British Classics concert

This weekend, i.e. today and tomorrow, Glasgow Chamber Choir is performing concerts in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Today, at 7.30pm tonight, it's at St Mary's Cathedral, 300 Great Western Road, Glasgow G4 9JB, and tomorrow it's at the earlier time of 6pm in St Giles Cathedral, High St, Edinburgh EH1 1RE.

The music, as the title on the poster suggests, is all by British composers and includes

William Walton (1902-1983) - Coronation Te Deum; The Twelve
Jonathan Harvey (b. 1939) - Come, Holy Ghost; I love the Lord
Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625) - O clap your hands; Drop, drop slow tears; This is the record of John
Thomas Tomkins (1572-1656) - When David heard
Thomas Weelkes (d. 1623) - When David heard

I should have posted this earlier, but a variety of stuff has got in the way.  Last weekend I was laid very low by what I thought was food poisoning but upon my return to work on Monday realised that 6 out of 8 of us had it too and we hadn't all been eating the same thing.

On Friday morning (i.e. yesterday) at 0320hrs I was woken by a huge crash from the kitchen, and thinking that Elmo my cat had knocked something over I rushed through in a dazed just-awake state, to be confronted by the sight of the floor littered with glass and other debris, and disappearing out the back door was the housebreaker who'd caused it (in the rest of the UK, and probably the world, they're called burglars, in Scotland the crime of Burglary doesn't exist, instead it's called Housebreaking).  I'll probably describe that in more detail later, I don't have time right now as I need to head off to the rehearsal for today's concert, but suffice to say it has shaken me.  A lot.  An awful lot.

Lest we forget

I watched this live on TV 8 years ago. I can remember exactly where I was and what I was doing.

I was on annual leave and was visiting Edinburgh when we heard early reports on the car radio, so we found a pub and watched the events unfold live, together with the other stunned clientele of the pub.

A few days ago here in the UK three men were found guilty of plotting to kill thousands of people by blowing up airliners over the Atlantic using home made liquid bombs disguised as drinks.

A couple of weeks ago here in the UK Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the convicted murderer of 270 people blown up in Pan-Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988, was released from prison and allowed to return to a hero's welcome in Libya on the basis that he has terminal cancer and therefore a short time left to live. I happen to think that this was a big mistake, and he should not have been released, but that's for a different post.

A few days ago a 600lb bomb was defused by an army bomb disposal team in South Armagh, Northern Ireland. It has been reported that it had been left there by a small Republican splinter group rather than the Real IRA or Continuity IRA.

Be in no doubt, we face a present, real and serious threat from terrorism.

Home grown terrorism such as that perpetrated by some Republicans.

Home grown terrorism perpetrated by radical Muslims.

International terrorism perpetrated for political objectives.

But all terrorism, designed to cause fear and, unsurprisingly, terror.

We cannot afford however to give in to such tactics. We absolutely must stand firm against such people who seek to achieve their ends by such evil deeds.

And when they are caught and convicted they must be punished, and in such a way as not only to punish the individuals concerned but to deter others from following the same path.

Their freedom should be taken from them.

They should have no comforts whilst incarcerated.

They should be locked away until they die.

Cut

It isn't often that I promote worthy causes. I feel that our senses are assaulted by so many appeals for this and that, that I rarely, if ever, forward requests for aid or charity.

Go and look at this site though, and watch the film. Be warned that it contains scenes of violence. Not anything like would be classed as an 18 certificate (adults only) but graphic enough to be only shown before 15 certificate films, as I believe is planned.

It's the actress Keira Knightley in a new advert raising awareness of domestic violence. No one should be subject to abuse of this, or any sort.

And domestic abuse doesn't have to feature physical violence, it can be mental cruelty too.

And although this film is connected to Women's Aid, it isn't just women who suffer such abuse.

Don't tolerate it.

Don't tolerate it happening to someone else, and certainly don't tolerate it happening to you.

OK, that's enough seriousness for one day. Back to normal!

Loathsome & Boring

An allegedly true, but anonymised, series of correspondence between a member of the public and Lothian & Borders Police (L&B):

Dear Sir/madam/automated telephone answering service

Having spent the past twenty minutes waiting for someone at Leith police station to pick up a telephone I have decided to abandon the idea and try e-mailing you instead. Perhaps you would be so kind as to pass this message on to your colleagues in Leith by means of smoke signal, carrier pigeon or ouji board.

