Discipline

This Saturday these two blighters will be spending the night at chez Smith. Strict rules will be in place. Bed at 7.00pm. Lights out at 7.15pm. No noise. No sweeties. Strict discipline will be in force. There'll be no getting round me. Oh, no...

So I Was in This Pub...

...enjoying a Friday off work and savouring the delights of a pint or two of Belhaven Best. When two little blighters ran over and began pestering me.

'Can I have a taste of your beer, Papa?'

'No, you can't, now go away you small children'

I dunno, children in pubs - what's the world coming to? I only popped in to celebrate my daughter Michaela's 23rd birthday. It turned out to be two for the price of one as her sister Laura was there with Jack and Hannah.

The following day didn't turn out to be the best of days. My afternoon spent at Tynecastle watching the famous Heart of Midlothian was two hours of my life I won't get back. A 3-1 defeat from Kilmarnock, Hearts 'bogey' team put something of a dampener on the day. Still, as most Hearts supporters of my generation will tell you, being a Jambo has more ups and downs than a liftman's nightmare. Hearts won 3-0 at Dundee United last week so it was inevitable they would follow up this fine performance with an abysmal showing.

In an effort to console myself, I headed to the cinema on Saturday evening to watch the latest film version of Sweeney. Growing up in the 1970s I loved watching the television version on ITV starring John Thaw and Denis Waterman. The 2012 film version stars Ray Winstone and Ben Drew (who I was reliably informed by the lovely Marion is pop star Plan B) as Jack Regan and George Carter respectively.

Now I was always going to compare the 2012 film with the 1970s television series but I have to say I was disappointed with the new film. It's clearly aimed at the American market and it seemed a tad unrealistic to me. There was a nod to the film that made Winston famous in the late 1970s - Scum - where the DI was sent briefly to prison. His march along the prison corridor carrying his clothes and the scene where he puts a couple of radio batteries in a sock with a view to assaulting a fellow inmate was a not too subtle reference to Winston's role as Carling in the borstal drama of three decades ago.

However, I left the cinema disappointed. And somewhat irritated by the cost of a hotdog - £4.50 for a small sausage in a only slightly larger finger roll.

Now it's my least favourite time of the week. Sunday night. I'm about to crack open a can or two of Belhaven Best. But first, I'll just check there are no children at the door...

Jack and Hannah Say...

...buy this book and make our old Papa very happy! Then he can go and buy us lots and lots of sweeties....

Hearts Greatest Games - now available at bookshops and at Amazon

Another Seasonal Greet

Jack, Hannah and Ava wish you all a very Happy Christmas and a Guid New Year. Judging by the sudden facial growth, the wee fella does seem to be maturing remarkably quickly for a 6 year old...

A Scots Wedding

Jack and Hannah dressed to kill...

Two Cool Dudes...

...on Edinburgh's Arthur's Seat. I blame the parents...

Me and My Girls (and boy)

Papa - I've been good, can I have my sweets now?

Papa - I've also been good, can I have my sweets now?

Papa - what do you mean I'm too young for sweets? Waaaaahh!

Aye, go on then - just don't tell your mother...

Come On, Own Up...

My two grandchildren Jack and Hannah have been known to cause mischief now and again. Now I am a little concerned to what has happened to baby Ava...

When a Child is Born - Part 2 (well, 3 actually...)

My third grandchild - Ava - was born at 5.18pm on Tuesday 11 May 2010 at Edinburgh's Royal Infirmary. She is - like her big sister Hannah and her even bigger brother Jack - a little diamond. Then again, I'm biased...! I thank my daughter Laura and her partner Nicol for bringing another little bundle of joy into my life. I am proud of each and every one of them...

Getting Old (Part 94)

I find it hard to believe that it's less than twenty years since the above photograph of a somewhat angelic looking child was taken. My darling daughter Laura had recently celebrated her fourth birthday when the above snap was taken shortly after my family and I moved into the Gorgie area of Edinburgh. It's even harder to believe Laura now has two children of her own, the terrible twosome but eminently loveable Jack and Hannah. And belief nearly becomes suspended altogether when one considers Laura has a third child on the way in May. She'll probably cringe when she sees this and I expect her to give me a hard time but she knows I'm proud of her - especially so given this third pregnancy has been a particularly difficult one for her with more hospital visits than Nicola Sturgeon...

