athlete

• noun 1 a person who is good at sports. 2 a person who competes in track and field events.

— ORIGIN Greek athletes, from athlon ‘prize’.

From the Oxford Online Dictionary.

Guess the ladies in the Nike adverts aren't athletes after all, huh?

This morning, on Radio Scotland's Morning Extra show.
The topic was Cyclists - menace to drivers everywhere or perfectly valid road users?

The usual old pish was being spouted from all angles.

• Cyclists don't pay road tax, so have no right to be on the road - bollocks. Roads are paid by general taxation.
• Cyclists don't obey road signs, lights etc - maybe so, but does every driver on the road?
• Cyclists are a menace, they ride on pavements/barge past people/through houses/right over the baby Jesus - aye well, mebbe so. They are just wanks but.
• Cyclists should stick to cycle lanes - Cycle lanes are generally pish, poorly designed, badly thought out and implemented. They are generally covered in glass and loose stones swept to the side of the road by the rest of the traffic too. Anyway, they have every right to cycle on the road proper, so you can shove your cycle lanes up yer arse.
• Roads are dangerous so we need to cycle on pavements/utterly disregard the laws of the road - you are your own worst enemy. Please feel free to cycle up your own arse. Learn how to ride safely and responsibly on the road and then do so. This will give drivers less ammo to chuck at you in this stupid debate.
  

Once you get started on a rant it's dead easy to lose track of what the hell you are on about. Just as I nearly have done.
Almost done, and my whole point for this post is still in sight.
Not quite there yet, though.

See, public road users as a group, are getting royally shafted. Crap roads, congestion charges, congestion itself, fuel costs, yadda yadda fucking yadda.....
Wouldn't car drivers and cyclists be better presenting a united front of general road users, rather than CYCLISTS versus DRIVERS, sniping at each other with half baked arguments and prejudices?
Just a thought.

Anyway to my point.
Another quote of the year candidate, on the subject of who, exactly, has the right to use Scotland's roads.

"The roads are there for us Roman soldiers."

From a retired Centurion, no less.

There's a topic on the go over at the Judoinfo forums, on the subject of images that define the sport.
Some of the pictures are astounding, like this masterful example of my current favourite throw, Uchimata.

That picture just about sums Judo up for me. Technique, power and control.

I've written briefly about Judo before, but given the respect I have for the sport, it's worth writing about again.

I love Judo and wish I'd stuck at it when my Mum dragged me along to the local club when I was 9 or 10.
I've done various Martial Arts to different degrees in my life.
I started with Judo when I was little, but as a quiet wee boy, it didn't really suit me.
Next was a brief stint with Shukokai Karate when I was 14. This didn't even last a year. I was moved up to the adults class when I turned 15 and fell out with it.
About 10 or 11 years ago, I decided I was getting to be a bit of a fat arsed pussyboy, so needed to get into shape and learn how to fight. I'd been reading Tim Willock's novel, Green River Rising, and in it, he mentioned Shotokan Karate a couple of times. That was enough to sell me on it, so off I went for a look-see at the local club.
The training on offer there would probably have impressed me enough to join for it's own sake. The hot redheaded girl kicking people up and down the hall sealed the deal.
And that was fine for quite a while. I took my beatings, as every noob should. I enjoyed the hard training. I got a bit better and started beating people. I went to some competitions, some of which I even won. Eventually I got to black belt, then 2nd Dan and finally 3rd Dan.
Somewhere between 2nd and 3rd Dan, I had started doing a little Muay Thai at a local club. I'd been getting a bit disaffected with Karate and the way it is trained and wanted something a bit more physical, with harder training and heavier contact. Muay Thai filled that role very well. I still did Karate along with Muay Thai for a while, but eventually got fed up with what I saw as it's pointless restrictions and dropped it altogether for Muay Thai alone.
In 2004, at the grand old age of 32, I agreed to take on a fight. I trained like a maniac for months, getting my weight down to a respectable 93KG, from an all time high of 112KG!
With less than a week to go to the fight, the entire event was cancelled. This ripped the heart right out of my enjoyment of Muay Thai.
I realised a few things at this point.
1. I'd been a selfish bastard, putting myself and my training waaaay ahead of my family.
2. Muay Thai has very little to offer if you have no intention of ever stepping into a ring.
3. You can't compete recreationally in Muay Thai. If you don't step into that ring in superb condition, you will end up in hospital. This is a guarantee. So, if you don't train like fuck, you will die. Not a good thing if you have a family, job, life etc etc etc.
Thoroughly sick of Muay Thai, I went along to the local Judo club to try it out.
Best. Decision. Ever.
Judo had everything I was looking for in a Martial Art.
Judo practice on it's own is hard, intense work, without having to add in fuckloads of additional crap like pressups and situps.
It is so technical that there will always be something needing practice or something new to learn.
You can compete at a recreational level and manage ok.
When approached intelligently, it provides an excellent set of tools for self defence.
You are awarded belts on competitive wins, not subjective opinion.

