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So what is timesnewroman? It's not the font, rather my take on the age we live in. The USA is the new Rome and the times we live in are timesnewroman.

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Bare Your Bum at Bush! timesnewroman is listening to: Tiken Jah Fakoly, Arctic Monkeys, Biffy Clyro, Kings of Leon, Bloc Party, Led Zeppelin, Jimi, Franz Ferdinand, Youssou N'Dour, The Strokes, REM, The Kings of Leon, Curtis Mayfield, Jefferson Airplane, The Trashcan Sinatras, Jeff Buckley, Phil Ochs, Stan Kenton, The Smiths, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Mogwai, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, The Zombies and Orange Juice amongst many others.

timesnewroman may be wearing a green shirt today

 

Monday, January 11, 2010

Thank Fuck

Almost a year it takes. Wonder how much it cost though.

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posted by timesnewroman at 8:35 PM Link  

7 comments

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Great Chieftain of the Puddin' Race

r
For fuck sake just go. Other than their immediate families you must be the only person on earth who believes Willie Gibson and James Fowler can play football. Just spent the afternoon wastefully, watching two diabolical football teams, 1 diabolical (FIFA hah fucking ha) referee and 2 diabolical assistant referees. Absolute bollocks and I'm definitely not doing it next season. Full Stop. There are more things in life to get passionate about than football.

The weekend hasn't been all bad though. Last night we had the rapturous pleasure of being amazed, amused and entertained by an absolute magician of a musician and a voice that was amazing. Finished off with a Burns medley that was exquisite.



Martin Taylor and Alison Burns

Personally, I think the Homecoming 2009 is a complete load of ScotGov pish designed to give Dougie McLean more royalties for his pishy pseudo nostalgic Caledonia song. Hordes of Nat supporting ex-pats weep into their whisky in a ludicrous ad to tempt ex-pats to visit Scotland in 2009. Only at first they weren't going to be showing the ad outside of Scotland. Fuckwits!

Just celebrating the great Bard's 250th birthday itself would have been enough. Fortunately its not all bad as last night proved.

And tonight it's off to the quiz with our free drink voucher, courtesy of having won the quiz last week and I'm off tomorrow. Superb!

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posted by timesnewroman at 6:20 PM  

8 comments

Thursday, January 01, 2009

Happy New Year

Its twenty past four and I'm feeling a bit fragile. Can't think why. On a brighter note the Credit Crunch is officially over.

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posted by timesnewroman at 4:22 PM  

2 comments

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

FTP
This year's seasonal message of joy and goodwill to all comes to you from Razzi The Nazi.

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posted by timesnewroman at 7:13 AM  

4 comments

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Just another Saturday
This was an abomination of a game. The ref was, as we have come to expect a total fucking numpty. However that was no excuse for an extremely poor performance especially in the first half, from Killie. We were second to every ball and the distribution was poor, possibly because the midfield was posted missing. Caley were up for a game and had 3 players on our man with the ball at every opportunity. They took the lead and never looked like giving the ball away in the first half. The second goal shortly before the end of the half was a joke that left egg on the face of Killie keeper Combe who was "tactically" substituted at the start of the second half.

Half time was incredible, if it wasn't for this I would have gone home. We were treated to local lad Sean somebody, who is due to appear on UK Idol soon, "performing" Paolo Nuttini's "New Shoes." Poor lad couldn't sing for toffee, couldn't keep up with the karaoke backing track. Tears streaming down your face as you realise it just can't get any worse can it? Well, missing the equaliser penalty in the dying minutes of the game, could I guess be termed worse. Oh well, I'm sure a pre-dinner aperitif whilst preparing Osso Buco, listening to my favourite Saturday evening "Radio" show will turn the night around.

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posted by timesnewroman at 7:23 PM  

6 comments

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Free again
Mumsy is finally home. Back installed in her fiefdom and loving it. She had a bit of an appetite problem before going into hospital, but yesterday, she could have eaten for Scotland. Superb result.

