So here I am, typing this, wearing pyjamas for the first time in twenty years...well, pyjama bottoms anyway. They've started selling really funky PJ bottoms in the city core, and I've bought some with a Japanese anime print which reminds me of being a kid watching Battle Of The Planets. And if they get some more of those Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in stock in my size, I'll be going into the city core with my credit card again! Another rather lengthy period between blog entries, but this one at least brings up the century for 2009 - this is my one hundredth entry here this year. Once again, thanks for reading, hope I've been at least a little entertaining.
One of the reasons I've not been blogging, or doing much else for that matter, is these bloody headaches which I've been experiencing over the last couple of weeks. They'd been varying in intensity from just minor irritations to "let's lie in bed in a darkened room and try not to think about anything", and I've been popping the ibuprofen a lot to try and control them. At one point, I felt like I was going to be sick, and at another point, I found myself with my face buried in a towel walking around saying "I don't want to die...I'm too young for that..."
Thankfully, though, the headaches have gone now, just as quickly as they came. I had an appointment with the doctor on Wednesday afternoon - so of course Wednesday was a completely pain-free day, wasn't it? Still, I went walking through the mean streets to the local surgery for my appointment, where the doctor, after checking my blood pressure, proceeded to shine lights through my ears and got me to look in various directions. Then he started what felt like re-aligning my spine...
He said it didn't look like I'd anything seriously wrong with me - no brain tumour and no sign of a stroke, which came as a great relief - and told me about cluster headaches which appeared to be what I had. Or maybe I didn't... he wasn't sure, although it would fit with the symptoms I had. So it was a case of "monitor the situation and if it gets any worse, come back and we'll start pumping you full of drugs" - well, that wasn't his exact words, but you get the picture.
Anyway, I'm not getting headaches now, but I still feel sleepier than normal. Not worried too much about that though.
I spent the weekend with GroupieGirl, who's won another fantastic competition but has sworn me to secrecy as to the details... all will be revealed in due course!! She's bought me some tickets to see Franz Ferdinand in October, who I had no idea was even playing here - I mean, very few decent bands come up here... and she's entered another competition for a trip away (which I've been invited on) - somewhere I've always wanted to visit, although it's not yet certain who the lucky winners will be...
DEAN MARTIN - AIN'T THAT A KICK IN THE HEAD?
(from the film soundtrack "Ocean's Eleven", 1960)
2009-08-31
2009-08-19
Change Is Good
A while back, I mentioned the nasty, evil tower block that I had to visit regularly as part of my job, and the frankly disgusting condition it was in. The local junkies use it as a public toilet and a place to smoke heroin, and there's one old guy who sleeps in the stairwell from time to time (apparently he lives there, but his wife keeps throwing him out for coming home drunk...)
Anyway, I won't have to worry about that place any more. I've known this for a while now, but I got official confirmation today that there's going to be some changes at work. I'll still be in the same job, and working for the same company - but I'll be based in a different part of town, a much nicer part of town - and I won't have to dodge the junkies in "the projects" anymore. I'm not a snob - at least, I hope I'm not - but I'd rather not be associated with that part of town and that class of people if I can at all help it. (Not to mention certain managerial staff at my current base - or the guy who's BNP and proud... but we won't go there...)
The change is due to take place in September, so looks like I'll be a regular traveller on a different line of our public transport system fairly soon. And I'm richly looking forward to it.
This gives me the chance to talk about a colleague of mine. He's been working for the company for years, and really, really hates it - at least, that's what it sounds like whenever he talks to me. Admittedly (like most large companies - think the BBC or IBM) they have some very strange ways of doing things that make absolutely no sense to me, and whenever they change something, they always seem to screw it up somehow... but I've always found it easy to stay sane and stay out of office politics as much as possible.
Anyway, this bloke probably should have quit ages ago if he feels like that. But he won't. He's told me on several occasions he'll only leave if he's made redundant. He'd be entitled to quite a large sum in redundancy money which of course is growing by the week, and in his view "they owe me that money, as compensation for all the crap I've had to take".
