France v Scotland (Part 2)
29 September 2007Continued from France v Scotland (Part 1)
The four musketeers arrived timeously at Liverpool John Lennon Airport, checked our bags in and headed for the airport bar. By this point the beers were starting to bag up a little, so Cider and Blackcurrant was the drink of choice.
It was at this point that myself and The King Of Bebo noticed we had not checked in our kilt pins. Although we don’t normally look like terror suspects, we were by now on around our 8th drink, unwashed, unshaven and talking in a slurred, drunken language that did not quite sound like English. After a quick confab, The King of Bebo had the ingenious plan to attach our kilt pins to our sporran chains, so they looked like part of the decoration.
The worrying this is it worked perfectly and we waltzed through security with 2 potential stabbing weapons. They did take great care to make sure there wasn’t a bomb in my shoes though. For the record, there wasn’t.
Another drink on the other side of security and it was time to board the plane. We were in boarding group B (how on earth do you get into group A?) so had to wait till last to board. Classic moment as the girl calling everyone forward checked in thick scouse accent “Is everyone here in group A”. 100 drunken Scotsmen shouted back with perfect comic timing “A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A”. Repeat that in a scouse accent and you will get the joke…
I’m not a massive fan of flying. Well flying I’m OK with, it’s the thought of crashing that scares me really. The King Of Bebo knowing this did his usual “Is that supposed to happen” every 5 minutes throughout the flight. Hillarious. A couple of rounds of warm Heineken are ordered over the 90 minutes or so of flying to steady the nerves and we touch down at Charles De Gaulle in one piece around 10.30 PM.
I have learned from experience on previous Scotland trips that the one thing you should do on arrival is get a taxi straight to your hotel. I still have nightmares about a night spent in Milan wandering aimlessly around till 4 in the morning searching for a street without a map, or a hope. So, some Euros out of the cash machine, a taxi into town and the first chance to practice my Standard Grade conversational French. Sadly the taxi driver does not seem impressed to learn that there is a gorilla in the back garden 
We arrive at our hotel around 11PM, have a quick wash and head straight back out again in search of the nearest pub. The nearest pub obligingly offers itself to us about 50 yards from the front door of our hotel. My round.
“Quatre grandes bières s’il vous plaît”.
“How much!!!!”.
Let me first clarify the type of establishment we were drinking in. This was not your trendy, west end wine bar. No, this was more in the mould of say The Saracen bar, indeed if I screwed up my eyes a little I could have been in Possil. 24 Euros for 4 pints and the barman even had the audacity to leave a little plate for a tip. Welcome to Paris pricing.
We downed the pints and decided to venture out into the main square at Place de Clichy, stopping on the way to pick up a couple of cold beers for the 5 minute walk from a tabac. Well, The King Of Bebo, THYB and myself picked up a beer. Not Bovril. No, Bovril picked up a bottle of wine for the 5 minute walk.
Arriving at Place de Clichy we spotted a bar that was open till 2am and went in to buy some more extortionate beer. THYB and myself got chatting to a group of African guys from the Gabon embassy. Can’t really remember the details of the conversation, but they were top blokes. Oh, and one of them really reminded me of the Ugandan guy from Fonejacker. Fortunately he didn’t ask me for “My bank account details”.
We stayed in the bar untill it shut around 2.20 AM or so and decided to head home as it had been a long day. Bovril however had other ideas and decided to try and pick a fight with a dodgy looking French Algerian bloke. Fortunately I managed to stop him before he followed the guy into the Metro where no doubt he would have met up with some more dodgy looking French Algerian blokes.
Finding our way back to the hotel safely, myself and The King of Bebo decided that the only thing to do after a long days drinking, walking and talking nonsense was to have a fighting/wrestling match (friendly of course). An epic contest ensued with limbs and, as we were kilted, other appendages flying everywhere. All looked lost when The King of Bebo had me in a choke hold, but I managed to escape and fought my way back into the match with a full nelson. After about 20 minutes a rare flash of common sense prevailed and we decided to call it a sporting draw.
