I’m feeling out of sorts and I can’t work out why. I’ve got a few ideas for contributing factors but I can’t work out the main thing that’s causing it.

The shop is dragging on and everything is, or was, resting on the lease being signed. Once that gets signed then everything else starts to fall into place as the bank accounts can then be set up and various other bits of paperwork can finally start to be processed. Everything fits neatly onto a timeline but they need that signed lease to kickstart it. Theres a few fears about the state of the place but we should be getting the report in the next couple of days so we’ll see how that changes things. It’s taken five months to get to where we are now so I’ll be buggered if we don’t get this thing kickstarted one way or another soon.

Everything today has just fell apart. If it’s not Vonnie’s laptop falling and cracking it’s me smashing eggs on the kitchen floor. The kids have been far worse than usual today and if Nairn wasn’t ignoring everyone to do his own thing he was hitting Erica. Erica just couldn’t settle into her usual rhythm today at all and Greer refused to go down for a sleep for most of today.

Thinking about it now I’ve spent the most part of the last couple of months wearing a moonboot on my foot thanks to damaged ligaments and the only thing I’ve been looking forward to was being healthy enough to climb up The Cobbler which I’ve now done. I’ve got nothing planned to look forward too. The shop is a lot of work so I’m finding it hard to get excited about it at the moment and after seeing the front page of the test shop on my parents computer yesterday looking awful the thought of going back through all that code again to fix it is filling me with dread. In fact I’m sure that’s it. So much so I’m going to spend tomorrow working out my next couple of months to give me something to look forward to and see if that picks my mood up any.

Heres hoping….

Tags: health

15th February 2004

For a game that attendance was planned quite last minute it turned out to be a really good day.

Clare kindly dropped Bob and Mark off at Willie’s at 9am and since we were being good folk we left straight away so as to not wakeup Ang. Stopping to get breakfast and cash for Bob we were slightly worried to find a police car pull up alongside us but thankfully they were to busy talking about payday to give Bob more than an amused glance.

Arriving on site for 10am is something almost alien to us as we are usually that last to turn up but the games didn’t really start until after 11am so the early start was wasted. There were two largish groups of first time hires all of them quite young and most of them were army cadets. We got most of them on our team which wasn’t major problem as we would use them much later much the same way Tunnel Rats were used it the Vietnam war except it was trees and bushes they ran into.

The first game was the usual Fort game but we only had time to play once rather than swap round the defenders/attackers. Bob and Mark were taken out quite quickly as the defenders sat quite far back and just pelted us with bb’s. Willie managed to dig in for long enough that the defenders thought we had all been taken out only for him to pop up and get a couple of them. In fact he almost made it through the entire game, which would be a first I think for us on that game area!

Next up was a predator game up in the Spooky Woods. We had gave Ian a good 5-10 minutes head start to dig in and then we trecked up the firebreak to start the game. We wondered if Ian would reply if Rev shouted “Ian, are you ready?” only to find out later that when Rev did shout it he was standing only a few feet from Ian who had hidden right beside us! The predator games are always slow to start but when they kick in it gets nasty very quickly. Within the space of 3-40 seconds Bob, Mark and Willie and been converted to the bad guys team and went hunting the hunters. The game quickly finished after that only after Bob had a slight misunderstanding with Carter where he thought he was the victim of friendly fire and so carried on playing not realising Carter was actually a hunter at the time!

A slight variation of the farm game was played with cones used instead of ammo boxes. This meant that they were not as hidden and so could be defended better as well as being fewer in number so allowing more concentrated play. From the outset the Reds had both the courtyard and the rear of the farm firmly in their grasp. Despite concerted attempts by Bobz Squad to take the rear of the farm we just couldn’t breach their defences. Thanks to the bravery of one of the cadets we managed to gain one of the cones when he made a dash for the courtyard cone and launched it back to safety. With a little help Bob and Willie managed to clear most of the trenches around the courtyard, this allowed The rest of the team to capture the second cone that most seem to have missed. Carter realised that the Red team would be respawning back in very soon and so we should press our advantage so Bob joined the four man team that ran off to claim the last cone. The Red teams one remaining member had the cone covered but thanks to Bob’s sharp shooting he managed to come out alive as well as with last cone!

After lunch we played a sniper/ambush style game along the Bomb-run area and for once we weren’t the defenders! There was a lot of crawling about in the treeline and whilst Mark supported the frontal assault Bob and Willie tried to take out the right flank after crawling through the trees. After joining up with Rev they crossed the stream and took out the remaining Reds that were entrenched on the right flank allowing the small bridge to be taken.

Next up were the Alamo games. We took first defence of the Alamo and performed surprisingly well even if Bob did use up all his lives by halfway through the game. For once Mark got to dig in with his SG1 and use it to its full potential and it also gave his leg a rest after injuring it earlier on in the day. The funniest bit of the day came when the mines on the bridge were cleared and the Reds started to come across. One of the smallest cadets ran up behind the concrete cylinders and managed to eliminate 4 reds before he was taken out. If it had been anyone else running up to the cylinders they would have been spotted and peppered with bb’s before he even made it to them never mind before any reds were taken out!

For the return match batteries were starting to die on our team and people were starting to get tired. Bob and Rev managed to seriously outflank the Reds only to be joined by Willie as they came up on the Alamo from behind. All that walking through bogs and streams for Bob and Willie just had to jump one stream and climb a small hill! After that we didn’t really worry the Reds and when time was called I think we were more relieved than annoyed.

