One Man's Notes

Mouse update:

My mum does indeed have mice. The local council’s pest control people are coming to sort them out in the next couple of days.

I think that she should just buy a cat.


I am a wuss. Oxford Street was quiet, the bank was fast and efficient and I have a lovely sandwich for my lunch.

Mmmm..mmmm.


I really should be at the bank about now.

Slept terribly last night. After a quiet, relaxed weekend with Lorna, my brother threw my life into chaos by asking me to participate in a financial transaction of his. Obviously, no detail here, but it’s something I’m not sure I want to do, but which I probably ought to do. I’m meeting him for a drink and a chat about it tomorrow. It was enough to keep my brain buzzing way past my sensible sleepy time last night, though.

I really should be at the bank, paying in a cheque, right now. But it’s Oxford Street and it may be horrible…

Work is quiet. There’s an argument in progress in the art department, but I’m ignoring that. I’m alternating between writing a feature and trying to understand Microsoft’s Passport and MSN Messenger. Heigh ho.

Oh, bugger it, to the bank I go.


An Unusual Situation - with an explanation

Well, as I mentioned in my last entry today - well, yesterday now given that it’s after midnight, marked two years of Lorna and I being together. We spent the evening several hundred miles apart. Did I mind? No, not really.

For one, she didn’t really have much choice but to be in Bristol. I can’t go into details, because it’s not really fair on her family for me to spill their private affairs all over the web, but suffice it to say that there is a situation that needs sorting and she has gone to make sure it gets sorted. The timing was out of her hands.

For another, well, this has been our life for those two years. Between my Dad’s illness and death and the on-going problems affecting Lorna’s family, we’ve had far less time for each other than we might have liked. Yet, despite that, we’ve always been there for each other, tried to have as much fun and we can and generally held back from hissy fits and drama queen moments when things have been rough. I’ve had relationships fragment under much lesser pressure than this. Let’s hope that we’ve proved the strength of what we’ve got in the last year, and that we get more chances to enjoy it in the year ahead.

Celebrations will commence in full on Thursday. I can’t wait.


Monday morning. With a sense of dramatic appropriateness, the world has decided to furnish us with a dull, grey day after a night of rain. London came back to work today, and it’s not happy about it. There’s a palpable sense of grimness and the air, and that fact that my nose is full of cold still isn’t helping.

Anther cheery entry to speed you on your way.

The good news is that tomorrow is my two year anniversary with Lorna. She’s still making me a very happy man. Long may it continue.

I’m such a soppy bastard.


Hurrah! A 17k piece of writing filed comfortably on time. Actually, concentrating on the last section of writing and a general revision of the whole piece kept my mind off this evil little bug that still lurks in my system. Now that I’m done, it seems to be dead set on reminding me of its existence. Bleurgh. Maybe I should push on with my next project to keep my mind off it.

Luckily Lorna is on her way over, so we can concentrate on being ill together in front of the video for the time being.


My Mum is scared. She’s heard sounds coming from the loft, and she thinks that it’s mice. She lives in a rural area and mice, rats and other vermin are pretty damn common, so I suppose it’s a possibility. I do think that birds roosting under the eaves for warmth during the sub zero temperatures we’re getting at night at the moment is a much more likely explanation, though.

It’s funny how you hear so many more sounds at night when you live alone. I’m the only one of my family who has any real experience of it. Mark has never lived alone, and Dad never did. I’ve spent the vast majority of the last three years living alone, and have another 18 months or so of solitary living under my belt during my time in this flat. It takes some getting used to, but you are definitely more alert to the smallest noise when you’re on your own. It’s probably just some survival mechanism, an ear for danger that allowed our ancestors to live. Pity it has to cost us the occasional night’s sleep now.

In other news, London remains disturbingly quiet. It’s obvious that the combination of many people still being on holiday and the train strike has kept the usual numbers of commuters, tourists and shoppers out of the city. You know, if London was like this all the time, I might still enjoy living here. instead, experiences like this just harden my determination to get out of London as soon as I can.


If there’s one thing I hate, it’s a persistent misery guts, so I’m going to start this entry with something good. I awoke this morning to the delightful aroma of fresh bread. My Mum bought me a bread maker for Christmas, and this was the first opportunity I’d had to use it. I put the ingredients (pre-mixed and shop-bought, I’m afraid. I am ill, you know) before I went to bed and set the timer. The result? Lovely fresh bread for breakfast. I couldn’t be happier.

