and never used), barbecues were laid out ready for use, canoes were blown up, windbreakers were erected and a couple of castles were built as the family gathered to meet the more distant, extended family. Granpa Reid’s sister, my 87 year old Great Aunt Nan, soon appeared on son-in-law Stanley’s arm, the majority of her family, all following soon after.
Considering I only see these distant relations briefly at funerals I still find myself getting names mixed up, if I can even remember the names in the first place. There were a number of occasions on Sunday when I had to ask reminders from Mum, quietly and subtly whenever I think none of them are looking. There was Paul married to young Nan, Joan married to Stanley, Allison married to Ken, Kathryn married to Vince, Claire married to… Paul… I think it was Paul. Gawd, see, there I’ve started forgetting the names already?!
Anyway, on the day mixing up the names and relations didn’t get in the way of the food. Before long the BBQ’s were lit, the cans were cracked open, the wine unscrewed (we realised in Lidl that we had no bottle opener) and Linda’s trifle was out whilst the sun shone down, the strong wind succeeding in fooling us into being cool, whilst the occasional shower pestered us from time to time.
In all there was probably around 35 folk crowded round that small piece of beach before some of the blokes disappeared off to the Ship Inn for a pint, or to see the hanging baskets, as some were claiming, and to watch the game of cricket taking place further along beach. Apparently Elie’s hanging baskets are lovely at this time of year, I suspect they’re even lovelier when there’s a pint or two involved.
Unfortunately for me I made the unwise decision to stay on the beach and get merry with the wine, my Dad only realising later that we could well have been breaking the law.
It wasn’t until I got back into the back seat of the citroen at the end of the day, after returning the shorts to Tom and spending around an hour saying goodbye to people, that Mum turned a fetching shade of scarlet, Dad got dizzy and tripped over a wall, Lynsey Ann started to feel a little drowsy and my whole head started buzzing with heat. It wasn’t until the next morning when I awoke that I realised I could no longer look surprised, let the water from my shower hit my head or dry my hair or head without screaming in pain. I walked into the office with a head resembling a expertly polished tomato. Now, a couple of days later, and after copious amounts of after sun cream, that tomato is now peeling.

Detective thrillers and the Death Star

So, how are they going to explain that one?
Sorry, no, I'm not talking about how a cruise ship ran aground killing more than six people and endangering more than 4,000 people with confused and delayed evacuation procedures.
Is giving the locals of Giglio a good view of the massive ship, considered a good explanation?
I'm quite sure the cruise ship spotting locals didn't particularly want the £62 million view they got.
I was also looking forward to Labour MP Tom Harris' explanation regarding his little Hitler video. He used scenes from the german film 'Downfall', about Hitler's last days, and replaced the dictator's voice with that of Alex Salmond. Hilairious.
Also why was Ricky Gervais hired to host the Golden Globes again and then completely tame himself down after his blistering performance at last year's awards ceremony. Disappointing.
And can someone also explain to me why I should be watching 'Downton Abbey'? It seems to be winning prizes and praise everywhere but, from what I can tell, it just looks like a Sunday night mash up of 'Upstairs Downstairs' and 'Heartbeat'.
I spent Sunday night watching the brilliant last episode of the BBC's latest, ridiculously short, second series of 'Sherlock'. Thankfully, the story was far superior to last week's, rather silly, modernisation of 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' (involving factories, toxix gas, and glow in the dark rabbits) and got straight down to the nitty gritty with the re-emergence of Moriarty, Sherlock's nemesis, who, in this series, is a small skinny, psychopathic, maniacal of a man, desperate to bring the detective down in a frenzy of publicity (presumably another meaning for the 'Fall' in the title).

The episode was clever and tense with the three main players keeping you hooked all the way to the bitter, but then debatable end. The build up and the final moments were all brilliantly done and superbly acted by Cumberbatch and Freeman, the two showing just how perfect they are for the two roles. Of course, we all know how the original, 'Final Problem' ended. The question was, how were Moffat and co going to portray it, in this modern day take and how the devil are they going to explain it?
I have a theory... it's a bit far fetched, but then, any explanation Moffat comes up with will have to be.
Speaking of mysteries, Ka and myself seen David Fincher's excellent retelling of 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' on Saturday. Dark, gritty, tense and thrilling with the occasional moment of awkwardness, violence and discomfort. Everything that makes Fincher, one of my favourite directors, tick.