As I'm writing this e-mail there are eleven failed medical experiments (I think you call them youths) in West Cromwell Street which is just off Commercial Street in Leith. Six of them seem happy enough to play a game which involves kicking a football against an iron gate with the force of a meteorite. This causes an earth shattering CLANG! which rings throughout the entire building. This game is now in it's third week and as I am unsure how the scoring sytem works, I have no idea if it will end any time soon.

The remaining five walking abortions are happily rummaging through several bags of rubbish and items of furniture that someone has so thoughtfully dumped beside the wheelie bins. One of them has found a saw and is setting about a discarded chair like a beaver on speed. I fear that it's only a matter of time before they turn their limited attention to the bottle of calor gas that is lying on it's side between the two bins. If they could be relied on to only blow their own arms and legs off then I would happily leave them to it. I would even go so far as to lend them the matches. Unfortunately they are far more likely to blow up half the street with them and I've just finished decorating the kitchen.

What I suggest is this. after replying to this e-mail with worthless assurances that the matter is being looked into and will be dealt with, why not leave it until the one night of the year (probably bath night) when there are no mutants around then drive up the street in a panda car before doing a three point turn and disappearing again. This will of course serve no other purpose than to remind us what policemen actually look like.

I trust that when I take a claw-hammer to the skull of one of these throwbacks you'll do me the same courtesy of giving me a four month head start before coming to arrest me.

I remain sir, your obedient servant

===========================

Mr ,

I have read your e-mail and understand you frustration at the problems caused by youth playing in the area and the problems you have encountered in trying to contact the police.

As the Community Beat Officer for your street I would like to extend an offer of discussing the matter fully with you.

Should you wish to discuss the matter, please provide contact details (address / telephone number) and when may be suitable.

Regards

PC

Community Beat Officer

=======================

Dear PC

First of all I would like to thank you for the speedy response to my original e-mail. 16 hours and 38 minutes must be a personal record for Leith Police station and rest assured that I will forward these details to Norris McWhirter for inclusion in his next book.

Secondly I was delighted to hear that our street has it's own community beat officer. May I be the first to congratulate you on your covert skills. In the five or so years I have lived in West Cromwell Street, I have never seen you. Do you hide up a tree or have you gone deep undercover and infiltrated the gang itself? Are you the one with the acne and the moustache on his forehead or the one with a chin like a wash hand basin? It's surely only a matter of time before you are headhunted by MI5.

Whilst I realise that there may be far more serious crimes taking place in Leith such as smoking in a public place or being Muslim without due care and attention, is it too much to ask for a policeman to explain (using words of no more than two syllables at a time) to these twits that they might want to play their strange football game elsewhere. The pitch behind the Citadel or the one at DKs are both within spitting distance as is the bottom of the Albert Dock.

Should you wish to discuss these matters further you should feel free to contact me on (). If after 25 minutes I have still failed to answer, I'll buy you a large one in the Compass Bar.

Regards
?

P.S If you think that this is sarcasm, think yourself lucky that you don't work for the cleansing department

Murder and Palestrina

Haven't been posting much lately. Life in the way again I suppose. But here's something exciting you might want to hear about.

There's been a murder. As they used to say in the TV programme Taggart. Only this time it isn't fiction, it's a real murder. And it happened next door to me. On Thursday. Or at least that's when they found the body.

The BBC Website is reporting that he died after a disturbance. I'm glad to say I was at choir practice on Thursday evening, so I have no idea whether there was indeed any disturbance. Or for that matter whether said disturbance took place on Thursday, or that was just when the body was discovered. The BBC mention that it was found at 1000 GMT, but they're getting their 24 hour clock mixed up because I think it was 10pm (2200 GMT) it was actually found.

I returned home after choir on Thursday, around 1130pm, and when I turned into my street there was a police van parked near my house. I soon also noticed the traffic car parked across the road, behind the only empty parking space, so I was obliged to reverse park into the space while the occupant of the traffic car sat there and watched. But I didn't reverse into him!

As I got out the car I noticed a senior officer standing nearby and at once realised that it was the Strathclyde Police nightshift Superintendent who was in attendance, and the traffic car was his transport/chauffeur, so I knew something serious was happening.

After midnight I noticed a couple of white-paper suited scenes of crime officers attending at the police van. The van was still there the next morning (yesterday), and when I returned home from work in the afternoon I soon had two police officers ringing my doorbell to take basic details and ascertain whether I'd seen anything. Which I hadn't. Because I had been 5 miles away singing Palestrina at the time!