We left before the final game of King of The Hill was played which gave us plenty of time to get sorted before night fell and head home.

As a day it was a complete success. No major problems with other players and we all had good games, which helped our kill ratios for the day. The one thing that worked really well though was our teamwork not only between ourselves but with other members of our side. The comms worked very well and provided a major advantage. Despite the other team having radios as well they didn’t seem to be having as much success with them as us. .

Participants – Myself, Mark and Willie
Photos – Here

24th January 2004

This day was due to be a little different from the rest that we’d played so far. The reason for this was that it was a Corporate Hire day where a group of people hire out the site and if they want the site supplies a bunch of folk to play the bad guys. That’s where we came in. Willie had just got his gun and prescription glasses and was dying to play a game where he could see and hit targets for once!

The day effectively started the night before when Bob found out there wasn’t going to be any room in Skyenet’s Land Rover so he had to beg a lift elsewhere. Unfortunately Clare had to go to hospital on the Sunday meaning she couldn’t drive us anyway but as Mark was taking her a space was opened in Willie’s car for Bob. Confusion reigned for the pickup as Willie was a little late and despite Stoo being told to make their way to Bob’s flat he waited with Gordon at their house. After a quick phonecall they were told to make their way up the road to Bob’s and Willie would come and get them. They got a lift though and passed Willie on the road. Long story cut short.we all left a little late but still made good time.

When we arrived at the site the hire team were huddled together with the rest of the players spread out in their usual places. Carter and then Rev took the cannonfodder (us) aside to explain how the day was going to work. The storyline can be found *here.* The idea was to provide a cinematic opening similar to an FPS computer game and then follow it up with ‘levels’ like our usual games. As most of the guys on the hire team were completely new to airsoft we were instructed to go easy on them to begin with.

The first game started out with the SF team being inserted into the field at the far spawn point in the farm area and we were setup to guard the farm. Basically it was a no win situation for them but they were to secure the farm which was doubling as a rebel camp and then move on. We took to guarding the end of the farm furthest from the insertion point and ended up having a small firefight at the rear of the farm supporting Skyenet. We were basically firing over the hire teams heads and into bushes to make it sound good and give it the feel of a proper fight without holding back the sound of a firefight. It turns out that we had already captured the hire team but we kept fighting amongst ourselves for a few minutes after that.

The hire team was disarmed and their webbing was taken from them and they had pillowcases placed on their head. Bob and Gordon were chosen to play guards along with Skyenet and patrol outside the farm whilst the interrogation went on. They where interrogated my Rev, Carter and a few other folk from Team Tonka. At one point one of the hire team had a pistol to his head which was supposed to be the signal for Carter to double cross the rebels and kill everyone. The problem was that he was to use a blank firing pistol, which wouldn’t work, it just kept going ‘click’. It turns out the magazine wasn’t in correctly and when they realised that several gunshots were heard from the farm. The guards outside turned round expecting to see the interrogators emerge but instead came underfire from the escaping SF team with Carter leading them away. As the guards died they had to hand over the AK’s they had as well as any lo-cap mags they had been given.

The hire team then had to make their way from the farm to the fort were the remaining rebels were joined by the ‘dead’ guards for some semi-auto fun. It took a while for the hire team to clear us out but they managed it eventually. Once they had taken the fort they were able to retrieve their weapons and webbing and carry on. We had a great time firing bb’s into pools of water whilst waiting for the hire team to get to us and Gordon found that the upturned roots make for great targets as the bb’s stick to the mud letting you see how accurate you are.

The marshal’s realised that the sides were very uneven in favour of the rebels and so the next mission meant the Hire team had to interrupt their current mission to rescue two downed pilots played by the same guys from Team Tonka that carried out the interrogation who would join their side. The rebels spread out in the spooky woods area where the pilots had landed and waited for the hire team to arrive. As the weather was much better than the last time we played in this area it had a totally different feel to it but when the downed pilots let off there signal smokes it just became even spookier. We were expecting Scooby Doo to turn up at one point! We were quickly taken out though as the hire team started to get used to the games and what to do when coming under fire.

After a quick pitstop for lunch we moved onto the CTF area behind the farm where we had to take the trench in our very first game. The hire team had to take the trench to recover the data for the virus. After a brief firefight they ran off up the hill only for the package to explode.or rather fizzle slightly and give out a small puff of smoke. Pete’s pyrotechnics didn’t seem to like him at that point.

The next mission was to get from the trench to the small bridge and once again we were defending the path. This time we were allowed semi auto for our first life and full auto when we respawned at the small bridge. Eventually they made it but not after a drawn out fight at the end of the path which was only ended when the hire team started outflanking us through the trees.

The Alamo was the next target for the hire team who gained another two team members at this point to further even out the teams for the more open games. Stoo and Gordon took the left flank and despite a couple of snipers on the far bank done well to defend it and Willie and Bob defended the bridge side only for Bob to be taken out quite quickly by the hire team members that were making there way across the river and coming up the side of the bridge.