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posted by timesnewroman at 7:52 AM  

2 comments

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

*Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors

Been a bit remiss of recent. Mumsy's been in hospital for the past week, originally having suffered a mild stroke. She seems to have recovered from this quite quickly but whilst in hospital she decided to get up on her tod to go to the loo in the middle of the night and had a fall and broke her arm under her shoulder. Needless to say we got a call to notify us of this at 2:30 am which naturally freaked thewife. Of course this kind of break can't be put into a cast it has to heel in a sling, which for the first few days mumsy has managed to pull her arm out of. thewife has now put the fear of god into her that unless she keeps it in the sling, it will take longer to heel and longer for her to get home.

Needless to say with visiting times etc we don't have a great deal of time to do things like blog for example. Today I have the relative luxury of a day's strike action to catch up with stuff, then a long weekend beckons at the end of which we shall be trotting along to see the doyen of Folk/Protest music Joan Baez, which we are immensely looking forward to.

*Editors

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posted by timesnewroman at 9:00 AM  

2 comments

Sunday, September 14, 2008

It does Chips
The very kind colleagues at work got me this groovy machine for my 50th. I'd seen one in Spain on holiday and was raving about it.


video

It uses about a tablespoon of oil and these babies come out at the end of the cooking process.

Every bit as good as deep fried, but without the saturated fat, horrible lingering fat frier smell, hazar of fire etc etc. Far superior to your oven chips to boot. We love it.




On Wednesday we had the switch on of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The world didn't end, but if it had done, Killie would have been joint top of the SPL. Way to go. We had a meeting on Wednesday afternoon and we decided to have an LHC theme to relieve the boredom. I succesfully managed to incoroprate Large Hadron Collider into my feedback of a workshop session and was kindly presented with the following drawing as a token for my effort


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posted by timesnewroman at 1:36 PM  

1 comments

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Older and Wiser

Been away (Again!) on the Costa Blanca, celebrating a biggish birthday. Great, relaxing in the warm sunshine with good food, booze and company. Far too short if the truth were to be told. Then I return to this rather pleasant viewing:



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posted by timesnewroman at 10:50 AM  

1 comments

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Out !

I am out on strike today, a 1 day strike in action against the employers derisory cost of living offer of 2.5% fixed for 3 years. Effectively its a wage cut. Given the spiralling cost of living and the credit crunch and the impending doom facing the whole planet, you'd think the Governments of the UK and Scotland might want to have a few hundred thousand workers on their side, but their you go. Quite what one day of action is going to achieve though is difficult to gauge. Call me a cynical bastard, but my guess is that the savings from today and possibly a further 2 day show of solidarity in the future will contribute to an increase that will be accepted.

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posted by timesnewroman at 11:42 AM  

2 comments

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Hiatus Over

I'm back. Been a while, been busy, very busy. Since that post below, we went to Paris for a weekend, stripped out a kitchen, built a kitchen, got a new motor, went to London for a week, had Rediski and boy up for a few days although we had to go camping in the rain and therefore left them to their own devices, and am now preparing to go to Spain next Saturday for a week on account of I'm going to be old(ish). We also caught that gig below with Reidski which greatly exceeded my meagre expectations. We thought we were going to get the entirety of Surrealistic Pillow, which in fact we didn't we did however get a marvellous night of entertainment where they played huge chunks of it and also huge chunks of loads of my other favourite Jefferson stuff. We had the most amazing vantage point standing just next to the monitors directly in front of Paul Kantner. thewife thought he was shorter than he used to be, I dunno though. The last time I saw them was an eternity ago at Knebworth and I was so far back I have no idea how big he was. Anyways him and David Freiberg and indeed the rest of the band were absolutely spot on. Still politically sound as fuck. Loved it.

I loved to the rest of our London sojourn which included much dining out and in. We had a marvellous 5 course meal at the Tate Britain "Late at the Tate" night with Father Bell, partner Jo and their incredibly convivial and funny Brazillian and Czech friends. 5 Courses, 5 different wines, great night indeed. We also went to Thomasina Miers' Wahacca which was both incredibly inexpensive and incredibly good, with Jane and Reidski. All that and a couple of trips to Borough Market thrown in for good measure.

Also there's been the start of the football season and a last minute season ticket purchase, which on evidence of the first game may prove to be a sound investment.

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posted by timesnewroman at 11:36 AM  

3 comments

Saturday, May 31, 2008

Possibly the greatest event of the 21st Century so far!


No this is not the Jefferson Starship (complex history here) that made "We built this city" This is the Paul Kantner version, who are playing two gigs in London, the first of which will feature a set consisting of the greatest album ever recorded plus some from the band who recorded the greatest guitar album ever recorded. How good could this possibly be? I did see the original Jefferson Starship mk1 at the Knobworth festival in 1978. Grace Slick was missing from the lineup I was disappointed, the sound where we were was attrocious, although I believe this might have been down to borrowed equipment and the people I was with, mostly knobheads apart from my mate Bobby weren't interested in moving to a better location and needing the lift home, I was afraid of losing them.

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posted by timesnewroman at 10:47 AM  

1 comments

Friday, May 23, 2008

Which way is Damascus?

I'm now totally in favour of an Independent Scotland. I haven't been this way inclined since I was 14 and naive, however if the English electorate are stupid enough to forget what a shower of CUNTS the Tories are, then this time they can reap the harvest of shit and suffering themselves.

It still doesn't mean I would vote SNP though, but in a referendum a definite yes would be the cross I would place.

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posted by timesnewroman at 9:22 AM  

2 comments

Thursday, May 15, 2008

*God (Not that there is one) is Bad



"If undiluted determination
Was A major factor
Needed to make a promotion winning side
Then we have no fears"

In Prague - Tribute to then Kilmarnock Manager Tommy Burns who brought us Good Times.

Before TB we languished in the depths and depravity of the lower reaches of Scottish Football. A once proud club slumming it with the likes of the Blue Brazil and the Red Lichties. A nice day out but hardly top quality football. Then Tommy Burns arrived from Celtic. I hesitate to say fresh, but he was certainly a breath of fresh air when it came to skill and ability. His legs may have been past their prime, but his keen footballing brain was still there. We started to see the change gradually. He would pass the ball and it would reach its intended recipient. He could do really clever things like put the ball in the net. He became player manager and you could feel the belief you could touch it even. We knew it was only a matter of time before we went up. Into the first division and then into the Premier League in 1992. First game away to Rangers at Ibrox as promoted new boys where Rangers had been unbeaten in 17 months. We won 2-1, I thought the joy of promotion was pretty good, but to be honest, other than winning the Scottish Cup this was possibly my most memorable football match ever.

Tommy left, as we all knew he would, eventually to become manager of his beloved Celtic. A tad too quickly I reckon, I always thought he should have honed his managerial skills a bit longer with us, in retrospect though, you knew that if a chance like that came along, he was always going to jump at it. For that I called him a Judas, which looking back on it was stupid, unfair and infantile. But last week that was me. This week I am deeply saddened by his demise. A truly lovely bloke who should have been around for a while yet, who brought me so many joyous memories. Cheers TB.

I was also deeply impressed by the respect shown by the team coming back from Manchester who cancelled their bus tour of the city as a mark of respect.

