» World of Random

Not random in the true sense of the word...
...but certainly the oddest thing I've seen so far. It was spring 1998 and I was on my way to an early lecture at Strathclyde University, so no booze or massive drugs were involved. Walking through George Square, I came across a very odd sight: an elderly Indian fakir lying sandwiched between two "beds of nails". On top of the man/nails sandwich stood Tommy "suntan" Sheridan berating, through a loudhailer, a crowd comprising three bemused grannies and four police officers. I was running late as usual so didn't have time to stop and ask what the hell was going on. What made it even weirder was that there wasn't a single tv camera or lackey handing out leaflets in sight.
(Sat 23rd Apr 2011, 12:14, More)

» Annoying Partners

Piles

I think this may be a generic guy thing as my dad does it too. He, and my partner, leave small, untidy drifts of paperwork lying around the house in seemingly no order. When I get fed up of looking at them after months of dusting round them and put them all in a pile together ready to be filed away, I get moaned at for spoiling their "system".
(Sat 6th Aug 2011, 9:39, More)

» Losing it

Running in the family...

I came home from school one lunchtime to find my mum, who has two honours degrees and a post-grad, in floods of tears because she couldn't remember how to spell "cheese" on her shopping list.

I seem to have inherited a different kind of word blindness - I often forget the most simple of words and am reduced to describing them - that shiny thing in the wall that you see out of (window), the wee hairy noisy thing (my cat), the hot box you make your dinner in (the oven). I also instantly forget anyone's name a millisecond after we're introduced, but I think that happens to most people, doesn't it?
(Thu 21st Jul 2011, 22:20, More)

» The Best / Worst thing I've ever eaten

Best and worst foods

Best things I've ever eaten have always come from the south coast of France - get away from the touristy places and eat where the natives do. Best of all was lamb entrecote from a wee place in San Raphael - by far the tastiest meat I've ever tried, along with shoestring fries and a proper French salad. And a large carafe of the house red, mmm...

Worst thing was anything my dad ever tried to cook. When my mum was in hospital having my youngest sister, dad tried to cook pizza and salad. He burned the pizza to a crisp and forgot to drain the salad after washing it. We felt we had to choke it down as he'd tried so hard, but the pizza had 3rd degree burns and I could hardly get my teeth through it.
(Sat 28th May 2011, 10:12, More)

» Winning

Crap things I've won

Include some Lego from a colouring competition when I was five, a Chesney Hawkes Lp from a lucky dip competiton in Smash Hits, several £1 book tokens from school (I never got round to spending them as even then you couldn't get a book for £1).

As an adult I won some old lady scented bath salts in a church raffle, £10 on the lottery and a large hamper of Christmas goodies on my third day at my new job. This won me several enemies as everyone had contributed to the hamper but me and I'd only bought one ticket. Ah well...
(Fri 29th Apr 2011, 16:50, More)