News Archives: December 2009

Thursday, December 31, 2009

So That Was Christmas

So, we managed to get through Christmas without anyone getting stuck in the snow. We did chicken out of heading into Edinburgh to meet friends on Christmas Eve. We got as far as getting in the car, at which point a snow storm started, and we quickly retreated home...

Our parents were round at ours on Christmas Day, then over to Mum's for Boxing Day to see my sister and her family. Anne and I had bought Mum a Wii/Sports/Wii Fit Plus combo. Yep, Mum got a games console before I did. My own presents were largely of the pile of books/CDs/DVDs variety, plus the Battlestar boardgame, and various edibles. My nephew is turning into quite the gamer, though being ten he's mainly focused on yugioh (or however it's spelt...) I'm slowly weaning him on to real games. So far, Dragon Dice and Lord of the Fries seem to be the successes.

***

I didn't get to see Doctor Who until a few days after Christmas. Thanks to everyone who needed to post spoilers all over Facebook and blogs... I thought it was alright, so far. Much will depend how good the second half is. Oh, sure, it suffered from the usual Davis problems - bad guys who lack any motivation beyond being "evil" or "mad", an unjustified fascination with its own continuity, failure to lay pipe, and a "shock ending" that was telegraphed 15 minutes in - and John Simm's maniacal laugh isn't much cop, which is a shame given how little else he was given to do. But I enjoyed it anyway. Hopefully the second half will pick up the pace, and not descend into techno-babble...

***

I've been witness to two violent incidents since Christmas, both on the street outside our house. The first occurred in the early hours of Monday morning. A group of four or five blokes having a drunken argumetn woke me up, but the noise didn't last long, so I went back to sleep without looking out the window. Turns out that one of them had thrown a bin across the road, someone had staggered off bleeding, and someone else had been knocked over before staggering off in a different direction. The police seemed to be taking it all pretty seriously, spending most of the day going door to door collecting statements, despite not appearing to know the identity of any victim, or indeed whether any of those involved was particularly innocent.

The second was Monday evening. The driver of a pickup truck (going well over the speed limit on an icy road) got annoyed at a bus with right of way turning into the road some 300 yards away. He showed his annoyance by turning on full beam lights (including stupid flood lights on top of the cab), blaring his horn, slamming his brakes on, skidding, and shouting abuse at the bus, which completely ignored him and carried out the turn calmly and safely. The pickup driver then reversed, blocked the bus into the bus stop (using a parked police van to do so), got out and started abusing the bus driver. The police officers (who'd been gathering statements from the previous incident) turned up at this point, and despite having a witness (I was walking Alfie and saw the whole thing) merely nodded their heads at the guy's ranting, then let him drive off. Presumably charging the guy for dangerous driving, breach of the peace, and possibly driving under the influence would have required too much paperwork...

***

And so we reach Hogmanay. No idea what we'll be doing for the bells. There's a couple of parties, but we haven't decided which to go to, or whether to do something else. Still, tomorrow is clear for recovering, and I've done all the shopping that needs done before next week. Have a good New Year when it reaches you.

Posted by graham @ 11:40 am

Monday, December 21, 2009

Driving Home for Christmas

Mum lives about 50 miles away, with motorways covering most of the distance between us. Normally, it takes us about an hour to travel door-to-door. Yesterday was Mum's birthday, so we'd bundled the dogs into the car, and headed over for Chinese and presents and chat. So far, a very good day.

We left Mum's just before 9, taking it easy as the gritters hadn't reached Mum's road. Signs in Glasgow warned that the A80 was shut (turned out a lorry had jack-knifed) and to use an alternative route. (Why do they always say "alternative"? What's wrong with "different"?) So, we stayed on the M8. By 9:45 we were stationary, just past Airdrie. And there we sat. And sat. Somewhere between Airdrie and Harthill, another lorry had jack-knifed. I called the neighbours, so they could let Cisco in. I like having friendly, helpful neighbours you can leave a key with. The 1am news announced that the lorry had been moved, and they were just clearing enough snow for us to be able to drive on. We started moving about 20 minutes later, and crawled on ice and slush at 5 to 10 mph over the spine of Scotland. East of Livingston, the road started to clear, and we reached previously undreamed of speeds like 40. We finally got home around 3:15, walked the dogs, and collapsed. I got to sleep about 4. Alfie was up and pacing by 6:45...

I'm moderately awake, though twitchy and desperately in need of more tea. Claire's working from home today, to avoid driving in snow while exhausted. She did quite enough of that last night. And the pets are all fast asleep. The dogs were angelic last night, coping with hours stuck in a car without complaint. I really hope not to repeat this exercise any time soon...

***

One side effect of having to listen to the radio for traffic news is that I've now heard the X Factor winner Christmas single. Reminds me why I don't watch such shows. The song is bland and instantly forgotten, performed by a barely-competent singer and a bunch of session musicians with their brains firmly in "off". And that was the winner? Sheesh. Not that I have any more time for the anti-X Factor. Giving 400 grand to EMI and their corporate distributers ain't my idea of an act of rebellion...

Right, more tea. Now.

Posted by graham @ 08:51 am

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Watching Me, Watching You

Yesterday, I wrote a long blog post, then managed to delete it before publishing it. So you'll never know my thoughts on Robert Holdstock's passing, or how wonderful his "Mythago Wood" series is, or the sparrow hawk that was watching me through the study window.

***

Christmas is fast approaching, and like everyone else, I'm in the middle of buying presents. I'm well aware that I'm difficult to buy for, and kind thoughts are more than enough. But if people are determined to part with money, could I suggest making a charitable donation instead? I've made a couple of suggestions below, but there are thousands of others, just as deserving.

Greyhound Gap - the charity who rescued Alfie, and nursed him through his hernia operation and recovery.

Marie Curie Nurses

Amnesty International

Posted by graham @ 08:28 pm

[Archive Index]