YMC-Nile

This is going to be a very strange evening. Memories of drinking 14 cans of fizzy pop in two and a half hours; Rod Stewart’s ‘Sailing’ and a stolen moment with Emily Tangent behind a Nissen Hut in a Borders backwater fill my head.

I have just dropped off the eldest child (12) at his first disco which doesn’t involve jelly and ice cream. I am filled with all sorts of dark thoughts. What if he’s offered crack cocaine? Or even worse, the buffet only has turkey twizzlers? Can he beat 14 cans? How much Um Bongo can a child take before being rushed to A&E? Will the youthful hormones turn the screaming little oiks into a giddy mix of lord knows what and we’ll be choosing pink or blue and a nice hat in nine months time?

It’s OK though, It’s an official school event. So that’s all right then. Panic over. The teachers will be armed with cattleprods patrolling dark corners and the loos clipping adolescents round the ear if there’s any nonsense. Hang on though. I’ve just seen the two teachers go in. They are young and tanned. I think they may be an item. I fear the worst. Will their minds be on the job? 

And what about the vexed question of where to park.  Not for the first time I wonder how I can fill two and a half hours on a wet evening in Teesdale. Should I stay in the car park and wait? I’d have hated that. And these days what with stalking cases involving middle-aged men on the increase I may be arrested in a well planned Police raid after an anonymous call from inside the Hall. As I drive away in the squad car I see my eldest smiling and waving. Charming.

 But by the time I drive home it’ll be time to come back again. Maybe I’ll hover in a lay-by along the road and watch something on my laptop. That is also a terrible idea. I fear magistrates would want to make an example.

 The children eventually emerge and are high on….well…nothing but natural excitement. It’s a rare opportunity to be free of parents; school routines; homework and brothers and sisters. Dress code would appear from where I am sitting to be a tantalising mix of branded leisure chic meets Hannah Montana. A heady combination of teenage static; aftershave and exotic perfumes fill the air. I should be appalled. I am of course fantastically jealous. 

 In August 1976 I made my public debut on a dancefloor. Not wanting to become a grandmother too early in life mum had fitted the standard anti- female deterrents: tanktop,  elastic tie and bell bottoms which were hanging at what fashionistas would describe as “half-mast”. I was an irresistible hunk of lovin’.  But of course the disco fell along the usual lines- boys at one end throwing soggy Wotsits at each other, the girls at the other pointing at my trousers and giggling. And so the night passed.

Must go….. I can see movement in the bushes. My God it’s the teachers. Where’s my cattleprod?

My Wife’s Gone Mad

We have dogs. Two large ridgebacks (look it up) and boy are they pampered (apart from sleeping in the house, and getting treats, and being walked once a week….hmmm where’s the number for the RSPCA). However events took a most preposterous turn last week. And I blame my dear wife.

Kari, the biggest and daftest of the two (I’m still talking about the dogs, not the children- do keep up) cut her leg which meant a costly visit to the vet for an xray and associated unguents.

Let me make it clear at this stage in the story that at no stage did I get any veterinary advice to apply any significant aftercare other than a pill a day and check pulse etc. And so we headed home both of us lighter- the dog by half a pint of blood and me by £168.72.

I had to go to the pub to recover. Returning to the house I found the dog in some sort of canine heaven. Wife and children had decided that some severe pampering was in order. Cushions, blanket, the works. Children were draped over the addled hound as if rigor mortis was imminent.

And to top it all…..an ‘ice pack’ had been applied to the injured leg.  Fair enough I thought. Pampering for one day in the year costs nothing.

To a point. I have now discovered that the mysterious ‘ice pack’ was in fact a selection of ‘whatever was sitting around in the freezer’ .

So …..to cut a long story short both packets of Birds Eye Finest Petit Pois were used and then discarded (“well we can’t eat them after that” said she). Oh but it gets worse. At the weekend I enquired of the whereabouts of a large bag of very expensive fruit salad which I’d acquired from a farm shop a year earlier.