Once they had secured the Alamo for use as an evac point they had to clear out the tree line on the other side of the bridge to make sure there were no nasty rebels with surface to air missiles waiting to take them out. The rebels were split into two teams and given a side each and when shot they respawned on the other side for another life. It was getting that dark that torches were needed to quickly get into the tree line but they were quickly turned out to allow our night vision to kick in. Willie and Bob went a little deeper into the trees and took up position on top of a rise that gave a perfect fire corridor down the small valley leading out of the trees through the others on our side. Gordon set a trap by leaving a glowstick out on the open which the hire team crept towards only to realise to late that it was a trap. Bob heard someone moving through the trees behind their position and despite constant radio comms with Stoo who claimed no one had got past them and that he was coming back to get join us we still heard someone moving about. It turns out it was actually Stoo moving about behind us all the time and one of the hire team had actually made it to within 10-15′ of us and we didn’t have a clue.

The day ended with the remaining rebels, which included Bob, Stoo and Willie, trying to take the evac site in the pitch black. The hire team were huddles behind the concrete blocks and quickly took the remaining rebels out despite them almost making it past the end of the bridge. Once the bridge was cleared the hire team called in the airstrike to destroy it. Pete did a grand job with the pyro for that one. Two large explosions from the pyro that was hanging over the side of the bridge put a smile on everyone’s faces!

A hint for walking back to the safezone from the Alamo.when it comes to the mud track put your mask back on and walk up through the CTF area rather than the mud. Its quicker and cleaner and in the dark can be fun with the torches.

Participants – Myself , Gordon, Stoo and Willie

18th January 2004

The day started at Mark’s as Willie had came down badly with the flu and so couldn’t make it. Marks family turned up on time and as usual Stu was running slightly late. Road works on the M8 meant that we ended up going through Uddingston to get on to the M8 in the first place!

With the weather being bad the turn out was pretty poor for the day. With 20 folk playing and 10 of them being us it meant the sides were a little uneven but they had most of the experienced players so it evened itself out a little bit.

As usual the first two games was were played at the base to the right of the safezone. Mark’s family were quickly shown how fast you can be taken out in airsoft and Mark was already waiting for them back at the safezone! Whilst trying to support Bob on the right flank he was taken out by fire that was meant for Bob’s head. This left Bob and Dave to eventually take out the remaining attackers but not before Dave ended up being the only one left standing on that flank.

The return game had the boundaries changed as the first game got bogged down in the trees to the left. It didn’t stop Bob being taken out within 30 seconds of the game starting without firing a shot. We just about managed to win that one though in the end but it was through numbers rather than skill I think.

The 3rd game of the day was new to us and in a ‘new’ part of the site as well. The game is called predator and the rules of the game are basically everyone is on one team except for one person, they are the predator and run off into the forest. Everyone gets a bit of tape which they rip off their arm when the predator shoots them and they then join the predators side. It was played in the area to the rear of the base area. The trees are a lot closer and darker than virtually anywhere else on the site which makes it that bit different, at points you would have thought it was night time! It took a while to to find the predator but within 5 minutes of first contact Bob had been converted and ended up being stuck waiting for a medic as he was shot as soon as he spawned in as a predator. The radio waves then became full of “It’s Bob Hunting Season” patter.

The fourth game was a capture the flag game at the trench area behind the farm. This went surprisingly well considering. The radios worked a treat and until the opposition managed to get a couple of sneaky folk in behind our trench we were making good progress. The only problem with this game though was that there was no way to capture the flag as it was also the spawn point. As soon as you killed someone they spawn back in using one of their unlimited lives. Either moving the spawn or limiting the lives would have made it possible but it was good fun none the less. This game seen Bob almost break his shin as he ran through a fallen tree trunk and the opposition marshals wearing their day-glo jackets for the fun of it.

After lunch the next game was around the farmhouse. Mark and Stoo quickly dominated the courtyard from the treeline and Bob and Dave secured the rear of the farm with the help of Steve. Mark’s family ran up the outside of the treeline to the rear of the farm and soon started making headway into the trees. Just as Bob and Dave went to advance on the enemy Bob managed to collapse the side of a burn landing his knee on a rock..5 mins of screaming later he managed to walk away but was hobbling for the rest of the day almost. Gordon and Bob then decided to help out at the courtyard and managed to push the red team back from the corner over looking the courtyard back up to their spawn point. The game will be remembered however for the guy on the red team that forgot it wasn’t a CTF game and stole our spawn point marker!

As time was running out we went straight to a King Of The Hill game on the bridge. As a team captain Bob picked who he thought were the quickest and most likely to get stuck in..Mark, Stoo, Dez and George . Marks dad and Dave were on the team on the opposite side of the valley and Gordon and Stoo’s mate were on the alamo corner. A long hard campaign was fought for the alamo during which Steve checked that we knew we were supposed to be aiming for the bridge. The two teams on the alamo side decided to join sides and flush out the team on the bridge and see if a combined effort would work. It all went swimmingly until Gordon decided that he wanted to claim the time on the bridge for his team and killed Mark and Dez. In the end Dave and Mark’s Dad’s team won.

The Kings of the Hill then had to escape in there helicopter, craftily played by the concrete rollers, from the alamo. By the end of the 25 minute game they had to be within touching distance of the rollers to win. The sun had went down 20 mins before this game started so it started to get dark very quickly. One of the marshals was given a high powered torch to act as a search light to blind everyone that was supposed to attack the King’s. Stoo managed to make it over the bridge and get behind the alamo at one point and quickly joined up with Bob and a couple of members of Mark’s family. As the time was counted down everyone opened up on the opposition and it seems only one guy remained alive and that was only because Graham, who was the medic for that game, was lying on top of him to try and get within touching distance of the helicopter!

A successful if wet and sore day out for everyone.

