Banana Skin

I stood there, coffee in one hand and money in the other.

Walking away would have been the simple option, but I stood there waiting to pay my $1.50 for the coffee. No one came. As I waited a very tall, very well dressed man walked by, we nodded quietly towards each other as men do.

"Excuse me, you don't happen to know where I should leave my money do you" I asked him indicating to the coffee in my hand and the unmanned booth.

He turned and looked at me as if I had just told him I had slept with his mother and you wouldn't believe the things she did.

"I don't work here" he replied staring me down, he was considerably bigger than me.

"Ok" I said sheepishly and quickly turned away.

What I hadn't realised and was only quietly told later by a colleague, in that hushed, I hate to tell you this but your B.O is a problem sort of way, was that he actually thought, I thought, he worked there because of the colour of his skin. You see, what my stupid Scottish brain hadn't taken into account was that I was in California and the tall, good looking, well dressed person I had asked was, as a friend of mine once said, not quite white or in other words, very black.

The underlying message here was, don't assume I serve coffee just on account of the colour of my skin. The problem was I didn't and hadn't.

Eventually I just left my money next to the sugar and walked away, too scared to ask anyone else.

That was California, probably the most race sensitive place on earth. I should have known but being the stupid, teuchter that I am I just did what I normally do and that is treat everyone the same, regardless of race, which I sorta thought what was supposed to happen.

The Tartan Army fell foul of this at the weekend. A banana skin was thrown onto the pitch at some point during the Brazil v Scotland game and the new Brazilian superstar in the making Neymar shouted racism. He complained that he had been jeered throughout the game and there is no place for racism in football.

Absolutely Neymar, we all concur with that sentiment along with the Miss Iowa winner who states that she wants world peace - both very worthy sentiments.

You see the problem is, they weren't jeering you because of your skin colour Neymar. They were jeering you because every time someone brushed against you you fell to the floor like your legs had been cut off, they were jeering you because you rolled around the grass in agony then jumped up to take the resulting free kick.

Oh and they were also jeering you because of that stupid fucking haircut.

Now, another thing about being Scottish is that we understand our place in the footballing world. We are the underdog, we are going to lose, we know that, however we will also make a lot of noise and party as hard as if we had won - that is the point of the whole thing. If we win every so often then even better but ultimately we are going to have a good time, win or lose. The abuse from the terrace will also be racially neutral - you will be abused regardless of your skin colour.

The verbal discontent Neymar felt on the pitch on Sunday was 100% because he acted like a total fanny, had he not done so and played as well as he did, then he would probably been applauded by the Scots, however he didn't and he definitely wasn't.

There is a good lesson to be learned from this - don't act like a small girl with a stupid haircut in front of 40,000 drunk men in tartan skirts. If Elton John had walked on to the pitch do you think he would have received a better welcome, probably not and the last time I looked he was white.

I sincerely hope Neymar learns from this but I somehow doubt it.

The banana skin was thrown from the Brazilian supporters end, by a German.

Not sure what that says about anything, nothing probably, but its what actually happened.

The Queue - Part 2

Doncaster, Sunday night, very late.

His thumbs were a blur of teenage texting and the girl leaning on the counter had a face caked in what looked like at least an inch or two of make up. It was an immature attempt to look natural and/or sexy but had exactly the opposite effect - she ended up looking like a sulky, latex, balloon faced caricature of the ugly teenage girl which she was.

They spoke in their own feral language which at times vaguely resembled English and were so utterly absorbed in texting, chatting and sneering at the world, in fact anything but their job, that they failed to spot the large, well dressed, but crumpled looking man waiting to be served.

His face was the picture of stress and he nervously kept glancing at his watch. He was the only customer and after standing there for a while it became clear they had very little interest in serving him.

A large fist banged on the counter and that got their attention. They sulkily put away their respective phones and looked in his direction.

‘Uhuh?’ this was all long way from the ‘good evening Sir, my name is Chaz, welcome to McDonalds, how can I help you?’ they learned in fast food school, day one.

‘I need chicken nuggets, 3 portions of chips, 2 quarter pounders and three diet cokes. Also can you be quick as I need to catch a train in 10mins?’