Thing is, I've heard from an unofficial (though reliable) source that no one in this area will ever be offered redundancy. If they want to slim down the headcount there are a myriad ways to do it without having to pay out a penny - they could just not renew the contracts of some temporary workers, they could come down harder on people who break the rules, or (as some conspiracy theorists tell me) they could just deliberately piss you off so much that you want to leave of your own accord. In any event, redundancy is certainly not on the table and almost certainly never will be.
Surely this bloke must realize that. He seems reasonably intelligent and engaged with what's going on. But he still stubbornly sticks to his guns. It looks like he'll be spending his entire working life employed by a company he doesn't like, doing a job he doesn't like, in the vain hope of a financial windfall that's never going to come. I ask you, is that any way to live?? I don't think so.
THE STRANGLERS - SOMETHING BETTER CHANGE
(from the album "No More Heroes", 1977)
Anyway, I won't have to worry about that place any more. I've known this for a while now, but I got official confirmation today that there's going to be some changes at work. I'll still be in the same job, and working for the same company - but I'll be based in a different part of town, a much nicer part of town - and I won't have to dodge the junkies in "the projects" anymore. I'm not a snob - at least, I hope I'm not - but I'd rather not be associated with that part of town and that class of people if I can at all help it. (Not to mention certain managerial staff at my current base - or the guy who's BNP and proud... but we won't go there...)
The change is due to take place in September, so looks like I'll be a regular traveller on a different line of our public transport system fairly soon. And I'm richly looking forward to it.
This gives me the chance to talk about a colleague of mine. He's been working for the company for years, and really, really hates it - at least, that's what it sounds like whenever he talks to me. Admittedly (like most large companies - think the BBC or IBM) they have some very strange ways of doing things that make absolutely no sense to me, and whenever they change something, they always seem to screw it up somehow... but I've always found it easy to stay sane and stay out of office politics as much as possible.
Anyway, this bloke probably should have quit ages ago if he feels like that. But he won't. He's told me on several occasions he'll only leave if he's made redundant. He'd be entitled to quite a large sum in redundancy money which of course is growing by the week, and in his view "they owe me that money, as compensation for all the crap I've had to take".
Thing is, I've heard from an unofficial (though reliable) source that no one in this area will ever be offered redundancy. If they want to slim down the headcount there are a myriad ways to do it without having to pay out a penny - they could just not renew the contracts of some temporary workers, they could come down harder on people who break the rules, or (as some conspiracy theorists tell me) they could just deliberately piss you off so much that you want to leave of your own accord. In any event, redundancy is certainly not on the table and almost certainly never will be.
Surely this bloke must realize that. He seems reasonably intelligent and engaged with what's going on. But he still stubbornly sticks to his guns. It looks like he'll be spending his entire working life employed by a company he doesn't like, doing a job he doesn't like, in the vain hope of a financial windfall that's never going to come. I ask you, is that any way to live?? I don't think so.
THE STRANGLERS - SOMETHING BETTER CHANGE
(from the album "No More Heroes", 1977)
2009-08-18
Not Now Groupie, I've Got A Headache...
I'm seriously worried about myself now. Over the last few days or so I've started to get these headaches which are making me quite worried that I'm going to have a stroke or something. They feel almost like an electrical wire inside me, going down one side of my head (always in the same place) and they last for about thirty minutes or so. And it's not a fun experience at all. Sometimes I just want to lie down on my bed and slowly massage my head to try and make them go away. Thankfully they don't happen very often, but when they do...ow.
To give you an idea about how worried I am about these things, I've called my doctor and made an appointment. Usually, I only go to the doctors if I think there's a chance I'm going to die. Probably inherited from my father (who actually did have a stroke in 1997...)
My distrust of the medical profession (at least in this part of the world) is still as strong as ever, but having read through rather a lot of information over the internet I think it's important I get this checked out. If nothing else it'll set my mind at rest. So I'll be heading off to my local surgery next Wednesday afternoon. Yes, that was the earliest appointment I could get...and the receptionist couldn't get off the phone quick enough!!