And so ended our first night in Paris, tomorrow the day of the game…
Gig at The Aragon
28 September 2007The King Of Bebo and myself will be committing some serious crimes against music tomorrow evening (Saturday 29th) at The Aragon Bar, Byres Road.
Anyone brave enough to attend this event can expect the usual mix of acoustic rock from various decades and artists such as The Beatles, The Kinks, U2, Radiohead and Jasper Carrott. We have learned a few new songs for the gig, so it could be even messier than normal.
That is all.
Lionel Richtea
27 September 2007I still think this is one of the best uses of Photoshop ever.
Sad to hear of the passing of famous mime artist Marcel Marceau this week. Apparently there are plans to honour him with a minutes noise…
Police Complaining About 999 Calls
27 September 2007Was listening to the radio this morning and my blood was boiling at police complaining about non emergency calls to 999. Posted the following comment on the Scotsman article on the story.
I’m sorry, but before police chiefs start complaining about this they should get their own house in order.
I live on the ground floor of a tennement flat in the South Side of Glasgow and last week my buzzer sounded during the day. I answered and a male voice said “Police can you let us into the close please”. Of course I buzzed them straight in.
I then heard the sound of running past my door and up the stairs followed by an almighty crash and the sound of smashing glass and shouting from upstairs. I looked outside and there was no sign of any police cars/vans, so naturally I was concerned.
I left my flat, went outside on my mobile and telephoned 999, informing them of what had happened and that I wanted to make sure it was the police who were smashing up the flat above me. The woman on the other end said “This is not an emergency call” (the tone was you are wasting our time) “Please hang up and contact your local police station”.
Well, I did as I was told and phoned directory enquiries for the number for my local station. As I was unsure whether this was an emergency I asked to be connected straight through at 42p per minute. What followed was 25 minutes waiting on hold!
After 25 minutes I noticed my upstairs neighbour walking into the close with some shopping and thought enough is enough, for all I know she could be going upstairs to an attacker. I hung up the phone and redialled 999, explaining that I had no way of knowing whether this was an emergency and could not get through to my local police station. This time they said they would look into it.
As it turns out, it was the police and was indeed a raid on a property above me. How on earth was I supposed to know that though? For all I knew someone above me was getting murdered. For the record I tried 2 different numbers for the local police (including their HQ in Pitt Street) and got no answer from either. The phone call also cost me £20.
Absolutely disgraceful.
The Seahorses
26 September 2007
Was listening to The Seahorses album “Do It Yourself” tonight for the first time in a while and had forgotten just how good it is. I really don’t think there is a track on the album that I dislike, which is very rare for me as normally a good album will have at least a few tracks that I find myself reaching for the skip button.
My favourites are probably “1999″, “Boy In The Picture” and “Blinded By The Sun”. Soaring guitar riffs throughout by John Squire, complimented with fantastic melodies.
A real shame that they split up after just one album. The single they released after “Do It Yourself”, “You Can Talk To Me” was superb and was also the first track to be written by John Squire and Chris Helme together. I was lucky enough to see them live at T In The Park in 1999 or 2000 and they played a song “City In The Sky”, which was written for the new album and I remember it being another excellent song.
Sad too that they never really got the critical acclaim they deserved. I guess they were always being compared to The Stone Roses, when really they were a completely different band.
Had a search and they don’t seem to have an official website, so more info on The Seahorses at Wikipedia. Also check out The Yards, the band formed by Chris Hemle (Seahorses vocals) and Stu Fletcher (Seahorses bass).
Laptops Don’t Like Beer
23 September 2007
Actually, if we are going to be scientific about this, I probably haven’t done enough research to state that as fact. What I can say with complete confidence however is that although my Acer Laptop may enjoy other brands, it has a strong dislike to Miller Genuine Draft. Indeed, such is my laptops disgust at me drunkenly pouring half a bottle of beer over its sleek black casing, that it now point blank refuses to switch on.
Now before you point the finger of accusation at me, I’m not the type of guy that would purposely pour a bottle of a popular brand of lite beer over an innocent laptop. No, this was an entirely accidental incident, without precident, and very unlikely to be repeated in the future.
