Articles

Uncle Kenny

In Friends, Lessons, Life on July 24, 2011 by kiltforhire Tagged: , , , , , , ,

Life just took hold of me and thanks to work and moving apartments and a whole bunch of other stuff I have been sadly missing from this blog.

Today though I felt like I really need to put some words down on screen.

I want to talk about my Uncle Kenny McLachlan. Along with my parents he is the person who has inspired me the most to be who I am.

He died a number of years ago not long after his wife. He died of a broken heart. Every time I saw him look at my Auntie Isabel it was as if he was seeing her for the first time. The pair of them were amazing and I know how much it hurt him when she got Alzheimer’s – seeing the brightest spark dull is something no one should ever see.

Add on top of that the death of his son, my cousin, Kenny from cancer, and you have a lot of heartache. He treated me like a second son always telling me stories, making me laugh and being simply awesome.

He helped instill a lot of values inside me. He taught me to be good to others and to always do the right thing. He taught me to stand up and fight for what you believe and to ‘never let them get you’.

He told me a million and one wonderful stories from his time in World War 2 as a paratrooper to his battle with the Unions against the tyranny of Margaret Thatcher in 80s Britain.

He beat cancer when his wife was still alive but when she passed away he had no one left to fight for and died. There were over 500 people at his funeral. Family, friends, comrades.

I read a poem at his funeral about how we never lose people as long as we remember them.

He went one better and wrote a book before his death. I have it and I want to share it with you so over the next few weeks I’m going to post the whole thing.

Oh and one last thing. He was a communist. Not an Animal Farm style communist but a real one. He believe that everyone was equal and that people should be good to each other, look out for one another and all work towards the common goal of a better planet.

It’s called One Great Vision: Memoirs of a Glasgow Worker

8 Comments

Articles

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.

Leave a Comment

Articles

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?

9 Comments

Articles

LA Noire

In Digital, Friends, Video Games on May 31, 2011 by kiltforhire Tagged: , , , , , , ,

Disclaimer: My friend Craig worked on this game and I know some people at Rockstar Games.

Disclaimer two: I love the bite sized mission chunks in this game.

Disclaimer three: As much as I love my XBox I suggest you play this on the PS3 because it uses a blu-ray disc rather than 3 DVDs.

If we travel back, way back, to the time of my youth there was a game that fascinated me. This was pre-world-wide-web and completing a game meant that you had to use every part of your brain and if that failed you may have to wait months for a magazine to come out that would help you out with the bit you were stuck at.

I was stuck at a section in Police Quest (made by Sierra who also made the amazing Kings Quest and Space Quest) for months. I’ll never forget the game for as long as I live.

I was a rookie cop trying to make my way in the police world and I was involved in an incident with a perp and I had to arrest him. Police Quest was a text based game where you moved the character around with a mouse. Point and click adventures we called them back in our day.

“Arrest him” – didn’t work

“Cuff him” – didn’t work.

Months went by until a friend told me he had cracked it by hearing from a friend about something called the Miranda Rights. You know the old ‘you have the right to remain silent, you have the right to an attorney etc etc’. But I was young and not from the US. I’d never heard of these Miranda Rights.

“Use Miranda Rights” – worked. The game moved on.I finally completed it a lot later and also the follow-up games.

LA Noire makes me think of Police Quest but with some CSI and GTA thrown in for good measure. You play as a detective in a world not too dis-similar to LA Confidential. You start as a street cop and have to work your way through different cases solving crimes…fraud cases, robbery all the way to vice and homicide.

What makes this game different though is the character modeling has been done using an amazing new technique. The technology is so good that this is the first game that my deaf friend Jono has been able to actually really the lips of the game characters. You have to question characters and watch their expressions, try to read their body launguage and aim to trip them up in your questioning.

This is the next evolution in gaming in my eyes.

It has sub-missions you can do as you drive around the city. You can ask for help through using intuition points and although the main character is a tad bi-polar it’s a great game that you can drop in and out of when you feel like taxing your brain.

It’s not a first-person shooter. That’s a game where you switch your brain off. It’s a thinking game that will have you watching people’s expressions and trying to suss out whodunnit.

It may not be everyone’s cup of tea but I’ll take this one with two sugars and a dash of milk please!

Leave a Comment

Articles

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.

2 Comments

Articles

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.

2 Comments

Articles

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.

5 Comments

Articles

Kevin Costner

In Life on May 28, 2011 by kiltforhire Tagged: , , , ,

This is a pretty mental topic name for a blog post yeah? I mean Kevin Costner isn’t the kind of title you expect to see here on my wee blog right?

But you see Kevin Costner means a lot to me.

My gran was in love with him. Or lust. Or something. A few years after my grandfather died she kinda got obsessed with Costner.

She had posters of him on her wall and she would watch a movie of his every day. Every-time I would pop over to her house she would be sitting watching a Costner movie.

My gran was Susan Pullar but everyone would call her Cissy. No idea why. I think it’s a Glasgow thing. She had a wicked laugh and was a feisty, crazy women at times. She wouldn’t take shit from anyone but was honest, thoughtful, powerful, delightful, fun and adorable. She was honest with a temper a bit like my mum.

But she loved Costner.

She died of an aneurism of the brain in the middle of the street. I hate that. I hate the thought of her just falling in the street without any of us around.

But I love the last memories I have of her when I drove her home a few days before as she complained about my driving and I was winding her up. We laughed in the car that day and she said she would see me soon. I gave her a big kiss on the cheek and said goodbye. She wouldn’t let me get out the car to open her door or anything. She loved being independent.

Somewhere these is a family audio tape of a christmas party with everyone singing different songs. I can still here her beautiful voice.

A few months after she died I went to the cinema to see the new Kevin Costner movie “Message in a Bottle”. It’s quite a sad movie but at the end I broke down. I had to sit in the cinema till the place emptied because I was a blubbering mess.

I had been planning to try to get a signed autograph of Costner for my gran to go next to her poster of him she had on her wall in her living room. I never got it. She would have loved it.

Miss you Cissy (she would hate me calling her that).

Leave a Comment

Articles

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!

4 Comments

Articles

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!).

1 Comment

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »