Quote of the Week # 18

Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is beauty, admire it.
Life is bliss, taste it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is too precious, do not destroy it.
Life is life, fight for it.

Mother Teresa

It Was Only Yesterday

Week Twenty-one: Sunday 18 – Saturday 24 February

The other day our screenwriting lecturer said to us as we packed up, ‘It’s amazing how quickly three hours can go.’ I was thinking about my daughter’s impending third birth day when he said it, and was just saying in my mind, ‘It’s amazing how quickly three years can go.’

The night before, my wife, daughter and I had been looking through the photo albums that we have kept since our daughter was born. It did only seem like yesterday that she was born and surrounded by cousins, aunties, uncles, grandparents and friends: since she could be held in one hand; since she was breast-fed; since she wore all in ones and not pyjamas; since she started to crawl, learnt to walk and run; since she got her teeth one by one; since she started to talk.

And now, at the ripe old age of three, she is an individual in her own right. She is a bundle of joy and life, happiness and satisfaction; she has elements of her mama and elements of her papa, but she brings a whole character and personality all of her own.

No fewer than two meals and two cakes, spread over two days, to celebrate her third birth day, and a rendition of ‘Happy Birth Day To You’ from the teachers and children at nursery: it was quite a celebration.

Parcels and cards also arrived well into the week, making it a prolonged celebration; with the cards ‘blu-tacked’ to the walls, the memory of the celebrations lingers on.

The only blight on the occasion has been the return of the dreaded toothache! I was all due for root canal treatment in early February, and had psyched myself up for the challenge. I first went to see the dentist before Christmas; she pocked about a bit, took x-rays and told me I needed root canal treatment on one of my teeth. She put a temporary filling in and fixed me up to return in February. I only had one four-day spell of toothache over the festivities; nurofen every four hours saw to that.

When I turned up for the root canal I was told it was no longer an option; I’d have to get the tooth out. I was told it could be done there and then; I wasn’t prepared for that, so I declined. I got an appointment for 20 March and shuffled out, please not to have had my choppers rattled and drilled and interfered with.

But, midday through last week, the toothache returned; nurofen made no difference. After three days I bought a bottle of malt whisky; whenever the nerve awakens and growls, sending tears to my eyes and a desire to rip the bloody tooth out by hand to my heart, I bathe it in a mouthful of Scottish medicine. It works a treat, and you get pissed enough eventually not to feel anything anyway.

I can’t really justify carrying on such a pain relief operation until 20 March, though; I need an emergency appointment and I need to get that tooth out.

It isn’t so much the idea of getting it out that bothers me, it’s the implications of getting it out: aging. Just as it’s amazing how quickly three hours and three years can go, it’s amazing how quickly 42 years can go, amazing how quickly life can go; does go.

Like an old car being removed from the roadway, a tooth has to come out because it has ceased to function. My hair started leaving my head and re- appearing out my nose and ears a while back, the first ‘condemned’ tooth has been sentenced; how long before I find myself needing glasses?

No point getting down about it, though. Seriously. You can’t reverse the natural aging process; all you can do is look after yourself and live in the here and now.

Amen to that. Where’s that bottle of malt?

Quote of the Week # 17

Laughter is the medicine of life.

Madelaine Bamford.

Love A Laugh

Week Twenty: Sunday 11 – Saturday 17 February

You know, when I chill out and stop trying to be the funny guy, give someone else, like my wife and daughter, a chance, I find myself laughing so naturally and so much it does hurt!

My wife is a bit like my nemesis: quiet, shy and retiring; that doesn't stop her having a finely honed sense of humour and an acute ability to have me howling with joy. As for my daughter, she is the classic, original, hoot.

The vast majority of young children can surely raise at least a smile from the grumpiest of sods in the world. Their innocence, honesty and mimicry is enough to find you forming a smile with your mouth before you know it at the worst of times; at the best of times it has you, well it has me, with tears in your eyes, pain behind your ears and gasping for breath. Doesn't it?

It is nothing particular that my daughter does, she doesn't have a routine; more it is a spur of the moment comment, statement, action or behaviour, or combination of all three, that gets me going. I defy anyone to convince me that anything is more entertaining - apart, perhaps, from watching two youngish kittens playing/fighting with each other.

My daughter, any daughter, or child, knocks spots off the television. If you want to be entertained, and you have a child, especially one under five years old, just hang out with them and let them be. Sooner or later you'll be smiling, then smirking, then giggling, then roaring with glee and holding your sides, while wiping your eyes and rubbing your aching ears (doesn't everyone get a pain behind their ears when they have been laughing too hard and too long?)