As with everything in life, there is a darkside. A Vader to Kenobi. A Lennon to Mccartney. A Rangers to Celtic.
With Judo, it's an unfortunate tendency to horrifying injury.
If you speak to long term Judoka about this, they will always tell you it's no more dangerous than any other contact sport, injuries happen and if you play safe then you'll be fine.
Then they generally go on to tell you what throws they can't do anymore for lack of sufficient Cruciate ligamentation or how they can't raise their right arm above shoulder height due to their dodgy rotator cuffs.

I've highlighted the Judo injuries from my club alone before. I'm too superstitious, never mind squeamish to mention them again. Instead, have a look at this.

This is a picture of Carlos Honorato of Brazil throwing World Champion, Hidehiko Yoshida at the 2000 Olympics.
Another beautiful Uchimata. A huge throw.
Hang on just a second though.
*start ominous music*

Look at Yoshida's right arm.
He tried to post out of that throw to avoid the score. Bad move.
When he landed, his arm snapped at the elbow. He had to be helped off the mat. I've seen pictures of it and it ain't pretty, so I'm not posting it here.
*end ominous music*

All I'm saying here is that Judo is a tough sport, which is what makes it a good martial art, which is why I love it so.
But then I would say that, still having both knees and both shoulders in reasonable working condition. I have every intention of keeping them that way, so if you ever have to face me across the mat, be happy in the knowledge that if you catch me with a half decent throw, I'll go with it.
You can have the Ippon. I'll be happy just to walk off unaided.

I'll leave you with this charming image of Craig Fallon apparently performing enthusiastic amateur Chiropractery on Kenji Uematsu at the 2003 Europeans.

Enjoy your Judo.....

Limmy on wee Jimmy Sommerville.

"Oor Jimmy. That’s years he’s been bent noo and still nae Aids. That’s the super strength Glesga immune system fur ye."

See that last post of mine? The one about the toilet incident?
I think it must have put me off my stride or something, I've been completely unable to think of anything to post since I wrote it.

I knew that fucking thing was a mistake as soon as I hit the "Publish Post" button.

At least my main worry hasn't been realised - my site getting hits through Google searches of "big cock toilet sex" or somesuch.
Readers are readers I suppose, shouldnae complain too much.

The Malaise hasn't just been affecting this blogging malarkey, oh no.
Junior is going through a clingy phase with his Mum and wants very little to do with me. I'm a bit fucked off at work and can't be arsed exercising either. I'm getting fat, lazy and old.

On the plus side, this weekend I took Crazy Horse out for some quality walks and managed to get Junior out for a wee game of football, which was superb, given the way he's been lately.

I need to cowboy the fuck up and stop whinging.

"Check the size of your cock!"

As said to me last Friday night in a pub toilet.

The way I figure it, you can take something like that a number of ways.
As a compliment, in which case you should thank your admirer warmly and go on your way.
As a challenge to your masculinity, leading inevitably to bloody single combat.
As an insult.
As an invitation to indulge in some lavatorial mansex.

I personally chose to take it as a compliment, but took the opportunity to deliver a stern lecture on the proper etiquette of the urinal.
I feel it was well received by all present, as I left the facilities to warm applause and a chorus of "Three Cheers".

I've been unfortunate enough to have to get the bus home from work quite a bit in the last couple of weeks.
It must be Karma or something. Maybe I've been swearing too much, but the last 3 times have been a Ned nightmare. A Nedmare, if you will.

