Riveting chili

A Monday away from the office. Lovely. Pretty productive too with a bacon sarny, a visit to the local DIY megastore, a trip to the local supermarket, a painted door, a game of hide 'n' seek with the niece, the cooking and eating of a fantastic chili con carne, a mini cupboard clearout, another episode of 'Heroes' (though that was once again disappointing), some internet camera shopping and now a quick write in the Journal. I wonder how the office is coping without me... pretty normally I would guess. though there won't be anyone to do the Slaters. That should pee one or two folk off a little but give Felix something enjoyable to do. Felix, the line manager, seems to enjoy handing out absent folks' work to others. I suspect he likes the look of annoyance on some peoples' faces when they get handed a five page advert to do because someone else is off either sunning themselves or being ill (or both with the second being used as an excuse for the first!).
Jeez, I'm off work for the week and what am I writing about in my Journal? Work! Then again, I suppose it is better that than writing about the now freshly coated kitchen door or the fantastic chili con carne I produced. Not exactly riveting stuff.
Remember that Irn-Bru ripp off? Rivets? It was just like Irn-Bru except even sweeter and even more disgusting to drink. I'm assuming it no longer exists, but I could be wrong. It may have disappeared off the supermarket shelves when I was working down south for those 3 and a half years... It was probably discontinued due to health and safety. The ridiculous amount of sugar warnings or something.
Anyway, where was I? Yes, the chili con carne is fast becoming a bit of a Michael Reid speciality. Today I used real chili peppers as well as chili powder. It gave it a good kick. A right good kicking actually - the kind you'd get after insulting someones mother except here it would be in good taste. Made even better with a sprinkling of grated cheese and some pitta breads picked up from the bargain bakery trolley which only cost me 20p for the six of them. 20p?! Can you believe it. The deals you find on those bargain bakery trolleys are great sometimes. Though sometimes you've got to wrestle your way into it. Elbowing the little old ladies out the way etc. Not today though! Made that visit to the supermarket worthwhile. In fact, it made the whole day worthwhile!

Future trips

Our honeymoon has now been booked. Woohoo! A week in Italy. Four days in the capital, Rome, followed by three days in the City of Water itself, Venice. Aeroplanes, taxis, water buses, speed boats and gondolas all included to ensure a pleasant, organised and safe journey. Okay, maybe not the gondolas (apparently they cost a fortune nowadays). Time to get the Lonely planet books out again! Brush up on the old Roman history before we head out. Of course, the trip wont be all museums and sightseeing but I'm sure we'll do some walking over there. Unlike Brussels, where I'm heading for the stag weekend. Kenny has organised the stag weekend with Dad and Jim and we'll be heading down to Belgium in mid June. Again, that should be fun though I very much doubt I'll end up remembering much of it! Kenny, Colin McG, Chaz, James, Colin Main (hopefully!), Dad and Jim will be heading out there with me. David, the boss in the work, was quite impressed with the idea of the stag, congratulating Kenny on his great choice. Apparently it has some brilliant pubs which he has experienced first hand on more than one football trip. Again, I cannot say I know a great deal about Brussels, and I'm certainly not sure I'll learn a great deal more. Kenny has warned me he will not be organising any Museum or Art gallery trips so I'll be on my own there.

Pierce Brosnan singing and Italian arse pinchers

Friday again and the week has sped by in time for another weekend. Forgot to mention my mother's birthday on the blog which was on Tuesday. Working late I was unable to get up to Chapelton to see her but we all had dinner together on the Sunday night with Gran, which also encompassed the commercial Mothers Day, so we hit two birds with the one stone there (the phrase - we were not literally throwing stones at the elder women around the dining table). Ka and myself bought her that dreadful looking Mamma Mia film on DVD and the new DVD/CD collection from the great Annie Lennox. I'm sure the Mamma Mia film is not that dreadful - it just looks it. When it was originally released last year I suspect ever woman in Britain trooped out to see it as it had to be in the cinema for months. There was even a sing-a-long version released a month after the original, enticing the same women to go back out and see it all over again, filling cinemas all over the land with screeching housewives. The Reid women themselves all went for my Aunt Linda's birthday which is when my mother first seen it. Ka was invited but opted to go with her Mum and neice instead. Not a fan of Abba or Pierce Brosnan, Ka had not been keen up until then. What's worse than Pierce Brosnan? Pierce Brosnan singing! To Abba?! No thank you very much. Maybe it was the whole Colin Firth thing too? Women seem to have a thing for Colin Firth? Still insisting on calling him Mr Darcy and talking suddenly like they're out of breath? The swedish actor, Stellan Skarsgard was the third possible Dad in the film. The third Dad? As far as I know the plot revolves around Meryl Streep's daughter getting married and three Dads being at the wedding. The Meryl Streep Mum was obviously a bit of a tart in her younger days and she does not know which one is her daughter's father and invited all three former lovers along to be safe (being safe obviously not something she was used to 20 years ago). Anyway, all this takes place on some wonderful looking greek island. The beautiful shots of the idyllic Greek town ruined only by the processions of women waving their washing around their heads.
Talking of foreign destinations Ka and myself still have to sort out our honeymoon. We've got some vague ideas about Italy but nothing wholly decided yet. We did quite fancy Venice with romantic notions of journeys on candle lit godolas passing under the many beautiful buildings and bridges, singing about ice cream. As long as we avoid any dwarves in red raincoats we should be alright. Rome is also a place we'd be keen to visit with it's spectacular architecture. Apparently there's more to do in Rome too so we may end up visiting the two of them. On the phone to my Aunt Ann, down in London, the other week she did warn us of the Italian men. Apparently they have a habit of arse pinching. She told us her bottom was red raw by the time she got home from Italy. Not sure what areas of Rome she was staying in or when she was over there but I'm sure the arse pinching is probably no longer accepted as etiquette. I suspect I would be safe from the arse pinchers anyway. Florence, in the Tuscany region, has also been recommended to us, again with it's rich assets in architecture, art and its history with the Renaissance. My other Aunt Anne (or Mad Auntie Anne, as she was known to my mates - not that the other Aunt Ann is not mad but for some reason this particular Aunt Anne has been labelled for life!) and Uncle Ian are continuously raving about Florence as they have spent more than one new year there. Both Ka and myself have never been to Italy at all so it should be great wherever we end up.