Participants – Myself, Dave, Gordon Mark and Stoo

9th November 2003

The day started out at Willie’s house again. As no one had been in touch with Willie we were hoping that he hadn’t forgotten about the day and wouldn’t get a surprise as we turned up on his doorstep. This time Bob went with Stoo and the radios were packed away in Bobs bag in Willies car. Just as we hit the roundabout at Strathclyde park Willie signalled that he’d forgotten the way so Stoo took the lead with Bobs help and surprisingly we didn’t miss a single turn off this time!

Once we arrived we started getting our gear together and as Bob and Mark were using their own guns for the first time the rest of the team were looking forward to using the new hire AK47 Spestnaz….turns out it was the FAMAS’ again but that didn’t faze anyone I don’t think. Most folk came to the conclusion that Bob had to many pockets once he’d put on his SAAV…when you asked him for anything it took 5 mins for him to find the right pocket.

We managed to make it onto the same team this time after Steve christened us with the comment “I’ll go with Team Tonka and Bobz Squad.” The first game was the same as the last time with one team trying to take the base and eliminate all the defenders…we attacked first and done not to badly. The main part of our team ran off down our right flank whilst a small group including Bob and Willie went for their weaker defended side. With the help of a few members from Team Tonka, Bob and Willie made it virtually into the base but the handful of people that were dug in managed to hold us off. Mark and Stoo seemed to fair a little better on the other flank but they were eventually cut down as well. The re-run seen us hold off the other team and made then assault us from further away but they made us pay yet again.

Following that it was an elimination game based around the farmhouse. The first game ended up with the opposing team setting up a kill zone at the courtyard which effectively stopped us from getting anywhere. Stoo managed to take out a gun nest at one corner but it wasn’t enough to swing the game back into our favour. The rematch seen us fighting deeper in the forest this time with the opposing teams using shotgunners as snipers. Bob managed to sneak his way round only to wake up up one of the snipers and then get wasted after every single shot he fired missed the target.

After lunch it was down to the bridge for a demolition game and we travelled in style. The whole team and a few others in the back of the Tonka Truck drove down the path and surprisingly the truck made it in one piece! We almost lost gordon though at one point as the tailgate fell open and he fell over onto his back.

We took our turn first to defend and defend we did! They had put a couple of snipers in the tree line on the left hand side which were causing us a little bother so Bob tried to head up the stream to cross it and out flank them. He managed to fall face first into the stream though and it was only the reeds that stopped him getting soaked. He did manage to take one of the snipers out though but also found another couple hiding further back from the tree line…he didn’t take them out. The rematch seen Stoo and Waltz taking the part of the demolitions experts and also seen the use of some military smoke grenades to try and get our experts up onto the bridge. The alamo was totally blocked from our view but Waltz aim wasn’t the greatest as he managed to miss the bridge completely with his first grenade and the second wasn’t quite far enough over it work properly. We didn’t blow the bridge

The last game was King of The Hill. We were split into four teams and spread out around the bridge/alamo area. As long as one member of the team was on the bridge you built time up and the team with the most time at the end won. We had to much trouble taking on team Tonka over the Alamo that I think we managed a time of 2 seconds if we were lucky!

Participants – Myself, Dave, Gordon, Mark, Stoo and Willie

Photos – Here

21st September 2003

I mentioned a while ago on Twitter that I’d found a lot of old stuff from previous blogs and websites I had that I no longer have online. Prepare to be put through some posts from yesteryear before I get around to uploading the lot into my archives on here. First up, and for the next few posts at least, my airsoft days.

17th August 2003

We started off early as whilst we knew how to get to Shotts we weren’t exactly sure how to get to the Firefight Scotland site. We followed the helpful directions from the website to the letter and we soon found ourselves driving up a forestry road only to be confronted by a huge digger carving up the surrounding area. He soon let us past and we drove on only to have no idea where we were to go. Mark said he’s seen a 4×4 with folk in camo and what looked like guns a wee bit back along the road. With a little trepidation Willie drove back to find that it was indeed the site but Scapegoat hadn’t turned up yet.

After paying our money and getting our guns we headed off to play through the scenario. The idea was that instead of playing 10 random capture the flag games there was actually a story behind it all and depending on how things went in the previous games the story changed and ammo and lives were increased/decreased accordingly. The story was that a Special Forces team was trying to blow up a bridge but their plane had been shot down. They had to retrieve the bomb from the crash site and make their way to the bridge and demolish it.

The teams were drawn up with Mark, Willlie and myself on the bad guy side with another 6 folk and the remaining 10 were the Special Forces. Rev was due to go on our side as Shannow seemingly likes shooting supermods (hate to see what he likes doing to admins!) but he got dragged into the other team.

The first two games went passed pretty quickly with the special forces winning both rounds, I didn’t even get a single shot off during the first one! The first scenario I believe had us defending a bas e that he SF’s had to get through in order to get to the crash site. Not knowing which way they would come at us confused us a little but as it was only a short game it didn’t really matter. The second had the bad guys defending the crash site. We had to try and stop the SF’s from retrieving their bomb and making off with it. Despite their over enthusiastic attempts at getting us to give away our positions there just wasn’t enough bodies in the kill zone we’d set up. They eventually won that one after pinning us down at one of our respawn points and making off with the bomb.

