Here we are in the Tolbooth Tavern, Royal Mile, Edinburgh, a pint of Three Hop at hand. Before leaving home I just put a fresh battery in my hearing aid and have forgotten to put my contacts in. Should have been the other way around! It’s really loud in here and I’m bumping into things.
I was in a local bar, The Southsider, on Tuesday lunchtime and the music was painfully loud there too. Must be my age?
Oh my god can we not get away from the US presidential nomination contest? Have to put up with that and then the big one ’til November.
This is my second visit recently to the Tolbooth and again a bit of cussin’ wafting around. I can swear with the best of them but more and more recently I think of a quote from a namesake of mine. “Profanity is the last refuge of an ignorant prick” Lenny Bruce. This may not be an exact take on the quote but please don’t bother to rattle my cage if you know better.-?! It’s a great line on so many levels not just at face value. Especially from a man who was charged and found guilty of ” obscenity”. I think he probably borrowed it from someone and just changed the last word”man” for “prick” Brilliant.
Lenny’s surname was Schneider but folks in my clan think he made a good choice when he changed it to Bruce. Did you know that Lenny features on the LP sleeve of Sergeant Pepper?
My week: You may have heard of happy slappy which is a “jape” that kids do. I have been in the habit of walking through Dumbiedykes on a Friday evening, a scheme with a tough reputation, to meet up with my spouse for a relaxant after her gym session. I have done this weekly for a couple of years and have had no problem with the locals. Last week whilst minding my own business in what is a very middle class area of the city I was “slapped” but it definitely was not Happy! Search the internet if this is all unfamiliar to you.
Ok, in “What’s This Then” when I was setting up this blog I did say that it would contain gogisms. Well here goes with the first.
Gog = Grumpy Old Git
The demise of the newspaper proof reader.
Nowadays we have spellcheck- hurrah!- so no more will we have spelling and other grammar mistakes! Wrong!
” The Scotsman” which claims to be my national newspaper, presumably now with no proof readers, is riddled with cringe- worthy mistakes every day. Whoever is ultimately responsible for the finished (ha! ) article should be castrigated! Unfortunately this has spread and Scotland on Sunday this week – end has a caption on the front of it’s magazine which states “Iggy Pop is a back with a new partner in crime” He may have been taken aback by that, if he was bothered to read the article, which I very much doubt.
And if you like to read some balanced comment, skip the Scotsman letters to the editor page. Here you will find bitter old guys who think that folks who have the temerity to espouse principles that are radically different from their own are zealots, or apologists. And if they have Rev. Dr. Sir, Rear Admiral etc. after or before their name or are members of an Alliance or Society (with the implication that this somehow should impart some extra weight or authority to their views ) and we are taken in by that, then more fool us dear reader.
And the second: Was out having my constitutional a few months ago and a guy and his son were out walking their dog. The dog craps and the guy picks it up in a plastic bag , which all public spirited canine lovers carry around for just such an eventuality. Well done son I say to myself, when he then bends down again and puts the bag against the garden wall and walks off. “Excuse me” says I, ( as bold as brass) and I commend him on his first reaction to his dog decorating the pavement but enquire to the reason why he is not going to deposit the deposit in an appropriate receptacle. Apparently he’s going to pick it up on the return part of the walk! That’ll be right.
Yesterday, having lived in Edinburgh most of my life I discovered the walk on the Braid Hills. Ladies and Gentlemen this is a FANTASTIC walk. If you are fortunate enough to visit my lovely city you MUST check that out on a nice day. You can see for miles and miles and miles and miles, oh yeah! 360 degrees vista.
The area does attract dog-walkers ( if you are not familiar with that term it’s the canine equivalent of our nursery schools where we pay other folks to look after our beasts ) And what did I see? You guessed it. For the third time that day, poo bags just lying in the open. What the ( sweary word) is wrong with these people?
Enough about me. We all have things that annoy us, so your job before we meet again is to identify the three that most get on your goat – or other part of your anatomy. Ok? I’ll be checking next time.
Til the next swill.
tam bruce 