I think you can guess by now what it was used for….and where it ended up.

Madness.

The Laminated Book of Dreams

I wish I could tell you that the most read book in our house is perhaps a collection of French prose,  or Ulysses, or even Dan Brown. Something intellectual, something stimulating. Something for the four of us to debate long into the night over cheap port and Maltesers. Or even just during the commercial breaks in the X Factor.

Sadly not. It is in fact the Argos catalogue. Thousands of pages offering everything from beds to bedknobs; dog beds to dogs (well you never know)…all available by phone or online. Or even by actually moving and visiting a store.

Catalogues seem to spring to life at this time of the year. The children, previously barred from mentioning the C word until mid November, have now been unshackled and are rapidly assembling Christmas lists with the Argos book of dreams playing a key role in their deliberations.

And I am more than happy to join them. Catalogues have played a key role in British households for decades and ours was no exception. I seem to recall Littlewoods and Grattans as a spotty teenager. Of course back then all that interested me were the toys, occasional fashion pages (“get your Bay City Rollers bell bottoms here!”) and mainly the underwear section….for many adolescents their first furtive glimpse into the complex and frankly intimidating world of female undergarments.

Not a lot has changed. Sadly Argos does not provide such a key educational service but for some reason both myself and wife are still keen on the Next catalogue. I wonder what she’s looking at?

Remembering The Wall

Twenty years ago today I was in Berlin when the wall came down.

I was working with Sky News at the time. 

But how I came to be there, chipping away at the graffiti covered structure with stolen British Airways cutlery as the Police looked on, is a tale worth telling.

The previous night I was in my Edinburgh flat with housemate Simon and his delightful girlfriend Dominique  watching events unfold on the TV News. We all wished we were there…after all it was the first bit of real history that had happened in our short lives which was accessible and effectively only a couple of hours away.

Suddenly my Sky boss rang. “This is history. We should be there,” he said. And so we set about booking flights for the next morning. Simon and Dominique- caught up in the drama, announced they wanted to come as well.

And so bleary eyed we spent much of the next day making our way to Berlin. We had to fly from Edinburgh to Heathrow, and then to Cologne and then on to the city in the global spotlight.

I had a brush with celebrity on the London Cologne flight. Prog rock genius Rick Wakeman was sitting next to me. He was astonished that effectively on a whim we had decided to go to Berlin. “I don’t suppose you fancy playing keyboards with Yes* in Cologne tonight do you?” he inquired with a twinkle in his eye  “and I’ll go to the wall.”

No deal.  And so late afternoon we arrived in Berlin and were dumped by taxi in the city centre. None of us had ever been there before. Where was the wall? We needn’t have worried. We just followed the crowds.

It was a long walk, but an unforgettable one. Something had changed. You could sense it in the air.

We eventually arrived. The atmosphere was crackling with tension. The previous night  TV cameras had broadcast images of thousands of people standing on the wall itself. Tonight there would be no repeat. A fleet of police vans separated the crowds from scaling the battered structure. A stand-off  continued for hours. We carried on walking along the wall and eventually, away from the TV arc lights, managed to find an area where we could touch the iconic wall. People were hacking away at it and pocketing graffiti covered chunks. The stolen BA cutlery came in handy and I chipped off three small pieces. A terrific feeling of being part of something much much bigger overwhelmed us all. How could we mark this historic moment? Time for a pint.

And so we partied until dawn. West Berlin was heaving. Thousands had come across from the East side. But they had little or no money and no accommodation. All they could do was wallow in the capitalist excess in the shop windows before sheepishly going back home again. So near and yet so far.

We took the tube train at some stage in the evening little knowing that it’s route crisscrossed East and West Berlin. We stopped at a bleak grey station bereft of any advertising or gaudy billboards on the east side  and tried to get up to street level. Not possible. There were soldiers there. So back on the train we went and hot footed it back to the comfort of West Berlin.