The third game was a little different, we spent 5 mins crawling through a forest to get to a ditch which the SF were defending, we were trying to get the bomb that they recovered in game 2 back. For the first 15 mins we couldn’t see anyone on the SF team but we were getting cut to shreds. As it wore on though we gradually beat them back and with 30 seconds to go tried a final all out assault. There was a little bit of doubt over whether Shannow was dead as we couldn’t tell from out position but he was out of ammo I think instead. It was called a draw and was the best result we had all day!

After making a dash through enemy occupied terrain the SF team finally made it to the bridge. We fiercely defended the bridge to the last man I think but several of the SF team managed to flank us and took care of enough of the bad guys that the bridge was barely defended allowing them the win We still think they cheated as they lit the smoke grenade whilst at the far side of the bridge and then sneaked up and placed the bomb just as it went off…the idea being that you had to get to the middle of the bridge and set it off there..but we don’t care, it was a good laugh.

The final game was the assault on the Alamo. With the SF team limited to the abandoned house and the surrounding fortifications our task was to eliminate them all before their helicopter turned up. With the focus of the game being the area behind the bridge it opened the game up from the previous game that was mostly concentrated on the bridge itself. At one point we even managed to get a 5 man squad over onto their weak side to mow a few of them down but unfortunately the remaining members of our team mistimed the attack that was to be used as a diversion to split the SF’s fire. I think we got them down to a handful of people by the end of the game..but it still wasn’t enough for a win.

To tide us over to 5pm we played a final CTF game where we had to get to the opposing spawn point and let a smoke bomb off. It basically revolved around shooting each other from either end of bridge but it was a good end to the day.

Overall..9 out of 10. It would have got an extra 0.5 if we had managed to win at least one of those games and it lost 0.5 for Rev taking that photo of me when I was too shattered to object *Note to self : kill-crush-destroy any cameras pointed at me in future*

btw Rev.. I didn’t so much miss out on the python quote as didn’t want to give my position away…I hadn’t even fired a bb by that point and wanted to get at least one off before the bush I was in was peppered with pellets

Participants – Myself, Mark and Willie

There’s been a meme running around Facebook for the last while to do with 25 random facts about yourself. I hate doing meme’s at the best of times but something my brother said struck a chord with me. Listening to certain songs provoke such strong memory recall that it’s hard not to think about one particular time that you listened to them. And so in that vain and with it being a Friday night and I’m at home on my lonesome with the kids asleep in bed I thought I’d share those memories.

The soundtrack for the rest of this entry can be found here is you have spotify. I hope that works as I can never get Spotify playlist links to work on this damn laptop.

1. Bucks Fizz – The Land of Make Believe
This was quite possibly the first every single I bought. I don’t ever remember choosing it but aside from a few compilation albums it’s the only one I remember owning before I inherited my uncles singles collection from the 70′s and early 80′s. Put quite simply this song terrified me. If I got up during the night to go to the toilet or to get a drink the first thing I would do would be to look out the window and check there was nobody at the bottom of our garden waiting for me.
Shadows tapping at your window
Ghostly voices whisper,
“Will you come and play?”
Those lines had me running up and down the stairs at night terrified of what might catch me for years.

2. Whigield – Saturday Night
My very first holiday abroad without my parents was to Santa Ponsa in Majorca when I was 19 years old. It opened my eyes in a lot of ways but one of my main memories was of loving a song but being unable to find out who wrote it. I spent most of that holiday trying to track it down until one day I was sitting around the pool with Graham and Shug sipping on an ice cold pint of beer when I heard it being played from one of the apartments above us. A couple with twin daughters had bought a tape with Saturday Night on it and it was the third track on the A-Side. I hunted all over town for that tape and finally found it on the last day in a small newsagent. I’d found the song that had been haunting me! When I reached the apartments the twins were fighting as although they’d only bought one tape themselves they’d copied it so they’d both have their own. They only had one case though and so in what I thought at the time was my good deed for the day I gave the other girl my case. It wasn’t until I got back to my room that I realised the tape didn’t have a track listing on it. To this day I still have no idea what the song was called.

I promise there will be some good songs in here. Honest.

3. Green Day – Welcome to Paradise
When I left school I went to on to attend Glasgow University but like the home boy I was I never moved into the city and instead commuted every day into the city by train and then out to the West End on the Underground. The journey into Glasgow itself usually involved getting train at stupid o’clock in the morning and sitting with Alison Noble and a few others before we headed our separate ways once we hit Central Station. I never managed to listen to any music until this point and every day as I walked down Union Street towards St Enoch Station I’d hit play on my Walkman and the tape would jump to life. Just as the train filled up at Buchanan Street Station Welcome to Paradise would kick in. In my half asleep wee world all I could hear was the song and to this day I can still smell the trains whenever that song comes on.

4. Lou Bega – Mambo No. 5
Yet another holiday song. There is/was a bar in Benidorm called Sinatras which has a tiny dancefloor but is where we would end up at some stage of the night almost every night we were there. Why does this song stand out? Well we had got into a bit of a routine of a few beers and tanning a litre of vodka before leaving the apartment every night and this night was no different. What was different however was my brother and his friends were in town on holiday for a few days overlapping my own stay. We had no idea what the other was up to but on this night we fell into the bar and as this song came on my brother and his friends appeared from the other side of the room. I have very vague memories of downing drinks with Scott and Masson but seeing my brother for that first second always comes back when I think of that song.

