Slainte Mhath!

Today I have not had an alcoholic drink.

This is such an unusual occurrence as to seem to require mentioning, and not only that but mentioning in a Bold, Red and Large font. I can't remember the last day I didn't drink (and in all good conscience I won't include the day a few weeks back when I waited until five past midnight - I now admit that was cheating!).

I don't usually drink huge amounts in one go, but I do drink every day. Perhaps one glass. More often two or three. What's in my drinks collection right now, I hear you ask:

Gin (about 3 litres of it - it was on special offer in Sainsbury!); Sloe gin; red wine (both boxes and bottles; white wine; Scotch malt whisky (both Glenfiddich and Bowmore - I usually have more than this though); Jamesons Irish whiskey; port (two types); Bacardi; Pimms No 1 (how terribly decadent, but no, I do not also possess a smoking jacket and cravat); Croft Original sherry; Smirnoff vodka; lager.

I live on my own, apart from two teetotal (as far as I know) cats, so they are mine, all mine I tell you, and with the notable exceptions of the vodka and the Sloe gin, I drink them all. Not at the same time you understand, but which one(s) I have at any given moment depends on how the mood takes me. More often than not I will have gin & tonic, or maybe whisky, or perhaps red wine. The rest make occasional appearances.

Anyway, by way of abstaining for the past 24 hours, I have once again proved to myself that I am not in fact an alcoholic, I just like the taste and effect of the stuff! So that's me set for another year without feeling like I might have a drink problem, before I have to abstain again to prove myself.

Slainte Mhath my friends!

Mnemonics

A long long time ago in a previous life I was studying for a City & Guilds in Radio TV & Electronics Servicing at college.

Sadly, about the only thing I remember from those days is how to interpret the meaning of the coloured bands on resistors so that you can tell their rating (see the feet and hands in the photo). The colours are Black, Brown, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Violet, Grey, White, and the way to remember this is by the mnemonic:

Billy Brown Rapes Only Young Girls But Virgins Go Without.

An easy bonus point if you can identify from where the middle sequence of colours comes.

Ah, the benefits of a classical education!

Another useful mnemonic is a way of remembering which animals must be reported to the police if you twat them with a vehicle on the road. SHAMPOG-D which refers to Sheep Horse Ass Mule Pig Ox Goat Dog. Every day is a school day right enough!

A bit of a height

The photos, all of which were taken by Stewart D MacFarlane (thanks for sharing them with me Stewart) were taken at the topping-out ceremony of the spire of St Mary's Cathedral in Glasgow on December 19th 1989 during the restoration.

I'm going to break one of my own rules here and refer to people by their names rather than just initials, since I'm not Blogging about what anyone has been doing recently.

In the top image the then Bishop of Glasgow & Galloway, Derek Rawcliffe, is pictured with a young looking (and she hasn't changed much) Rona from the choir. In the second one down from L-R there is Douglas Goodson in the light grey jacket (although you can't see his face), me, Gwyneth Leech, Lindsay Pell, Gail Phillips, Rona MacLeod, Liz Morrell, and David Wilson. Unfortunately I can't make out who are under the two white hats which can be seen in the background, but looking through Stewart's other images I can see that George Farrow, Thom Irvine and Leslie MacLeod were also up there, as well as of course The Rev Malcolm E Grant, Provost at that time, and Stewart who took the photos.

We all climbed up the scaffolding and during the short service to rededicate the cross we sang Ding Dong Merrily on High. What a view! And what an experience!

If you click on the lowest image to see a larger version you can just see a red sweat-shirted and white hard-hatted person right at the top. It'll give you an idea of scale! It isn't the biggest Cathedral in the world, and isn't the tallest spire, but it's a bloody long way to climb!

And the top image in my previous post was taken by me half way up (or down) the spire.

Random photo blog

Kidney trouble

Sorry for the lack of recent posts, but I've been busy. That's a lie. I couldn't be arsed!

In the meantime, check out this Blog which, for those of you in Glasgow, will perhaps ring a few bells since it's written by a bus driver about his customers and his experiences driving in Glasgow. There are swear words, but no worse than you get already from me.

Answers on a postcard - which of the people shown in the photo looks familiar to members of the Cathedral choir? (apologies for the in-joke!)

ps Kidney trouble = kidney be bothered!
pps Meth = Methamphetamine

Martin Scorsese's Sesame Street

There goes my innocence!

Click here to go to see the movie trailer.

I am not responsible for the content of any external site, much as I'd love to claim this one, and when I looked there was no porn or other nastiness apart from the sort of language you'd expect in a Scorsese film!

Enjoy!

Happy New Year!

I've just returned from a short trip to Berwick upon Tweed. Passed it loads of times, passed through it several times, but never stopped there before. It's a nice wee town just inside England on the east coast (about two miles south of the border with Scotland) and it has a lot of history within its walls.

At short notice I was invited to spend New Year with a friend's family, so we went down yesterday and I came back today, leaving my friend there until tomorrow. It was a good time, and I even enjoyed the two walks round the walls/ramparts in the very high, very cold wind!

We even went to Evensong at the local parish church, one of very very few which were built during the Commonwealth period (i.e. Cromwellian). Interesting service! When we arrived there were nasty "elevator" style carols being played through the sound system. The vicar then arrived and noisily clumped his way down to the front where he essentially flicked a switch cutting the (shite) music dead. He was wearing a longish black Crombie style overcoat over which he wore a black stole (i.e. no cassock). He started the service by saying that for various reasons the organist/choirmaster couldn't be there so there would be no music. He went on to say that his daughter was having contractions at that moment and he had to get back to the house ASAP to look after children while she went to the local hospital, two people from the congregation were in hospital "passing over" by which I guess he meant in the act of dying, several people were unwell, it was awful weather, and basically he was sorry the service was going to be cut short, but thanks for coming anyway (which came across about as insincere as I suspect it was meant). He sang the Ferial responses very flat and of the 8 in the congregation I suspect I was one of the few who sang them back to him (couldn't quite decide whether to alter the flatness but in the end thought it'd be easier not to rock the boat, notwithstanding any flatness with which I normally sing!). At one point he announced we would now say the Song of Simeon, the Nunc Dimittis, before almost shouting "Oh no, I mean the Magnificat" just as I was wondering why we were missing out the first canticle! OK he had other things on his mind, but rumour has it that this performance was not entirely out of character! Oh, and we had communion at the end of Evensong from the reserved Host. Bizarre. No communion service, just a request for anyone who wanted it to come up to the altar where we said the "we do not presume to come to this Thy holy table ...." bit, which despite it being probably more than 10 years since I took part in a service with that form of words, I remembered word-perfectly. Good old Anglican Pavlovian response!

Today we took a trip across the causeway to Lindisfarne, the first time I'd been, which is slightly strange because I lived in Northumberland for a few years but never got round to visiting. It was a getting a bit too dark, a wee bit too cold and a big bit too windy to have appreciated it properly but I saw enough to make me want to go back for another look during a better part of the year (two pubs!).

Anyway, just back, so need to chill out a bit after the drive (in the wind!).

Happy New Year to everyone!