He had travelled for 7 hours by train to end up in this restaurant. 4 of these hours were spent stuck in a field with no power, no heating, no food, it was sub zero outside whilst the men charged with fixing the overhead lines which had come crashing down 30mins into the journey idly rubbed their respective chins and drank tea pondering the problem.

He had two children with him and had just spent the weekend desperately trying to recover the sense of fun which had been promised to them for months. The weekend was a write off and now the journey home was starting to become serious.

They eventually called up a reserve engine, one which doesn’t depend on overhead power, and were dragged up to the grimmest town in already very grim North.

At least Doncaster had a fast food option next to the station as they waited 10mins for their connection.

It was -10c outside, the kids were tired, hungry and their sense of adventure had disappeared a long time ago.

Suffice it to say balloon face had chosen the wrong time and wrong customer to play sulky teenager with.

2 days later, Lille Railway station, very early.

‘Noh!’ French Chaz replied through her nose, her lips didn’t move, a particularly annoying ability, unique to our Gallic neighbors which basically said fuck off, piss off, I am better than you - lazy English pig, all with a snort of the nose.

He just stood there staring back at the frog-bitch, Parley vous English had been his seemingly innocuous, albeit slightly pathetic, question.

It was 7.30am, he had been travelling for 2days trying to get home.

A HD, plasma, flat screen, Technicolor fantasy involving a machete and her skull was running through his head. Please just give me the fucking coffee.

He wearily held his hand out and she snatched the correct coins before eventually passing him the warm drink.

This was the final leg of a journey which started the moment he waved goodbye to the boys on the train. At least they are safe he thought as their train pulled away, little knowing they had just embarked on their own adventure.

He took the coffee and trudged towards the TGV, crowds of people rushed around, similar to himself, large trolley bags all sporting the same white tags. A three letter acronym which marked them - LHR.

Finding his reserved seat, he relaxed, sipped his coffee and idly watched as the train pulled out of a depressingly grey and frozen Lille main station. As he did so his mind pondered the weekend and the catalogue, the bumper Littlewoods Christmas edition, of problems they had faced.

The Friday night 8 hour marathon flight from Zurich to London, the last minute round trip Allan had to take, London to Glasgow and back with the boys. The ice-skating car park which should have been the M25, the cancelled football match and the unscheduled overnight in picturesque Reading. The cancelled US trip, the 12 hour marathon broken train journey they had to endure, the ferry, the snow, the cold and the ice.

It was a weekend to remember or forget but more than likely remember, the highlight being a trip to the cinema and after totting up the bill it could easily be the most expensive night at the movies ever.

I have talked about the fragility of our current lifestyles before and this pre-Christmas weekend only serves to reinforce my view. It only takes the slightest of complications and the world as we know it stops. A dusting of snow in certain places can ruin a whole holiday period, a decent dump of the white stuff can stop a city or two. An unpronounceable volcano can interrupt the whole of Europe.

The Chaz’s of this world don’t care and why should they? Most people do however and I sometimes wonder what would happen if other things we take so much for granted suddenly stopped working – or more specifically the things we have only recently started taking for granted – computers, the internet, low cost airlines, Skype, Nespresso, Simon Cowell.

What for example would happen if the internet was taken out by an e-snow storm and was down for, say, a month due to a global shortage of e-deicer?

It’s a frightening prospect isn’t it and I find myself thinking how could I protect against this? The problem with this type of thinking is my thoughts start shifting along the lines of a mid-west, nuclear bomb shelter dwelling paranoid eejit with a gun and 6months worth of supplies at the ready.

So that’s it and as I see it we have 3 options:

1. Pray it doesn’t happen again or at least not when I am travelling, am online or watching x-factor.

2. Buy a gun, go live in the mountains and shoot anyone who comes within a mile of my property.

3. Become Chaz and don’t give a shit.

Guess I should start caking on the make up now then but one thing is for sure - I guarantee I will do a better job than Chaz.

The Queue - Part 1

London, St Pancras. 5 days before Christmas

Hunched, hands pressed deep into their pockets they shuffle along. Dragging their belongings behind them as they try to hide from the unrelenting, biting, cold. A wind whips up snow and ice and children cower next to their parents, eyes wide with a fear of being separated. Their tiny hands tightly grip the torn and ragged overcoats which cover their parent’s painfully thin bodies.

The queue moves with glacial speed and cars slow down to watch their progression amazed by the sight. A refugee trail as far as the eye can see.