The cheapest and most enriching entertainment around: chilling out, exiting centre stage and giving up the 'floor' to your wife and daughter.

Magic, priceless, endless and superb!

Quote of the Week # 16

Act the way you'd like to be and soon you'll be the way you act.

Leonard Cohen

Caught Cold Cohen

Week Nineteen: Sunday 4 – Saturday 10 February

"You never forget your first Cohen." That's what my friend, and Cohen aficionado, told me: he was right! Mine was 'I'm Your Man', sung by the fantastic Rufus Wainwright at the beginning of the documentary with the same title that is all about the man himself.

Like so many others, no doubt, I had always harboured under the misapprehension that Leonard Cohen's poems, songs and essays were depressing; enough to drive anyone over the edge, was how I had heard him described on more than one occasion.

Being of a more than melancholic nature myself, I always made a point of avoiding anything by Leonard Cohen as a result of all the foreboding that had been foisted upon me by others. Then an opportunity came to go and watch the documentary film, 'I'm Your Man'; all about, and starring, Leonard Cohen.

With my wife and daughter away visiting African relations in another part of England, I was feeling lonely and melancholy enough. My instinct was to turn down the chance to go and see the documentary film. But, a number of people on my course, people I have quickly grown to have a love and respect for, said he is a genius and a legend and that I would enjoy it.

At least it would be a little company and a chance to get out of an empty house; at most it would be a chance to finally become acquainted with a singer/songwriter of genius standing. It turned out to be the latter, not the former.
Apart from too tubes from a band called U2, by the names of 'Bono' and 'Edge', the whole documentary film was a wonderful journey into the work and workings of one gifted, talented and special writer. As if that wasn't enough, all the way through an eclectic mix of 'unusual', but also supremely gifted and talented, singers paid their respects to Mr Cohen with various renditions of some of his songs.

Being an impecunious student, I didn't go out and buy a book or two about him and/or several cds of his songs being sung by himself and others - much as I'd have loved too. But my good friend, and fellow student, who so sagely told me that you never forget your first Cohen, kindly lent me one of his Leonard Cohen books and one of his cds too.

I have spent the last few days in blissful harmony, being mesmerized by Cohen's sublime genius, and immense humility. Not everything he has written does it for me; but what I like, and I like a lot, I find I like so much I love it.

As for being depressing: maybe for some people, but not for me. For me, Leonard Cohen is uplifting, warming, understanding and comforting.

The moral of the story? Never take anybody's word for anything: find out for yourself!

Quote of the Week # 15

Having sex is like playing bridge. If you don't have a good partner, you'd better have a good hand.

Woody Allen

Hibees Return

Week Eighteen: Sunday 28 January – Saturday 3 February

What a week it has been. Following the whir that was hosting a Burns Supper, then driving up to and back from Edinburgh within three days, and seeing as many people as possible in that time, I really didn’t get my bearings until the middle of week.

By that time, thanks to snippets from Radio Five Live and text messages from my brother and nephew, I had the pleasure of discovering that my beloved Hibernian FC had reached another cup final: the CIS League Cup Final.

I managed to get to Easter Road, home to Hibernian FC, the Hibees, when I was up in Edinburgh; they beat Motherwell 2-0 in a drab game where the players did enough to win without having to stretch themselves.

Now I hope to be going back up to Scotland in late March to see them win a trophy. Hibs haven’t won the League Cup since 1991; we haven’t won the Scottish Cup since 1902!! We’ve made it to three or four cup finals since 1991: I’ve been at them all, and we’ve lost them all! I’d consider myself a jinx, only I was at the 1991 final when we won.

I’m not the average football fan; I don’t have much time for player adulation and I don’t enjoy watching much football. I’ve always preferred to play the game and have never been up for watching more than one game a week. But I do love my team, the Hibees, Hibs, Hibernian FC. I love the club, the history, the tradition. I love what the club means to Leith, the area in Edinburgh where Hibs are based, to the fans and to Scottish football.

And I’d love my team to win another trophy because the best thing in football, apart from seeing the ball hit the back of the net, is seeing the captain of your team lift a trophy after a cup final.

I don’t want my wife and daughter to be football fans, but I do want them to share my love of Hibs. Inadvertently, they do.

Within hours of my future wife to be arriving in Scotland for the first time, from her life in Botswana and family in Zimbabwe, she found herself quickly whisked to the Shore Bar in Leith to meet some new family and friends for the first time, down some Guinness for the first time and attend an Edinburgh derby at Easter Road for the first time.