Daniel Craig is great as the worn out, ground down journalist, Blomkvist, but it is Rooney Mara that steals the show as the awkward, introverted but fantastically intelligent Lisbeth Salander. When the 'hollywood' version of the story was announced it seemed strange and way too soon after Niels Arden Oplev’s original, which I haven't seen yet. Cinema 'purists' will probably moan, stick their nose up or complain that the original, foreign, movie should be the only version to see. Ask them if they've read the book though. Once they've read the book, they can kid on to be purists.
With Steig Larsson's book Fincher makes a pretty damn good thriller and definately one worth checking out, whether you're familiar with the story or not, though some scenes may be a bit much for the faint hearted.
As are some of the scenes in 'Celebrity Juice'.
On Sunday, Sarah and Brian had the family round for a buffet lunch and my Aunt Anne was asking why Keith Lemon, the host of the rude tv show, continually wore a bandage on his right hand. Sarah couldn't bring herself to explain and simply told her Mum and Dad to not watch it in future.
Whilst we all chatted and caught up in the living room Brian spent the majority of his time in the kitchen, making all the teas and coffees whilst keeping an eye on his samosas, pakora, pizzas and mini steak pies. A great way to hide from the in-law's and the extended family. For pudding Mum had brought, possibly, the biggest sponge cake known to man and Linda had brought her traditional trifle, both of which I had to have a portion of, though I wish I'd kept the cake until later.
When the buffet was first put out I found myself having a bit of a geek moment upon entering the front room to get my first helping.
Standing alongside the front window, on a bookcase at the end of the buffet table, stood the unmistakable forms of the Empire's Death Star. The four legged, tank like, AT-AT stood menacingly, alongside it. Both were in Lego form, intricately detailed with all the features you'd expect, or any sad Star Wars fan would expect anyway.

The Lego Death Star is built in a cross section like formation housing many sets and scenes from the original movie including the hangar bay with parked TIE fighter, the detention block, from which Princess Leia was rescued, and the tractor beam controls, where a small Lego Obi Wan Kenobi stands with his light saber. It even has the trash compactor unit, with closing walls, which adjoins the detention block by way of a small trap door. If I hadn't had to socialise yesterday I would have quite happily stood and admired the Lego set's fantastic detail, although, after a quick look online, I've discovered it is now going for the princely sum of £400.
The At-At was pretty impressive too - my Mum and Dad immeditely recognising it was one of the large toys that still sits in their loft alongside the X-Wing, Slave-1 and the Millenium Falcon.
My Mum still makes the occasional comment regarding the large amount of stuff I have which makes up a good portion of the contents of her loft. Ka occasioanlly threatens to take all the old Kenner Star Wars figures, ships and accessories off to her nursery in an attempt to wind me up.
That would just be dispicable of her though, and she knows it.
Can you imagine the carnage caused by the ravenous little three year old rogues Ka teaches in her class? There would be bashes, cracks, snaps, crushings, dismemberments, beheadings, not to mention a healthy dose of painted, bruised and crayoned faces. It makes me shudder just thinking about it. The toys would be safer getting sent to the Spice Mines of Kessel and smashed into who knows what!
Mum looks forward to the day when Ka and myself will eventually get a loft, or some form of bigger and better storage cupboard in a new, different house. One day Ka and myself will be having our first dinner in our brand new house and there'll be a knock on the front door. I'll pull open the door to find no one waiting, only a large pile of boxes with a small note attached.
"At last!", it'll read.
Brian may have all the fancy, up-to-date Star Wars Lego kits, but at least I've still got all the original toys.
If I was to sell them on ebay I may even make some money!
I wonder if I could afford the Lego Death Star then? I'm not sure I'd be able to explain why I spent £400 on a large piece of lego.
I'd give it a shot though.