A final burning place

Well, I think I've found the aforementioned wheelie bins. In a clearing further into the forest, around forty metres beyond the entrance to the allotment, the trees thin out and five or six burnt circles of ground lie at different spaces throughout. Lying between the high fences of one side of the allotment and the high fences of the back end of a sewage works lies this, the hoodies, secret night time getaway. Walking the path down to the area, it was immediately apparent this was our bins final journey. Ka's empty Morrisons' passata boxes from her most recent batch of meatballs lay at one side of the path, wet, soggy and adandoned. Collapsed trunks and tree roots lie over the leafy floor in and around their bonfire remains. Small piles of thick melted blue plastic, the blackened remains of old newspapers, magazines and plastic containers all dotted around the black cinders and ashes. One lone wheelie bin wheel protruding from one pile. The bone like remnants of the streets' waste disposal units. So my idealistic visions of jumping in to a major bin smuggling operation have disintegrated some what. Apparently some folk nick these bins to sell them on. Apparently the cost can be as much as £60?! Makes me even angrier that the bins are now mouldy, misshapen blobs of plastic. I could have nicked the bins myself and made some money out of it?!

The case of the blue wheelie bins

I've been dreaming of wheelie bins for the past two nights. Recently our neighbourhood has been terrorised by the return of the bin nickers. A while back, before Christmas, all the wheelie bins for our block of flats, disappeared overnight resulting in me having to phone the Council for replacements. Now, once again, it is happening again. A number of our blue, recycling, wheelie bins went missing over the weekend there and on returning home from work, late on Monday, I found an attempt had been made on our three remaining bins. Disturbed in some way in mid theft, the robbers had abandoned the bins half way down the street. After retrieving the bins I had no other option but to bring them inside to our close and store them there. It was then I decided to investigate. I walked down to the bottom of the street, in the general direction the robbers had been heading, and into the dark entrance to the Calderglen forest. On entering the forest you first meet the gate to the local allotment before the path veers down the hill to the right, through the trees. It was here, at the allotment entrance, that I found my first clues. An empty milk carton and an empty cardboard hankie box. Not much in the way of clues, you may think, but they were our milk carton and hankie box, along with other extraneous recyclable rubbish from our bin that had been nicked over the weekend, lying in a heap of debris at the allotment gate. Could it be that an allotment member was nicking our bins in order to create a new manure pot or compost heap?
On Monday night I dreamt of a Fastasia like extravaganza with wheelie bins marching in procession, shuffling along a giant arch, singing in a low, monotone voice, by opening and closing their lids. Streams of water flowing up and around them against a navy blue, cartoon like, background.
"Wheelie bins...dun dun dun, wheelie bins...dun, dun dun, wheelie bins...dun, dun, dun"
On Tuesday morning I took another stroll down to the allotment before work. Fortunately I was able to gain access as a keen gardener had already arrived and left the gate open. Making my way inside I started looking around for any signs of rogue recycling bins but was almost immediately disturbed by someone poking their head over an old fence, further up into the allotment, beadily eyeing me suspiciously. Realising this had to be the chap who left the gate open, I made my way up to him, greeting him a cheery good morning. Now, I don't know why I did this but instead of telling the true reasons as to why I was sneaking around an allotment I was suddenly telling the man how I was a keen gardener and was interested in obtaning one of the plots of land. He told me a Councillor named Jim Fowler was the person to talk to (not Arfur). So I asked my new found fellow horticulturist if I could I have a quick walk around the allotment, to which he hesitantly agreed and I had a good look about only finding one clean, blue bin. No sign of all the other numbered bins that had been nicked from us out in the street. As I walked back down towards the gate to leave, the same gardener stepped out infront of me and offered to walk me out. His suspicions must have been raised somehow and my own suspicions settled. The bin thieving was not an allotment operation.
Once again, the robbers struck last night. Being at work I managed to get the low down from Ka on my return. A couple of guys in hoods had managed to get one of our bins from inside our close and another from one of the other blocks. The hoods then disappeared into the trees at the same dead end of the street that leads into the entrance to the allotment and the depths of Calderglen Park. Approximately five minutes later a fire engine roared down the street and, sure enough, skidded to a halt at the dead end, it's incumbents jumping out and getting to work. Ka and Chris (who was visiting for a coffee at the time) questioned one of the firemen to see if there was any sign of the wheelie bins but the fireman only gave a short, irritable response and got on with his work. Unfortunately it must be the same old story. Neds. The hoodies are nicking our recycling and burning them along with the wheelie bins. Why? What kind of deprived, boring lives must these guys lead to find this kind of behaviour entertaining? Even at a young age what do these guys find appealing about nicking peoples wheelie bins. Perhaps we should be grateful it is only the wheelie bins and nothing more... but then maybe that is just a matter of time.