In my defence, two of my nephews, and, by the way, all of my nephews are Hibs fans, had moved from Edinburgh to Oxford; I booked tickets for that derby for us, and they were coming up especially for it, before my wife to be booked her flight!

I remember it well, 16 March 2002. We went 1-0 up early doors through Gary O’Connor; after I stopped jumping up and down and screaming, I kissed and hugged my now wife and told her she was a lucky mascot. Hearts equalised in the second half and won with a Steven Pressley penalty in stoppage time.

My wife consoled me by explaining to me that is was an omen from the gods of football that she was not to play any future part in my football life. Clever, eh?

We moved to Portugal soon after that, but were back in Scotland in early 2004 for the birth of our daughter, who will be three next month. Just over a month later Hibs were in the CIS League Cup Final, facing Livingston having knocked Rangers and Celtic out on the way. There were eleven of us crowded round my daughter, who was wearing a present of a Hibs strip as the photos were taken before we left; we all kissed the lucky mascot’s head as we piled into the cars, headed for Hampden Park and dreamed the dream. We lost 2-0.

Do you know how my wife consoled me? Oh, so clever!

But my daughter knows a few Hibs songs and my wife can cope with the odd game every now and again. So I hope the three of us will be at Hampden Park, Glasgow on Sunday 18 March to see Hibs captain, Rob Jones, lift the CIS League Cup.

God willing!

Quote of the Week # 14

Whatever mitigates the woes or increases the happiness of others, this is my criterion of goodness; and whatever injures society at large, or any individual in it, this is my measure of iniquity.

Robert Burns 1759 - 1796

Rock On Rabbie

Week Seventeen: Sunday 21 – Saturday 27 January

Being on a writing course, and being the only Scot, I decided to organize a Burns Supper for my fellow writing students and the course tutors. It was a lot of work, but well worth the effort; not only did everyone have a brilliant time, a good few Sassenachs gained a valuable education on the many merits of both Burns and haggis.

Burns Suppers are traditionally held one month after Christmas, on 25 January, the anniversary of the death of the Bard of Scotland and can be anything from small and highly casual to large and highly formal. My Burns Supper was a medium sized affair that was both highly formal and highly casual at the same time.

Thirty-three of us crammed in to our course leader’s living room for a traditional three course Burns Supper dinner, followed by cheese and oatcakes. Entertainment was provided by a real, live piper, a cd of Eddie Reader singing Burns, recitals of an Address to a Haggis, My Luve is Like a Red, Red Rose and Scots Wha Hae, and, of course, the Immortal Memory, Toast to the Lassies and Response from Lassies speeches.

It was the first Burns Supper I have ever organized, and it couldn’t have gone better; from beginning to end it was a spectacular night. I was aided and abetted by two stalwarts in my life: my brother, a trained chef and restaurant manager of many years standing, who took care of all the catering and service; my wife, an artist and trained graphic designer, who took care of all the place names, programme booklets and table decorations.

I didn’t really have to do much: a few tables, chairs, crockery, cutlery and glasses to be begged, borrowed or stole; a bit of lifting and moving furniture!

The only thing I asked of the attendees was that they wore something tartan; they responded in kind, with an eclectic mix of tartan garb, from tights and head scarves, to dressing gowns and (allegedly) a thong. Although I was resplendent in full, official, tartan dress, I was upstaged by the outrageous Liam, our course gay, who turned up in a fantastic tartan mini-dress and proceeded to sashay around all night like a catwalk model.

The vast majority of the people who attended had never been to a Burns Supper before, nor had they ever tasted haggis. Most admitted afterwards that they thought they’d just be turning up to hold their nose and swallow a couple of mouthfuls of haggis without retching. They had no idea they were going to be entertained by a piper, mesmerized by Burns’ gift with words, enthralled by top class speeches, and enjoy, yes enjoy, the up-till-then, horror inducing haggis!

Not to mention the Scots whiskey! A wee dram or two of Tamnavulin malt passed more than a wee lip or two; as the night wore on and the whiskey kicked in a wee bum and a wee timorous beastie or three were flashed repeatedly from under kilts on a regular basis. It must be one of the few occasions when a man can flash his privates in public in a room full of women and not cause any offence!

I got four hours sleep that night, made an attempt to rearrange my course leader’s living room so it resembled something close to how it looked before I took it over, attended a photography course and then drove up to Edinburgh with my brother to spend three days catching up with some family and friends!

Aye, the Scots are hardcore: but it was worth every minute, every second, of effort and time. Rabbie Burns was a great man and his memory is one that is well worth celebrating; especially when in the company of people who knew so little about before.