Christening, Cluedo, tablets and Jobs

Yesterday, the family gathered in St. Josephs church in Stepps once more where my Cousin Sarah's third child was baptized. Sarah Jane and Brian looked on happily as baby Daniel was baptized with a little help from Yvie, Daniel's older sister, who held the small pot of oil up for the priest. Christopher, his older brother, was also asked but he preferred to sit behind with his Granpa.
Once more the priest of St. Josephs church started giving us his Star Wars talk about the light side and the dark side, just as he had done at Christopher's baptism, reminding us all how easy it is to slip into the dark side like Darth Vader.
“You mean Anakin Skywalker” I muttered under my breath, correcting the priest once more.
Back at the hotel afterwards Daniel jumped about happily in his parents arms, kicking his legs up and around as gathered relations took some photos of the happy, growing, family. We all enjoyed a soft drink whilst awaiting the tea and trying to get some food from the giant buffet of which only egg sandwiches were left by the time I got to the front of the queue. Uncle Tom after complaining about the visibility of my collar button also decided to retie my tie recommending a windsor knot.
On returning home Ka and myself found ourselves a little depressed for obvious reasons. Uncle Tom had advised going out for a run. The best cure for clearing the head. Usually I'd absolutely agree but Ka and myself were not in the jogging mood yesterday.
Instead we sat, like couch potatoes, bored, watching another dreadful bunch of 'Come Dine with Me' episodes, showcasing another bunch of dreadful people, making dreadful meals in each others' dreadful homes.
The kind of dinner parties that you wish turned into a murder mystery where the diners would get knocked off one by one, leaving only the show's one redeeming character, the commentator.
As a desperate effort to cheer the two of us up, I even suggested a game of Cluedo which was quickly and unequivocally refused by Ka. Besides, Colin and Jillian were not about and we seem to only play board games when they’re about these days.
I'd been playing Cluedo (or Clue, as it's known in America) last weekend in Ka's hairdressing salon. Bored waiting on Ka who sat perched on her usual chair, Alan, Ka's hairdresser and sole employee of the 'Nutters' female hairdressing salon, gave me his iPad to toy with. He uses it as a design tool now. A portable gallery of female haircuts for all his clients to mull over. Fortunately Ka was the last client to be finished so I had the waiting area to myself and didn't have the usual array of eyeballs looking me up and down as I awaited the wife.
With the iPad on my lap, Alan snapped an unexpected picture of my mug through the Photobooth app and planted it on the shoulders of a chubby dwarf in a vest and beret, smoking a cigar. He found it hilarious. Not sure why.
Alan then proceeded to show me his gallery of customers which he'd snapped and put on to a vast assortment of bodies, creating a hideous gallery of freaks and unfortunates, all with hair in varying states of disrepair. To be honest, most of them didn't need much modifying in an effort to be scary looking.
After Alan rushed off to get on with the final stages of Ka's hairstyling, I loaded up the Cluedo game and had my first shot on the iPad, failing to get used to the touchscreen control. I only had enough time for the introductory level of the game, deducting the murderer to be Ms. Scarlett with the razor blade in the study.
Cluedo's changed since I last played it, that's for sure.

Razor blades? What happened to the lead piping and the candlestick? In stead of Ms. Scarlett giving someone a quick bang over the head, she's now waiting in a darkened study, jumping out behind the victim and running a razor blade through his throat. Reverend Green, who, incidentally, now looks like Shaft, would be shocked and disgusted.
I've fancied an iPad for some time. The sleek design, the multi-touch display with it's sliding app icons, it's ease of use, zooming in and out from screen views, the onscreen keyboard. Fantastic stuff, but I just can't justify spending that amount of money when I have a perfectly good iMac at home and an iPod hooked to my ears.
The death of Steve Jobs during the week was a great shame. He has always been a bit of a hero in my book. Here was a guy with no degree, a college drop out, and he became not only one of the world’s richest men but one of it’s most influential.
Jobs revolutionised the computer and in doing so, the world, and our everyday lives. He transformed the computer into a stylised, sleak, platform which communicates, collects, informs, reminds, entertains and has the ability to almost organise and run a life on it's own. It was his ideas and creations that inspired the countless other remakes released by other computing manufacturers. Touch screen computers, or tablets (I love tablet... Mum made great tablet...) are now part of the mass market, something I just couldn’t possibly imagine when I was sitting shooting my Sinclair ZX Spectrum’s gun at the living room tv in the late eighties. Steve Jobs put our whole record collection on a slim, pocket sized, 8cm long slip of plastic for gawds sake!
I don’t think it’s an understatement to say that Jobs, and Apple, transformed the world. Okay, Jobs didn’t single handedly create this computer revolution but he was certainly a significant driving force. Jobs was a crazy, stubborn, idea fuelled inventor who appreciated the style as well as the substance. The machine’s Apple produced only a few years back are already considered classics – a testament to how the world seems to be on fast forward all of a sudden. Technology is speeding forwards at every moment, the rest of the world struggling to keep up, and Jobs had been at the forefront.
The question is, with Jobs now gone will apple remain at the forefront?
Will there be an iPad 3?
How much further can the tablet be developed?
And will Mum ever make any more?