Also on a happy note, Lorna and I dragged ourselves off our sickbeds and went to pick up Zoe (the car) yesterday. It took us two trips to get the battery out and the new one in, due to a lack of the correct tools. We then had a nail-biting ride through the rush hour, hoping that we got home before the battery gave out. We made it. Zoe is now in John’s tender hands, having a new alternator fitted. It’s handy living next door to a garage sometimes.

I’m back at work today, powered by the might of Lemsip and I might just make it through to the meeting I have this afternoon. Hurrah!


2002 was going to be the year things got better. Admittedly, 2001 was only really bad in one big and very specific way, but 2002 was going to be better. We’re now, what, just over 40 hours into the new year, and it has already been an unmitigated disaster. Let me present my case for this assessment:

  1. At the stroke of midnight, the start of the New Year, my girlfriend and I were in bed. Separately. At her Mum's place. We should have been at a party not terribly far away, but her cold was now so bad that there wasn't any hope of her being able to go. She and her Mum went to bed early.
  2. On New Year's Day, the car broke down as we were driving up the M4. After an hour and a half shivering by the side of the road, the AA man turned up. An hour later he told us that the car was screwed and that we'd need to be towed. The tow truck would take six hours to arrive. We'd have frozen to death in that time. In the end, we bought a new battery off his as a temporary fix and gambled on getting home. We nearly made it. We had to abandon the car outside a pub and get a taxi home. We're going back for it with a new battery tonight.

  3. Lorna's grandad has just been hospitalized.

What fun!


Christmas is Here!

Just back from Midnight Mass, and what a lovely service it was. Andrew gave a fantastic (and brief) sermon on fear - “The first thing you learn at Angel school is four words: Don’t be afraid” - that was wonderfully appropriate for us as a family this year. We sang, smiled and cried a little, but it was an uplifting experience. Fiona from next door joined us, and was a great source of support to us all.

After the service, we went to Dad’s graveside for a little while, and cried. I think though, that we all came away with a little more hope, happiness and joy that we’ve all felt for a long time. And that’s not just the Communion wine talking, honest.

Merry Christmas to you all.


Christmas is coming

This is going to be a strange old Christmas, for all the obvious reasons. There’s an underlying tension in the air at home, as the void in all our lives makes its presence felt.

Still, we’ve had beautiful snow already, everything is done and we’re all prepared to face the big day. Dinner and Midnight Mass are on the agenda for tonight, although I may try to get some writing done in amongst all of that. In a way, this may turn out to be a better Christmas than we’ve had in a little while. Last year was hard because Mark stayed in London with his then-fiancee and Dad was in a lot of pain. Mum’s expectation for the festive season have rarely been met since we passed through puberty.

Perhaps we’ll find something more to celebrate this year, despite our loss.


Well, the speech is done, and Prince Charles turned out to be witty, thoughtful and not a little controversial. I’ve bashed out a story on the speech and e-mailed it to the news editor, not that he’s answering his phone right now. Bloody reporters.

Ah, I’m really in the middle of an American tourist’s wet dream right now. I’ve just been watching a member of the Royal Family speak, and am now sat in a room with a superb view over London. listening to Big Ben chiming and looking at Westminster Abbey as darkness falls.

I suppose I’d better call the news editor again.


Eavesdropping is fun. The Prince of Wales' press team are giving a pre-conference speech briefing to some pet journalists. I, a random business journalist at the same confernce, am getting a fascinating glimpse into the sown-up work of royal coverage…


I Remember

I remember…

Coming back from a work lunch to see the whole office clustered around the TV watching footage of planes hitting the World Trade Centre. A major tragedy.

Talking to my Mum and then my Dad about it on the phone. He sounded vague, disconnected. Just over a week later, he’d be dead. Why is dealing with that getting harder? Sometimes the small tragedies are harder than the big ones.


For any and all who care, the pictures from my Scotland trip can be found here:

I’ll take the low road…

Everything from The Academy to the museum pics is the village where I grew up. Before that is Glasgow, pretty much.

I’m very pleased with this picture:

Good digital camera. Nice digital camera.


Found it!

You may all stop holding your breath and return to your regularly scheduled activities.


Oh no.