*Tommy, a fairly devout Catholic, constantly would say in interviews if things had gone well that "God is Good"

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posted by timesnewroman at 7:29 PM  

2 comments

Monday, May 05, 2008

Tagged

Darren Tagged me with a meme

1. What was the last 1980s song you heard?

We don't need this Fascist Groove Thang: Heaven 17

2. What was the last thing you saw on You Tube?

The above

3. What was the last entry on wikipedia you viewed?

A list of Herbs and Spices


4. Last computer /video game completed?

Probably CIV III some time ago

5. What did you last Pig Out on?

A Couple of Saturday Nights ago we made a veritable Chinese banquet of Barbecued Pork, Vegetables, Walnut Chicken Bon Bons,and Noodles

6. What is the last undeleted text message on your mobile?

"Good 70s West Coast guitar rock; echoes of Hot Tuna and getting good reviews currently." From Father Bell who was passing on the merits of Howlin' Rain

7. When did you last have a conversation with someone other than a family member?

Saturday, with the man who sold us a new kitchen in Homebase.

8. Aside from where you live, what is the last village/town/city you visited?

Glasgow for work

9. What was the last Competiton you won?

I came second in a mid 70s NME competition. First prize was every album made by Jefferson Airplane and Offshots Jefferson Starship, Hot Tuna, Kantner and Slick. I won the new Jefferson Starship Album, Red Octopus, which I already had!

10. What were the last 3 Blogs you visited?

Reidski
, lazy bugger's lost his fingers, Life is all Cobblers, David Stakes' Poetry, clever lad!

I'm so out of this, the only people I can tag are Steve and Pam.

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posted by timesnewroman at 10:56 AM  

1 comments

Saturday, May 03, 2008

Dark Days

Rome, London. What the fuck is happening?

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posted by timesnewroman at 8:19 AM  

1 comments

Thursday, May 01, 2008

Drawing The Line

2 colleagues are discussing their sons, 1 noting how her's takes and takes, whereas the others is quite considerate and quotes the example of how he was wanting her to get him a computer game, but that he had the money saved up for it, whereas her elder son would probably have expected her to pay for it. Given that the media was awash with Grand Theft Auto, I had to ask and yes that was the game her 15 year old was trying to get hold of. You know its an "18" we say. "Yes, but all his friends have got it, its about stealing cars." She then went on to say that there were some games though, that she just wouldn't allow in the house! At that point I went into a fit of hysterical laughter for at least 10 minutes, wondering what on earth could be higher tariff for censorsip than Grand Theft Auto. When the apprentice, who has GTA Vice City explains the game content she's mortified, her son already has that. She thought it was like Crocker and Tubbs in Miami Vice, The "Vice City" wasn't therefore a clue. Fortunately she hasn't been able to track down a copy and will be having a discussion with her son re the appropriateness of game content.

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posted by timesnewroman at 5:58 AM  

1 comments

Sunday, April 27, 2008

AFSCME

Unison, please take note!


posted by timesnewroman at 10:08 AM  

2 comments

Saturday, April 12, 2008

The Impossible Dream

Fuck Me!

posted by timesnewroman at 5:34 PM  

2 comments

Sunday, April 06, 2008

Help Needed from techy peope.

Been looking to replace my bulky ageing hi-fi system with something a tad more discrete and modern. I had been kinda hoping to get one of these buggers, but its a wee bitty dear and in any case it looks like they are getting rid of this model and replacing it with a more expensive version. The rationale as well as wanting a new hi-fi basically is to get shot of 2 Ikea towers of CDs which takes up a lot of space over and above that taken up by the hi-fi. So something with a hard drive that could hold them all would be good. Then I noticed that Philips seem to do a scaled down version, with a hard drive as well, which is a bit cheaper, but then I got to thinking, If I could get a laptop for the same sort of price, would that not be just as good hooked up to a cinerama style speaker set up. It could also double up as a direct link from laptop to tv for BBC's iPlayer and downloads. Our hearing isn't getting any better as we age, so sound quality isn't as high a priority as it might have been once. So any advice you can offer would be welcome.

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posted by timesnewroman at 3:32 PM  

4 comments

Prise it from his cold dead hands.

What a glorious day. The sun is shining, its bitterly cold, but there's something nonetheless pleasant about a day when the planet is less one horrible bastard!

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posted by timesnewroman at 9:36 AM  

1 comments

Friday, March 28, 2008

Is Sarky the ugliest bastard on the planet?


Smoked salmon on a mouldy stale sandwich.

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posted by timesnewroman at 6:59 AM  

2 comments

Monday, March 24, 2008

Forgetfulness

thewife got a phone call from an uncle on Friday, wanting to know the best time to call mumsy. the wife told him almost anytime, but that she would tell her to expect the call. She asked her yesterday if he had called yet and Mumsy said not, but that there were 2 women at the door quite late on Saturday night. thewife thought this a bit odd, but went round to check on mumsy, just in case she'd let anyone in that she shouldn't have. Things seemed okay, but thewife mentioned it to a policeman we know at the annual Waterside barbecue. He advised reporting it at the police station, which she did today. We dropped in on Mumsy this afternoon with some groceries and thewife told her she had reported Saturday night's visitation to the police. Mumsy now mentions that one of the women was Collette, a neighbour. thewife then pops over to speak to Collette. It turns out that she was indeed one of the callers, along with a woman from the Council's ALERT scheme for vulnerable elderly. Seems Mumsy had accidently pressed the red button, sending the alert system into operation. They would have called thewife, but this was the one Saturday in absolutely ages, when we were out, celebrating my aunt's 80th Birthday. As the ALERT people couldn't contact thewife by phone, they went to the next person on the list, who was the neighbour. She came over to check on Mumsy, but for some reason only had one key when she needed two. They eventually managed to get Mumsy to open the other lock and realised everything was okay, so then they made sure she got back to bed okay. Most of this detail was forgotten by Mumsy come the Sunday. So now the police will be keeping an extra vigilant eye around Mumsy's area for suspicious pairs of women.

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posted by timesnewroman at 11:05 PM  

1 comments

Saturday, March 22, 2008

James Blunt is shite!

The quality of referees in Scottish Football is downright shite. This clown may well be the worst I have ever seen. He gives an extremely dubious penalty to Inverness and denies Killie 2 clear cut penalties. Throughout the game he makes a catalogue of calamitous mistakes which highlighted the fact that he shouldn't be doing the job. Simply dreadful. I've now got a sore throat after shouting abuse at him. Still its fun innit, especially when you win and even more especially when Mehdi Taouil and David Fernandez turn in a display of unabashed showing off! With regards to Taouil, don't just take my word for it.

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posted by timesnewroman at 5:25 PM  

5 comments

Friday, March 21, 2008

Easter Holly, get your Easter Holly here!

When thewife told me of the existence of the item below, I was immensely disturbed. Even more disturbing was the sight of these in some idiotic cretin's trolley. I really wanted to advise them to seek medical help. FFS. I give you Easter Crackers! Only £ 7.47 from Tesco, how did we ever manage without them?


Instead of a paper hat apparently they come with a little crown of thorns, a chocolate Jesus and a joke about Easter bunnies.

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posted by timesnewroman at 5:52 PM  

4 comments

Saturday, March 08, 2008

Party in the offing

The great day nears!

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posted by timesnewroman at 8:54 AM  

1 comments

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Priorities

"Fucksake, is that an earthquake? better phone The Guardian!

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posted by timesnewroman at 7:02 AM  

1 comments

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Good Feelin to know*

I tortured myself, whether to go to the game, knowing full well how badly we have been playing of recent and knowing full well we were likely to get gubbed. As the time came to say yes or no I took leave of my senses, grabbed the season ticket, hat, scarf and was on my merry way. As the opening whistle blew I knew I had made the right decision. It felt right, the anticipation the belief was right there, the smells, the buzz even although it was 2 O' clock on a Sunday it still felt like 3 O' clock on a Saturday and it was a good feeling to know.

We played well kept a lot of the ball, actually didn't really feel any threat, even when they scored (marginally offside) but the decisions were absolutely unfuckingbelievable. This arsewipe really is the mother of all huns. Minister of the Christian Religion indeed Mike, by that I'm sure you mean proddisant!

