The long way up

My legs are a little achey today as yesterday Harry and myself climbed Ben Arthur, or the Cobbler, as it's most popularly known. A good walk, 884m (2946 ft) in height and and 5.5 miles in all, though it seems longer. Harry is the expert when it comes to the hillwalking having completed all the Munros south of Fort William, as well as walks in New Zealand and Sri Lanka to name a few. Unfortunately I am a mere amateur. The last time I was on the hills was around three years ago on Ben Vorlich. Harry led us into Arrochar in the morning, the small town that sits on Loch Long, and from the small car park at the foot of the hill we set off. Unfortunately for us it was a very grey, misty day and the clouds hung low over the peaks around Loch Long but the rain held off and the temperature remained pretty warm, with only a slight smir of rain in the air, making it a pleasant climb up the front side of the hill.

We took the harder route up over the rocks and burn descending on its southern side. The mist held fast though and the views and skyline were still completely cloaked at the top of the mountain. The rocks were also quite slippy so, once at the top, we had to opt out of 'threading the needle' which is involves crawling through a hole in the summit rock formation from the north side and climbing up on to the very highest peak, a metre length rock standing over a 100 ft drop. The rocks were just too slippy for any foolhardy attempts.

We rested at the foot of the needle and had our lunch talking with some fellow walkers, who were taking a break from Fir Park. After our short break, Harry led the way down the northern side of the mountain, not hitting the proper path until around a quarter of the way down. We passed many a walker on the way down, all following the walkers code of pleasantly greeting one another as we stomped along on our various routes to and fro. I was even surprised to meet someone I knew from back in the Auldhouse days when I worked behind the bar. Alastair was sitting rolling a cigarette, having a break with his son, his camera tripod sitting at his side. He was going up the hill to try and get some photos. On the trek I managed to get a few shots on the hillside myself but it was just unfortunate the views from the peak were mere cloud. I'll probably revisit it at some point in the near future and try and get a decent view next time (I'll be putting the rest of the photos I did take on reidnet's photo album shortly). As we descended it looked as if the mist was clearing a one point only for it to quickly drift over again and submerge the top half of the hill once more. Even though the views from the top were poor there's nothing quite like a good walk in the hills. It's strange to think that these hills, and fantastic landscapes, sit just an hour outside the chaotic city scenes of Glasgow and home.
In the evening Ka and myself headed to the Shawfield Stadium, for the first time, to the dog racing, and to meet up with Claire and Martin and the rest of the mad squad to celebrate Claire turning the big 3 - 0 . There was also the hope of maybe winning some money at the same time. Claire's brother, William, had hired her a wee surprise. After we arrived and hooked up with Cheryl, Roslyn and Aaron inside, Claire, Martin and some of the others turned up after a few glasses of champagne on the Scooby Doo Bus! All drinking champagne except the birthday girl, herself, of course, who is preggers. Scooby snacks have certainly changed since I last watched the cartoon. Needless to say some fun was had, but alas, Ka and myself were unlucky with all our bets and didn't win anything. Claire's Dad managed to win over fifty quid, Jane managed to win a good thirty pounds but our dogs were pipped at the post (or finishing line in this case) everytime. Can't win 'em all. We all had a good time though and enjoyed the night.

Jubilant scenes

Woohoo! Friday time again... at last. The weekend is almost here, and I'm skiving in work writing this. I've just had The Friday Scone with my tea after lunch. It's a tradition. We all chip in three pounds, once every eight weeks or so, and get The Friday Scone at the end of each week. Whoever's paying on that week, jumps into the office at nine o'clock on the friday morning and lifting their arms into the air shouts wildly, "The Scones are on me!". We reply by all cheering happily and run up, hoist the person up on to our shoulders and carry them to their seat in the office applauding. Or that's how it should be!
Not unlike a scene from Edinburgh from during the week, when Chris Hoy and his fellow Scottish athletes came home from the Olympics. Even though they done brilliantly in getting their golds, silvers and bronzes I bet the athletes are feeling more jubilant at the fact they've come back victorious when the British really didn't expect too much. The athletes went over to Beijing with the majority of British folk not really giving two hoots and came back with riotous crowds, medals weighing them down and MBEs. That'll maybe teach the British population to pay more attention next time instead of suddenly appreciating the Olympic Games, and our athletes, when things start going our way.