3 horrible journeys, trapped on manky public transport, plagued by the following:

1. 4 pissed up, noisy bastards right behind me. They held the bus up when they got on, arguing with the driver over 20 fucking pence. They spent the rest of the time screaming and shouting down a mobile phone, kicking seats or punching windows.
   They picked on a young guy sitting next to me, but thankfully left me alone.
   The loudest one, for some reason, kicked the bus when he got off. Happily, his leg got caught in the wheel arch and was messily torn off, after dragging him for several metres.
   He looked like that Preston guy out of The Ordinary Boys. Make of that what you will.


2. 2 pissed up, horribly scarred older Neds, sat directly behind me. They spent most of their time trying desperately to chat up 2 young Nedettes. And by chat up, I mean cadge fags, lights and small change for.
   These guys were friendly enough, but they were seriously drunk and seriously scarred. They looked like they could have been moonlighting as bayonet practice dummies.
   This did not inspire me to strike up a friendly conversation.


3. I didn't even notice this guy till thick clouds of what smelt like smoke from burning tractor tires wafted down the carriage.
   This roaster was on his own and didn't say much, concentrating instead on burning rare and expensive herbs, presumably as a sacrifice to Great Cthulhu.
   He, as soon as the bus got busy, stretched himself out lengthwise on his seat so nobody else could sit next to him, which really was kind of adorably stupid.
   He seemed happy enough to sit and have fun with man's red fire for about 25 minutes before some unbidden impulse drove him to ask,

   "WHUT NUMBERS THIS BUS?"

   
   He didn't give us much time to ponder the depths of this question, nor offer the obvious answer,

   "WHUT NUMBERS OAN THE FRONT?"

   as he immediately alighted unsteadily and loped off into the night. Poly bag containing the regulation 3 cans of super lager in hand.

What is going on?
I get the 66 bus a lot and never have any bother, then I get an extravaganza of Bampots, one after the other.
Phase of the moon? Something in the water? Something in the Buckfast? Or something altogether more sinister?

What could it be.....?

It only seems to happen after dark.....on the number 66.....

Wait! The number 66! Thats it!

Walk through this with me.

The two 6's of the bus route and a third 6, comprised of 6 tribulations suffered on that route, clearly suggest that eldritch forces are manifesting to invoke the dread number of the Beast!
I've had 3 trials of misery and woe so far, that must mean I've another 3 to go!
Each one worse and weirder than the last!
It's so obvious! Why didn't I think of this before?

This is by far the most reasonable explanation for Nedly behaviour ever. Surely no sane man would disagree.

From the Beeb.

Twenty-one people were rescued after becoming trapped when they fell nine feet as a floor collapsed during a health and safety meeting at a firm.

Just so we're clear:

The meeting began at about 1000 GMT on Tuesday with the 21 safety officers sitting around a large wooden conference table.

Staff in the ground floor office underneath noticed the ceiling moving and ran out of the room seconds before it collapsed.

More health and safety officers arrived later from Tameside Borough Council to investigate the cause of the incident.

I've passed this on to a H&S guy I know for general merriment, finger pointing and laughing.

My blog, my rules. I can post tedious minutiae about my life if I want.

A first for me last night - my first ever successful Ippon Seoinage in Randori.
What's even better, I got it against a guy of a similar weight and height to me.

This is the classic throw that everyone thinks of when you mention Judo. As a result, it's hard to get in with on a resisting opponent, but it's a sweet throw if you pull it off.
I've been avoiding it up till now, as I felt it didn't really suit me, but I decided recently that I needed to add some more major throws to my repertoire and have been practicing it pretty heavily.

Thanks very much for bearing with me. Bawbags normal service of.....er.....shite and nonsense shall continue shortly.

I been hearing this same tune quite a bit on the radio lately and it's been doing my head in trying to find out who it was by.
Found out last night - The Delays, the song is called Valentine.
Turns out they've a couple of other really familiar tunes too.
It's pretty good! Not what you'd expect an indie band of 4 guys from Southampton to sound like.

My iPdod Shuffle is busted and trying to get it fixed is giving me an iSeizure.
If anyone has masochistic tendencies, you could do a lot worse than going to Apple's "award winning" support website and try to raise a service request - a simple thing that many service providers seem to fuck up royally.

How hard can it be. The interaction should go a little summat like this....

I have recently purchased a Widget manufactured by you. It now no longer functions. I require you affect a repair or replacement in a timely fashion. Here is it's serial number and here is my address. Many thanks.