Aside from this, things keep ticking over in other areas of my life. I'm thinking about starting to use AudioBoo for the occasional "voice" blog post, for those occasions when I either don't have the time or can't get it together to do the typing thing. I do want to keep this updated on a fairly regular basis - I can't for the life of me imagine why, but I seem to have gathered a small following here and elsewhere on the internet and I want to keep them interested after all :)
GARY NUMAN - I DIE:YOU DIE
(from the album "Telekon", 1980)
To give you an idea about how worried I am about these things, I've called my doctor and made an appointment. Usually, I only go to the doctors if I think there's a chance I'm going to die. Probably inherited from my father (who actually did have a stroke in 1997...)
My distrust of the medical profession (at least in this part of the world) is still as strong as ever, but having read through rather a lot of information over the internet I think it's important I get this checked out. If nothing else it'll set my mind at rest. So I'll be heading off to my local surgery next Wednesday afternoon. Yes, that was the earliest appointment I could get...and the receptionist couldn't get off the phone quick enough!!
Aside from this, things keep ticking over in other areas of my life. I'm thinking about starting to use AudioBoo for the occasional "voice" blog post, for those occasions when I either don't have the time or can't get it together to do the typing thing. I do want to keep this updated on a fairly regular basis - I can't for the life of me imagine why, but I seem to have gathered a small following here and elsewhere on the internet and I want to keep them interested after all :)
GARY NUMAN - I DIE:YOU DIE
(from the album "Telekon", 1980)
2009-08-12
Soviet Slumbers
I've been having a rather strange twenty four hours or so. Yesterday evening was spent lying on my bed feeling dizzy and weak. Today I was at work, but finding things rather tough going. I felt like I was going to have a stroke or something, pains in my head and difficulty moving about...in fact by the end of the working day I was finding it a real pain to walk around. "Like climbing Everest" I posted to Twitter. And after a delayed trip home (are they replacing every single gas pipe in town or something?) I went to bed to sleep it off.
Once again, I had weird dreams. In the first one, my television exploded (and so did the engine of the car I haven't got) and I was just standing there, wondering how I was going to fix the damage. But then that dream stopped, and I found myself in a new one, which was much more fun. So much so that I decided when I woke up to blog about it straight away, so apologies if this doesn't make much sense...
Anyway, I was at work and in discussion with some of my colleagues there, where we agreed to start a band. We would call it "Blatant Rumours" but we were going to pronounce the first word BEL-a-tant and write the R at the beginning of Rumours back-to-front, to make it look Russian. Then we decided to take the Russian theme a stage further and decided we would all wear red T-shirts with our names on them, in Russian, when we were on stage. And we'd do covers of old Russian folk songs with funny English lyrics. You could imagine us like the Monkees in the 1960s, but in Cyrillic.
Not sure what part I was going to have in the band. Drummer, or bass guitarist?
Anyway, it all ended in tears when one of us was found in a van with an empty bottle of tabasco sauce lying beside him, eyes bulging out of his head. "We could have been SO BIG!!" I shouted at his motionless unconscious body...
Once again, I had weird dreams. In the first one, my television exploded (and so did the engine of the car I haven't got) and I was just standing there, wondering how I was going to fix the damage. But then that dream stopped, and I found myself in a new one, which was much more fun. So much so that I decided when I woke up to blog about it straight away, so apologies if this doesn't make much sense...
Anyway, I was at work and in discussion with some of my colleagues there, where we agreed to start a band. We would call it "Blatant Rumours" but we were going to pronounce the first word BEL-a-tant and write the R at the beginning of Rumours back-to-front, to make it look Russian. Then we decided to take the Russian theme a stage further and decided we would all wear red T-shirts with our names on them, in Russian, when we were on stage. And we'd do covers of old Russian folk songs with funny English lyrics. You could imagine us like the Monkees in the 1960s, but in Cyrillic.
Not sure what part I was going to have in the band. Drummer, or bass guitarist?
Anyway, it all ended in tears when one of us was found in a van with an empty bottle of tabasco sauce lying beside him, eyes bulging out of his head. "We could have been SO BIG!!" I shouted at his motionless unconscious body...
2009-08-09
It Was Forty Years Ago Yesterday...