Riot police quietly herd them in the right direction, the only direction. They have come prepared for a violent outburst, but it never comes. They are too weak to rebel, compliance is now the only option. All hope has been lost, every turn they took was blocked by a bureaucratic brick wall and they all end up in the same place, the queue. Across the country the scene is repeated, blanket TV coverage ensures we are all aware of what is happening in our country. Politicians condemn everyone except themselves, the guilty make excuses and run from roaming reporters.

London, somewhere near Heathrow

“What happened, why can’t you resolve this?” a devil horned reporter thrusts the snow covered microphone into the face of a scared and panicking young media-relations manager

“We were surprised by the ferocity of it, it caught us unawares” he mumbles back.

“With your pants down?” the cloven hoofed one replies.

“Well I wouldn’t put it exactly like that, but we were surprised, yes”

“You don’t care about your customers”

“Well…”

“You didn’t invest in infrastructure”

“Well, that’s not entirely…..”

“It’s true!” he cuts in forcefully “You are making money hand over fist, millions, no billions, but you invest nothing!” pushing his tripod into his chest.

“Well, no, not really, last year the profits of…..” The demon cuts him off again, switching tack

“What do you have to say to all the people out there watching this going on?”

“ummm”

“What do you have to say, WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY?” goatee-beard is now standing with a foot on the throat of the ill prepared young man.

He looks defeated and with a hopeful tone he replies “Sorry?”

A pause and then he continues “But it was, it was, well, umm, the wrong sort of snow you see” His jugular is now exposed in anticipation of the killer blow.

Pausing, Satan glances at the camera. Aware the whole country is watching he savours the moment. He smiles knowingly and his eyes glow a deep dark, blood red. You can almost hear the cries of Kill him! Kill him! from behind the camera which silently blinks red.

“I presume by that you mean the cold kind of snow?”

The queue shuffles onwards, never stopping, never reducing and the mercury drops another notch.

Procrastination vs Motivation

I often wonder why it is some days I wake up, full of energy, have breakfast with my family all smiles and sunshine. I arrive at the office, the day is a flurry of to-do list decimation and output. In the evening I enjoy dinner with my family and later fall into a deep happy slumber content with my day. The problem is the following morning I wake up late, tear strips off my face as I rush shave and go to work looking like 2000yr old corpse just pulled from the Siberian permafrost.

My work day is spent wishing away the minutes and hiding from any form of productive activity. I have an argument with my wife in the evening and decide to stay up late drinking.

Why is one day the polar opposite of the other, they could easily follow on from each other, Monday happy, happy, happy, Tuesday Dr Death?

What is it about my motivation which allows such swings. Is there a difference between motivation and mood?

What is motivation?

A simple definition is the minimization of pain and the maximization of pleasure but I think it’s more deep rooted than that, some days I simply can’t be bothered and other days I want to conquer the world and there is no other external differences to the day.

Its 30 years since Mark Chapman decided to take a gun to the Dakota Building in New York and murder John Lennon, why? What was the motivation here? It’s easy to say he is a mental, a mental with a gun or even worse still, he was a motivated mental with a gun. Yes I am sure he has some form of psychiatric disease but a lot of people have that problem, I am sure to some extent we are all a little unhinged. Instant fame? He was a nothing man, a nobody going nowhere and the few seconds it took to change the world of music guaranteed we still know his name 30years after the tragic event.

Simply writing it off as an act of madness is convenient and simple but it would be the same as saying it was because God willed it, doesn’t really explain anything other than allow us to move on and ignore it. Is it random or can we as individuals, increase or decrease the levels of our own intrinsic motivation? Is it learned or genetically inherited?

I don’t know the answers to these questions but I do know that when I hire someone motivation or perceived enthusiasm is very high on my list. Be careful with this approach though, an idiot with motivation is simply a motivated idiot.
Take this blog for example, its now been nearly 3 months since I made an entry. Why do I sometimes post 3 entries per month then other times leave it for 3 months to do another?

Its one of those things which becomes self fulfilling - I haven’t done anything for so long now, one more day wont matter. Smoking is the same, if I smoke one cigarette in an evening then 30 more wont do any harm, I have broken the smoking rule anyhow – in for a penny. Its nonsensical I know but I never said my brain was straightforward.