Seeing my wee girl do such a great job of bring up Jack and Hannah and prepare for another child, is another sign of my ageing process. I had an appointment with my doctor today as I continue to suffer from a viral illness and sought stronger anti-biotics to finally kill the blighter. Apparently what I have can last for up to six weeks - but to quote my friend Adullamite, I'm not one to complain...

However, my repeat prescription list now has nine items on it - including my usual medication to control my high blood pressure, asthma and cholesterol. My doctor asked if I smoked. She wasn't impressed with my reply that I didn't and she should have remembered to buy her fags on the way to the surgery...

I'm off now to the chemist. I hope they have plenty of stock...

An Apple and an Orange...

In a desperate attempt to get me to partake in some Christmas spirit, my daughter Michaela bought me a ticket to see the classic Frank Capra film It's a Wonderful Life, shown in Edinburgh's The Filmhouse on Christmas Eve. My loathing for what Christmas has become - a commercial festival lasting a minimum of twelve weeks rather than twelve days - is apparent in the pages of this blog. However, It's a Wonderful Life harks back to a time when Christmas brought out the best in people rather than the opposite. It remains one of my favourite films and I still smile when, towards the end of the film, I hear the despairing James Stewart snap 'Why did we have so many kids?!'

I spent Christmas Day with my daughters, grandchildren and my mother and, like most other families that day, spent the afternoon eating too much, drinking too much and thanking family members telling them they shouldn't have spent so much money this year. Pretty much the same as every other year. With the recession biting hard and thousands of people facing the very real risk of unemployment, I do despair when I see people spending money they evidently haven't got. When the credit card bills drop through the letter boxes of thousands of homes a few weeks from now the spirit of Christmas will be a distant memory, replaced by the high anxiety of having to pay for it.

My grandchildren, Jack and Hannah, were thrilled with their presents although, as ever, they found it difficult to know what to play with first. Their low attention threshold meant they were eager to move on to something else - simply because it was there. My mother, bless her, still speaks of being a child in the Second World War when she and her sisters received an apple and an orange. Seventy years on, getting an Apple and an Orange means you're more likely to get a computer and a mobile phone...

Christmas in my own childhood in the late 1960s/early 1970s meant the latest publication from D.C. Thomson - The Broons or Oor Wullie Annual; The Beezer, The Dandy or a football annual such as Shoot! or The Topical Times. Electronic gadgets were a no-no - not even Rolf Harris's innovative Stylophone (thankfully...) We didn't have turkey for Christmas dinner, we would have chicken. A small chicken, so small it was still in its shell....

Now New Year beckons and a few days off work to recharge the batteries (or sober up, whichever you prefer) Soon it will all be over, the daily grind will return - to those of us lucky enough to still have jobs - and those who think it's tasteful to have hundreds of flashing lights adoring the outside of their house will be switching them off. Darkness and the gloom of January will soon be upon us...

Happy New Year, folks!

A Pregnant Pause

Without wishing to sound like the late, great Rikki Fulton's Reverend I.M. Jolly - it's been a helluva year what with one thing and another. On Monday I joined the rest of the family in celebrating youngest daughter Michaela's 20th birthday. There was one notable absentee from the celebrations - elder daughter Laura. She was at home, in bed, struggling to stop being sick. Today she was admitted to Edinburgh's Royal Infirmary. The reason for her incessant nausea? She is pregnant.

Next March - all being well - I shall be blessed with grandchild number three. I have little doubt that grandchildren one and two, Jack and Hannah - or Bonnie and Clyde as I like to call them - will welcome their new sibling with open arms and will waste little time in teaching the little blighter how to wrap Papa around his/her little finger. But, I need to be strong.

My thoughts tonight are with Laura and the hope she gets home either tomorrow or the day after. Her well being is paramount. My other concerns - such as how the hell am I going to find the money for presents for Christmas 2010 - can wait...

A Long Life

The state pension retirement age could be increased further, the UK's pensions regulator has told the BBC. David Norgrove said rising life expectancy meant millions of people would "undoubtedly" have to wait longer in future to draw a state pension. People will not save as much for retirement as in the past, with many people "frightened" to do so, he said.

The state pension age is due to rise to 68, and Pensions Minister Angela Eagle said there were no plans to raise that.