During the morning of August 8, 1969, photographer Iain MacMillan took some shots of a pop group on location near a recording studio in London NW8, to be used as the cover of their latest album. The group was the Beatles, and the location was the zebra crossing at Abbey Road. The resulting album would go on to become the fourth biggest selling album of the 1960s in the UK, and the cover one of the most famous pictures of all time.
I've visited the crossing twice - the first time was three years ago, during a weekend trip to London. I spent that Sunday morning on a Beatles walking tour, which incidentally was very good indeed - the tour guide was one of the leading authorites on all things Beatles - and the final stop on the tour was Abbey Road studios and the famous crossing. A couple of years later, I went there again - I was in London with GroupieGirl and asked her "would you like to see the crossing at Abbey Road?".
It's a little different now than it was in 1969 - it's been moved slightly - but tourists still flock to see the location and walk across themselves, and you can even see them doing it online - thanks to the Abbey Road webcam.
Anyway, to celebrate the 40th anniversary I uploaded my shot of the zebra crossing I took at the end of that walking tour in 2006.
It's amazing to think that album cover is still being referenced forty years on. GroupieGirl has a piece of rock history herself - one of her dolls is featured on the latest Right Said Fred album. I wonder if that cover will still be talked about in 2049?
THE BEATLES - MAXWELL'S SILVER HAMMER
(from the album "Abbey Road", 1969)
I've visited the crossing twice - the first time was three years ago, during a weekend trip to London. I spent that Sunday morning on a Beatles walking tour, which incidentally was very good indeed - the tour guide was one of the leading authorites on all things Beatles - and the final stop on the tour was Abbey Road studios and the famous crossing. A couple of years later, I went there again - I was in London with GroupieGirl and asked her "would you like to see the crossing at Abbey Road?".
It's a little different now than it was in 1969 - it's been moved slightly - but tourists still flock to see the location and walk across themselves, and you can even see them doing it online - thanks to the Abbey Road webcam.
Anyway, to celebrate the 40th anniversary I uploaded my shot of the zebra crossing I took at the end of that walking tour in 2006.
It's amazing to think that album cover is still being referenced forty years on. GroupieGirl has a piece of rock history herself - one of her dolls is featured on the latest Right Said Fred album. I wonder if that cover will still be talked about in 2049?
THE BEATLES - MAXWELL'S SILVER HAMMER
(from the album "Abbey Road", 1969)
2009-08-08
Just One Of Those Days
So why am I typing a blog entry (in pink typewriter font, although you won't see that) at 03.00 on a Saturday morning?? Well, my sleeping pattern is in shreds again... just the latest thing to happen in the last twenty four hours...
It all started when I woke up on Friday morning and turned on the lights to find that they weren't working. Any of them. One of the bulbs must have blew, and when that happens the circuit breakers kick in and kills the power to all the lights. It's a very good safety measure (it means you can't accidentally leave the switch on while you change a light bulb) but it's a bit of a hassle sometimes, like this morning. I didn't have time to sort it out before going to work though.
There's a tower block I have to visit on business every day, which is a pretty run-down place to be honest. Dodgy lifts etc. As I was walking down the stairwell I heard these voices, sounded like they were on something to me. Well, they were smoking heroin... at least that's what I presume the scorched tinfoil etc was being used for. Still, at least they weren't crapping on the stairs like some people do in that block. At least I won't have to put up with that for much longer - they're making changes at work which frankly can't come soon enough...
And after work? Well, I was making my way home thanks to the wonderful public transport system we have here :( and all went well until we stopped by the cathedral, in the city core. The driver had finished his shift, but his replacement hadn't turned up. So we just had to sit there until he did. And it was a very warm day. And the local lowlifes were on board and moaning about it loudly to each other. Again, thank Zog for the iPhone, which allowed me to tune everything out.
Finally getting home, I got the bulb changed. The one that had blew was in the bathroom, and had been there since the last century. 11 years it lasted - not bad going, even for a low energy bulb eh? I had a glass or two of red wine in it's memory. Then fell asleep for several hours... and when I woke up, it was the middle of the night!! And I had hoped to spend the evening with GroupieGirl. Pif.
