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Dry July and the Drinking Society

In Alcohol,Digital,Lessons,Life on June 23, 2011 by kiltforhire Tagged: , , , ,

You may or may not have noticed but I’m a Scotsman. Scotland is ranked is one of the top countries in the world for high-levels of alcohol consumption.

It’s a drinking country. It’s dark a lot of the time and a lot of time is spent in the pubs.

You may or may not have know this but I used to be a journalist. Journalism has an incredibly high-level of alcoholics within it’s midst thank to the increasing pressures put on journalists to get stories and exclusives.

Some of my family enjoyed a drink a little bit too much and it’s taken some of their lives. I’ve known a number of people who have lost loved ones because of alcohol.

I love a good drink but I also recognise that it is a drug. A legal drug. A taxable drug. It’s an addiction for many.

Nothing beats having a beer after a hard day at work and relaxing with friends. However, I’ve over-indulged on occasion. I don’t think I’ve ever been ‘that guy’ but I’m sure I have come pretty close. I can drink a lot and have a good system that allows me to soak it up.

But a few years ago I was drinking a hell of a lot. I went to the doctor as I was feeling really run down and they ran some tests. My liver levels were high. Very high. He recommended I stay away for a while and that was around the first time I did Dry July.

Since then I have limited my alcohol consumption while still having a good time.

But it can be tough. It can be damned tough to sit there drinking water while everyone around you drinks alcohol. What is worse is that there is always someone who calls you soft for not drinking…hell I’ve been that guy a few times but I also tend to make jokes about it and if I find out someone doesn’t drink then I let it go. It’s their choice.

I have made a pledge that if I raise over $3,000 this year then I will stay off the booze for three whole months. I think that is incentive enough for people to get behind me and help me raise money for The Prince of Wales Hospital Foundation:

“The Prince of Wales hospital treats approximately 1000 new cancer patients per year and 3000 ongoing patients. This second number over the years of their survivorship come to the hospital fewer and fewer times but the 1000 new then revert to ongoing patients. So we are always treating 4000 patients per year.”

It’s a great cause so feel free to get behind me and sponsor my sobriety.

https://www.dryjuly.com/profiles/scottrhodie

If you have the time have a watch of Craig Ferguson talking about his alcohol addiction. It’s very sobering.

http://youtu.be/7bbaRyDLMvA

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The burger plea of special tastebuds

In Food,Lessons,Life on June 14, 2011 by kiltforhire Tagged: , , , ,

While noticing parts of Masterchef last night – it was on the TV – I noticed the burger that Heston Blumenthal put together had no beetroot on it. Nor aioli.

I tweeted that Australians should realise this is how a burger should be. It shouldn’t have beetroot. My twitter feed was a flurry of pro and anti beetroot fans. It all went a bit mental. I seemed to have touched a part of the Australian psyche that many were attacking me and my attack on the beetroot. Even an MP got in on the act telling me that every good Aussie burger should have beetroot on it. Thankfully there were some beautiful people out there who came to my defence and said NO to Beetroot!

I guess I should have said before I posted that being a supertaster means I taste more than other others and beetroot’s on a burger bascially means it becomes totally overpowered by only one taste – that of the purple coloured monstrosity.

I enjoy a good burger. All of my friends will testify to that but I cannot stand a few things when I eat out.

1. Aioli. Listen you gourmet chefs out there beefburgers do not and should not ever have fucking have aioli on them. I’m sick of going into a restaurant or a pub and ordering a beefburger and it turning up with fucking aioli on it. Which brings me to point 2.

2. Menus where the chef has failed to list all the ingredients bar one and that one is usually aioli. So you get the burger and you have told them you don’t want beetroot or pickles and suddenly this burger appears slapped with tomato sauce on top and aioli on the bottom. WTF?!?

3. Beetroot. Keep it off the burger please.

4. Pickles. Not a fan but hey if it pleases most people fine I’ll just flip those suckers on to the side of the plate – please note you cannot do this with beetroot as the moment it gets slopped onto a burger it starts to spread like Eboli.