My interaction with Apple has so far gone more like this...

1. Try to raise service request, am prompted to create an AppleID.


2. Create AppleID. Enter my name, contact details and serial number of my iPod the first of 1978653 times.


3. Start raising service request again.


4. Enter my name, contact details and iPod serial number many, many times.
   Am prompted to choose, from a drop down list, the nature of my fault. My fault is not included. None of the listed faults are anywhere near mine. I choose the one that sounds most fun - "Core meltdown imminent"


5. Am then prompted to describe fault symptoms and remedial actions. Do so accurately, despite provocation.


6. Am asked to, yet again, provide contact and delivery details.


7. Pause for reflection as my contact details are rejected, as I didn't put anything in the field marked "Company name (optional)".


8. Pause for further reflection as an error is returned whatever I put in "Company name (optional)" field. This includes blank spaces.


9. Pause to allow heartrate to return to normal after clicking the "contact us" link, only to be referred to the same site that I have spent the last 3 days of my life wrestling with.

So, while their fault reporting website is broken, or being administered by Kafka, I am stuck with a broken iPod and no obvious way of registering my deep, unfulfilled rage with Apple.
I am iRaging and want to boot somebody in the iBaws.
iCunts.

Bored?
Offended, even mildly?
Pissed out of your head?
Your iPod knackered and you can't make it through the tortuous maze that is Apple's fault reporting website?
Say yes to violence.

I'm just pissed off that chancer beat me to the punch.
Going postal in a crowd of Keane fans?
Form an orderly queue.
Right behind me.

Nipping round to my Mum's later today to set up her shiny new laptop, wireless router and broadband connection.
Welcome to the Internet - just think of it like the World's largest playground, jammed full of hyperactive kids texting insults to each other.
The Urban Dictionary will help you if you ever need to get the little bastards to STFU.

If you do one thing, just remember this following rule, and your Internet experience will be a rich and rewarding one.

Courtesy of The Furry Cup.

That's it. All over. Move along please.
Hand your placards in on the way out. Unburned flags may be handed back to your vendor for a full refund. Please dispose of petrol bombs and other combustible materials safely and responsibly.
The West hopes you've enjoyed your Jihad and we'd like to extend an invitation for you to go fuck yourself.

The Cooncil recently flung up a load of signs round my way, warning of dire consequences from the Neighbourhood Wardens if dug walkers didn't start picking up after their dugs.
I slung it a deafie, as I'm not in the habit of letting Crazy Horse crap just anywhere. She craps in the woods along with the other wolves.
Even more recently, they stuck a special, dogshite friendly bin in the favourite local dug walking haunt.

I refuse to use it, because this a load of, wait for it, shite, (hohohorofl! Teh funneh!) and a ridiculous waste of money by a Cooncil that should not have too look to hard to find some actual important things to be spending money on.

I did briefly consider picking Crazy Horse up and sticking her arse in it whenever we passed by. I decided against that on the grounds that you can only be brutally savaged so many times before it starts to get boring.
Plus, you meet the same people every day when you are out walking your dug. I would begin to dread how the conversation would go.

"Mornin"
"Morning, how're you?"
"No bad, no bad....dug daein a shite then?"
"Aye."

Some people are using it as intended though, as after about a month, the thing was overflowing with little bags o shite.
Some dugs are clearly no getting the message either, as theres plenty of unbagged jobbies round it too. Or maybe they are just too wee to fit their arses in the top. I dunno. I may bring this up with the next Neighbourhood Warden I see.

It's been there a couple of months now and it's still no been emptied!
Chances of it getting emptied are, I reckon, slim, what with the forthcoming Council Tax raises/service cuts.

Funny, cos I thought the point was some sort of public health issue, but now we've got the worlds biggest dogshite collection sitting there like some sort of tropical disease hotspot.
Just you watch, if Avian Flu is ever going to mutate into some sort of superflu, never mind sub-Saharan Africa, it'll happen right there.

Dug Flu, I'll call it, right before I cough up an entire lung and die messily.

Following up my earlier rant on the crap from Iraq this week, the BBC has just aired footage of the incident that shows the soldiers concerned coming under mortar or grenade attack.
An open question to everyone that has already tried and convicted the soldiers in question - be honest, what would you have done?
It looks to me to be a miracle, or more likely good discipline, that no shots were fired.