Be seeing you

AMC tv in conjunction with itv have started production on a new, modern day version of 'The Prisoner'. I think this is great news as the original sixties tv series was brilliant. An intelligent, weird, complicated science fiction reflecting much of the attitudes and occurences of what was happening at the time of production in the sixties. It will be interesting to see how the new story is told for today's audiences as the producers have said it is not a prequel, sequel or reimagining which means The Prisoner of the sixties is still very much in their thoughts. Jim Caviezel of 'Frequency' and 'The Passion of the Christ' is playing the new No.6 which the great Sir Ian McKellan as No.2 (which presumably means the character will not change in every episode as he did in the original sixties version). I wonder if Patrick McGoohan will get involved with the project? Maybe pop up as an 80 year old prisoner in the new Village.

Welcome to reality

Lazy day today with a hangover. Chaz was round for dinner last night and ended up staying till 4am. Ka served up melon for starters followed by a lovely pasta dish. Needless to say we had a few beers and a good laugh for the rest of the night. We switched on the tv around 1am and ended up watching some programme giving us 'through the keyhole' like guided tours of some 'famous' peoples' houses, most of which had some stunningly bad taste. Mostly footballers or ex pop stars. Most of them having more money than sense. Watching these programmes makes you grateful for what you have and thankful for not having the millions to squander which these supposed celebrities obviously do.
In my drousy wake of a hangover today I started reading Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. Written back in the fifties this is a great story of a future, hedonistic, suspicious society where book reading has been outlawed and any books found are burnt and destroyed. Books are thought to be the main contributors for giving the populace ideas and thusly becoming a threat to the control of society. The main protagonist is Guy Montag one of the firemen, or book burners, who starts reading in secret and starts getting ideas of his own. Not unlike Orwell's 1984 who also used themes of censorship, repression of society and the totalitarian regimes. Both using a sole, single character who is the outsider, the non conformist, who battles the state, at first privately, realising in themselves that there is something very wrong with their society and seemingly only they know.
I feel like that sometimes when I read the newspapers and watch the tv and only find flamin' reality tv. Newspaper headlines, articles, photos, channels that host the programmes, programmes about the programmes, programmes about the programmes that are about the programmes. What is it with all this Big Brother rubbish? Why has it been allowed to survive nine series? Why do people find watching these morons so entertaining? And now X-Factor is back. Gawd save us! Another fourteen weeks (or however long) of hell ahead! Maybe we should be burning our televisions and making television Big Brother illegal? Set up a secret police force that comes round and batters your door down if your caught watching it. Thrown in the back of a van and taken away to a giant rehabilitation centre. Sounds good to me!

Rivers in the Underbelly

After a generally lazy day yesterday, we went into Edinburgh last night for a few drinks and to see the crazy American lady that is Joan Rivers. After a few drinks in the grassmarket, including a visit to The Last Drop, we headed to the Underbelly under George IV bridge and the Central Library. The venue itself is a collection of dark, stone walled vaults conencted by spiral stairs and small, poster covered rooms leading into warm, dank, dungeon like rooms ending in a stage which serve as the main arenas. On the way up to the White Belly (the room where Rivers was appearing) I passed Glen Wool and Jimmy Carr on the spiral stairs. Wool we'd seen on his 10 minutes Comedy Gala stint on the Monday night. Rivers arrived from the back of the room, once we were all seated, her craggy, raspy voice immediately echoing throughout the vault as she handed out fans to people and got up on stage only to find her microphone stand fixed at the wrong height. Of course she immediately started complaining as she tried to loosen up the mike to bring it up a little higher and when she found she wasn't strong enough to unscrew it she then looked up at the audience gathered before her and asked for some help in the form of a big, strong...lesbian. From what I could see there were a few definite contenders in the audience but a big, burly man from Bognor Regis eventually got up to help her. She was a complete hoot for the whole hour. The time flew by. She was at her funniest when talking about her supposed life experiences including her recent walk on the Great Wall of Chine for Cancer Research, her dating disasters and her cynical approach to life in general. Really funny and great comedy entertainment from the supposed 75 year old. You can barely tell what age she is now! After another wee drink afterwards we headed out into the streets again to make our way back to the car (which seems to have recovered from its swimming lessons the other night). We walked through E4's Udderbelly and generally took in some of the great Fringe atmosphere which makes Edinburgh such a great, fun place to be at this time of year.