5. Chefs stop putting the parmigiana ON TOP OF THE CHIPS. Seriously. How the fuck am I supposed to cut the thing? If anything put the chips on top so I can eat them first THEN hit the Parma.

6. Pepper. Leave it out unless I request it or at least you ask me if I want it. Too many times have I been given pepper on a burger or whetever only for me to not eat the food. Not everyone like it so please have a care for us tongue disabled.

7. If you decide you want to spice up the food. Please put it on the menu. Too many times have I stumbled upon food with hidden chillis in it only to find that I cannot eat for hours afterwards.

8. Cripsy bacon should be crispy and not simply a wee bit hard at one end.

9. Thick bread is not good for French Toast. You should always use thin sliced bread. Thicker bread ends up being sopping and gooey.

10. Seriously drop the beetroot from the burger but get the bacon and egg in and the onion rings and ketchup or bbq sauce but never aioli or mayonnaise.

I should also point out that after making the comment about that Aussie burgers shouldn’t have beetroot I had a few people tell me that if I don’t like it then I should leave. This is a post I shall leave for another day but it’s a very interesting one about the amount of people in Australia that have said that to me when I complain about a tiny aspect of the country or culture.

Anyway, what’s on your perfect burger?

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Neuromancer and Tron

In Digital,Lessons,Life,Social Media,Technology,Video Games on May 31, 2011 by kiltforhire Tagged: , , , , , ,

My dad took me to see Tron when I was very young. We went to the local fleapit cinema in Dennistoun near Glasgow City Centre. I watched the movie in total awe at this strange world inside a computer.

The grid.

This place where information zipped and zapped itself around while people shared information and collaborated. It amazed me. Battles happened with the world and my life was forever changed.

Then in high school i was involved in the first year of teaching computing at my school. We had BBC Micro’s and I remember learning some basic but never felt the teacher knew what he was doing that much so nobody really learned much. I knew that computers would forge a future I just didn’t know how it would forge mine. 10 Print etc 😉

Around this same time I was told about a book called Neuromancer. I went and picked up a copy and sat down to read it. I stayed up all night and finished the book in one go.

I was mesmerised by the world created by William Gibson. The word cyberspace has stuck firmly in my brain every since.

It’s where I live today.

It’s where I work.

We may not be IN the Grid.

We may not be jacked into Cyberspace.

But we are there. Digitally connecting. Information sharing. Conversing and communicating.

For my talk in fourth year in English we had to do a talk about something and I chose Neuromancer.

I talked about how the world would be smaller. We would all be connected no matter where we were in the world. I told them about Cyberspace – this ethereal world where our other lives are led.

My teacher said she didn’t understand much about what I was talking about but that I seemed so genuinely passionate about it that it must be interesting. She gave me a high mark and that was the end of that.

I always wonder if she is on Facebook now. I wouldn’t mind just dropping her a line and saying…see told you it would work out 😉

The world as we knew it then has changed so much. Not always for the better. But it’s nice to see the future come to fruition.

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Drivers and Cyclists

In Lessons,Life,Uncategorized on May 30, 2011 by kiltforhire Tagged: , , ,

In my younger years I was a cyclist. I loved to get on my bike and cycle. It would clear my mind and look at things in new perspectives. I loved the speed and the distance a bike could take you.

I don’t understand joggers though. They screw up their joints and they don’t get too far but this isn’t a rant about joggers it’s about road users.

When I was in primary school I sat my cycling proficiency test and passed. Although I think that all kids did but what I learnt on that school playground set me in good stead for my future days cycling around parts of Scotland.

I always obeyed the road rules. Would wait at traffic lights. Properly signalled. Respected other road users. And, most importantly, I cycled on the road.

I had a road bike therefore I used the road.

I was thin as a rake and loved cycling even after I got my drivers licence.

Today in Australia I have a nice Cervelo that I take out from time to time. I even did the Sydney to Wollongong cycle the year before last and I’m thinking about tackling it again this year to beat my time,

But something about Sydney messes with me in regards to cycling. The majority of cyclists in this town are batshit mental and have no regard whatsoever for other road users, and a lot of them times, for themselves.