Expat Yank illustrates the point from a historical perspective, with a [sarcasm]shocking example of brutality by GIs against unarmed German POWs.[/sarcasm]

I'm sure I recognise some of his quotes, looks like they came out of Citizen Soldiers, which I've just finished re-reading.
I love that type of History book, full of eyewitness accounts from the dogfaces who did the killing and dying at the front.

A mate has just started up a wee blog on malt whisky.
It'll be worth keeping an eye on, as he knows his way round a bottle of whisky. In the nicest possible sense, of course.

On the subject, I pinched a couple of interesting malt whisky sites to bookmark.
Peat Freak
Whisky Web

If this

is a reasonable response to the publication of some crappy cartoons, then surely this

is every bit as reasonable a response to some wee shites lobbing grenades and bricks at your head?

Funny how the shitebags at the News of the World weren't so quick to publish the cartoons when it would have put them on the front line.
Seemingly it's ok to drop the Squaddies out in the sandpit in the shite though.

Are they not one of those tabloids that likes to set itself up as the Squaddie's mate whenever it suits it to? I'm sure they are.

That video is a couple of years old now, so what's going on that it's only surfacing now?
Something stinks a bit.

What the fuck is it that people want from our Soldiers?
We seem to want them to be the toughest, best trained and most professional in the world.
We send them to various dangerous shiteholes round the world, where we expect them to behave like PC Murdoch, even while sundry arseholes are trying fuck them up in a variety of imaginative ways. The worst that auld Murdoch could expect was Oor Wullie and his pals trying to knock his cap off with a well aimed chuckie, not remove his entire fucking heid with an RPG.


All this happens under the scrutiny of our sensationalist, self-serving media and the MOD, who seem to have quite forgotten what the business of front line Infantrymen is.

So I, personally, am relatively unmoved by this latest abuse "scandal".
So, some Iraqi toerags got a bit of a kicking? Mebbe they shouldn't have been lobbing fucking grenades at British patrols then.
If the wankers at the NOTW had left it alone, mebbe that would have been the end of it.

"Hey Samir, fancy coming out to fling bricks at the Brits?"
"Nah, last time I tried that I got my fucking head kicked in, so, no ta."

Instead, we stick some hapless Squaddies in the stocks, encourage the Iraqi's victim mentality and hand the jihadis another big manila envelope full of propaganda material.

This is all just a load of self-loathing shite. I'm quite happy for our forces to be full of aggressive hard-cases. I reckon those are good attributes for a professional soldier to have.
I read this somewhere else.

The role of Infantry is: To seek and close with the enemy, to kill or capture him, to seize and hold ground, by day or by night regardless of weather or terrain.

Worth remembering nowadays.

How sad am I?
This sad...
24, day 5 started on Sky One tonight.
I just downloaded myself the ringtone they use on the phones in the CTU to use on my mobile.

Saw this on a forum tonight.

When you teach your son, you teach your son's son.

Stopped me dead in my tracks, so it did.

I'm nearly finished my bottle of Caol Ila, so time to pick some more.

The Caol Ila has been great. I was wanting to try some more Islay malts out, after getting put off them early in my malt drinking experience, so it was a good choice.
Not a dead typical Islay, easy going, but with enough of an Islay character so that you know what you're drinking.

The local Asda has Bunnahabhain in for less than 20 quid, so I'm thinking of continuing my exploration of Islay with that.

Huzzah! 2 new posts this week on Bad News Hughes.
Go and look. The post about his visit to a Renaissance Faire is one of the funniest things I've ever read.
Or, to put it more appropriately, goest thou and japery shalst ensue. Verily.

I have a love/hate relationship with Doner Kebabs.
In my younger, going out every weekend phase, I used to eat lots. All I needed was a few pints in me, and bang! Munchies, and it just had to be a large Doner, wi salad n sauce.

I know fine well they are poison. I once saw a whole, uncooked Doner (is that what you call the thing? The big hunk of stuff that goes on the spit and gets cooked?) getting delivered. Nothing that is meant to come from any part of a Sheep, fuckit, nothing natural should be that shade of pink.
I also know fine well they don't taste all that good either, as I have to confess to haven eaten a couple while stone cold sober. Not my finest moments.

In fact, as I write this, I'm trying to think of pros to balance out all the cons, and I'm really struggling.
Here goes.

Pros

• Could, technically, be viewed as a balanced meal, in that it contains meat and vegetables. But thats being somewhat generous, as at best, the matter that makes up the Doner should only be termed "meat".

Cons

• Incredibly unhealthy. High in fat, salt and additives.
• Often served and prepared under questionable hygeine standards.
• Tastes like greasy cardboard smothered in chili sauce.
• How many part eaten, abandoned Doners have you seen lying around town on Saturday or Sunday mornings? Lots. Think what that means for a second. That's right. Mangy, half starved stray dogs won't even eat the fuckers. What does that say, that a scavenger animal, who will happily eat it's own sick, would even eat shite, turns it's nose up at them? It tells me that the stuff is not food, as we understand it in this reality.
  

Given all this, why am I choking for one right now? I am sober as a judge, am meant to be living a healthy, excercise filled lifestyle and yet, every time I close my eyes, the words DONER KEBAB float past on Angel's wings.
Ah, the smell of grease, chilli sauce and onions. The siren song, "salad an sauce?"

It must be my Glaswegian genes. Yes, genes, that'll do.
Damn you, genetics!

Every guy instinctively knows the unwritten rules of urinal behaviour, right?

While at the urinal, stare straight ahead and do not, under any circumstances, talk.

Every man knows that. Or so I thought, till lunchtime today.

I happened to be in the toilet with 2 workmates. A delicate situation, to be sure, but it all seemed to be going well.
Both urinals and 1 stall occupied.
All in perfect, contemplative silence.
Not a word was spoken until another workmate arrived. This guy clearly was not brought up properly as he started banging on about how nice a day it was, in complete defiance of common decency and 10000 years of human development.
Thankfully, the rest of us knew how to behave and maintained proper silence and eye contact discipline until after our business was completed.

Frankly, the interloper was lucky not to have been strangled to death with his piss soaked trousers, as I believe is the custom in some parts of the world.

So, I had a wee look round the net to see if the unwritten rules had ever actually been written and am saddened to find that they have.
here, again here and finally here.
But, nobody ever said you had to be original on the Internet, so fuck them.

Here's my simple rules of gentlemanly urinal conduct.

1. No talking while at the urinal under any circumstances. Even if you haven't unzipped yet. Even if you are spoken to by someone else. Even if you find yourself pissing a stream of pure petrol.
   No talking until you've cleared the urinals. It's really that simple.
   As far as I'm concerned, if you talk to another man while both of you are in the undignified position of holding your wang, you may as well be holding his. Nobody wants that.
   
   
2. While in action, stare straight ahead. Some say you can look down, I disagree. Are you scared you'll miss?
   
   
3. Urinal placement. This is a bit of a black art, but common sense usually steers you well.
   Generally, you want to be as far away as possible from any potential contact. Certainly allow at least 1 empty urinal between you and your nearest neighbour.
   If this is not possible, well, it's your call.
   Some say you use a cubicle in that situation, but I'm not so sure. I reckon that is far too much of a display of insecurity. I would personally barge right in, claim my space, whap it out and start pissing, thereby asserting my rightful dominance over all!

Happy pissing!

Moray council has been told it has a "long way to go" to deliver better value to the public.

I bet Moray Council isn't the only wasteful council in Scotland, or even the worst offender.
What piqued my curiosity about this story was the following, a council spokesman said;

"We are now moving forward to be more outward looking as an organisation."

Now, what is it local councils are supposed to do again? Provide, run and manage local services and amenities, I thought. Does that not imply that being inward looking is probably not a bad idea?
How can you be too inward looking in that context?
What the hell do they mean by "outward looking" anyway? Can we expect them to start flapping their gums about immigration? Defence policy?

I wonder how much more Council Tax the good people of Moray will be paying next year.

Pro Wrestling in Clydebank!
How can you not love Pro Wrestling?
I vaguely remember the Saturday morning Wrestling that was on ITV, but I was never much of a fan, and was probably too young anyway.
All that show meant to me was that the Saturday morning kid's TV was finished and it was time to go out and play football or soldiers or whatever.
I do remember it being a world away from the showbiz and high production values of American Pro Wrestling. There seemed to be a higher concentration of wee grannies for one thing.