I have in the recent past however had occasion to call the police when the windows of the flat next door have been broken, and it turns out it was the same flat in which the body has been found. Someone didn't like him, it would appear. No doubt I will be interviewed about the windows in due course, although I won't have anything to add that I didn't pass on at the time.

Last night the doorbell rang again and a well dressed earnest looking man was standing there apologizing for disturbing me, and when he said he was from the Daily Record and asked if I knew anything about what had happened next door I just politely declined and closed the door. According to their online story the deceased wasn't resident there but was at a party. But you can't trust the tabloid press with anything, so the jury's out on whether that is correct or not.

I didn't know the deceased and to the best of my knowledge had never laid eyes on him, particularly if the Daily Record version is correct and he wasn't resident. Although the address where it happened is kind of next door to me, it's in a separate building and I have confined my efforts of getting-to-know-the-neighbours to those in this same block. And all those I have met are lovely people.

So there you have it. Exciting times.

On a separate matter, tonight Glasgow Chamber Choir is performing a concert called Song of Songs based on various settings from that work.

It's about love and, frankly, sex, and it's delightfully rude in places, and full of doubles entendres! I commend it to you all.

It's at 7.30pm in St Bride's Episcopal Church in Hyndland Road, Glasgow, if you can manage. Tickets are only £9 (£6 concession). And there will be wine served too.

Fyer Fyer!

Feeling slightly concerned this evening, as the presence of flashing blue lights in the street alerted me to the presence of two fire engines which disgorged numerous firefighters, some of whom donned breathing apparatus and entered the common close across from my house. A few minutes later and a knock on the door proved to be a police officer who was doing the rounds asking if anything suspicious, like arguments etc, had been observed or heard this evening.

Apparently someone set a small fire against the door of a flat opposite. Arson as it's known in England and Wales, Wilful Fireraising here in Scotland. I haven't heard anything this evening, but sure as hell I'll be listening from now on!

No one injured, thankfully.

Well done England

I like the image. The first time I saw it it took me a moment to work out what it was all about, then I realised it's a great spoiler!

On an unrelated but important topic, well done England for following the lead of your neighbours in introducing a total smoking ban in workplaces and enclosed spaces. I'm going to a wedding in Kent in a couple of weeks time, and this is the sort of thing that makes all the difference. I won't have to have my suit cleaned after being in a smoky hotel, and I'm unlikely to need an asthma inhaler during the reception!

On other unrelated but even more important matters, I see that they now have four in custody having arrested two people on the M6 yesterday in connection with yesterday's terrorist attack (as it has now been confirmed) at Glasgow airport, and houses in Renfrewshire are being searched. In Houston in fact, which is not too far from where I used to live. Sounds like progress is being made in the enquiry, which is encouraging.

Fyer fyer!

Driving back from Glasgow this afternoon where I had been at Braehead shopping centre and then Paisley, I passed a Fire Service rescue truck with blue lights flashing and sirens wailing going in the opposite direction over the Erskine Bridge. It had a cherry picker on the back and it said something like "high level rescue" on the side.

I didn't see which way it went once it was over the bridge (towards Glasgow or towards Greenock) but it's now apparent that it was heading towards Glasgow Airport where a car had just been driven into the front door of the terminal building and then apparently deliberately set alight by its occupants who seem to have been two Asian looking men according to early eye witness reports on BBC News 24. The men, one of whom was reported to have been on fire, then fought with police and members of the public. The image on the right is from the BBC news Website.

Thinking back the timing, I must have been driving past the airport just about the time it happened. Scary stuff.

It may have been merely a criminal act, or it may have been connected to terrorism, perhaps even to the incidents yesterday in London. Too early to say as yet although the government in Whitehall are suggesting it isn't related to matters of National Security.

The Queen is only 50 miles away in Edinburgh at the moment though, or at least she was this morning at the opening of the Mickey Mouse parliament, so I'd guess certain arses will be twitching amongst those charged with her safety.

A little while ago they interviewed some random members of the public at the airport. Alarm bells should have rung in the BBC Newsroom when they introduced one as "a confirmed plane spotter" and thankfully the bloke lived down to all of your preconceived notions of what plane/train/anything spotters are like. A triumph of live broadcasting.