I've got three hours before I have to go to work again, so I may well just lie down and snooze for a bit after posting this. In the meantime, here's some music to match the mood :)
STRANGLERS - WALK ON BY
(single released 1978)
It all started when I woke up on Friday morning and turned on the lights to find that they weren't working. Any of them. One of the bulbs must have blew, and when that happens the circuit breakers kick in and kills the power to all the lights. It's a very good safety measure (it means you can't accidentally leave the switch on while you change a light bulb) but it's a bit of a hassle sometimes, like this morning. I didn't have time to sort it out before going to work though.
There's a tower block I have to visit on business every day, which is a pretty run-down place to be honest. Dodgy lifts etc. As I was walking down the stairwell I heard these voices, sounded like they were on something to me. Well, they were smoking heroin... at least that's what I presume the scorched tinfoil etc was being used for. Still, at least they weren't crapping on the stairs like some people do in that block. At least I won't have to put up with that for much longer - they're making changes at work which frankly can't come soon enough...
And after work? Well, I was making my way home thanks to the wonderful public transport system we have here :( and all went well until we stopped by the cathedral, in the city core. The driver had finished his shift, but his replacement hadn't turned up. So we just had to sit there until he did. And it was a very warm day. And the local lowlifes were on board and moaning about it loudly to each other. Again, thank Zog for the iPhone, which allowed me to tune everything out.
Finally getting home, I got the bulb changed. The one that had blew was in the bathroom, and had been there since the last century. 11 years it lasted - not bad going, even for a low energy bulb eh? I had a glass or two of red wine in it's memory. Then fell asleep for several hours... and when I woke up, it was the middle of the night!! And I had hoped to spend the evening with GroupieGirl. Pif.
I've got three hours before I have to go to work again, so I may well just lie down and snooze for a bit after posting this. In the meantime, here's some music to match the mood :)
STRANGLERS - WALK ON BY
(single released 1978)
2009-08-06
Play It Again, Zaphod...
I've been playing around with Spotify for a while now, and am generally impressed with it. I've shown it to GroupieGirl during one of her visits to Zaph's Place and she loves the idea - all this music to listen to, and it's free!! As long as you don't mind the odd advert, but then, we get that with radio, don't we? And unlike radio, there's no bloody annoying DJ talking all over the records - I genuinely wanted to be a DJ in my mid teens and was told a piece of advice modern DJs should bear in mind - "every song you play is someone's favourite song of all-time. Treat it with the respect you would show to your favourite." But I digress - again, that's another story for another day...
I found myself drinking some red wine and feeling a bit fragile, as I do tend to be sometimes, and was reading back over my blog entries - which probably didn't help matters, as I did have a rather tough winter this year what with the Groupie situation amongst other things. Spotify was open and I found myself looking for mellow, downbeat tracks from my teenage years in the 1980s. I thought that would go with the mood I was in. And my thoughts turned to the "emotional tape" I used to have...
Remember tapes? I used to have loads, usually bootlegged from my friends. I think the statute of limitations has ran out by now, so I'm probably safe in saying that I must have personally cost the British recording industry (and the British software industry) an absolute fortune back in the 1980s, proudly flying the Jolly Roger above my double-deck cassette player which was a most welcome gift indeed at Christmas 1987. We all did it back then, though - copying our mates' record and tape collections and when all else failed taping the chart show off BBC Radio 1 on a Sunday evening.
My weapon of choice was the C90 (usually Maxell or TDK, bought in packs of 3 from Woolworths) and I made myself quite a few compilations - always twelve songs per side, and no more than one song per artist per tape. I called them Lasermixes, because it sounded good (well, it did to me - remember I was only 15 at the time!) and there's still a few of them sitting in a box at my parents' house. Maybe I should get hold of them and digitize the contents for my iTunes library - another project for when I've got time.
However, I had one "special" tape which I used to play if I was in a bad mood, or a sad mood - something which tends to happen a lot during your teenage years. This was where the slow numbers went - the soft metal, the ballads... and I'd sit up in my room late into the night staring out the window listening to this and thinking about whoever it was I fancied at the time and how I was never going to get her to feel the same way about me - because they never do, do they? Be honest now!!