Comedy Gala and rivers

Having a great week this week as I'm not in work! Woohoo! No work, nilch, nada. Wake up, when I wake up, get up, when I get up, do whatever, when I decide what whatever happens to be at the time.
Yesterday included going out for brunch at the local and then heading into the country's capital to check out some of the Fringe and head for the Comedy Gala 2008 in aid of Waverly Care. This was a night in the city's Festival Theatre on Edinburgh's South Bridge Street. A great night of at least twenty comedians getting up on stage and giving either a taste of their own fringe show or just a general outburst of their usual stand up banter for approximately ten minutes each. Each with their own styles, outlooks and moralistic approaches to life the variety of talent made it top class entertainment from the likes of Michael McIntyre, Mark Watson, Jim Jeffries and so many others. McIntyre was the host for the first half of the night and possibly, for me, one of the most entertaining comedians of the lot. Sean Grant and Stephen K Amos were also a great hoot. Definately worth looking out for in the future if not tomorrow when we head back in to Edinburgh for more Fringe fun including an appointment with Joan Rivers at quarter to midnight. hey, the woman might be seventy odd but is still hilairious, or f***ing hilairious as I'm sure she'd put it (followed by a walking stick pulling her off the set of 'Loose Women' by the neck). Looking to head in around five for something else to take us up to the 'witching' hour though and hopefully it will not be p*ssing down with rain tomorrow.
Just before settling down to watch the stupid and fun Kung Fu Panda there we fought our way back to East Kilbride through torrential rain on roads that could be easily mistaken for rivers - and Ka was driving?! Sure, she's a skilled driver now (thanks largely to my Master like teaching) but I do not think she'd expected to be driving a glorified river rapid vehicle before she passed her test. The wee clio seemed to transform into Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on the back roads from Hamilton, swimming through the roads rather than driving. Unfortunately my hands were too busy gripping the side dash to be waving cheerily as any passers by. Unsurprisingly there were few passers by except in other struggling vehicles. The expressway was jam packed, probably due to flooding, so I instructed Ka to take the back road route from Hamilton over the small stoney bridge round the back of St Leonards. Unfortunately this is where the trouble began as each of the roads up to the bridge was a flow of gushing, swirling, flooding water as if ever river and stream surrounding EK had simultaneously burst its banks like some bad Pierce Brosnan disaster movie. However, just like some bad Pierce Brosnan disaster movie, we pressed on against all odds and survived finding the deepest water of all more or less on our doorstep, outside our street on Maxwellton Road. So deep infact the Clio managed to gain another wheel from somewhere as a wheel trim managed to get lodged in our underside. This created a worrying, grating noise, the origins of which of course, we did not know about at the time and made me wonder whether the Clios exhaust had left us and spun off down the Maxwellton river. When we finally came to a stop, with smoke drifting up from under the Clio's bonnet, I did manage to free the newly acquired wheel trim as water dribbled down onto me from the pipes and, (thankfully still attached) exhaust. A journey we hope not to repeat in any way going to and from Edinburgh after going to see a woman called Rivers!

Everything that happens will happen today

Everything that happens will happen today released online today. Sounds great - have a listen!

You can buy the whole album on the website here