I should mention that I've been editing this post every so often so the time of the original post doesn't tie in with updates as more information arrives. It looks like I knew a lot more about what had happened within half an hour of the incident, which clearly I don't!

No dumping

I took the photo on the right yesterday in the Charing Cross area of Glasgow. Some people clearly can't read, or maybe just have a blatant disregard for the law of the land!

On a related topic, when I moved into my new flat, despite having specified that I didn't want the scabby looking old washing machine which had been in the kitchen when I came to view the place, inevitably it was still there when I took possession of the property. The nice removal men were already going to be disconnecting and reconnecting my own washing machine, and they kindly agreed to disconnect the old one too. So they duly left it outside the back door and I was left wondering how long it'd be before I'd feel fit enough to lift it (with assistance of course, the days of me being able to lift a washing machine on my own are probably over) and take it to the recycling place 500 yards away.

I happened to be waiting for the engineer from Scottish Power to arrive on Wednesday morning when I heard what was the rear shutter of a van being opened or closed outside. I hobbled to the window to see if it was the engineer, only to discover a white transit luton parked outside and two scummy neds manhandling the old washing machine towards the back of it, while looking furtively around. I could see that the back of the van already contained various old looking white goods (cookers etc) so presumably the bold boys had been doing the rounds looking for stuff lying around to nick. I took their registration number, but to be honest it saved me the trouble of disposing of the thing myself so I didn't bother chasing them away.

Incidentally, can anyone confirm that the roadsign on the left has the correct spelling? I always thought that mews would be correct. It's directly across from The Observatory pub in Glasgow's Elderslie St. A nice little place to have a bite to eat and a drink, particularly if you can sit in the conservatory, from where the photo was taken.

The smell of piss

Remember my car was tanned last December? Well this morning, a tad over 3 months later, I received a cheque for £114.75 from my insurers, being the money I paid to Autoglass at the time less the £60 excess. The letter and receipt I handed (yes handed, not posted) to my insurance broker got lost somewhere between them and the insurers (the broker says it was the insurer's fault) and I chased it up in early March. I then chased it up again last week when I was calling my broker to see what the amended premium would be for the car at the potential new flat (today's tip: this is a good quick way to find out what sort of area it is). This morning the cheque arrived, so although it should probably go to Mastercard to pay for the car window it'll probably go into the spending money kitty for my trip to Belgium the weekend after Easter.

On that note, has anyone been to Belgium? I'll be staying near Charleroi airport (south of Brussels) and will be there from Friday afternoon until Sunday morning. Clearly my mobility is limited just now, but if anyone has any (sensible) suggestions of what to do they'll be gratefully received. The only firm plan at the moment is a visit to Ypres. My brother's been there before and reckons it's a very interesting place to visit and wants to go back again, which fits right in with the sort of thing I want to do too. We'll have a car available, since my brother's there for a month and a half working, but obviously we don't want to use a car all the time since it would limit the sampling of Belgian beer by my brother, which would be a bad thing.

On Sunday, after Evensong, there was a celebration for a significant birthday (the following day - happy birthday Big L) for one of the choir, and it turned out another choir member was about to have a less significant birthday (today as it happens - happy birthday CG). As ever, we were in The Lansdowne, and very enjoyable it was too.

During the course of the evening though, it became apparent that several people hadn't heard of Armageddon.

No, not the climactic battle between good and evil as recounted in the Book of Revelation (the best book of the lot, apart from Psalms, it's probably the only one I'd ever bother taking the trouble to read to be honest), just the recording of a live radio broadcast in America where they were reading a news story about a sexual accident. I happen to have an MP3 of it stored on my phone, so was able to introduce the Armageddon virgins to it there and then.

If you want to hear it for yourself, and I should warn you it's a bit rude but pretty funny, then you can download it from the Sounds & Video page of my Website. There's other stuff there too, but I have rated some of them as 18 (suitable for adults only) so please don't go there if you aren't! You can choose from Terry Tate, Dolmio, The Glasgow Plumber, Northfield (VERY rude), and many more. I should actually get round to uploading more stuff, since it's been a while since I did so and the collection on my hard drive has grown.

OWWWWWWWWW!!

So there I was, enjoying being back playing badminton for only the second time in, ooh, more than seven years (I played last week) when back I went to smash the shuttlecock which had been lobbed in my direction and BANG! Simultaneous loud noise and pain in the back of my ankle.