After treating myself to one or two bottles of Miller, I thought it would be a good idea to balance one on the side of the couch while I checked my emails. What I didn’t count on was that at any second my cat would leap into my lap, causing me to nudge the side of the couch and the beer to topple forward, spilling its contents across my lap, and more importantly my laptop.
After frantically running for a towel and drying the machine as best I could, it appeared that, aside from some water in the screen, which I reasoned would evaporate in a day or two, the laptop was functioning as it should. Alas, this morning (Sunday) when I went to turn it on, it groaned for a couple of seconds, let out a shrill “beep, beep, beep” and then died. I dismantled the laptop and tried to dry inside it, but that only succeeded in further agitating me as I lost several screws and an hour of my life.
I will leave it until I get home from work tomorrow and see if it has dried out by then, but its not looking good. My laptop does not like beer.
Faddy gets 20 minutes
23 September 2007Once again Faddy drops to the bench today for Everton v Aston Villa and finally gets on with 20 minutes to go when they are already 2-0 down. Sadly (as I have a soft spot for Everton), I think he has to leave in January to find regular football.
It’s 4 years now and he only ever gets a run of 2/3 games before he is back warming the bench. Such a waste of an exceptional talent.
I would like him to stay in the Premiership, perhaps a move to someone like Wigan or Birmingham would be good for him. A move to to a strong Championship team could also be worthwhile.
Maloney didn’t even get on the park for Aston Villa.
The King Of Bebo
21 September 2007At the risk of becoming a social outcast, I’ll start by saying that I’ve never really been into the whole social networking thing. I tend to think that there was a reason I chose to cut all ties with that weird bloke with the greasy hair and bad breath that sat next to me in Modern Studies once. My friend Stevo however, has the social networking bug big style.
Deciding to see what all the Bebo fuss was about the other day, I was clicking about some profiles and kept seeing his face everywhere. Comments, friends, white boards… everywhere I turned his weather beaten visage was staring back at me. It was at this point that I decided he would no longer be known as Stevo, from now on he would be referred to as “The King Of Bebo“. A quick couple of guesses at his password (not exactly FBI proof Stevo!) and I logged into his profile, updating his user name accordingly.
The King of Bebo had arrived.
If you would like to help launch Stevo as the MySpace Tom of the Bebo world, then add him to your Bebo: -
user name: stephenmurray80
Profile: http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MID=367137231&MemberId=2408406143
Or perhaps you’ll already have him!
Important Decisions
21 September 2007Friday afternoon has arrived, and in Thin Denim that means one thing. The weekly decision of which luncheon delight to plump for in O’ Neil’s £2.95 value menu.
In the red corner we have the O’ Neil’s burger. A quarter pound, heavy weight classic. Loaded with cheese and bacon, with a hearty helping of salad and hand cut chips on the side it certainly has a lot in its favour. The fact I had a chicken curry last night though means my heart is telling me to give it a break and go for a healthier option.
In the blue corner we have the Salmon Skewer salad. At first glance this contender seems unassuming, but it should not be underestimated. A real battler, the Salmon Skewer salad does not know when it is beaten - the Rocky Balboa of the lunch world. Grilled Salmon on skewers with a mound of salad and a chunk of Irish Soda bread. Healthy and tempting.
My decision is made, the Salmon it is.
Now, the choice of beverage. Should I plump for a fresh orange, or a pint of Guinness…
Media Tart
20 September 2007My status as media tart was confirmed this morning as my ugly mug adorned page 5 of the Daily Record. I was snapped leaving Hampden yesterday with THYB, after queuing for Scotland v Ukraine tickets.
There are a lot of unhappy people as there were only 2,500 tickets on sale at Hampden, with each person able to buy up to 4 tickets. I was there from around 6am, but anyone arriving after around 7am had to do without.
As usual, tickets have already found their way onto ebay, with one seller stating that “His wife is due to give birth on the day of the game”. This was 2 hours after he had queued to buy the tickets! Ticket touts really are the scum of the earth, and its sad to think of all the genuine fans unable to buy tickets because of these cretins.
Why does my cat always choose to be sick on the rug?
