Beardie

operation super market garden

I rest my case (My arm was killing me holding it up)

have you tried bluebells? (I don't know if you got bluebell matches south of the wall but they did humorous adverts where, for example, the castle was being attacked and they were trying to light the boiling oil but they would declare "I cannae get the matches tae light!" because they weren't the reliable firelighters that Scottish Bluebells were)

instead of bouncing cheques (or even bouncing Czechs)

now that's hard labour

Oh lord those days out and about were a joy. Staggering through the snow pretending I was the downed pilot in the government hypothermia warning adverts. Swinging on ropes across the river gorge about a mile from the house, banging nails into the big oak trees to climb way up into the treetops, picking fruit from the orchard and knocking down conkers in the orchard of the derelict big house up the hill and fishing up on the loch and all of that before I was eight years old not to mention 'soldiers' and 'Cowboys and Indians' complete with realistic looking machine guns, pistols, Winchester rifles and Colt revolvers (well at least they seemed realistic to a six year old boy), then there was designing and building 'bogey's' out of pram wheels, old wood and any construction materials we could nick. Then there was Action Man and Commando comics for the days when we weren't out having a ball. Oh and then there was chasing the BonAccord and Alpine drinks trucks trying to figure out how we could get all that lovely 'Ginger' (Fizzy drinks) sitting out there in full view on the back of the trucks. Penny for the guy outside the local pub and then round to the attached Chippy with the proceeds for a good feed. Lord those were some brilliant days of my youth and there isn't a day when I don't think of something from back then and get a wee warm feeling in my heart from those memories. We didn't have much but we had a damned good life for all that and what we did have was as precious as gold.

Unfortunately I will never know the joy of computer games as they just don't work for me. I have tried a few times to get into gaming of any sort and I just can't seem to lose myself in that world the way some can. Perhaps it's the fact that in my formative years, I was born in 1972 but, until the early 2000's my only experience of computers was dealing with computer controlled semi-conductor production machinery, and logging production processes on the factories computer management system, basic hexadecimal programming through the nineties. The first time I really tried to play computer games was on Playstation around the year 2000 so I was about twenty eight when I first really tried to get into gaming and was possibly too old and set in my ways by then. While I have worked with computers throughout the 2000's as a graphic designer and webdesigner and found Windows and MacOS a doddle to use I left that all behind by 2010 and don't miss it. Now the only thing I could do that could be termed even loosely 'computing' is surfing the web to buy model kits and bike parts and talk to my biker and modelling buddies around the country and the world. Of course throughout the late eighties and nineties I was roaring around the country on motorcycles with a bunch of other bikers and having something of a wild time when I wasn't grinding away at work or repairing my bikes. I wouldn't say no to going back to the first half of the 20th century if I was offered. It may have been horrible and terrifying a lot of the time but some of the old guys I have known over the years also say that they never experience excitement and adventure like it and feel they really lived their lives.

Ain't nothing wrong with playing with toys! Life would be rather dull if we all sat in front of the garbage they call entertainment on TV these days. Thank God for model kits, motorcycles and musical instruments. I'd be totally wibble by now without them and I pity the generations following us who think the pinnacle of life is playing computer games that leave you with nothing whatsoever when the power is switched off or watching football and TV.

Indiana Jones skids under

and he's butt naked

or even meat balls

right pasta your eyes

it is certainly approaching

now rip it up

blow your socks off

while tomorrow's another day

Country and Western star (I have seen that cartoon @Little Timmy you naughty boy)

don't worry they're seedless

from the Grape Shots (That would actually be a good name for a band - I've just invented a new genre - Haemorrhoid Rock) (First Album title - Piles Driver, Second Album - Ring of Fire)

but not really adviseable

at double Blitzkreig pace (Lord it's nearing the end of another dashed year already!)

with his big skewer

from the Kebab shop

taught strangely in Polish (Interesting little fact- The Poles have an expression 'As mean as a Scotsman' which apparently dates from a time when a lot of Scots traders went to Poland to ply their trade and the locals found that they held every Zloty prisoner and rarely freed any of them)

with really long handle