I live in a one-way street and the amount of cyclists who cycle up it towards on-coming traffic really pisses me the fuck off. The amount of them who don’t signal. Who weave through traffic. Who seem to think the road is theirs and the pavement is theres also. Who think they own the road is insane!

Oh and cyclists if you are cycling on the road and the pedestrian crossing button bleeps this is not a cue for you to suddenly start cycling again.

On the flip side of this it seems most Sydney drivers believe that cyclists are target practice. I don’t know how many accidents I have seen now with drivers failing to see the cyclist.

Now I’ve heard so many cyclists slam drivers and vice versa but if you all took some fucking time to actually pay attention to ALL road users and all obeyed the traffic laws the world would be a little bit better than it is today.

However, there is one last thing that pisses me off and that’s the decision by the City of Sydney to create what I can only describe as the dumbest mother-fucking decision in the history of stupid to create cycle lanes that begin nowhere and end nowhere.

Not to mention the fact that on a two way road haven a cycle lane on one side that goes in both directions is buttfuck stupid. How the fuck is the cyclist supposed to get from the lane he is cycling in without cycle path to the cycle path across the road and then back when the cycle path stops? I’ve included a picture to explain.

Really dumb cycle path if the cyclist has to cross the road

Sometimes city planners are geniuses and other times they need to stop listening to politicians and just do the right damned thing instead.

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Matriarchy

In Lessons,Life,Work on May 29, 2011 by kiltforhire Tagged: , , ,

I’m from Glasgow in Scotland. Most people seem to think that Glasgow is full of tough men who would beat you up in a second if you looked at them the wrong way, and it can be like that at times but behind every Glaswegian hard bloke is a Glaswegian woman who he is terrified of.

Their mums.

Most Scotsmen will not stand for ‘your mum’ jokes simply because you don’t make jokes about someone’s mum. It’s their mum for fucks sake. You do not do this. You show respect to mums.

You listen when a Scottish mother speaks. You do what she tells you. You do not provoke her anger for her wrath knows no bounds.

My great gran was the matriarch of our family (on one side not the other), followed by my gran (she ran the roost between her and her sisters/brothers) and I guess now my mum. Decisions are made by these strong women and men listen when the words are said.

But in business I have noticed how many men fail to listen to women and sometimes they dismiss them as if they don’t know what they are talking about. I’ve seen men in meetings with women talk to them like dirt. I’ve seen men sit with their legs wide open scratching their balls in front of women.

And in many occasions I’ve said something. It’s rude to treat women like that anywhere.

I treat women with respect because where I come from they are the bosses. If my dad was angry at me for something I was scared. If my mum was angry at me for doing something wrong I wanted to run and hide … forever!!

Everyone you work with should be shown the same courtesy whether they are male or female.

On another not I will say that over my years working I have noticed that some women will happily betray or backstab other women to get up the ladder which I find horrible. Not seen it so often with men but I have no doubt it happens also.

The point of this blog post? Don’t mess with Scottish women. They will fuck your shit up.

And the second point is that women are as skilled as men and the old guard need to start realising this.

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Football, Codes and Australia

In Lessons,Life on May 23, 2011 by kiltforhire Tagged: , , , ,

This isn’t so much a blog post more a post on my initial bafflement in Australia.

I came to Australia over seven years and I will never forget my first week, sitting in a pub and talking to some random strangers – as I am want to do.

They asked me which team I support. Rangers I said…and Partick Thistle. They asked me if that was Union or League.

I was baffled. Like seriously baffled. Leagure or Union!!?? But they are they are rugby codes not Fitba’ codes.

So I enquired. I asked them what they meant and they said Rugby Union or Rugby League. I then asked them why when we were talking about football they then started talking about rugby. They said in Australia there are three football codes: Rugby League, Rugby Union and Australian Rules Football.

So what do you call football I enquired. Soccer was the answer.

I pressed them on this and asked them which of the four sports used the foot + the ball more than any other. We all agreed that it was football aka soccer. Just in case you were curious the word soccer comes from Football a SOCCiation.