Perhaps the fact that I have the motivation to think and write about motivation tells me everything I need to know.

It’s a bit sad and I should simply stop, now.

Old Father

Time – it’s a concept which I have been mulling over recently - blink and it’s gone.

An abstract concept which for me is up there with the 5th dimension, not entirely comprehensible. Yes I can measure it, something mankind has been doing quite successfully since, well, since the beginning of time but I still find it slightly out of reach. If I think about it, it’s already gone. I can’t eat it, touch it, breath it – I just know it’s there, always ticking along.

Where does it start and where does it end?

People make a living from it – a whole industry dedicated to its measurement resides in this small Alpine country, Usain Bolt is a superstar because of it, greeting card companies and Microsoft Outlook exists purely because it’s there.
Without it we would always be late, early or on time but who would know? It’s a strange thing.

It’s been one year since I started this blog, I know this because my son is about to reach his first major time-unit milestone, that is, one year.
And here lies the problem with time, a year is one of the larger time measurement units, in colloquial language it could be catogrised as a “long time” however the fact a year has passed since Cameron was born is simply barking mad.

If I logically think about it it makes sense but my initial reaction is to tell you to fuck off, no way, not a chance, a year, come on?

It was exactly a year ago tomorrow that I was standing on a far away sun-kissed beach in my finest kilt watching my best friend marry before rushing back to Switzerland to help deliver our son into the world. I say help, my wife delivered him, I watched and said stuff of a vaguely comforting nature.

That was never a year ago, it was yesterday, last week or perhaps last month at a stretch but a year….

As we age, the intervals between the time measurements get shorter, a year in Cameron`s life is, well, his whole life. In my life it’s just a couple of weeks.

Another strange phenomenon related to time is that its speed is directly related to what we are doing. If I have a day of tax training the day will drag on for weeks or months. My friends tell me when I am talking time slows to a crawl, but a night at the pub is over in less than an hour. Ask any time scientist, if one exists and he will confirm the existence of this phenomena.
I blame this on the complaints I used to receive relating to my lovemaking stamina. I can last for hours but in my partner`s mind it is over in seconds.

Time does fly......

Anyhow you will imagine my delight when in the midst of this time analysis I went to the cinema to watch “Inception”. The film perfectly captures the time inequity when it comes to dreaming. A 1 minute real time dream can last a day in dream time, a dream within a dream`s time is multiplied again by the 1min-1day factor. Thus 1 minute of dreaming a dream within a dream is nearly a month of dream time and so on.

Following this logic a 30minute real time dream would be 50 years in a dream, within a dream, within a dream. A lifetime can occur during the time it takes for an episode of Eastenders to be broadcast. As crazy as this sounds, it also sort of makes sense.

I like the idea and will keep working on the theory: logically if 30mins = 50 years then an hour = 100 years.

At this point I might actually start accepting a year has passed since I was in Mauritius, Cameron was born and I have now turned 40.

Which was probably the reason I started thinking about the whole thing in the first place.

A Hairless Homo

Why do people publish other people’s quotations on Facebook?

Do they think that by quoting, say Winston Churchill, in a virtual-public forum they will be viewed in a similar light?

And how does one react to such a post?

Do you solemnly nod your head at the screen and agree or say thank you for reminding you that life is good, or that being an optimist is best or whatever the fuck they are saying.

Liking it seems a little, well too little.

To find out I will start to run a test and start quoting scripture on FB - one a day to gauge the responses I receive.

Or, as an alternative and a more fun way to understand how one should react is to imagine the person posting it standing up in a bar and saying it out loud.

I think it should be pretty evident then what the appropriate response should be. Unfortunately Facebook, at least to my knowledge, doesn’t have a “you’re a twat” button yet.

I have been reading Men’s Health magazine and am now ready to start ripping my abs, maxing my presses, minimizing my fat and burning my thingies.

When I was a child I would watch movies and be inspired to be like the protagonist: Rocky – take up boxing, Karate Kid – Karate, Midnight Cowboy – well you get the idea.

I guess this is the hormone this type of magazine in hoping to capitalise on.

Unfortunately when I read Men’s Health magazine I don’t think I want to be like the models flexing their shiny abs in between the advertisements.