From the BBC News Website

Sometimes I just don't know what to believe. On the one hand, we have health experts telling us that more people die of heart disease in Scotland than anywhere else in Europe. This, we are told, is mainly down to poor diet with too much fatty foods. Scots penchant for the 'chippy' and Chinese and Indian takeaways is a popular as ever despite the recession. I have to say I'm prone to these myself and I know many other people who share similar culinary tastes. There are also those ecologists who tell us the planet is on the verge of extinction as a result of me leaving my television on standby every night instead of switching it off at the mains. Violent crime is also apparently on the increase. If one was to read all of those stories consecutively, one may assume we'll all be dead by the end of next week. We're all doomed...

On the other hand we have other 'experts' tell us that life expectancy is higher than ever and that the human race is getting much older. Advances in medicine and a realisation that eating habits need to change, we need to drink less and stop smoking altogether mean people are living much longer than in years gone by. In fact, some experts believe some humans may live until they're 150 in the not so distant future. It would be childish of me at this point to mention a blogging friend of some note, Adullamite, who can't be far away from becoming the first of that ilk... In any case, given the concerns raised above does anyone want to live longer?

Britain recently lost two of its very senior citizens. Harry Patch, the last Briton to have served in the First World War, died aged 111 while a few days earlier Britain's oldest citizen Henry Allingam took his last breath at 113. Why did those two gentlemen live so long? The reasons are unclear although I loved Mr Allingham's reply when he was asked the secret to old age. 'Cigarettes, whisky and wild, wild women!' he replied. I suspect Mr Allingham died with a smile on his face!

My father died at 58 and his father died at 45. So the chances of me receiving a message from the King to celebrate by 100th birthday are slim to say the least. As a father and grandfather, naturally I wish to live as long as possible to see my family try and achieve happiness and for little Jack and Hannah to grow up to be responsible, talented and popular adults. However, Ladbrokes are giving long odds I'll reach pensionable age.

Which, thanks to those health experts, is becoming further out of reach. That said, I have an unopened bottle of whisky in the cupboard. I'm off to the shops for twenty Embassy Regal - while I'm away if any wild, wild woman fancies getting in touch...

Tree Hugging Hippies

'Don't you care about saving the planet?' someone asked me the other day.

'To be frank' I snarled, 'at this moment in time I have more important issues to consider'

'Oh?' came the condascending retort, 'What could be more important than saving the world for your grandchildren?'

'Well, let me think. My daughter's fiance has just died, she's about to be made redundant from a job she loves, my other daughter is unwell, my granddaughter fell down the stairs today and had to be taken to hospital (a little concussion apart she appears fine thankfully) and my mother thinks she's suffering from depression (she supports Aberdeen FC so she may well be right). So please excuse me if I don't walk half a mile in the pouring rain to put the last issue of Private Eye in the recycling bin...

A colleague of mine describes environmentalists as 'tree-hugging hippies' And, to be fair, I think he has a point. If they want to recycle every inordinate bloody object in order to save the world then good luck to them. But what irritates me is the fact they ram their principles down everybody's throat. To them if you don't try to save the planet at every opportunity you're the devil in disguise. From recycling newspapers, rubbish, teabags (compost caddies anyone?) plastic, glass and dog excrement (okay, I made that one up) to switching off computer monitors, printers, televisions, mobile phones at night, it seems if you don't do any of these then you'll be condemned and sent straight to the depths of hell when you shuffle off this mortal coil.

Those tree-hugging hippies ruin everything. What are they fighting for anyway? Why would should I care if there are baby seals or drowning polar bears? Stuff the ice shelves. I don't use them. And what about litter? Why should I care if the streets I walk down or live on are lined with rubbish? I mean, it is someone else's, not mine. I put all of my rubbish in one wheelie bin. I don't recycle either. Why waste my energy on sorting things out? Getting back to those bloody trees, why do I need them? They just block the view I have of the concrete heaven that people call a jungle. I say give me more pavement and miles of it. Asphalt is quite good to look at, really.

I hate when those people who think they are so much smarter than me tell me that air can get polluted by me having a barbecue or that having my television on standby overnight will cause an ice cap to melt. They think they know more than I do. I went to school. Okay, I didn't pay attention much but I went....

Rather than having a go at me for not switching my monitor off why not tackle the likes of China's environmental record? Or the good old US of A?

As for saving the planet for my grandchildren, I've got to ask, given the state of society these days, will the planet be worth saving for Jack and Hannah twenty years from now? Greed, ill-discipline and a lack of moral fibre are prevalent now - one can only shudder at the prospect two decades hence. Rather like the polar ice caps, everyday values such as respect, decency and looking out for each other are being eroded.