Said tape has long since disappeared, and I can't remember the full track listing anymore, but I created a YouTube playlist last year containing ones I could remember, and others that went well with them. YouTube clips being what they are, most of the links are dead now, so I removed the playlist last night and thought "maybe Spotify would have these tracks..."
And they do - well, most of them. Some are re-recordings, which I didn't want, and some were just missing - I can't find INXS "Never Tear Us Apart" for love nor money, which is a real shame as that song is one of my all time favourites. But I did manage to put together a playlist of sorts - it's a first draft at the moment, and I may change the order around and add some more tracks to it, as I'm not constrained by the 24-song limit I had back in the days of the C90s.
Perhaps I shouldn't be doing this. I mean, last night I was sitting listening to these tracks and feeling fragile just like I was in 1989 - and that's not good, is it? To be where I was twenty years ago... although I know I'm not really. But I must admit it's nice to have my "emotional tape" back in digital form, after all these years. And if you're a Spotify listener, you can listen to it too... and if not, here's the first track to give you an idea of what was on it.
ROXETTE - LISTEN TO YOUR HEART
(from the album "Look Sharp!", 1988)
I found myself drinking some red wine and feeling a bit fragile, as I do tend to be sometimes, and was reading back over my blog entries - which probably didn't help matters, as I did have a rather tough winter this year what with the Groupie situation amongst other things. Spotify was open and I found myself looking for mellow, downbeat tracks from my teenage years in the 1980s. I thought that would go with the mood I was in. And my thoughts turned to the "emotional tape" I used to have...
Remember tapes? I used to have loads, usually bootlegged from my friends. I think the statute of limitations has ran out by now, so I'm probably safe in saying that I must have personally cost the British recording industry (and the British software industry) an absolute fortune back in the 1980s, proudly flying the Jolly Roger above my double-deck cassette player which was a most welcome gift indeed at Christmas 1987. We all did it back then, though - copying our mates' record and tape collections and when all else failed taping the chart show off BBC Radio 1 on a Sunday evening.
My weapon of choice was the C90 (usually Maxell or TDK, bought in packs of 3 from Woolworths) and I made myself quite a few compilations - always twelve songs per side, and no more than one song per artist per tape. I called them Lasermixes, because it sounded good (well, it did to me - remember I was only 15 at the time!) and there's still a few of them sitting in a box at my parents' house. Maybe I should get hold of them and digitize the contents for my iTunes library - another project for when I've got time.
However, I had one "special" tape which I used to play if I was in a bad mood, or a sad mood - something which tends to happen a lot during your teenage years. This was where the slow numbers went - the soft metal, the ballads... and I'd sit up in my room late into the night staring out the window listening to this and thinking about whoever it was I fancied at the time and how I was never going to get her to feel the same way about me - because they never do, do they? Be honest now!!
Said tape has long since disappeared, and I can't remember the full track listing anymore, but I created a YouTube playlist last year containing ones I could remember, and others that went well with them. YouTube clips being what they are, most of the links are dead now, so I removed the playlist last night and thought "maybe Spotify would have these tracks..."
And they do - well, most of them. Some are re-recordings, which I didn't want, and some were just missing - I can't find INXS "Never Tear Us Apart" for love nor money, which is a real shame as that song is one of my all time favourites. But I did manage to put together a playlist of sorts - it's a first draft at the moment, and I may change the order around and add some more tracks to it, as I'm not constrained by the 24-song limit I had back in the days of the C90s.
Perhaps I shouldn't be doing this. I mean, last night I was sitting listening to these tracks and feeling fragile just like I was in 1989 - and that's not good, is it? To be where I was twenty years ago... although I know I'm not really. But I must admit it's nice to have my "emotional tape" back in digital form, after all these years. And if you're a Spotify listener, you can listen to it too... and if not, here's the first track to give you an idea of what was on it.
