Another Legend Lost!

I was saddened to hear this morning that the Scottish Rally Driver and former WRC Champion, Colin McRae, had been killed in a helicopter accident. For as small a country as we are, we don't half seem to do well at producing top class sportsmen, and anyone living in Scotland will tell you that we're at an immediate disadvantage because of the lack of facilities and funding available.

I actually have something in common with Colin McRae, believe it or not. My own father was a rally driver back in the late 70's and through the 80's, just like Colin's father Jimmy McRae. I'm sure my father competed in several races in which Jimmy was also competing, although my father was more semi-pro while Jimmy was at the top of the tree so to speak, at that time.

Unfotrunately, rallying is a very expensive sport, as my father discovered, and even with sponsorship, which he had to go out and get himself, the costs of keeping a car racing were phenomenal, and eventually he had to pack it in. He did win a lot of races though, and also placed highly in many pro-events. His Co-driver/Navigator was actually a Primary School Headmaster, would you believe? I certainly don't have the same "Need For Speed" that my father had, but having had a few trips in his rally-car as a kid, I can telly you, that you do get a real adrenaline rush. The nearest thing I can acquaint it to is taking off in an aeroplane with a short runway, when they hold the brakes on until the engines are screaming. When they let the brakes off the acceleration is amazing. I'm talking about Aberedeen airport here in particular, but I'm sure it would apply to other small airports. Perhaps it's the actual need for the adrenaline rush which is addictive. I think I could understand that!

Back In Print!

So, I headed into Elgin this morning in order to:

• Hire a Kilt for Graduation
• Buy a Laserjet Printer
• Get my niece her birthday present

Two out of three ain't bad is it? As Meat Loaf used to sing! On the kilt front, yes, I finally saw some kilts, but then the guy in the shop queried what the College rules were on the wearing of kilts. Apparently certain things are permitted, while others are not. It was pretty much suggested that I return when I've acquainted myself with that information. Bah, people always have to make things difficult, I just want a kilt!

Regarding, my desperate need for a Laserjet printer, I went to Argos to buy one that I'd seen in their catalogue! I checked online yesterday and it said they had plenty in stock. Liars! I checked every printer in the book when I was at their store, guess what, they didn't have any printer in stock, not least the one I was after. I'm talking about the Samsung MI 2010, for £79.99. In desperation I decided to try a small computer shop up a side street. They had the same model on display for £99.99, and as I said, desperation took a hold of me and I decided just to go for it. So the shop salesman goes through the back, and my son and I followed. He tells me that the one on display is the only one left, but that they have plenty of the newer model in stock (ML 2510), but he doesn't know the price, he'll check it! We go back to the till so he can scan the barcode and I'm thinking £120, maybe £130. Then up it comes £70.49. I nearly tore it out of his hands, of course I bought it. It's very rare that something like that happens to me, these days.

Bought some curling tongs or hair-straighteners, whatever, for the niece, and that's her sorted as far as I'm concerned. My wife was saying, "what about perfume, what about this, or that, blah, blah, blah?". Just buy the first semi-suitable item you see, that's my motto. Who cares if they need it, or even if they want it. You've bought them something, that's all that matters! With a little luck, you might have got them something they were needing, result. Then you look like a truly considerate person who spends time deliberating a birthday purchase.

Sing A Song For You!

I forgot to mention yesterday how fortunate both I and my fellow commuters aboard the 5:15 from Aberdeen, were, to have in our midst, some Scotland fans, quite obviously still on their way home from the match against France. When you're travelling home after a long and tiring day, believe me, the last thing you want to hear is a slurred but raucous version of "Flower Of Scotland", sang repeatedly, regardless of whether the team pulled off a great vistory or not. Clearly, they did achieve a massive win, but most of us are not in the fortunate position where we can spend the following day getting hammered.

Going back to my attempts to hire a kilt for graduation day, as I narrated to you a couple of days ago, I went back to the shop this morning at 11am, certain that this time it would indeed be open. Well, it wasn't! When it is open, if ever, remains a mystery. How the hell can you run a business like that? Now I'll have to hire a kilt from Elgin, which will make things a lot more awkward for me!

I've got so much work to do today, but I'm procrastinating yet again, as you can see. There's not really much time for blogging these days, but I do it anyway. It's a sort of diary in many ways, in others it's a mirror into my soul... maybe! Oh yeah... one of my fellow students warned me that Laserjet printers are bad for your health, something about micro-particles. I think that any worries about dying from a printer related illness should be of very little concern to someone about to embark on a profession in teaching!

Courting Controversy!

You certainly won't be aware of the fact, but on several occasions I've written my post for the day then deleted it in its entirety, simply because the content was too controversial. I know that it's my blog and that I should be able to say whatever I like, but that's not really the case. Since I'm going to be a teacher (hopefully), I don't think I should comment on yob culture or crime and punishment for instance. There's also the matter of the Iraq War. Well, are we still at war? Apparently not! It supposedly ended ages ago, we're only peace-keeping now! That seems to be going well! Why exactly did they (we?) invade Iraq again?