Despite the result I'm glad I went. We played the better football, we were the more creative, frankly R*ngers were shite.

Kris Boyd, too was shite, funny thing was all the sort of shite diving he used to get booked for when he played for Killie, he now seems to get away with, funny that. He's still a flash git too, I saw this sleek black Audi R8 with the number plate B1YDY and new right away it was his. Anyway he's so flash he takes 2 parking spaces to himself at Tesco in Ayr. Probably in for his cairry oot!

*Poco

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posted by timesnewroman at 4:30 PM  

3 comments

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Ooops

I loved this. Came the day after I received an email from the Borders and Immigration Agency, advising that I could get the publication I was looking for copies of in the Office of Public Information website. This was the first place we looked a week ago and couldn't find it. We phoned they told us to phone BIA, we did they gave us another number who gave us a number (for BIA). I emailed House of Commons Info with their Reference Number and Title and asked where I could get copies. They passed my enquiry on to BIA who got back to me yesterday advising I could get it via the Office of Public Information (the first place we looked) or from TSO We tried we couldn't find it, we gave up and printed 20 copies from the PDF.

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posted by timesnewroman at 6:58 AM  

1 comments

Sunday, February 03, 2008

Imagine

Imagine if you will, Puskas, Pele, Platini, Maradona, Cruyff, Zidane, Best all rolled into one. If they could could play guitar as well as they play football they may sound as good as Preston Reed. He stopped by and played an incredible, intimate gig to a handful of people in the HAC in Irvine last night. 1 Man 6 guitars and sometimes it seemed like he was playing all of them at the same time. Absolutely awesome unforgettable and he hung around at the end, chatted to folks and signed stuff. What a truly memorable evening. Football, Pah!


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posted by timesnewroman at 9:37 AM  

2 comments

Saturday, February 02, 2008

FOR SALE - LUCKY PANTS!

I could have used my season ticket and gone to see my team in a Scottish Cup game, sat out in the freezing damp cold, but having done this recently I decided against it. I could have watched it on telly, but I chose to assist in the laying of our new kitchen and hall floors. Good call I must say, I hate football.

On a brighter note I have found hippie paradise! Its here.

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posted by timesnewroman at 6:59 PM  

6 comments

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Leaner, Meaner, Keener

I'm a bit achey tired and sweating. Nope its not the return of manflu, I've been out on my bike for half an hour. They say this is supposed to be good for you and to be honest I feel sort of great having done it. The weather has been complete shite since Christmas so I've only been on it a few times. This time was perhaps the best, not too far, not too short, just enough to get the cardiovascular system working, but not so much as I never want to see a bike again, which was the case first time around.

I'm also trying to lose a bit of weight, a big bit of weight. Last week I lost 3 pounds and this week only 1. Again this is down to the weather I think, rather than eating. If its dry I like to walk from the station to work, but if its wet or I'm late, I get the bus. Last week I mostly got the bus.

I'm not on a diet. That's such a stupid term. I'm just being a bit more careful with what and how much I eat. Out with the butter and hefty French cuisine and in with lighter stuff and seafood. Dropping pints of beer as intake during quizzes in local pubs and sticking instead to wine on the Sunday and soda water and lime on the Monday. No shit between meals, only fruit and no, absolutely no, rolls and slice! Well maybe once every couple of months. Who knows I may fade away to a mountain.
____________________________________________________________________

Football, huh what a shite sport, me I hate it and I'm never going back to sit in the cold and watch the most mediocre crap that 22 guys can perpetrate ever again! I say 22 because as much as Kilmarnock were complete pish, so too were Dundee United. Martyn Corrigan! There's a fabulous signing, 2 games, 1 goal and 1 assist. Unfortunately all at the wrong end. Would Jim Jeffries please just fuck off and leave us alone!

Still some good news, and more good news. Cheered me up no end!

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posted by timesnewroman at 2:53 PM  

2 comments




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