Donald Ford Images

Donald Ford was one of the finest players ever to wear the maroon shirt of the mighty Heart of Midlothian FC. Donald starred for the maroons in the 1960s and 1970s in a period when Hearts struggled both on and off the pitch. He was part of the Scotland World Cup Squad that was the only unbeaten team at the finals in West Germany in 1974.

A footballer extraordinaire is now a photographer extraordinaire. Donald is one of Scotland's leading landscape photographers and his excellent work can be seen - and purchased - at his superb website http://www.donaldfordimages.com/

There are some stunning images there - it's well worth a look.

Monday, Monday

Some thoughts to fit in with the start of another week...

Challenges: I expected times like this - but I never thought they'd be so bad, so long, and so frequent.

Get to Work: You aren't being paid to believe in the power of your dreams.

Governments the world over: If you think the problems we create are bad, just wait until you see our solutions.

Idiocy: Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

Individuality: Always remember that you are unique. Just like everybody else...

Mistakes: It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others.

Procrastination: Hard work often pays off after time, but laziness always pays off now.

Tradition: Just because you've always done it that way doesn't mean it's not incredibly stupid.

Sanity: Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can borrow mine.

Bear With Me...

Two American Football teams are on a tour of Europe and have a quiz to see which team can name most places in Holland. The game was won by a single Dutch Town.

A child was misbehaving by protesting loudly and rudely, waving boards with crazy slogans on, while guests were visiting. He was punished for having mad banners.

There is evidence that William Tell and his family were avid bowlers, but unfortunately all the league records were destroyed in a fire.Thus we'll sadly never know for whom the Tells bowled.

He said he grown strong from all his dancing, but no-one believed him.It was obvious to all that he was bearing waltz fitness.

I'm a baker for the army. When I go to war, I go in all buns glazing.

The policeman pulls over a car onto the side of the road and walks over to the driver."Do you realise you've got two snakes attached to the front of your car?" he asks."It's all right," replies the driver, "they're just my windscreen vipers."

A man was charged with stealing ducks from a local pond in a small English village.When in court, the judge asked how he pleaded. He replied 'Not guilty Mallard'.

There was one a dromedary whose fur was an amazingly close match in colour to the desert sand, and he was almost impossible to see.Some called him 'the invisible dromedary', but in reality he wasn't invisible; he was just really well camel-flaged.

Did you hear about the new line of Elvis Presley-themed steakhouses?They'll be for people who love meat tender.

I always wondered why the ball was getting bigger as it came at me..... then it hit me

I used to want to be a gold prospector, but it didn't pan out.

The police caught a burglar last night after he broke into a bathroom window, stood on a set of scales and gave himself a weigh.

I knew someone once who was a monorail enthusiast. He had a one track mind.

The price of chess pieces was going up. I had to buy quickly, so I decided to contact my pawn broker.

A jump-lead walks into a bar, and looks around aggressively at the other customers.The barman says "All right, I'll serve you... but don't start anything."

Did you hear the one about the man who dreamed he was a muffler on a car, and then that he was part of the wheel? He woke up exhausted and tired.

What did one archaeologist say to the other when he stepped on his newly discovered artifacts?"I'm so sorry, looks like I owe you an anthrApology!"

Our local Catholic church has plans to bring their parishioners to services by bus. They plan to call it mass transit.

Seclusion

A hermit has begun 40 days of isolation in a Gothic tower in Manchester Museum.
Ansuman Biswas, 43, who lives in London, plans to contemplate things "lost" and the impact of extinction during his confinement. Mr Biswas has chosen 40 objects to present to the public during his stay, including a human skull and a brick from the Great Wall of China. The city's museum has 4.5 million artefacts, which Mr Biswas will live among until 5 August. His only communication with the outside world will be through his internet blog as he details what life is like in seclusion.

From the BBC News Website

Forty days of isolation? Living in seclusion, away from work, mobile phones, loud-mouthed neds who plague society, screaming grandchildren, demanding daughters, noisy neighbours, infuriating and loud television, drunken arseholes on the night bus home on a Friday night, fecking tourists, queues of traffic....

