After a relaxing family Christmas, I am now off to Aberdeen for New Year.
For those of you for whom this time of year is something more than a rampant, soulless commercial frenzy, I hope you have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
To the rest of you, have an Inclusive Winterval.
Because I don't know a huge amount about Glasgow, I was having a look on the web for pages about the place, and found a few useful pointers on the Glasgow Survival Guide. It has advice like don't use the toilets in central station, and devotes an entire section to "weapons". Under "culture", however, I was enlighted by these words:
If I were to sum up the culture of Glasgow in a few words, those words would be Football, Violence, Neds, Knifes, Buckfast, Tanning Parlours, Giros, Number 62 buses……..actually no, it is impossible to sum up Glasgow's culture in a few words. Glasgow is an incredibly complex place so the only real way to understand it is to come and live here for a while.
Nice. Maybe I will.
Besides sorting my move to Glasgow, there’s been another drama which almost threw my life off course, and to be honest I am lucky not to have needed medical or psychological help. I guess I should admit it publicly to get it out in the open.
Last week, I was round at a couple of friends for dinner, and they… well, convinced me to try something I’d never tried before. I’d heard about it, naturally, but never really thought about trying it. They said it was ace, it would be right up my street, I’d love it, it would change my life. They gave me a few of them and told me to go home and try them.
And so I did. That night I sat down on the sofa with all the required paraphernalia, and tried the first one. It grabbed me instantly, and transported me without any feeling of movement into a new dimension, one in which I could not ever dream of doing without it. Before I knew it, I’d had the first one and was desperate for another, for more, for more of the same. So I went for another… and it felt just as good.
I was up until the small hours, and turned up for work the next morning absolutely wasted: red eyes, tired body, distracted mind… just thinking about getting into my next state of other-worldlyness. That evening was a write-off, and I almost missed the work night out the following evening too, because of it.
I’ve had twelve of them now, and feel that now I am into it, I could never imagine living without it. The excitement, the anticipation, the thrill, the tears, the laughter, the way your body waits, waits, waits for the next one to come and when it does the satisfaction flows through your veins like… like nothing I can describe to someone who’s not done it. That said, the first few fixes I have managed to keep under control; I think with determination I can stop it taking over my life and ruining my mind too much. All things in moderation, don’t they say?
But can someone please tell me how I made it this far in life without this wonderful, wonderful creation?
So yes, I’m going to be a Weegie. I have got a new job at Glasgow University Students’ Representative Council. After three years in Inverness I will certainly be sad to leave, but it is very much time to move, have new challenges, see new places, and pass over what is a very exciting and rewarding job to someone else who fancies spending three years travelling the highlands and islands. Glasgow is a lively and vibrant city, and it’ll be good to move while I am still young, single and free to do so.
My job starts in early February, and involves doing a whole range of interesting stuff on the representation side of things. However, I will not bore you with the details of my job except on demand.
I was down in Glasgow yesterday and this morning flat-hunting (and going out with joinees), and I managed to find a lovely one in the west end (flat, not joinee), very close to the university where I will be working. I’ll tell you more about it later, as it is late at night and I am tired, but suffice to say… it has a television. A very big one.
Life really is going to be different…
I'm moving to Glasgow.
Cool, eh?
On the BBC News website today, there was a link to an "On This Day"article about Albert Luthuli receiving his Nobel Peace Prize on this day in 1961. I was aware he was an African National Congress activist, but I didn't know until today that he was the leader of it at the time.The only reason I've heard of him is that the students' association building at Aberdeen University is named after him, part of the craze in the British student movement in the 1980s of showing solidarity with the anti-apartheid struggle. In one of the meeting rooms hung a large, imposing black and white picture of the rather austere-looking Luthuli himself.
During my involvement in AUSA, we gave out stickers at polling booths which said "I've voted, have you?" thus letting leafletters know not to hassle those students. We printed several thousand of them, and I recall we only narrowly approved that text over "F*ck off, I've voted". I remember one year putting one of the "I've voted, have you?" stickers on the Luthuli portrait, just on the lapel of his jacket. For years after, anyone going into the meeting room would see the stern inquisition from old uncle Albert about whether they had voted or not.
Quite wittily ironic of me really, given that the poor bloke probably never voted once in his whole life.
In response to yesterday, it seems he was protesting about some court decision, but gave up his protest when an accident happened right next to him.
Anyway. Tonight I was at the panto with a couple of mates. It was Sinbad, and it was great fun, a really good laugh, and starred all the usual bit-part actors including everyone's favourite ageing DJ Tich MacCooey, and had a cheerful script with all the usual bad puns and double-entendres. We went for a pint along the river afterwards in McNabs and found ourselves talking to Sinbad himself, who was a thoroughly decent egg.
In the panto itself, we were right at the front surrounded by kids, however, most of whom were getting a bit raucous at times. There was one brat of a kid who was a definite heckler-in-training one row back from us. When Fatima (played by some fat bloke who's been in lots of stuff) and Mustava (some QMUC graduate) introduced themselves to the audience, they said "Well, this lot look a bit strange tonight…"
"Fu*k off!" came the perfectly audible response from behind us.
On my way back from Skye, I came back via the Achnasheen road (otherwise known as the Invermoriston bypass), which took me back over the Kessock Bridge into Inverness. As my meeting was not too long I was able to come back before dark, and it was a lovely drive, with a chilly, icy mist on the east of the Highlands making for some lovely views in the piercing winter sunshine.However, coming over the bridge there was a really peculiar incident going on. Across on the northbound carriageway a protester had tied himself to the wirey things that were attached to the main pillars, and was quite a way off the ground, so it was quite a feat. His banner read something like "I want my phone", but it was hard to see as I didn't want to be distracted from the road. There were police and an ambulance in attendance.
Then just a few metres further on, a car was on the same carriageway, side-on, with lorries right up against it, perhaps even crashed into it, and growing queues of traffic behind it - although not too much traffic, so it was a brand new fresh incident. There was an old man in the car, but I couldn't really see if he was alright or not as I was driving too fast.
Well, not too fast, but you know what I mean.
All rather bizarre - a protester and a potential crash… in the same place? Where they connected? Why was the protester wanting his phone back and why would tying yourself to the Kessock Bridge get it back? And why was the old man blocking up the traffic? Was he showing his sympathy to the phoneless protester's cause? Or maybe he was opposing his cause by blocking up traffic and minimising exposure to the banner…
Anyway, all very strange, and I can't find anything about it on the internet, and can't bring myself to listen to Moray Firth Radio. There's no mention on the BBC News website, but I can't help feeling that if a guy who'd lost his phone and an old man in a sideways car had held up the Forth or Erskine bridges in rush hour, it would've made the headlines.
If you know what it was all about, I'd love to know - email me on iwantmyphone@simonvarwell.co.uk.
I've finally had a weekend that involves no travelling!Waking up on Sunday at 1pm was wonderful. Well, I actually woke up at 9.30am, but went back for another three and a half hours. That's what I call a day of rest.
Monday was… well, I'll tell you this coming Monday. Tomorrow is a trip to Skye for work.
From browsing around the web and talking to joinees, I've picked up word of two interesting bands - iLiKETRAiNS and Suburban Kids With Biblical Names. I must find some mp3s of them or something. Which reminds me, my friend Justin in Aberdeen has told me about www.pandora.com - it's very simple, you tell it a band or song and it plays you similar stuff. What a wonderful concept! I am currently discovering new Ulrich Schnauss stuff.
I really must start wasting time on the internet…
I swear that my backside has become moulded by the shape of a ScotRail train seat.
I seem to have been travelling most of the past few weeks, and am absolutely shattered. I was in Liverpool for a conference from Sunday until last night, and my nine-hour journey back was a bit of a killer, taking the Transpenine service through the sorts of utterly grim industrial bits of Yorkshire that you expect to see Monty Python filming in, and then the GNER from York to Edinburgh in the dark.
Those trains were both painfully uncomfortable, and it was only once I was able to sprawl myself out on the last leg, Edinburgh to Inverness, that I actually began to feel more relaxed and could chill out a bit more. Either that or maybe I was just so exhausted I'd have slept on Oor Wullie's bucket if it had been the only seat going.
Tomorrow night I have four Slovakians staying with me through Global Freeloaders which should be fun, and then I have the rest of the weekend to hibernate, which will be good as it is another busy week coming up. But more about that later.