Weird Watchmen

Seen the movie Watchmen on Wednesday night. A very odd but interesting movie which was generally good but with the usual silly moments that inhabit these kind of 'superhero' movies. There was even a love scene that went on for too long, exposing too much shiny, moonlit, bottom. One of the main 'superhero' characters even went everywhere naked. A tall, blue superpowered being named Doctor Manhatten who had been transformed accidentally from a normal, everyday nuclear scientist in the late fifties. Becoming a higher form of life with devastatingly god like powers this character considered it acceptable to walk around butt naked... except when he goes to funerals. The best character of the piece was the brilliant Rorschach, a street vigilante who wore a cloth mask with a moving ink pattern over the face. Weird and brilliant and by far the most interesting and psychotic of the characters. Sticking to the original graphic novel (or comic) rigidly, the director Zack Snyder brings the pictures and characters to life in fabulous, full blown fashion, illustrating the alternate New York and the world that goes with it in a bleak, dystopian, nuclear fuelled detail rarely seen in any other 'superhero' movie. Watchmen is not really a 'superhero' movie though. The 'superheroes' themselves possess no super powers, falling more in line with the Batman like character of rich weirdos who dress up to enact justice on the streets. Through these characters Watchmen shows the people that would do this as psychotic, naive, corny and troubled, all battling their own troubled characters in their own way and breaking some bones along the way. Completely unlike any movie I've probably ever seen, it was a bit of a puzzler but with the good outweighing the bad. More weird than anything else.

The corners of my mind

Happy Birthday to my brother Kenny who is... erm... something today. I can't remember. What age is he? I've completely lost track. Wait a minute, there's two years between each of us which would presumably mean he is 27. I think. I hit the grand old age of 31 this year so he must be 27, Lynsey in the middle being 29... ah, but he was born in 1983 so he must be 26. This is worrying. Not only are my siblings getting scarily old around me but I am suffering early memory decline and dementia. It's not the first time I've had this moment of realisation. A few weeks ago I was prompted to remember something that happened way back in primary school and I realised I could barely remember anything that happened in Art School, never mind High School and Primary. Is this normal? If not, I'm in trouble. Friends from school and college have often started a conversation with 'Remember when...?' and I embarrassingly have to pretend I remember, hoping they're not making some crazy, ridiculous occurence up in order to catch me out. Worryingly I've found myself in, and quite often caused, quite a lot of crazy, ridiculous situations so it's a pretty safe bet nodding my head and agreeing with some fake laughter. Kenny probably has more than a few of his own embarrassing memories of me kept instore for his best man's speech. Memories which will no doubt be used to laugh at me rather than with me. Primary school has to be the hardest of all the memory centres to dip into. The occasional funny moment springs to mind such as the Tambourini paper towel eating incident and other such wonders like the eating of sock elastic and pulling it back out through the nostril (something, I hasten to add, I did not take part in). Chaz's leap to sickening freedom, Colin's mass saying, playing Blinds Man Buff with a blind person, acting out Star Wars scenes in the schoolgrounds and the footie game in which I got belted in the balls with a Mitre Delta. Okay, I'm now remembering more of the stupid stuff rather than the stuff that actually matters such as my best grades, my timestables and my brother's age (though being hit in the groinal region should probably matter to some extent to any bloke - no matter the age). Perhaps I'm also exaggerating about the timestables. I do remember most of them and even sing them sometimes in my head, in the strange, ritualistic way we were taught (sometimes it takes ages to work something out when your standing in the middle of a supermarket). Primary school was torture a great deal of the time so this would perhaps account for the lack of memories. Perhaps I've deliberately shoved all the bad memories to the back of my head, under a psychological rug. A particularly heavy psychological rug which is rarely moved to hoover under for fear of the memories being set free and running wild in the brain. Perhaps some other memories have been mistakenly swept under the rug and in order to find the one you need you have to trawl your way through all the bad memories. In order to solve the Kenny's age problem I'll just use the most obvious solution and ask him. He won't mind. He barely remembers anyone's birthday and he's only... what... 27?