5. The Prodigy – Breathe
If you’ve ever lived in East Kilbride you will more than likely have attended Crystals nightclub in one of it’s many guises. To call it a nightclub is doing other real nightclubs a disservice but we won’t go there. ANYWAY, Breathe always brings me back to my many drunken nights in there. Whenever the song came on myself and Barry would clear the dance floor and basically scream the song at each other. We’d go home each night covered in bruises from pushing and hitting each other during it.

This is going to be a long post!

6. Ugly Kid Joe – Everything About You
I don’t every remember owning a microphone but somehow one day we started recording ourselves singing to our favourite songs. We were 19 for feck sake not nine year old girls. Everyone picked a song from my CD selection and we recorded our attempts. This was my song. Everything went well until my brother found the tape. I don’t sing karaoke any more…

7. Green Day – King For A Day
And our second entry for fun punksters isn’t that famous a song and fits into another holiday story. This time we were in Tenerife staying in a lovely apartment in Los Christianos and a couple of days before I flew out Green Day booked a one off gig to happen whilst I was on holiday as something to do between their festival shows. I went to the local travel agent to try and get a flight there and back in the hope of getting a ticket from a tout on the night. It would have used up all my spending money but I was going to do it and the only reason why I didn’t was because the only flight I could get home landed 10 minutes before the gig was due to start.

The night of the gig I locked myself out on the veranda whilst the other guys got ready for their night out. I took my entire Green Day collection out with me and played every album and b-side as I worked my way through a bottle of Aftershock and as I found out the next day the best part of a 12-pack of beer and about 48 fairy cakes. The aftermath of that night is where I gained my online username of Bobzilla from so you can guess the destruction and mess I left in my wake that night.

8. Biffy Clyro – Hope For An Angel
The first time I heard this song I was standing in awe after hearing a band that I’ll come to later in the list. I’d never heard of Biffy Clyro at the time I stood almost front and centre in King Tut’s and knew from the moment I heard them that I was going to remember the gig for a long time. You see a lot of local bands that think they are God’s Gift to the local music scene and get nowhere. Simon, Ben and James would almost sneak into the gig through the crowd and put on the most amazing shows. Whenever I hear this song I can remember trying to work out who was singing what part. That might have been down to the fuzzy beer brain though.

9. Moby – Go
The very first CD I owned was the album this track came from. I had to borrow my dads hifi as my own didn’t have a CD player in at at that point in order to listen to it but I stole every second I could. I still remember sitting at midnight after everyone had went to bed with my dads headphones on after I’d snuck back downstairs and putting this track on repeat. I remember thinking at the time that this kind of music was going to change my life. I didn’t realise it then but it did but not in the way I envisioned. This was the first track that I every loved for the feelings it stirred in me rather than the comical novelty songs I’d enjoyed before then.

10. Westworld – Sonic Boom Boy
I couldn’t even tell you who sung this until a few days ago. The song has stuck in my head for decades though. As a child everyone used to sit and tape the Top 40 Chart Show on a sunday night but seeing as I was just a child the tapes were used over and over again all except one that just happened to have this song on it. The tape was played that often however that the tape stretched and for years I actually thought the changes in pitch and tempo were actually parts of the original song. Even now when I hear it as it should sound my mind automatically puts in stretches.

11. Faithless – Insomnia
My clubbing credentials are horrendous. We could never be bothered with the busy clubs like The Arches or Archaos when I first started heading into the city for nights out. We went a few times but we just never enjoyed it. With this in mind we always ended up the biggest dives in the city as nowhere else would let our drunken selves in anyway. One such night we ended up in The Lime Club where myself and Paul looked after the kitty and with every round bought would treat ourselves to cheeky shots from our own pocket at the bar. Put politely we were mangled by 1am. Then this song came on. Until that point I never danced. I tried it once and someone compared me to a granny ironing a shirt and so I gave up after that. This song however had me up dancing for it’s entire eight minutes and those eight minutes felt like the entire night. By the time the chorus came around for the second time our hands were in the air chanting along.

12. The Day I Snapped – Start Again.
This song sticks in my head for reasons beyond my knowledge. Forget that I came away from the gig trying to convince Rab to try out for their bass player as that gig was the last for their current guy. Forget that the guy that got the gig was also a friend and forget that since then I’ve became friends with their drummer. This is the band that were playing before Biffy at Tut’s that night and I don’t think they hit a duff note the entire set. I didn’t walk away from the gig singing Biffy songs. I walked away singing Start Again and Jennifer 8.

13. The Prodigy – No Good (Start The Dance)
Everyone thinks of The Cathouse as a mostly rock or punk club and in all honestly nothing could be further from the truth. They’ve long had a ‘tradition’ of playing dance tracks alongside their normal setlist fodder as well as chart and RnB stuff. There would always be a section of the night though when DJ Billy would try and kill those that liked to dance. The Blade soundtrack would come on and get folk on the dancefloor and thats when the marathon would start. Then the strobes would kick in and the smoke machines would start and opening sample of No Good would start up and you’d be in your own wee world. This is the song that made me realise that I love to dance even if I need to be completely drunk to do it in public.

14. Zero 7 – Somersault
Some who know me and who were at my wedding may think my first memory upon hearing this song is of our first dance. You’d be wrong. When I first started staying over at Vonnie’s flat in Glasgow she would put this album on when we went to bed. I’ve long enjoyed listening to relaxing music to help me get to sleep but I’d never heard this band before. Whenever I hear this song my first memory is of lying in bed in the front bedroom of that Govanhill flat barely being able to hear it staring at the orange street light outside and listening to the world go by underneath it knowing that I was safe in that room with Vonnie.