Ongoing birthdays

Off to London tomorrow to see the Queen. Well, not really to see the Queen but hey, you never know. Ka and myself are catching an early train and heading down to Kings Cross, staying two nights on Primrose Hill and heading to the theatre on Tuesday night to see a bunch of singing Witches in the West End musical, Wicked. All part of Ka's ongoing birthday. Let's hope they're no problems with the seating on the train journey considering the continuing travel chaos caused by the clouds of volcanic ash disturbing the European skies.
The family were at Brian's 40th last night in the Crowwood Hotel just outside Stepps. The birthday boy himself almost never made his own party as when the Greenland volcano decided to erupt, Brian was in Munich on a business trip. With at least two trains, a ferry, a cab and finishing with a lift from his Dad he managed to arrive home just in time, much to the relief of his wife, and my cousin, Sarah. One things for sure he would have slept last night. While Brian managed to stay awake the family all had a good time catching up over some drinks, talking houses, walks, photos, dating agencies and how many helium balloons it would take to make a stuffed cat fly. As it turned out, Kenny, in an effort to entertain the younger cousins, Lauren and Megan, didn't quite manage to collect enough balloons to help the cat fly but at least it still had more chance than a British Airways plane.

Gate crashers, kilts and christenings

A busy weekend there with some parties and a long awaited shopping trip. The weekend kicked off with a birthday party. Happy Birthday Uncle Tommy who hit the grand age of 50 on Friday (well, his party was on Friday anyway). Family and friends gathered at the Rolls Royce Club in EK to celebrate and to help raise some funds for the local hospital. A good night was had by all as we enjoyed the food and music with the credit crunch defying bar prices. There was over ten of us at the Reid tables and the drink prices were coming in at approximately 15 quid a round. Fantastic. You'd probably pay at least 15 for five drinks in Glasgow. No wonder Rolls Royce is making hundreds redundant - they should maybe think about upping their club bar prices. It was down to the women to rescue the dancefloor again. A gate crasher from Kenny's work turned up with a girl in tow, drunk and, worse than that, dancing willingly. Trust the gate crasher to put us blokes to shame. So, as we neared the end of the night a good bunch of us ended up doing the Macarena. I say "us" because embarassingly, for some Jack Daniels fuelled reason, I ended up shaking my hips to the awful spaniards, the surrounding Aunties, alonside Ka, Chris and Martin, showing me how it was done. As far as I can remember the dance moves were extremely similar to The Time Warp, in fact, it was a blatant rip off. Richard O'Brien should sue! However, it has been a while since I have done the Time Warp so don't quote me on that...Why is it you always end up getting up and doing these embarassing dances with Aunties? When you Mum asks you to dance you give her a firm and definite NO. One which may or may not come in the form of two words but when it is an Auntie you somehow struggle to give the same response. It is as if your conscience is unable to give an Auntie a negative response. There is something in the programming that conflicts and after a short mind battle, short circuits and results in a tired "okay then".
After saying our goodbyes to Tommy and Tricia we left the party to walk straight into a small crowd at the car park exit. The gate crasher was busy insulting a passing girl's diet plan and, as a result, was causing a bit of a raucous. Ka tried to calm the girl down and usher her on but unfortunately the bloke kept persisting with his idiocy. As Dad finally managed to pull Ka, Kenneth and myself from the crowd people started hitting off the temporary metal work fence, erected around the car park, like vertical trampolines. Shortly afterwards, the numbskull that started it all dived into a waiting car and sped off into the night, not before stopping at the side of the road and offering Kenny a lift. Thankfully, Kenny declined and Mum piled us into the car and drove us all home.
The next day was the long awaited kilt hunting. Sprung out of bed, with a rather surprising springiness considering the Jack Daniels from the night before, and wolved down a bacon roll, pulled on some clothes and jumped on a bus for Renfield Street. It was kilt day and time to bite the bullet. Generally not comfortable in kilts I had been kind of dreading the kilt day but, as it turned out, did not have much to worry about. Met Dougie and Colin at Slanj in St Vincent Street, a kilt hire place that, as we found out, only hires out a vast selection of 4 grey tartan kilts. Disappointing. Just as disappointing as the rubbish service we did not really get in the place. After Kenny arrived we headed out, disappointed and a little pessimistic, and headed straight for Moss Brothers on Renfield Street where Dad caught up with us, disconcertingly sneaking up behind up us as we were talking to the tailor. Unlike Slanj, the tailor in Moss Brothers went straight to work with his measuring tape and kitted us out in the full gear disappearing through a small doorway in the corner occasionally and reappearing almost instantly through the same door with kilts, jackets and shoes, hindered only by our over pondering of shoe sizes. Anyway, after the kilts were booked up Dad, Kenny and I went, yep, you guessed it, to the pub where we had a few pints and a spectacular pub lunch watching Scotland beat Italy.
The next day it was out and about again, only this time to the christening of my cousin Sarah's little boy, Christopher. It was good to catch up with some of the other family members after the service where the priest talked in detail about the light and the dark in religion and the rejection of evil drawing comparisons with the Star Wars movies. Darth Vader, of course, being the devil incarnate. Even though I had drawn similar comparisons many moons ago I did wonder if this was the first time I had heard the dreaded name Darth Vader in a chapel before. Now the priests are using the the texts of George Lucas in their sermons. I always knew Star Wars was worth watching.