But it seems to me there are precious few who want to save them...

Family Matters

It's been a difficult week for the Auld Reekie Ranter. A sudden, totally unexpected death is shocking at any time; when it happens to someone who recently celebrated his 21st birthday and whose passing has left my daughter Michaela heart-broken it sends shock waves through the body, numbing it with disbelief and leaving one feeling almost completely helpless. Nothing I can say or do to try and help my daughter will bring back the person she loved with all her heart. The funeral is this Wednesday and I would not wish to be anywhere else than by my daughter's side that day; but at the same time I would rather be somewhere else rather than witness the pain and anguish she will go through.

With such dark clouds overhead, there is a wee glimpse of sunshine today with my grandson Jack's fourth birthday. It's hard to believe four years have gone by since he came into my life. The wee scamp has given me so much joy, so much love, so much fun. Today I will head to his party, armed with a multitude of loud and irritating presents which my daughter Laura will likely greet with horror, and give the wee man a huge hug.

Happy birthday Jack the Lad. Save some cake for your emotionally brittle Papa.

Happy Birthday Hannah

A very happy first birthday to my darling grand-daughter Hannah. It's hard to believe she's a year old already. If she can avoid splitting her head open and having a tin of paint poured over her, then today should be a good one!

The Weekend Ahead

Another Friday night. And another weekend. Two things stand out for me this weekend. Firstly, the football season starts again tomorrow. Hearts fans have had little to look forward to since we were knocked out the Scottish Cup by Motherwell on a cold dark January evening at Fir Park. Since then my passion for Hearts has ebbed to the extent I was, at one point, seriously considering not renewing my season ticket. But renew, I did.

The excitement which greets the start of a new football season is always welcome. With a new manager in the so far impressive Csaba Laszlo and the players seemingly having their enthusiasm rekindled, there is hope once more at Tynecastle. My main concern is that it's basically the same group of players who toiled at the end of last season. There is only one fit striker - Jamie Mole - and it's difficult to see where the goals will come from. But I'll be at Tynecastle tomorrow - and, for the first time in months, actually looking forward to the game. That said, I'll probably be moaning tomorrow about how shambolic Hearts were and how we'll be fighting relegation. But, for a few hours at least, I'm looking forward to the new season.

On Sunday it's my grand-daughter Hannah's first birthday. I can scarcely believe it's a year since the little tike came into my life. She's walking now but this may not necessarily be a good thing as, in the past fortnight, she's had three stitches inserted in a head wound after walking into a door and had a pot of paint poured over her, courtesy of big brother Jack.

So. here's to a happy Hearts fan and happy Hannah come the end of the weekend!

A True Champion

I spent an enjoyable afternoon today watching the final round of the Open Golf Championship, this year being held at Royal Birkdale. Well, I tried to watch as grandchildren Jack and Hannah came over and they demanded Papa's attention...

Padraig Harrington, the defending champion, played some outstanding golf to retain his title. His second shot at the 17th was quite phenomenal. But what particularly impressed me was the quite superb sportsmanship from everyone concerned. In his winner's speech, Harrington thanked just about everyone in the Emerald Isle but his tribute to the runner up Ian Poulter, the amateur champion Chris Wood and the legendary Greg Norman - who came close to an astonishing and historic triumph - showed that modern day sportsmen - and women - can behave with dignity and courtesy.

Footballers are probably the worst example of poor behaviour with constant winding up of the opposition and the shameful trait of cheating to gain an advantage a feature of almost every game these days. I know it's too much to expect the Corinthian spirit in sport these days but golf is as close to retaining that as any. Although disappointment was etched across his face at the end, Greg Norman still took time to pay tribute to the champion, saying it was a very impressive victory by the Irishman.

The BBC coverage was excellent - unlike SKY, ITV et al there was no cutting for advertisements at crucial points in the day's play, thus losing the 'moment' - although the comment as the engraver was marking out the name of the winner on the claret jug - perhaps he's trying to find out how to spell Harrington - was a bit crass as the Dubliner's name was on the trophy from last year.

If I had a small gripe it was the constant bellowing of 'in the hole' from some of the crowd as soon as a shot was played - even the tee shots. That got a bit tiring at times.

But, overall, watching the Open was hugely enjoyable. And with his compassionate speech, Padraig Harrington proved it's not only on the golf course that he's a true champion.