We didn’t book hotel rooms , we just fell asleep where we could. I have vague memories of a deep leather seat in a hotel lounge.

It was a fantastic 24 hours. A heady mix of mayhem, excitement and confusion with a big dollop of history thrown in for good measure. And we wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

Did I do any work? No. But I did offer….

* = erm…nearly, but not quite. See comment below. Apologies.

Brace Yourself

Hospitals are bad enough but when you have to visit a dentist in a hospital you know life has reached a new low.

After negotiating a variety of wheezing, coughing and spluttering patients all enjoying a cigarette in the crisp autumn sunshine outside the main entrance we made our way up to the Orthodontic department.

Today I was not the patient. The youngest child needed brand new braces fitted. Top and bottom. He seemed to be very brave. He wasn’t. Tears started welling up as the chirpy consultant tweaked the wires with pliers. And that was that. Ten minutes later I was back out in the waiting room with a sobbing child. Charming.

For me this was 1976 all over again. At the time I had teeth that to put it mildly, ‘protruded’. It was probably going too far to say I could have got an acting role in Watership Down but help was clearly needed.

I wore two braces for two years. Looking back I probably gagged, vomited and slobbered my way through my first day.

Today the journey home was a long long one. The child was not happy. UN type negotiations were needed to salvage the situation. In this case a new DVD did the track. And no it wasn’t Dracula! Ha ha

Four hours have now passed since the fitting. He’s happy and now wondering if the klaxons will go off at airport security when he goes on holiday. Life has returned to normal.  

Caught In The Web

There have been several mind-boggling technological leaps of faith in my 27 years as a journalist. When I started as a spotty cub reporter for a weekly newspaper group in 1982 (Jimmy Connors won Wimbledon; ET was the movie to see and Duran Duran dominated the charts) it was a much simpler world. No computers; no mobile phones; no coffee shops on every street corner; smoking in offices; liquid lunches and a printing process called hot metal (literally). In fact the most prized possession (apart from a Rubik’s cube) was a typewriter ribbon. They were like gold-dust.

Gradually, something terrifying called ‘new technology’ started to creep in. Journalists, like other office workers, were usually bunged a few grand to put up with this upstart. Happy days.

First we had PCs and mobile phones and then the internet came along. The digital dawn had broken. You either went with the flow on an exciting voyage of discovery or were left way way behind in grey cardie and slippers muttering about the good old days.

I love the internet. It opens up all sorts of possibilities good and bad. A fantastic resource on the one hand and a melting pot of false truths and distortions on the other. You take you pick….

Up until a few days I had no idea how a web page was built. Wasn’t hugely bothered. After all, like Blackadder, I am quite happy to wear cotton but have absolutely no idea how its made.

So in my latest guise as MA student at Teesside University I am required to craft a web page or two. And so I was let loose on delightfully named software called Dream Weaver. But sadly I didn’t manage to weave any dreams…or sensible content for that matter. It was a nightmare and I have renewed respect for those who can create magic from a blank electronic canvas.

I’d like to think I’m sensible and relatively IT friendly but after two hours of toil it looked as though pre school infants and four chimpanzees had been let loose on a keyboard. My debut page had the look of one of those pioneering web pages from 1990. Basic, clunky and oh so plain.  

The next session is looming. I can feel a short illness coming on. Perhaps swine flu.

However I am a determined old sod so failure is not option. I’ll keep you posted on progress.

Taxi For Southgate

Who would be a football manager.

No… really.

Abused. Criticised. And that’s when you are winning.

The vole has met Southgate on a couple of occasions and a more decent man you could not meet. But that was not enough for his ultimate loyalist…. club owner Steve Gibson.

Even though the team won last night it would appear that change was needed.   

Early rumours would seem to favour wee Gordon Strachan. Mind you people have also mentioned King Kev, Warnock, Coppell and (inevitably) Sven. You pays your money….