It's not that I don't think I should mention certain "taboo" topics, because believe me, I've got plenty to say about events that are happening right now and the potentially catastrophic situations that certain governments in the World are creating for the future. The reason being, I've come to realise that right is left and up is down. I used to think that we were the good guys, and we still are, only we're being completely misrepresented abroad, by our misguided leaders, and our allies are genocidal maniacs. Does that about illustrate the position I'm assuming? I think so!

Doing a volte-face again, I told you that I might be getting a digital camera. Well that's on hold, becasuse I now need to acquire myself a Laserjet Printer, simply owing to the copious amount of documentation that the University keep uploading. I have a £1 print allowance, which I haven't even bothered to touch, and more reading material than I can ever handle. I guess Manfredi's "Spartan" book will have to be put aside until I get a break, possibly until next Summer, the way things are going

What's In Your Sporran?

So, I've been putting it off, but this morning I decided it was time to go and see about hiring a kilt for graduation day, which is in about 4 weeks or so. The trouble is, the gown is a dark navy blue colour with yellowish-gold trim (that's how it was described to me), and I'm having difficulties picturing in my head, just exactly what colour of kilt is going to go with that.

Anyway, there's a shop here in town, which hires kilts, so I decided to have a walk over and see what they have, bearing in mind that it's a small shop and that their range would probably be limited in respect of that. Quite unsurprisingly, because I live at the ends of the Earth, the shop was closed. I decided to inspect the times as advertised in the window, these are the notices I saw, in order:

• Open Monday - Saturday 10am - 4pm!


• Only open for returns on Monday's!


• This shop will be closed on Wednesday's until further notice!

What is it with people around here? There is no ambition! They open 6 hours a day, 4 days a week? Why bother? I have grave doubts abut these people's committment to kilt hire. So, I'm not sure that it would be a good idea to order from them, given that my graduation is on a Friday morning, I'm in Uni all day Thursday that week, and they're closed on the Wednesday, which is the only time realistically that I can collect my kilt prior to graduation. Besides which, I still don't know what colour to get!

The Real Shakespeare!

Haha, who is this ridiculous looking Elizabethan gentleman? Why it's none other than the greatest man of his time, Sir Francis Bacon. It's quite possible that you've never heard the name before, other than there was an artist who shared it also, but this man was surrounded by mystery and controversy, and still is to this day. What did he do to generate such mystery?

To all external apperances, Bacon was a genius. He was student of philosophy, nature, science and law. He was also a great writer and statesman, the greatest of his time probably. His oratory skills were unrivalled as well. He curried such favour with Queen Elizabeth, that it was widely believed then (and still is by many today) that he was her illegitiate son. However, the suggestion which has most firmly attached itself to Bacon, is that he was the true author of Shakespeare's plays. There is a great deal of evidence from that time to indicate that only he and no other could have written such momentous and elaborate works of literary genius.

While there is much evidence to suggest that Bacon was the true author of the Shakesperean plays, there is probably just as much evidence to demonstrate why Shakepseare could not have been the author. The man was a largely ignorant fellow who couldn't possibly have possessed the worldly knowledge and knowledge of court, law and philosophy, which shines through in the plays attributed to him. Unless one assumes that he absorbed information and ideas from those he met, like a sponge, then clearly the plays were conceived and written by another, by a man who did possess the knowledge and intellect. The only man of his time who did, was Sir Francis Bacon! Did Bacon take a slightly promising fresh-faced actor, newly arrived in London, and with the promise of riches, use him as a vehicle to publish plays which quite often contained satirical digs at the nobility, churchmen and monarchy of the period. Plainly, using a stooge, Bacon could air his grievances in public without fear of retribution. I'll bet he had a jolly good laugh in doing so too!

Forced To Exercise!

Yes, I'm unfit, yes, I'm out of shape. I don't really exercise per se, despite that. I'm a student, students don't exercise. I've way too much reading and assignments to do! But today turned out to be one of those days when divine intervention forced me to exercise, unjustly and against my own good judgement.

It started with an ascent up several flights of steps to get the bus on Union St, the alternative being to walk a few hundred yards around. The morning tutorial took place on the 9th floor, and the exodus following the tutorial virtually renders the lifts unusable, so I had to descend 18 flights of stairs (2 between each floor) to the ground floor. Since it's almost 2 miles from the Uni to the train station I catch the bus, and today was no exception, but the train coming home was at 5.15 and the bus only got me back to Union St. around 5.10, so I had to virtually run the 300 yards or so to catch the train. It was either that or wait another hour and a half, which I was not prepared to do. I was the last person on to the train just before the doors closed, sweating and panting, and unable to get a seat. I was therefore obliged to stand for about 15 minutes before some people got off.