15. Kid Rock – Devil Without A Cause

Benidorm yet again. This time though I was sober. Everyone on that holiday was there for 14 days where as I flew out late to meet them and only stayed for seven days. I jumped in the taxi to take me to the airport and left all my CD’s in the apartment for the guys to listen to. When I arrived at the airport I found my flight was delayed by eight hours and I cursed that decision as loudly as I could without getting myself arrested. Once through check-in the kiosk, for that’s the only shop that was open, had about ten CD’s to choose from and Kid Rock’s album was one of them. That album spent the next six hours on repeat until I got onto the plain. This song is about the only one I can actually listen to now without all that rage coming back.

16. Beth Orton – Central Reservation
My cousin Alan was getting married and as usually happens my mum organises a minibus and my Uncle Sam drives it to where ever we need to go. With the help of my brother we managed to get our table to drink a bottle of aftershock, 13 bottles of wine, 7 bottles of champagne and whatever we managed to buy from the bar. Needless to say almost all of us, apart from Skippy as she barely had any I think, were very worse for wear the next morning. We then had a seven hour drive home from Birmingham to survive. My brother sat looking very green and I curled up in a ball with this album on repeat the entire way home. Beth Orton’s voice to this day reminds me of being severly hungover and this song in particular of that drive home.

17. Die Krupps – To The Hilt
We had just got cable TV for the second time and my brother and I were obsessed with MTV Europe. Here were bands we’d never heard off before from countries we’d never been to playing songs we loved. Almost every day we would catch this video and would find it hilarious. The video was so simple and the chorus perfect for screaming at each other.

18. CJ Bolland – Sugar Is Sweeter
As I mentioned before I like to listen to music to help me off to sleep at night when I get the chance. For years when I got home from a night out my headphones would go on and my hifi would still be playing the CD on repeat when I woke up the next morning. This song was a staple of my post night out music for years.

19. Josh Wink – Higher State Of Consciousness
This is another one of the songs DJ Billy would try and kill us with. This one stands out though because my dad actually liked it. He went through a period of listening to any music he could get his hands on. I’d catch him listening to my Rage Against The Machine CD’s on occasion but one day I found him sitting with his eyes closed on the sofa, headphones on, nodding his head along to beat and dancing whilst sitting down. I don’t think he even knows I caught him.

20. The Toy Dolls – Nellie The Elephant
I’d heard the song on the radio before but never really liked it that much. That was until one night out in Tenerife where we went into the Crows Nest and downed what I’m told was tequila but what I think was actually lighter fluid. Paul had met a girl the night before from Liverpool who insisted we all keep saying Curlywulry to her. Anyway he was to meet her in the pub opposite the place where we were so we all headed over to find an Irish bar playing this song. Everyone, and I do mean everyone including bar staff, was pogoing to this as we walked in. I’d never seen that kind of energy in a crowd before then and to be fair to them even after a lot of gigs they are still up there in the top five.

21. Dire Straits – Brother in Arms
I’m in primary 6 and we are at the school disco. The girl that I fancied all the way through primary school was there and I wanted to request a song for her. This was her favourite song at the time and everyone else seemed to hate it but I loved it. I can still remember the rest of the class running up the DJ demanding he put of Spitting Images Chicken Song.

22. Terrorvision – Alice, What’s The Matter
This was my Computer Lab tape when I was at uni. Between this and a Carter USM tape I thin I just played them on a loop for the entire year. This song remains my favourite from that time though.

23. The Beastie Boys – Sabotage
My first night of Freshers Week and Glasgow Uni had me in the QMU playing pool with a friend and two girls while Slam played downstairs. As with all attempts to get on with the opposite sex conversation moved round and around until we got onto something we could both get our teeth into. One of the girls stance was that Oasis were the second coming. This was before they had any chart success by the way meanwhile I insisted that I’d never heard of them and anyway how could she dismiss the greatness of The Beastie Boys. It was at this point that Sabotage came on the jukebox, I potted the black to win the game and her friend kissed me. I seem to recall shouting “and that’s my point!”

24. The Bloodhound Gang – Kiss Me Where It Smells Funny
I can barely play guitar. It didn’t stop me going along to my mates band practice though. They ran through various songs but they finished they finished with this song. Myself and Dave jumped of the amp stacks while Mark sang/rapped. I think I even managed to play along to the chorus. It probably sounded like shit but that is how I remember that song. Nothing from the countless times I’ve seen it played live by the actual band or from my CD’s but from our version.

25. The Quireboys – 7 o’clock
If you weren’t there I don’t think this wil ldo it much justice but watch this clip. Whilst at our friends wedding The Quireboys were in the hotel bar and very kindly agreed to play a few songs for the happy couple. Until the day I die I don’t think I’ll see a wedding party so animated for the music. In saying that the groom brought along his band for the nights entertainment so it was going to be a good one anyway!

Tags: meme, memories, music

On Friday it was Nairn’s 4th birthday. Somehow he managed to effectively get five days of celebrations and gifts thanks to parties and various members of our family not being able to turn up on his actual birthday which was actually fantastic. It’s possibly the least stressed we’ve been during one of our kids birthdays because of it I think. Anyway one of the presents that he received from us/the kids was a Woody from Toy Story costume which he didn’t like. If there is one thing I can say about the boy it’s that he’s honest. Even if a little ruthless with it. Anyway seeing as all the kid’s love Toy Story Erica decided that this costume was the best thing ever and this morning I came downstairs after looking out her clothes to wear to nursery to find her sitting watching TV wearing this costume.