As happens, the slow motion playing out of the incident meant that my thought processes went something like:

The floor's collapsed; no wait, what's that pain?; I've broken my ankle; no, I didn't go over on it; I think I'll fall to the floor like a 15 stone sack of potatoes; and now maybe I'll scream like a girl; AAAAHHHHHGGGG!

As I hit the deck I think I realised that it was my Achilles Tendon which had gone PING. My playing partner, CG, heard the noise it made and said later that he also thought for a split second that it was the floor breaking until he saw me hit the deck hard. And scream. I'd be prepared to accept that in fact I did scream like a girly, but RM and NG have assured me that there could be no doubting it was a man roaring! I'm also told I didn't swear, which isn't like me at all.

Anyway, along came the staff of the Kelvin Hall with a little bag of ice (Remember folks - RICE, Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) and this was applied to the back of my ankle while a wheelchair was brought to the court. I was wheeled out to NP's car and he took me across the road to the Western Infirmary A&E where the happy staff (!) attended to me. After the triage nurse assessed me out in the waiting area (saved having to wheel me away I suppose but I'm glad it was a physical injury and not an STD, 'cos it was a bit public) I was taken in to be seen. This was actually fairly quick considering that the little poster in the window of where I was booked in said there was a four hour wait. All in all I think it was round about half an hour before I was taken through.

The next nurse I saw opined that, since I had most of my pain at the bottom of my calf rather than in my ankle, it was more likely not an achilles tendon injury, but rather a tear of the gastrocnemius (calf) muscle. When the doctor came and looked though, he diagnosed that it was indeed a problem with the achilles tendon.



He didn't actually say what he thought I'd done to it, and as I realise now it could be "just" a tear, or it could be completely ruptured. Anyway I have a lightweight cast (or stookie as they used to be known in these here parts for some reason) from toe to knee. I have my toes pointing down (think ballet dancer on points, although not that severe an angle) and it'll be like that for two weeks then the cast removed and another one put on at a different angle, bringing my toes up a bit, then two weeks later changed again, etc. The first estimate is about 6 weeks in plaster. Whoop de do!

Having spoken to a colleague at work this morning, he told me that his next door neighbour had the same injury playing football and, because he had separated the tendon from the calcaneus bone (heel) he had to have surgery to repair it, and he was off work for four months. I have also been told by RN of the choir (he of the medical bent) that when I attend the fracture clinic (at 1307hrs today - what the hell kind of time is that for an appointment? - as soon as it gets to 1308hrs if I haven't been seen I shall complain!) I am to ask for an ultrasound examination of the injury in case it is indeed fully ruptured in which case I should ask for surgery to have it repaired.

On the way out, the nurse who had thought it wasn't an achilles tendon injury said something like "it's very unusual to have the pain so far up the calf in an achilles injury" in a vain attempt at redeeming herself, but I wasn't fooled!

So anyway, I actually slept very well last night. The foot is cast in the position it would naturally fall when I sleep (sort of the recovery position for those who are first aid trained, and for those who are not first aid trained - get trained, you never know when it'll come in useful. Or at least buy a first aid manual and read it).

While I remember, the loathsome racist low-life wanker in the next cubicle with an equally loathsome ned female was there because on Friday he damaged his fist while punching someone and because it broke the skin it's now infected and he can't open or close his fist. Hopefully it is very very painful. I say this partly because I don't like neds, partly because I don't like people who punch other people, partly because I don't like tossers using mobile phones in a hospital where it clearly says that such devices must be switched off, but mostly because I heard clearly what he called the doctor once he had finished examining him and had gone off to get the orthopaedic person to look at it, and I DO NOT like racists.

Why I hate criminals and they should be executed

Some bastard son of a bitch smashed the nearside front window of my car today while it was parked outside work. Second time in about 5 years at that locus. Raked about a bit in the glove compartment, pulled the back seats forward and blagged two big boxes of sweets which were for my gran's Christmas, didn't even look inside the CD pack in the glove compartment, just threw it to the floor, and stole about £4 from the wee tray which contains loose change for parking etc. And all because I didn't take the mount for my new Sat Nav system off the bloody windscreen! The Sat Nav was in my pocket, but the mount was on view and this clearly says to a thief "there may be an expensive bit of electronics in the glove compartment or under the seat or in the boot of this car". Needless to say, the mount will not be left on the windscreen in future.