ROXETTE - LISTEN TO YOUR HEART
(from the album "Look Sharp!", 1988)
2009-08-05
Lack Of Sunday Service
It was Tartan Day on Sunday - something which I'm really not sure we should be celebrating here. As I said on Twitter at the time, I don't need to watch grown men prance around in plaid skirts to feel proud of my own country. OK it may bring in the tourists (particularly the Americans) but there's not much reason to come up this far north if you're touring Scotland - at least until Donald Trump finally gets going with this golf course (and there's a rant for another day) Surely Edinburgh would be a better place for an event which, to me, is like opening an Irish bar in the centre of Dublin...
But then, I could be a little biased against the thing due to the massive travel disruption last time it was held here. They closed off the city core - on a Saturday afternoon, mind you - to hold the big parade, and the resulting traffic congestion meant it took me longer to get home from work than it usually does to travel to Glasgow, which is 40 times the distance. Two and a half bloody hours!!
This year they decided to hold the parade on Sunday morning - where there'd be a lot less traffic (and, I'd say, a lot less people watching it...but then the organization of events here always seems to be screwed up in some form) This would mean closing the roads again of course but this time I was ready for them, and got details of the road closures over the internet. Very few of them this time. Just as well, as I had plans for this Sunday morning.
I was going to get up reasonably early and get the first overground into the city core (about 09.00) with some stuff for recycling. (Although there is a door-to-door recycling plan here, I prefer to take my stuff to the recycling point in the city core - and the reasons for that I may elaborate on in another post) I'd grab some breakfast afterwards, then go to my local Marks & Spencer for stuff to make sandwiches with for work the following week. Then it would be back home for roughly 11.00 and maybe a few texts to GroupieGirl to see if she was doing anything that afternoon.
Well, you know what Robbie Burns said about the best laid plans of mice and men...
All went really well to begin with, my holdall full of empty glass & plastic bottles getting emptied, then filled again with deli products, bread and bottles of cola. I moved out of Marks & Spencers with one eye on the clock, thinking I'd just get my ride home before the bagpipes started. Getting to the stop, something didn't seem right - the roads were rather quiet...too quiet. The time went on, five minutes late, ten minutes...and that's when I noticed the people in hi-visibility jackets walking down the roadside.
You guessed it, this road was being closed as well. Despite not being mentioned at all on the website, the parade was coming through here and all traffic was being diverted. But where? There had been nothing written on the website about that either. Nor were there any notices about diversions posted up at the stops. I hadn't a clue how I was going to get home, and I wasn't the only one. I eventually managed to get home about 12.15 - by which time the parade was over and the roads had been re-opened again!
Surely it's not too much to ask to have detailed information posted up when an event like this is going to cause travel disruption? I mean, not all of us wanted to sit and watch this parade (and in the event, not many did, but that's what happens when you schedule things for 11.00 on a Sunday) Some of us want to get from one place to another, and we need to know how our journey's going to be affected, yeah?
Just effectively shutting down public transport in the city core for an hour and a half - without really telling us - is not acceptable...and while I felt for the driver who was getting mouthfuls of abuse from one guy who had "been waiting an hour and a f***ing half for you" a little more information, preferably on posters at the stops, would have defused a lot of the inconvenience and anger.
As one of my dad's stock phrases goes, "it's nice to be told these things, isn't it?" Especially after the debacle with Megabus when me and Groupie went to Pitlochry... never mind, I was fairly laid back about the whole thing - and I did watch a little of the parade. However, I plan to be well away from the city core for next year's event!
JESSE RAE - OVER THE SEA
(single released 1985)
But then, I could be a little biased against the thing due to the massive travel disruption last time it was held here. They closed off the city core - on a Saturday afternoon, mind you - to hold the big parade, and the resulting traffic congestion meant it took me longer to get home from work than it usually does to travel to Glasgow, which is 40 times the distance. Two and a half bloody hours!!
This year they decided to hold the parade on Sunday morning - where there'd be a lot less traffic (and, I'd say, a lot less people watching it...but then the organization of events here always seems to be screwed up in some form) This would mean closing the roads again of course but this time I was ready for them, and got details of the road closures over the internet. Very few of them this time. Just as well, as I had plans for this Sunday morning.