A family thing

Went to a few exhibitions on Saturday. First off I went to the Glasgow Print studio to check out part of the 2 venue exhibition on Steven Campbell's work. The Rutherglen artist who was known as one of 'the New Glasgow Boys' died of a ruptured appendix in August there and this exhibition showcases the best of his work. Colourful, weird, crazy and brilliant. A Scottish talent that will be a big loss to the Art world.
Afterwards I headed up to the CCA and the 'Alt-w: New Directions in Scottish Digital Culture' an interactive exhibition about the digital media involving video, computer and photographs. A small, interesting exhibition with slightly complicated exhibits which involved spending some time over. Time, which, I did not have a lot of.
Ka and myself went to Stepps yesterday to meet the newborn Christopher Miller. He was just as a baby should be. Quiet. We were there for about two hours and he slept the whole time and only woke as we were leaving. I suspect he just didn't want to socialise with us. Sarah, Brian and Yvie are all well and treated us to a Blue Ribband and tea.
Started looking into the family tree last Thursday with my Gran Reid. Came into work this morning and it turns out JP has started on his over the weekend too. My Gran let me borrow a load of old family photographs to scan of her family, from her own childhood growing up with my Great Aunt Mina and her brothers. Turns out my Great Great Grandfather is called McGuire and came over from Ireland at the turn of the century, around 1900 time. Will have to find dates though. So I don't actually have Pollock blood, it's actually McGuire blood. It's amazing how you get hooked on it all.

Congratulations and well dones

Glasgow city centre was a hive of activity early Sunday morning as the Glasgow Half Marathon and 10K races took to the streets. My brother Kenny was running the half marathon after weeks of intensive training or so he should have been. He was claiming he'd done very little training whatsoever. Not that he needs training, he's still as skinny as a whippet. With or without training he managed a brilliant time of 1 hour and 48 minutes. Stunning. 13 miles non stop. He also raised a very healthy amount for The National Autistic Society so well done Kenny and congratulations!
Congrats should also go to Sarah, Brian and Yvie who gained a new family member at the weekend. Christopher Miller was born on Saturday. Welcome to the world, Christopher!