I'll be dragging Junior along to see the Chaos on the Clyde show this Saturday.
I think this has more to do with the American product and the recent popularity of underground Wrestling, but I bet it'll be great fun.

We'll be cheering on "Clydebank's own 'bad boy' of British wrestling, Chris 'The Ladies Choice' Renfrew."

Also, couldn't possibly forget the "Hometown Behemoth, Barry 'Raging Bull' Miller!"

This bad boy has a good shout at stealing this months Best or Worst Thing Evar award right out of the expertly manicured hands of the
Lingerie Bowl.

You can read all about it here.

Looks like our gas bills will be going up again.
Wonderful, just wonderful.
With domestic gas bills having gone up by 35% since 2004, clearly we working stiffs need to find some sort of solution to help cut costs. It's not as if we'll qualify for any handouts from Nanny, after all.

My personal solution, is to live like a fucking savage and to have me and wife share our bed with a child, 3 cats and a hulking great German Shepherd dog.
Well, when I say personal solution, it's not like I came up with all by myself. No, we go to bed every night with acres of space in our kingsize. Junior tucked up in his own bed, Dog downstairs asleep on the sofa/scavenging in the bin/scaring the shit out of passersby and the cats, well, somewhere.
Yet, every morning at around 5am, we wake up to find ourselves pinned down by various 4 legged wasters and getting booted in the ear by Junior.

It might not be comfortable and we might not be getting much sleep, but by fuck is it warm.

Just in case gas costs even more next winter, I'm looking into the feasibility of thatching the roof and buying some of those long haired Highland Cows.

I'm in kind of a strange mood today. Am a bit tired and very slightly hungover from a modest amount of beer and whisky drinking last night.
Well, I had to celebrate my multiple victories in single combat somehow. And what better way than the time honoured Caledonian way? Bevvy!

I'm feeling a bit low, yet a bit aggressive, so this news has made my fists itch.
Just the sort of dignified and measured response I've come to expect from the Happy Muslim Funtime crowd.
Fuds.

It scares me a bit, the thoughts that pop up in my head whenever I see the images of those fuckwits protesting with their placards calling for our murder.
On one hand, I know those guys are stupid fucking idiots, which, of course, is not something that Islam has the monopoly on.
I know this is being played out for the benefit of the media and I also know the media is manipulating this for all they are worth.
But this sort of shit brings out the right winger in me.
I start thinking stuff like, why didn't the Police get tore right into those cunts in London? Like they did with the pro-fox hunting protesters or even the anarchists at the G8?
How come our media hasn't published the cartoons, in support of the Danes and defiance of fuckers everywhere that would tell us how to live our lives?

I know that the Police and media wanted to treat the situation with sensitivity and not pour petrol on the flames, but if someone pushes me, I push back. But then, as I've pointed out before, I'm a dumbass.

It's been a weird week, with the freedom of expression debate crystallising around the Happy Muslim Funtime gang, Nick Griffin and the BNP and our Labour government's failed attempt to curtail our freedom of speech, you can hardly blame me for being confused.

More drink is probably the answer.

Got my blue in Judo today.
Am quite happy, I won 3 fights out of 3 by Ippon, plus won my first ever victory on the ground - my first fight of the day went to me by way of Mune Gatame.
Just as well, as my stand-up was garbage in that fight. Nothing worked up until I half caught him with a Kouchi Gari, scooped up his leg and basically shoulder charged him down to the mat.

The second fight was a real scrap and could have gone the other way. It was a good mix of stand-up and groundwork and could have been won by either one of us until I finally hit my groove with Uchimata. This was very satisfying, as it had been a hard match that I could easily have lost and my Uchimata attempts up to this point had been pish.
I might have won a Waza Ari at some point in that match for something, but in the heat of the moment, I didn't notice.

I won the last match with a Sasae Tsurikomiashi. By that stage I had enough points for my blue, but got called up anyway. I was waaaaay heavier than my opponent and managed to finish this one in less than 20 seconds.

Not a bad afternoon's work!

There were a couple of Jiu Jitsu guys in my group too. I love seeing these guys at Judo events, as you never know what you are going to get.
These 2 guys were full of unorthodox stand up and were a joy to watch on the ground.
I didn't get the chance to go up against either of them this time out.

Proof!
I knew it!

So fucking what?