“I got dressed Daddy.”

I couldn’t not let her wear it hat and all. I just didn’t have the heart.

So it came to pick up time and for once Vonnie wasn’t able to pick them up in the car as she’d been out in the city all afternoon and couldn’t make it back in time. This meant I had to walk the two miles there and the two miles back pushing a pram with my hurt foot as well as carrying Greer in a sling. It sounds worse than it is but it does take time. It’s usually a 60 minute round trip but with the extra child and bags on top of my foot it was closer to 120 minutes before we got home. Around half way home Findlay pointed out that Erica had fell asleep on the bottom seat of the P&T buggy and she was still holding the the cowboy hat in her hands. The next time I checked on her was whilst in the queue to buy pizza for dinner when I realised the hat was gone. Nairn had only had it five days and already it had been lost.

I was furious. How could I have been so stupid. I blamed Findlay for not seeing it fall from the pram. I blamed Greer for being young enough that I could carry her in the sling which completely obstructs the view of the lower pram seat and my feet. I blamed Nairn because he wouldn’t carry the hat for me to keep it safe and most of all I blamed myself for being so stupid as to miss a large brown cowboy hat falling from the pram no matter how hard it would have been to see it. I’d decided that as soon as Vonnie was home she could deal with feeding the children whilst I’d run back to the nursery and retrace our footsteps in the futile hope that no one had picked it up for themselves. I was close to tears with anger at this point and thankfully Vonnie had beaten us home and before we even made it in the front door she had me throwing the kids in the car so that we could quickly get back to nursery.

I jumped out at the entrance to the technology park where the kids nursery is and started jogging along our usual route after checking with the guardhouse. I had it in my head that between the nursery and a path just by the Territorial Army HQ was where it must have happened as I was sure I hadn’t seen the hat any further along our route so it cut down the possible number of spots where it might be. As I went along the route I started to get frantic. Okay so when we’d last been there it was daylight and an hour later it was definitely night time so I was expecting to possibly miss it as in places it was really dark but as I got closer to the TA HQ it became very apparent that the hat wasn’t to be found.

Just as I was about to turn off the path head to where I was meeting Vonnie with the car I had a thought. I’d long travelled past the place where I was last sure she didn’t have the hat but as there was only another 20 yards round a corner before I reached the end of the path I was on anyway I carried on. And there it was. Someone had came along and found it. Not only had the person not taken it for themselves they picked it up and placed it on a wall under a streetlamp so that I’d be able to see it without staring into the shadows that surrounded the place. The relief I felt was unreal. This is why I know I’m tired.

The level of stress and worry that I felt from this was up there with our experiences when Erica wasn’t well as a baby and we didn’t know what was wrong with her. The sudden joy of finding the hat felt exactly the same as the day we found out that Erica was piling on the weight and was no longer going to be a ‘failure to thrive’ baby. I shouldn’t be having these extreme emotions over a lost rubber cowboy hat.

Still… At the end of the day we got the hat back and there will be no tears in the morning. That’s the aim for every day. No tears from anyone in the morning.

Tags: cowboy, emotion, Erica, hat, Lost, Woody

I honestly don’t know where the last 2 months have went. When I was off work sick with my heart problems a couple of years ago the 4 months I was sitting at home for felt like an absolute age where as this time it really does feel as though I only finished up at DFID a couple of weeks ago.

Things never stop here. We ‘work’ until we’re exhausted and then all our spare time is taken up either being ill or being to tired to do anything other than go to bed at 8pm and struggle to sit through a TV show before collapsing into a restless sleep. When I was still working I went to work Monday until Friday and when I got home each night I’d cook dinner, watch the kids to give Vonnie a little break and then once they went to bed we’d have three or four hours to ourselves. Saturdays would be the family days to rest up and Sundays would be busy with everyone coming and going all day. At the end of every night we’d have those few hours though to unwind and relax. Not so any more.

I don’t know what the difference is but these days your lucky if we’re both awake past 9pm on any night of the week. On those occasions where we are actually capable of not falling asleep on out feet we’ve got 101 other things to get done. Currently I’m trying to put the finishing touches to design for the shops website. I’ve managed to bluff my way through javascript editing and after playing with designs for a few days I’m trying to convince myself I do actually know enough CSS to make it look the way I hope it should. For every thing we manage to check off on the to-do list another six appear at the end of it.

We tried to raid the Au Naturale stores yesterday for any and all shop fittings that we thought we’d need. The only thing we seen that wasn’t ruined wouldn’t fit where we needed it to anyway so other than crockery and a few bits and pieces it was a wasted journey on that front.

In other news I’m sitting here listening to the new Gorillaz album in an attempt to find something to say about it in a review. I’m really struggling. It’s not what I’ve came to expect from them and finding it hard to get into if I’m completely honest. As singles I think they’ll do well but as an album it’s lacking something that I can’t quite put my finger on. We’ll see how it does after a few more listens.

I’m so behind with everything these days. I’ve got my final 28 Day Project photos to edit and upload to Flickr. Don’t hold your breath by the way. They can only be described as photoblog photographs rather than good photographs. It served it’s purpose to get me taking photos every day though. Now I just need to keep that energy going forward and actually try and improve.

Tags: Gorillaz, music, Photography, shop, sleep, time