Holy Moley

Damn. They’re back. On the lawn. After a summer spent largely underground happily breeding and eating worms my little furry friends have organised themselves into a formidable subterranean brigade with the sole intention of annoying the heck out of me.

So the traps have been set. It will be a battle to the death. And unless they learn to pick locks, climb stairs and wield a large club then I will win.

For the moment they are ahead.  Expect further news as and when.

Tat-R-Us

I am a member of  Freecycle. This is a global not for profit organisation which allows you to bid for and offer items- for nothing. Its purpose is a clear one- to exchange perfectly usable goods which would normally end up cluttering landfill sites. I admire the green ethos. Small groups are scattered up and down the land run by very strict moderators. They have to be. I’m sure enterprising but misguided rogues have tried to grab  all the TVs on offer and make a nice profit on Ebay.

So how does it actually work in practice. I very rarely offer everything. So is it all take take take? Well sort of. In today’s society we are simply not used to getting anything for nothing anymore so in the early days of Freecycle I awaited the emails with an obsessive zeal. The sweetie shop was open! At the time I was setting up my own business so in no time had a wireless keyboard; computer monitor; camera; computer desk and a dodgy printer. So far so good. Meeting the owners at agreed locations for the exchange can be an odd experience. To unsuspecting members of the public the transactions must look like a rather odd drug deal between pensioners. Picture the scene, two cars park next to each other, a few words are exchanged and then the boots open where a small package is handed over. Rarely a handshake. Few words are spoken. And then they leave.  

Last month I waited in a car park for the printer owners to arrive. They did, handed it over but the lady, just as the transaction was about to take place, looked me in the eye and asked me if I was a Christian. Her eyes burnt into my soul. Quick thinking was needed. What if I said no? Would she drive off with the printer? “Of course I am” and smiled in a Christian sort of way. I did not have a tambourine to hand as that really would have clinched it.

Over the months enthusiasm has waned slightly. I still get the emails and they are a pain cluttering up your inbox. But what joy thy bring. Last night the latest batch arrived offering an intriguing insight into the lives of those living in my valley. 

Wanted: 

a pink tutu

An adult wheelchair “am taking dad away at half term”. (My immediate thought was …does he know? Is he being dropped off at a care home…forever?) 

A pressure barrel for a home brewing kit (immediate thought…..did the last one explode and is now four gardens away?)

horse manure (immediate thought, please God let it be for an allotment)

Star Wars toys (geek alert….”vehicles and figures OK”)

And I loved the final offer which hinted at a very messy house and possible mental issues:  ”would greatly appreciate wardrobes”

I am tempted by the red seater sofa with wooden detail. Apparently its ”comfortable”. Well that’s a relief.

Join up, you’ll end up filling up your house with everyone else’s junk…but you’ll have a laugh in the process.

Now where did I leave that tutu?

A Virtual Fresher

In what I suspect will be a recurring theme as the Vole adjust to life on a University campus after a 24 year hiatus I have more shock news to impart.

In the old days fifteen rather pleasant trees in Sweden had your name on them as they were ultimately destined to become study aids, books, journals and other necessary printed items for your period in an academic institution.

My how times have changed. Yesterday we were given what I assumed would be the first of many handbooks and guides. A room at Vole Towers had been allocated for storage. It was destined to be a very physical reminder of the task ahead. Read two shelves and get a degree.

Then our ‘module leader’ said those would be the last pieces of paper we’d see over the next year.  Everything would be done online. Amazing.

E-Learning is what it’s all about so we’ve had sessions on everything from virtual studying an virtual resources to virtual assessments and virtual pastoral care.  And even in the library you can now ‘e-snitch’ on noisy students!  Another heavy IT session looms this afternoon.

Do University’s now rely on e-protests; e-karaoke and e-hangovers? Thankfully no,  judging by the states I saw this morning. It cheered me up no end.

I’m off for an E-Guinness. That’s extra cold of course.