Room for one more, Mr Biswas????

Yes, I'm Positive...(the art of punnery)

A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at him and says, "I'm sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger."

Two fish swim into a concrete wall. The one turns to the other and says, "Dam!"

Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Unsurprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can't have your kayak and heat it too.

Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says "I've lost my electron." The other says, "Are you sure?" The first replies "Yes, I'm positive."

Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal? His goal: transcend dental medication.

A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse. "But why?" they asked, as they moved off. "Because", he said, "I can't stand chess-nuts boasting in an open foyer."

A woman has twins and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt and is named "Ahmal." The other goes to a family in Spain; they name him "Juan." Years later Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. Her husband responds, "They're twins! If you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal."

These friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they opened up a small florist shop to raise funds. Since everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across town thought the competition was unfair. He asked the good fathers to close down, but they would not. He went back and begged the friars to close. They ignored him. So, the rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town to "persuade" them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store, saying he'd be back if they didn't close up shop. Terrified, they did so, thereby proving that only Hugh can prevent florist friars.

Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him . . . . . A super calloused fragile mystic vexed with halitosis....


Thanks to my good pal Lizzy for these!

A Tale of Two Companies

British Airways is asking thousands of staff to work for nothing, for up to one month, to help the airline survive. The appeal, sent by e-mail to more than 30,000 workers in the UK, asks them to volunteer for between one week and one month's unpaid leave, or unpaid work. BA's chief executive Willie Walsh has already agreed to work unpaid in July, forgoing his month's salary of £61,000. Last month, BA posted a record annual loss of £401m, partly due to higher fuel bills and other costs. BA has said that hundreds of staff have responded positively to the request.

From the BBC News Website

Workers at seven Royal Mail delivery offices in Scotland have been taking part in a 24-hour strike in a row over job cuts and services. Royal Mail said about 330 staff at two offices in Edinburgh and others in Dunfermline, Cowdenbeath, Grangemouth, Bathgate and Irvine were involved. About 160 distribution drivers in Edinburgh were among thousands in the UK who took action on Friday.

From the BBC News Website

Am I the only person who thinks that Royal Mail staff need, to use a term oft-used by our friends across the pond, to wake up and smell the coffee? We now live in an instant communication age. The Internet, mobile telephones, satellite feeds, wi-fi have all made communication not only immediate but, in most cases, reliable. The opposite, it seems to me, of any business plan Royal Mail may have in operation.

Many people now pay bills on-line and communicate by either e-mail or text. Can you remember the last time you sent someone a letter? Until recently I used to send a cheque to pay my credit card bill; paid my council tax (albeit reluctantly -see Rants passim) by queuing at the post office and sent things such as greeting cards through the post at least a week in advance in the hope the recipient would get the card in time. On occasion they would get nothing at all - I posted £20 in gift vouchers to my mother a couple of years ago and she never received them. Doubtless, some postal worker with a smug grin had helped themselves. Now I pay the majority of my bills on-line. Not only is it infinitely quicker but I know that payment has been received at the other end - and I'm not relying on some couldn't be arsed postie to do their job properly.

Royal Mail's latest strike action - timed, it seems, to affect those who have sent Father's Day cards - will affect many people who still rely on the creaking postal service to deliver. The majority of items I receive through Royal Mail these days is junk mail. So their antiquated views on industrial relations won't really affect me unlike their strikes of years gone by.

Perhaps Royal Mail should take a look at the real world - such as events presently happening at British Airways.

It's time to get real.

The Beat in Edinburgh

I had the pleasure of being at The Beat gig at Edinburgh's Picture House on Friday evening. One of the earliest of the British ska revivalist groups, The Beat formed in 1978, and skanked up the charts with the likes of 'Mirror in the Bathroom' and 'Stand Down Margaret' - a message to Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. Last night they had their adoring audience bouncing as they performed all their classics - and Stand Down Margaret turned into Stand Down Gordon...

I've seen the band several times before and they never disappoint (not even a slight technical problem could spoil last night's show)

Excellent stuff and hugely enjoyable. If you ever get the chance to see them live, I highly recommend you do so.