It's only the 3rd of February, but I reckon this has to be the front runner for this month's "The Best or the Worst Thing Evar!" award.
Lingerie Bowl.

I honestly haven't decided yet, I'll need to ponder it some more....

A former workmate IM'd this cry from the heart today.

see if that guy ******* ever mentions linux to anyone and says it's great tell him to take a 3 stone turkey, wrap it in red hot barbed wire and shove it, and linux, up his arse. Then take a pair of rusty tweasers and pull every hair of his beard out individually whilst hitting him over the head with the thin edge of a ruler

Most of my favourite things in one rant! Lots of swearing and creative violence, all of it directed at a Linux Nazi.
Score!

HMS Daring, the first of the Royal Navy's 6 new Type 45 Destroyers was launched today from BAE's yard at Scotstoun.
First of all, it's great that theres still shipbuilding on the Clyde. Even better that it's Naval shipbuilding, because as everyone knows, warships are the balls.

BAE reckon they've enough work for the next 5 years with the rest of the Type 45 order. Maybe as much as 15 years if they secure work for the new Aircraft Carrier project.
I hope it all goes well.

The BBC were full of all sorts of nonsense about the Type 45's being the most powerful warship in the world.
I'm sure they meant well, but I think the crew of this tub might want to argue with that distinction.

Each crewman's bunk will, apparently, have it's own broadband connection.
Sailors + broadband internet access.
Won't somebody think of the porn!
As any techie knows, computers + serious porn abuse = trojans.
I hope to fuck the rest of the systems on these high tech boats don't run on Windows. Be a bit inconvenient to have to hard reboot one of those fuckers in the middle of a naval engagement thanks to some horny ratings porn collection.
Not something they had to worry about at Jutland, I bet.

This blog belongs to one of the guys who works in BAE Scotstoun.

Some history of the HMS Daring name.

Shock news on GMS this morning - calls for something to be banned in Scotland!
This time its chip vans outside schools that's raised Nanny's hackles.

Apparently, wee Glesga schoolkids are voting with their feet and pissing off out of schools at lunchtimes to buy cheeseburgers and stuff.
Fucking American cultural imperialism at it's worst there, by the way. In my day, it was a hauf pizza supper or a roll and chips.

What the fuck is it with Scotland and banning things nowadays? Every bastard day, someone calls for some perceived evil to be banned, to save us all from it's grasp.
Smacking weans, smoking, now chip vans! Bevvy will be next.
F'rexample, know what one of the first pieces of legislation the Scottish Executive brought in was?
This.

An Act of the Scottish Parliament to make it an offence to prevent or stop a child who is
permitted to be in a public place or licensed premises from being fed milk in that place or on
those premises; to make provision in relation to the promotion of breastfeeding; and for
connected purposes.

Bet you thought it'd be something to do with housing, Council Tax or schools, eh? Way to tackle the issues of the day there, MSPs!

This is Scotland! We have a God given right to drink, smoke, eat and fight each other into an early grave! What will we have if you take all this away?

What happened to freedom of choice and personal responsibility anyway?
If I want to drink whisky, smoke myself to a smouldering crisp and eat a roll and chips with extra butter, deep fried in batter, bought from a chip van next to my wee boy's nursery school, then I should be able to.
None of these things hurt anyone else, so it's nobody's business but mine.

Educate folk properly, then let them make their own mind up about how to live their lives.
But then, that's probably just too difficult.

This story almost passed me by till I heard it on Newsdrive on the way home.
I had to think for a while on what goods Denmark produces that Muslims could boycott.
All I could think of was that at least it wasn't going to put much of a dent in Denmark's Bacon exports.
This blog set me straight and helpfully published the offending cartoons too.

I'm not a religous guy, so maybe it's not fair for me to comment, but really, what the fuck?
The newspaper that published the cartoons has apparently apologised, which is more than I'd have done, but there are still cries for further action and apologies from Denmark.
I hope the Danes come over all Viking cos of this, fling on the chainmail and horny helmets and load up the longships with axes, beer and busty wenches.
Sounds fun. I'll need to see if I can cadge a lift off them as they pass the west coast of Scotland.

Gaz is saying the same thing as me, just, you know, funnier.

2 deaths in as many days brings the 100th British death in Iraq.
RIP Lance Corporal Douglas and Corporal Pritchard.
Là á Bhlàir's math na Càirdean.