Since being here I have noticed the Football Federation of Australia have been doing their best to change the minds of masses from soccer to football, hell even the media call it that most of the time but alas I believe it is too deep in the Australian psyche that I doubt it will change. So if you ever come to Australia and someone asks you which football team you support – buy them a beer and ask them to explain 🙂

See also:
pants = trousers not underpants
thongs = flips flips not sexy ladies underpants
lollies = sweets not just lollipops (yeah I haven’t figured this one out yet)

If you know of any other words that Australians use that are different around the world – feel free to comment!

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Sports and Injury

In Lessons on May 23, 2011 by kiltforhire Tagged: , , , ,

So today I’m off work with a busted shoulder and a messed up hand. Playing football yesterday I chased down one of their players from the half way line but I’m sad to say that my age coupled with my general unfitness meant he pipped me to the post at the last minute and scored.

I clipped his foot as I was running and went head over heels rolling on the ground and coming up with a pain in my shoulder and in my thumb.
One visit to the physio later and I have a few weeks of pain ahead.

However, this injury won’t stop me playing fitba’… what Australians call soccer (while calling both types of Rugby football – weird huh!).

My dad has played the game all of his life. He stopped about two years ago, then aged 63, as he just wasn’t up to it anymore but damn what a player in his day.

I loved the game as a child. I played non-stop. My mother dreamed of me one day playing for Scotland and wearing the blue top in Hampden – Scotland’s stadium.

I kicked a ball with my dad in the garden, in the park next to the house. I’d play in the street with goal posts made from jumpers. Watching it was ok but playing it was amazing.

Then one day I was on my BMX doing ‘jumps’ at the local burn. The jump goes wrong and the bike goes down…right onto a broken bottle. I was 10. One of the older boys. The eldest of the Hardie brothers picked me up and ran me home. Others had run to get my my parents. The blood was pouring out of my kneecap.

I spent my entire summer holidays in hospital because the doctors didn’t x-ray me and when I lay awake screaming they realised that I had glass in my bloodstream heading to my heart. They did more operations on my leg to get everything out and I was left scarred.

Physically and mentally.

I stopped playing football. I was scared that I would damage my knee and spend more time in hospital. Sure I would have a kick-about but I hated playing it at high-school for fear of what would happen if my knee was damaged. There was so much blood and I can never forget that feeling of glass coursing through my veins.

I stopped playing it nearly altogether until six years ago I ended up playing in social game. The same tournament that I injured myself in yesterday.

But I don’t care about the injuries I got yesterday because it is simply par for the course. It’s worse risking things to do what you love.

And I love playing football. I love to play the ‘beautiful game’ because nearly anyone can.

So today i’m in pain but next Sunday I’ll be back on the pitch running (slower than I could years ago) up and down and trying to stop the opposition from getting through our defence.

If I could go back in time and tell my younger self that everything will be ok and that he should go out and play…I would and who knows where my life would have ended up then (probably still here I’m not that good!).

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A good friend is hard to find

In Friends,Lessons,Life on May 16, 2011 by kiltforhire Tagged: , , , ,

When I left Scotland I left behind a whole bunch of amazing people. I left behind a group of guys who I would gladly give my life so any one of them could live. The last time I was in Scotland (about three years ago) I dropped in on my mate Stew and although we hadn’t seen each other in three years we had a beer, sat on the sofa and spoke and laughed and ripped the piss out of each other as if we had only been hanging about the day before.

Frienship is a very rare gift. They are the people who are there for you when you are down and who make you smile and laugh. They give you advice. They help you through your life and without them your life is not near as full as it should be.

There are times in life when I have pissed off or upset my friends. There are times when I have probably driven them to tearing their hair out. And there are times when I have been on the verge of losing friends.

I feel like right now that is happening.

There is one friend out there who I hold in an incredibly high-regard.

He is incredibly intelligent and great fun to talk to but on the flip side he a worrier and sometimes far too deadly serious for his own good. He is a lovely person and has helped me through a lot while living in Australia and I like to think that if we had met in another country we would still be friends.

I have, I’m afraid to say, been sadly missing as a friend lately and I’m gonna change that. I’ve already emailed him to say that I’ve been a crap friend lately and that I intend to change that.