So, having left work at 4pm, it's now half six and I'm just home, some £175 lighter (until I claim it back from my insurance company that is, well all bar £60 excess). When I phoned the glass repair company they asked what my insurance policy details were. Funnily enough I never took the trouble to commit them to memory so I had to pay cash until I find out and claim it back.

And to top it all, yet another bad experience with some Force Support Officer who was working in the Strathclyde Police Call Handling Centre and assured me that someone would call me to take a statement, but no, no one would come out to it because this sort of thing happens so often and it can be dealt with over the phone. What? I asked, Scenes of Crime can be done over the phone now can it? She was not for budging. But a cop redeemed the force two minutes later when he called me and without being asked (the useless one had obviously passed on my displeasure) assured me that Scenes of Crime would indeed come out to see me. So it's arranged for tomorrow.

In the meantime despite the best efforts of a very effective vacuum cleaner by the Auto Glass guy (who found a £20 note under the seat and returned it to me - a nice bloke), I'll be picking shards of glass out my arse for weeks!

BASTARDS!

Update 22nd December: Another car was done in the same place yesterday. £1000 of damage to the glass, glovebox and walnut dashboard of an Audi belonging to a colleague

A history lesson, a long trip and a sad ending

So cast your mind back a bit. On 27th January 1756 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born. Around the same time (actual date unknown but estimated at 1757) one John Tiffin was born in Cumbria. Unlike the young precocious Wolfgang, John went on to become a farmer and he and his wife, Mary Porteous, had 7 children. All very boring I hear you say and you'd be right to think that, except John Tiffin and Mary Porteous are actually quite important to me because they were my great great great great great great grandparents on my dad's maternal line!

The photo on the right is Holme Cultram Abbey in Cumbria and it's where John is listed as being born, although in fact I suspect it's just where he was baptised, as were I believe all their children. The motorcycle in the photo is mine, and this was one of today's destinations in my 420 mile round trip to Cumbria and back. Sadly the Abbey "went on fire", as they say in Glasgow, in June this year when some local little bastards set it alight, basically destroying it and its contents including irreplaceable records. Twats.

As an aside, also descended from John and Mary was a man called Arthur Ernest Tiffin (known as Jock Tiffin) who in 1955 was the third General Secretary of the British Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU). Jock was my 2nd cousin 4 times removed! Basically his grandfather and my great (x4) grandfather were brothers.



Another destination today was Barrow in Furness. And yes it was also related to my family tree. My great great grandparents on my dad's paternal line were Henry Pittock (a Yorkshireman) and Sarah McIntosh (from Dundee). They and five of their children, including my great grandmother Sarah Ann Pittock, lived in 23 Napier St in Barrow in Furness at the 1881 census, although by the 1891 census they had moved to Motherwell and had several additions to the family. Henry was at various times a Steel Hammerman and an Iron Smelter and I guess the reason the family moved from Cumbria to Lanarkshire was that this was probably the time the iron & steel industry was expanding rapidly in Motherwell. But I digress. The house in the centre of the photo is 23 Napier St, although I'd guess the pebbledash finish and satellite dish probably weren't there in 1881!

Of interest, well to me anyway and this is MY Blog after all, is that in the 1891 census, when Sarah was about 16, the Pittock family lived at 29 Ann St in Motherwell (a street which is no longer in existence) and next door at number 27 lived a family including an 18 year old boy called John. Yes, you've guessed it, my great grandfather literally married the girl next door! In fact they married on 29th December 1893 in Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Motherwell, my home church and where I started my choral singing in the 1970's. Or in fact they actually would have been married in what is now the church hall which was built as the church and which is now in danger of being demolished to make way for flats. From the Glasgow & Galloway Diocesan Website:

Holy Trinity had it origins in a meeting held in the Dalzell Arms Hotel on April 25th 1882 to consider the possibility of starting a Mission in Motherwell in connection with the Episcopal Church in Scotland. A congregation gathered and services were held in Mrs Keith's schoolroom until, in June 1884, a corrugated iron church was opened. This building is now the church hall. A building committee entered into negotiations with the Duke of Hamilton for a building site, and the foundation stone of the present church was laid on 29th September 1894. The new church, built in red stone and dedicated to the Holy Trinity on September 28th 1895 is Early English in style. The building was consecrated on November 21st 1896.