These guys are all clearly madly in love with themselves and most probably not interested in the things I am, like for example, girls.

Secondly as a child I would quickly discover that boxing hurt (a lot), Karate took dedication and years of practice. Very quickly my enthusiasm would dissapear and I would go back to my computer game, smoking or hanging around the chip shop.

The same is true for the magazine. Perfect abs in 5mins, 0% fat in an hour, 50inch biceps in the blink of an eye.

It’s a lie of course, a trick to make you purchase the glossy book. To look like those guys you need to commit a few hours a day, every day, eat only very low fat stuff and avoid drinking beer. I, Like most guys I know, work, have family commitments, eat chips and meat and am very partial to the odd glass of beer.

Having only skim read the magazine, the message I take from it as follows:

Eat broccoli, fish and nuts, don’t drink beer ever - instead replace with tasty water.

Give up work, sitting down, coffee and TV.

Work out 2hours every day and take up kite surfing and in-line skating.

Wear lycra shorts.

If you follow these easy steps for 5 years you too can end up looking like a shiny, hairless homosexual.

Feeling inspired?

Definition of a photographic memory? One which needs developing.

The Muppet Show DVD, special guest Leo Sayer, midnight - does the above start to make sense?

We are all going outside.
Al-fresco?
He is coming too.
Groan.

Jet lag is easy when you have to stay awake when you are tired. Jet lag when you have to go to sleep when you are not tired is somewhat trickier but certainly manageable. Trying to explain this to an 11month old is even more difficult.

Hence the muppets, midnight, bad jokes and another blog entry.

We have now had one week of our son living on EST whilst we, and importantly, our work schedule is firmly planted in old world CET.

I pray that soon he will decide sleep is important. I am hoping that the quality of the Muppet jokes will speed this process up but until then my shiny body is on hold and if you decide to throw a quote my way please don’t take offence if I quietly and without warning punch you.

Very Random

It might not be politically correct (certainly not if we are to start taking "thinking" advice from the Prime Minister) and I am certain the family of Chris Brown would disagree but I have to admit to a small measure of sympathy for Raoul Moat.

I recognise this is probably counter to all the facts published and yes it’s hard to articulate why as he clearly is responsible for one cold blooded murder and two attempted ones. I do feel though here is a man who should not have ended up lying in a ditch with a shotgun to his forehead. It’s the same feeling I had when George put a bullet in Lennie`s skull - it could have been avoided.

I know the similarity between Lennie and Raoul ends with their size however in this instance I do feel that there could have been another solution. I have to add at this time I have a very distant perspective, do not know the man in question other than reading the BBC & other news channels and I am sure the police did what they could at the time.

When I watched the news last Saturday morning though I felt sad, not happy that the steroid fuelled nutter has been stopped in such a violent way. A somewhat different feeling to the one I had when I read about Harold Shipman`s suicide shall I say.

Anyhow the police have got their man and I am sure the streets are a little safer on account of this.

Not that the same can be said of a football pitch on which the Dutch team are playing - like the segue-way?

Yes, the World Cup is over for another 4 years and I have to admit being a little disappointed by the whole thing.

As with most things in life the anticipation is better than the actual event and this was no exception. The star players decided not to play and of course the much hyped England team seriously under performed. The stand out moments for me were limited but I have to admit to jumping up and shouting out when Iniesta finally stopped the Dutch from taking the final to penalties.

The best team won the tournament but judging from the tournament this does not say a great deal. Roll on Brazil.

The most pleasant thing I read this week is the story of a radio presenter who was fired for calling a local councillor a “Health Nazi”. Its not the story which interested me but its reference to a theoretical law called “Godwins Law”.

This is a theory developed in the 1990s by Mike Godwin a US Lawyer after observing chat room participants over a period of time. The rule states that, over time, all debates will end up with one participant comparing another to Adolf Hitler, or the Nazis.

Whether it’s actually proven or not I don’t know but what I like about it is it essentially articulates the point in an argument when one person simply shrugs their shoulders and tells the other to “fuck off”.

I will remember this theory so the next time I am in a pub and a drunken Neanderthal calls me a Nazi, Hitler or simply tells me to “fuck off” I can quite justifiably quote Mr. Godwin and point out, to my soon to be assailant, how I have won the moral high ground.

Ha-ha, let’s see who’s laughing then.