Hopefully he understands and accepts the olive branch/white flag/big bit of haggis I’m putting out there.

The richest person in the world is the person who is surrounded by good friends…

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Selfish Undertakers

In Lessons,Life on May 16, 2011 by kiltforhire Tagged: , , , , ,

I have a rant that has been building up inside of me for a long time.

A long, long time. So much it feels like a galaxy far, far away.

I fucking hate selfish undertakers…no not the people who bury the dead. Those people have a dead tough job…groan.

I hate it when I am sitting in my car in a queue not really moving too fast when some tosser decided that THEY are too good to queue up and decide to ram down the left hand side of the road then force their way in.

Same thing happens when you are heading towards the tunnels in Sydney in your car. More than half the shitty traffic is caused by fuckers undertaking then trying to cut in just to save them five more minutes as the queues start to build up.

I don’t do it and everytime I see someone do it I just want to drop some kind of laser from the sky to vaporise them. This is a good note for future governments NEVER give me access to some kind of super-weapon. I will use it to destroy these people.

I want to try and get to the root of the problem and I believe it is people’s fundamental belief that they are better than other people. They think they have the right to cut in front of people because they deserve to be in front of others. These same people would never think of doing this kind of thing in a queue for tickets or a queue for a cab because people would probably just ending up smacking the utter fuck out of them.

Only recently I was involved in an incident when I was waiting in a taxi queue and one of these selfish undertakers just decided to walk in front of the queue. Two girls were at the start of the queue and he just stared at them obviously daring them to say something. I’m not known for being quiet at the best of times so I called him up on it. He was a shocked and stunned that someone would dare to.

Now I’m Scottish, which means I’m a short-arse. This guy was about six foot one.

But when we Scots get angry. We sound FUCKING ANGRY.

I was damned angry. How dare this guy intimidate the two women and how dare he think he was better than the other eight people standing in the queue. I fucking lost it. I used words that would make Billy Connolly blush. I went ballistic. I think I even called him an ass-munching felch burger.

He backed off and said he would get a taxi somewhere else and that I was mad. The girls thanked me for getting rid of them.

Obviously the situation could have gotten ugly but sometimes you have to risk those things to stand up for what is right. But when you put people in their little metal boxes what is risked is lives. These greedy, selfish people cause problems and cost lives all to get to their destination one minute earlier.

They fucking disgust me.

So, please, please, please don’t undertake. Wait in the queue and don’t think you are better than anyone else.

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The love of celebrity

In Lessons,Life,Media on April 17, 2011 by kiltforhire Tagged: , , , , , ,

There are many things I don’t understand and and I’m happy to admit this but something I really don’t get is the obsession with celebrity that has taken over the world in the last x number of years.

Maybe many people have always been obsessed but with the proliferation of modern forms of media this, for me, has become seriously unhealthy.

But what freaks me out the most is the fact that people continue to follow and like people they know full well have done bad things.

Take Chris Brown for instance. Now before he beat up some singer called Rhianna I hadn’t heard of him. Then he beat her up showed little sign of remorse and moved on with his his life. I just saw an advert on television saying he is playing shows in Australia.

Yup, people are paying to go see someone who beat up a defenseless woman.

What should happen, in a sane world, is that he would turn up on stage and the only people in the crowd are victims of spousal abuse who throw eggs and rotten fruit at him. What actually happens is that thousands of teenagers and younger all head along and watch him sing and dance and look up to him.

What kind of an example is that for youngsters today that men who beat up women are still idolized simply because they can sing or dance or play sports or something.

These people should be vilified.

They should be hounded out of their industry.

But they don’t they continue to make money and keep doing what they are doing. Why, as a species, do we not all turn our back on these people? Until they actually feel remorse for what they have done.

It’s weird I feel like the examples being set by a lot of adults these days are sending some crazy messages to the next generation. Even looking at Lady Gaga’s shows and many others. They are highly sexualised but filled with kids under 10.

Anyone under the public eye needs to realize that kids look up to them and that the things they do will get reported and be seen my millions.

It’s a sad state of affairs when those in positions of power don’t realize the power they wield.

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