On a related note, related to genealogy, not Holy Trinity Church that is, the best description I've ever read about why tracing your family tree can be so interesting is the following by Bill Bryson from the introduction to A Short History of Nearly Everything

"Not only have you been lucky enough to be attached since time immemorial to a favoured evolutionary line, but you have also been extremely - make that miraculously - fortunate in your personal ancestry. Consider the fact that for 3.8 billion years, a period of time older than the Earth's mountains and rivers and oceans, every one of your forebears on both sides has been attractive enough to find a mate, healthy enough to reproduce, and sufficiently blessed by fate and circumstances to live long enough to do so. Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stuck fast, untimely wounded or otherwise deflected from its life's quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result - eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly - in you."


On a sad note, while travelling back to Glasgow this evening I was in a line of traffic approaching the wee town of Ulverston (I think it was) doing no more than 30-40mph when suddenly with no warning I was aware of something large and black appearing under the front wheel of the bike. I felt a bit of a bump, no more, and on looking in my mirror I saw the black labrador then being hit by the van behind me and dragged along underneath for a bit. Of course we all stopped, but by the time I had pulled in safely and walked back, shocked, several people had lifted the badly injured animal onto the pavement where it died a short time later. I think by then it wasn't aware of anything as it was showing no signs of distress or pain and was unconscious, so I sincerely hope it felt no pain after the initial collision. Within seconds of me arriving back at the scene, just after the dog had been moved to the pavement, the police arrived and took charge. Fortunately both the driver and passenger of the van which hit the dog after me, and the driver of the HGV directly behind them, all said right away that they had seen the animal sprinting out from a gap in the fence straight onto the road and into the side of my bike without me having a chance to see it never mind react to it. It upset me, I have to say, that the animal died and that I had hit it, but I don't feel any guilt because it ran out into me, I genuinely wasn't speeding, and 3 independent witnesses saw the whole thing and without being asked told the police that it wasn't my fault. Doesn't stop me being sorry about it though. Although I do wonder where the owner was and why it wasn't wearing a collar. Anyway, it was a wee while before I felt like carrying on with my journey, but I'm home now and well on the way to being dry and thawed out. A nice long hot bath will be the order of the day fairly soon.

These are a few of my favourite things (today)

Sunshine. Gin & Tonic. Broadband. Cats. Holiday from work.

A good day so far.

ps did I mention I won the lottery last Saturday? A whole £10, but it won't change my life.

Just now I'm watching Street Crime UK 4 on Bravo (currently onscreen is a man who's collapsed in a pool of his own vomit) . It takes me back to a previous life when I had a small part in dealing with the aftermath of such jollities. I remember once being cited for court but not remembering what the case was about. When I looked up the Crime Management system to check what I was speaking to, I discovered that I wasn't just a witness, I was the complainer!

Night shift, searching a drunk who had been arrested for Breach of the Peace, and he suddenly decided it'd be a spiffing wheeze to spit in my face. My how we laughed! Anyway the point is this, how many jobs in life can you have when in the normal course of your daily work someone spits full in your face, and less than a year later you can't remember the incident? I don't do that job now, but it was a tremendously steep learning curve for 3 years. Apart from anything else it taught me to duck quickly, so apart from that wee incident, every attempted punch, kick, knee, headbutt or bite missed me, and it taught me the importance of positive body language and of having a certain confidence in your bearing which wards off any thoughts bad guys might have of having a go at you much of the time!

So how was your day at work today?

Requiescat in pace

They shall not grow old as we who are left grow old. Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them.

On this anniversary of the London bombings, I think we should spare a thought for those who continue to be involved in the hard and often harrowing work of protecting the United Kingdom and us, its citizens, from others who also seek to spread terror and cause death amongst us.

Ravages

I've not a lot to say tonight, I'm busy setting up a USB PCTV Stick so I can watch TV on my laptop (only while at home of course, Mr TV Licence Enforcement Officer, otherwise it'd be illegal!)

Instead I thought I'd share these two (genuine) composite images which illustrate the effects of drugs and prostitution over about a 10 year period.

Scary, eh?

Well my advice to you is don't do drugs, and think at least twice before accepting money from strangers for sex!

Unless it's a lot of money maybe.

Imbeciles!

I'm just watching a TV programme about people who believed letters they've received saying they've won huge prizes in foreign lotteries they hadn't even entered. They always then had to pay money out in order to "release" the cash. Tens of thousands of pounds sometimes.

Let me think for a moment, should I have any sympathy for these morons? I think not. They deserve all they (don't) get! People as stupid as that don't deserve to have any money.

Update: One old woman sent the fraudsters £21,000.