I’m rushing to get a feature finished for the magazine, and I’ve lost the notebook I used during the interview. It has to be here somewhere…


Powered up and ready to go

Just over a week ago, I went home to visit my Mum. This was a good deed, given her current situation, and like all good deeds it did not go unpunished. As I set up my iBook to recharge over night, the power cable made a “bzzt” noise, there was a startling electric blue flash. Then the cable stopped working.

Oooops.

So, I’ve been without my iBook for the best part of a week. Lorna made some jokey comments about withdrawal symptoms. Need…e-mail…need…web access. Maybe she’s right.

The net result is that I’m typing this on my brand new iMac. Well, not strictly true, as I bought it in the used goods section of John Lewis, but you get the general idea. The iBook was never intended to be anything more than a temporary replacement for a desktop while my father was ill and I was traveling to Suffolk every week. Now Dad’s with the Lord, I really need a desktop. I do seem to write faster on one and I have a fair amount of freelance to do in the coming months.

In a fit of further Apple geekiness, I headed off to the Apple Expo in Islington this morning, and what a fine event it was. The atmosphere was really pleasant and friendly than any IT-related show I’ve been to in a little while. The age range was quite amazing. Everyone from small kids with their families to people that must have been older than my Mum. Oh, and far more women than you’d expect from a computer show.

I think the key note of the experience was fun: “look at all the cool stuff you can do with these machines”. Oh, and the women wandering about with iPods for people to try were temptation incarnate. I resisted though and satisfied myself with an iPod poster,

Most vivid memory - half a dozen glowing Apple logos from just above floor level in one of the empty areas on the balcony. They were from the Powerbook G4s of the various men and women up there easting their lunches and playing with new software.


Adders - Online Bride of Christ

This is amusing. I don’t normally post the results of Online Quizzes here, but seeing as this result seems to go against the general trends, I couldn’t resist:

I scored 2 on the pervertedlogic.com CyberWhore Poll!

My heavens! You're an ONLINE NUN!

Are you sure you have ever actually BEEN online? That’s not a TV you’re sitting in front of, you know. How you have managed to avoid sex on the internet for so long makes you one for the record books. You’re having your slutty sister fill this quiz in for you, aren’t you? No wonder you list Vatican City as your profile location.


Fraternal Housing

Well, last night I took some time to visit my brother’s new house in Clapham. He and his wife have stretched themselves to buy an expensive house in a nice street. Well, I say expensive but by London standards it’s really something of a bargain. The reason for this is simple: it needs a lot of work. It looks as if very little has been done to it in the last 30 years - which, oddly enough, is exactly the length of time the previous owners were there.

Now, that’s not actually a bad thing as far as I can see. They’ll make one hell of a lot of money out of it in the end, as long as they’re prepared to sit tight and weather and recession that we see in the next five years. The problem is that they need to put up with a few months living in less than ideal conditions. I think it’ll be worth it. Let’s see if Mark feels the same.

In other news, London is dull, grey and overcast and I’m really not sure I want to be here today. Connex was its normal travel nightmare and crawled into work late. Still, they owe me seven days' holiday still, so I’m not gonna sweat it too much. I think I need to kick my assistant and get her to sort out her holiday days so I can arrange mine.


Back in Business

I can hardly believe that just under three days ago I was happily walking by the shores of Loch Lomond. A week may be a long time in politics but it’s an eternity in London. On my walk home this evening a saw, very briefly, someone being loaded into an ambulance. Looks like they were run over on Lee High Road. God be with them this evening.

At times all I can see is the dirt, fumes, anger and frustration of London. No-one has any time for you, or for themselves. I know the magic of the city will reassert itself at some point, but I can’t help but think back to walking the shores of the Loch. I could live there, in that clean air and surrounded by the awe-inspiring scenery. It’s only about 20 minutes from Glasgow, too, should I feel the need for the city life all of a sudden.


Thought of Homes Past and Future

Today, Lorna and I explored Dollar, if one can truly explore a place where you spent the majority of your childhood. The last 12 years have done little to change Dollar. The school has developed a little and some of the shops have swapped around but that’s about it. It’s still a provincial town in the Scottish countryside, sheltering under some pretty serious hills.

We spent some time walking, climbing and running up and down Dollar Glen and explored Castle Campbell. We looked at old houses I once lived in and the schools that educated me. We visited rugby pitches where I had miserable times and sports halls where I had great successes.

Wherever we went we seemed to run into people from the past. David Brown, helping run a fencing competition. The curator of the castle. The Toons and Janet Carolan in the Dollar Museum.