I was going to get up reasonably early and get the first overground into the city core (about 09.00) with some stuff for recycling. (Although there is a door-to-door recycling plan here, I prefer to take my stuff to the recycling point in the city core - and the reasons for that I may elaborate on in another post) I'd grab some breakfast afterwards, then go to my local Marks & Spencer for stuff to make sandwiches with for work the following week. Then it would be back home for roughly 11.00 and maybe a few texts to GroupieGirl to see if she was doing anything that afternoon.
Well, you know what Robbie Burns said about the best laid plans of mice and men...
All went really well to begin with, my holdall full of empty glass & plastic bottles getting emptied, then filled again with deli products, bread and bottles of cola. I moved out of Marks & Spencers with one eye on the clock, thinking I'd just get my ride home before the bagpipes started. Getting to the stop, something didn't seem right - the roads were rather quiet...too quiet. The time went on, five minutes late, ten minutes...and that's when I noticed the people in hi-visibility jackets walking down the roadside.
You guessed it, this road was being closed as well. Despite not being mentioned at all on the website, the parade was coming through here and all traffic was being diverted. But where? There had been nothing written on the website about that either. Nor were there any notices about diversions posted up at the stops. I hadn't a clue how I was going to get home, and I wasn't the only one. I eventually managed to get home about 12.15 - by which time the parade was over and the roads had been re-opened again!
Surely it's not too much to ask to have detailed information posted up when an event like this is going to cause travel disruption? I mean, not all of us wanted to sit and watch this parade (and in the event, not many did, but that's what happens when you schedule things for 11.00 on a Sunday) Some of us want to get from one place to another, and we need to know how our journey's going to be affected, yeah?
Just effectively shutting down public transport in the city core for an hour and a half - without really telling us - is not acceptable...and while I felt for the driver who was getting mouthfuls of abuse from one guy who had "been waiting an hour and a f***ing half for you" a little more information, preferably on posters at the stops, would have defused a lot of the inconvenience and anger.
As one of my dad's stock phrases goes, "it's nice to be told these things, isn't it?" Especially after the debacle with Megabus when me and Groupie went to Pitlochry... never mind, I was fairly laid back about the whole thing - and I did watch a little of the parade. However, I plan to be well away from the city core for next year's event!
JESSE RAE - OVER THE SEA
(single released 1985)
2009-08-03
Soundtrack To My Life - 1981
The #zaph80 project that I've been doing on blip.fm (and echoing to Twitter) continues apace, and recently I completed the entries to 1981. So, just like I did for 1980, here's a mini YouTube videowall containing twelve of the best songs I was listening to in the year when I watched Charles & Diana's Royal Wedding and the launch of the first Space Shuttle on TV...
The tracks featured are as follows (left to right, and top to bottom)
(Jan) John Lennon - Woman
(Feb) Kim Wilde - Kids In America
(Mar) Duran Duran - Planet Earth
(Apr) Shakin' Stevens - This Ole House
(May) Toyah - I Want To Be Free
(June) Bad Manners - Can Can
(July) Depeche Mode - New Life
(Aug) Electric Light Orchestra - Hold On Tight
(Sept) UB40 - One In Ten
(Oct) Altered Images - Happy Birthday
(Nov) Status Quo - Rock 'N' Roll
(Dec) Bucks Fizz - The Land Of Make Believe
Stay tuned, because I've reached the beginning of July 1982 over on blip.fm - or if you're prepated to wait, no doubt I'll do another twelve-pack of hits here in due course...
The tracks featured are as follows (left to right, and top to bottom)
(Jan) John Lennon - Woman
(Feb) Kim Wilde - Kids In America
(Mar) Duran Duran - Planet Earth
(Apr) Shakin' Stevens - This Ole House
(May) Toyah - I Want To Be Free
(June) Bad Manners - Can Can
(July) Depeche Mode - New Life
(Aug) Electric Light Orchestra - Hold On Tight
(Sept) UB40 - One In Ten
(Oct) Altered Images - Happy Birthday
(Nov) Status Quo - Rock 'N' Roll
(Dec) Bucks Fizz - The Land Of Make Believe
Stay tuned, because I've reached the beginning of July 1982 over on blip.fm - or if you're prepated to wait, no doubt I'll do another twelve-pack of hits here in due course...
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the alien's greatest hits...
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