The result of all that unnatural and rather unwelcome exercise was that when I got home I was starving. I had images of Lasagna and Chips in my head, but the wife had made soup. You see how terrible life gets for me sometimes? You people don't know how lucky you are! That was a joke, please do not respond with hostility, it's quite likely some of you have also had occasion to eat soup, especially students!

Your Family Were Pirates!

This week marked the return of a series which I can actually say that I take enjoyment in watching, although sometimes I do wish they would pursue certain threads a little further, as I know well they can. I am of course talking about the brilliant "Who Do You Think You Are?" For those unfamiliar with the programme, it takes celebrities on a journey of discovery, finding out who their ancestors were, where they came from, what they did, and looks at the major events which they were caught up in. The first show featured newsreader Natasha Kaplinsky, whose family came to the UK from Belarus, via South Africa. Turns out her family, who were Jewish, were treated just as badly as most European Jews during WWII, and were murdered by the Nazis. What always amazes me about family history, is just how little people know about their own family when it comes down to it.

Other TV treats this week. The IT Crowd continues, not as good as the first 2 episodes,. but still showing the odd flash of brilliance, such as this clip form the start where Moss and Roy are about to watch a pirated dvd and are reminded quite expilicitly how piracy is theft:

How did you enjoy that? Yeah, I thought so too, isn't humour marvellous?

The Deadly Star Wars Secrets!

Scientists are a vulnerable lot aren't they? Particularly scientists that are working on goverment defence projects. There's a tendency for them to commit suicide when ever they've just made some major breakthrough. It doesn't make sense does it? If any of you reading this have shown an interest in the often sordid underhand dealings of officials running shady operations such as Area 51 and The Philadelphia Project, then you'll already know that whistle-blowers and people who've seen too much, have a tendency to commit suicide or have a nasty accident. It's part and parcel of the job, even though most of them were probably pressured into the role in the first place.

Where am I going with this? Well, a few days ago, I came across this article online, which makes very interesting reading. It seems that, 22 British computer scientists involved in work relating to the American Star Wars defence project, killed themselves in the 80's. What makes this article all the more interesting is that they were British and it all mainly happened here in Britain, yet I've never heard about this before and I'm sure most Brits haven't either. What's truly disturbing is how at the inquests into each death, on almost every occasion, the police reported that the victim was suffering from depression or stress, when the victim's families reported the exact opposite to be true.

Now, the finger can be pointed in probably any of 3 directions here, assuming they were not suicides;

• The US secret service wanted to keep elements of the research, secret to such a degree that they had the scientists who knew too much knocked off.
• The Soviets were having the scientists assassinated so as to hinder the progrees of the project.
• The British Secret Service may have found out that scientists were selling top secret information, to the Soviets or elsewhere, and plugged up the leaks effciently.

I think that the British Secret Service had to be involved. How else could the police be persuaded to give false testimonies at the inquests. I'm fairly certain that this type of "silencing" goes on all the time, the case of Dr. Kelly, the former UN Weapons Inspector who was made a scapegoat by Tony Blair, being an obvious more recent example. People who slash their wrists tend to bleed a bit, but when Dr. Kelly's body was found on Harrowdown Hill, there was no blood. Plainly, he had died elsewhere, and probably not by his own hands.

I Got Me Some Bargains!

I picked up a couple bargains this morning, when the wife and I went on our bi-weekly grocery shopping trip to Elgin. I always look at the book section in Asda's because quite often they have some decent novels for £3.50 ish. Harking back to my Italian holiday in July, if you were keeping up, then you would remember that I read "The Tower" by Valerio Massimo Manfredi while I was there, and that I promised myself to buy his other books once back home in Scotland. Well I did have a look on ebay, but then the focus went elsewhere and I forgot all about it. Anyway, there I was this morning, looking at the books in Asda's when I saw "Spartan" by Manfredi for £1. Woah... bargain book buy or what? So, I snapped that up and "Wolf Of the Plains" by Conn Iggulden for £3.50. That's a novel about the life of Genghis Khan. Yep, you're starting to see just what type of novel I go for, aren't you?

Following that coup, we had to go and try and get some music book for my daughter, for flute, which of course wasn't in stock. They never are! My wife decided to look in some clothes shop and waved me off to Ottakers book-shop, although I wasn't really intersted, but then I found the best buy of the lot, despite costing me £10 this time. I looked under education, you know, just on the off chance that I might see something worthwhile buying, when I spotted a book called "The Trainee Teachers Survival Guide" by Hazel Bennett. After 2 or 3 minutes flicking through it, I relaised that this book might just save my life. Not only has it a wealth of pointers on all aspects of Teacher Training within the Uni, but it also has lots of helpful tips for what to expect and to do while on school experience. I should have had this book a few months back, but better late than never, as they say!