The things I miss about Dollar really aren’t about the place itself. No, it’s the community, the freedom and the sheer healthiness of the environment. The countryside, the trees, the rivers and the lack of pollution. The air smells and tastes good as it burns its way into your lungs - not something you could ever say about London. People are friendly and don’t judge you in the same way and for the same things that Londoners do. It’s been 12 years since Iived in Dollar and maybe 9 since I visited it for any length of time. Yet they welcomed me warmly with enthusiasm and genuine interest in me and my family.

I have some serious questions to ask myself when I get back to London. Most of them concern wether I really want to be there at all.


Onwards and Upwards

Our luck seems to be holding. After an interesting day doing some of the sights of Glasgow, including the Lighthouse (more of which later) and the St Mungo Museum up by the Cathedral, we headed back out to Prestwisk to pick up the car. We got upgraded for free. So, I’m trundling aboud the highways and byways of Scotland in a car that’s a whole lot bigger than Zoe and more comfortable to boot. Hurrah.

The Lighthouse was an interesting experience, mainly because I’d been round it while it was under construction when doing a feature on Glasgow architecture. The finished product was visually impressive if culturally unispiring. The exhibitions were lacking in the innovation and excitement promised by the intial idea, and I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed as I left. The single best part was a DVD exhibition of how avant garde architects in Japan are trying to find new and interesting soultions to the housing crisis over there. Some of the thought process that produced alternative ways of looking at urban development were fascinating and thought provoking, even if some of the results were rather sterile. It’s a concept that it might be worth examining in EG.

St Mungo was fascinating for reasons I’ll delve into another time.

Anyway, I’m now sat in the second hotel of the trip, converted from the old boys school up by Stirling Castle. I can hear a piper piping away in the distance while Lorna sleeps off breakfast. Grey clouds are scudding over the Ochils in the distance and I can just see, in the distance, the area where I spent most of my childhood. I’m looking forward to going back.


Shocks at the Shack

Glasgow clubbing, or at least the part of it that we saw last night, is something else. For a start, it’s just about the first time in my life that I’ve felt too old to be in a club - and that’s not just my recent birthday talking. As Lorna said, some of the men will be quite attractive when they hit puberty. As for the women, well, London has this bad habit of twisting your perceptions as to what normal women are. To quote Lorna again: “These women wouldn’t be out clubbing in London, they’d be at home crying until they were thinner.”

You know what? Although there was more flesh on show than I prefer (proto-Victorian that I am sometimes) and far too many flabby, bulging stomachs emerging from hipsters and cropped tops, the women seemed happy with themselves, and that has to be a good thing.

The other curious difference was the behavior of men and women on the dance floor. In London, women relax and have fun while the men preen, show off and try to get attention. Here, it’s exactly the other way round. I don’t know if that reflect the relevant power levels within the dating scene, but it was an unexpected switch around.

Well, we’re still in the suite at the hotel. It’s still a result!


Highland Holidays

Well, I’m in Glasgow and it’s damn good to be back in Scotland. There’s a crispness to the cold up here that just feels right to my system and I always feel a sense of returning home when I leave the airport because of that.

Yesterday was not a great day. London’s public transport system was conspiring to mak my life more difficult that it really ought to be. Three separate transport problems made my journeys into minor nightmares. I’m not gonna dwell on that, though. Instead, I’m going to talk about my holiday. Be glad I don’t have slides to show you.

The flight was a dream. Given that it cost us less than the price of the tickets to the airport (Stanstead, if you care) we did well there. Admittedly, Lorna did sulk a little when I was distracted by the sight of the stewardess tying the inflatable lifejacket straps across her bum right by face, but that’s nothing I won’t pay for weeks for. Never mind, it was worth it.

The train from the airport to Glasgow was dirt cheap - subsidised travel - and enjoyably shabby. The taxi driver to the hotel was chatty and cheerfully informed us that our hotel’s in the west end: the best place to go out at night. Bodes well for this evening.

And the hotel…

Initially they gave us the keys to Room 101. You’ll understand why this made me nervous. When we got there, it was a twin room. This is not what I booked. We marched back downstairs and demanded (OK, asked politely) if it could be changed. They only had one double left.

So, here I lie in a bed big enough for four (not that I’ll be testing that out), listening to Lorna washing two rooms away. Yes, we’re in the Kelvin Suite for the price of a budget room. Result!