Come back, Tom Shields!

It's no use. The Old Buffer sprung his retirement on us on 9 November 2013 and I'm still opening my copy of the Herald wondering: Is this a Tom Shields day? 

The golden days were when Tom was writing the Herald Diary and his columns at the same time. I still have the books published using the best bits of the Herald Diary and I have his collection of columns from 2012: 57 Varieties of Tomato. Both treasures. (All available at good bookshops. Buy them there - not from Amazon. Please.) He had some kind of meltdown early in the 2000s and reduced his workload. Good for  him but sad for us. He started splitting his time between the West End and the community allotment in Barcelona, and that brought a wee gleam back to his eye. Then he cut back to 3 columns a week and it's been downhill ever since. 

I've nothing against any of the people now occupying his slot (left centre page, bottom right). They're just not Tom Shields. They write a lot about themselves. Frankly, who cares about them? Tom Shields rarely wrote about his life but had plenty of insights into life in the west of Scotland and Barcelona and, well, life in general. 

So, if you don't mind, Herald editor, could you get him back, please? He said on retirement he'd be doing occasional pieces for the Sunday Herald but I haven't seen any. So lean on him or offer him money or loose women, but find some way to let us celebrate Ne'erday in style, with a Tom Shields column. 

For these err may mounnn-tains

On my wasted journey round Silverburn tonight, circling the great temple of Mammon but never actually getting anywhere near a shop, I had time to flick through a few radio stations while I sat in the long, long queue of cars heading for the exit.

I don't know who's filling in for Steve Wright on Radio 2 but dear me, their taste in music is beyond bad. Clyde 1 only seems to play Avicii or Nicholas MacDonald. I've not idea what Real Radio was playing - Rehab figured in there somewhere - very suitable for this time of year - I didn't pause long enough to find out. Smooth Radio was playing some of its 500 best something or other tunes, none of them very good, but the DJ was waxing furious about Paris Hilton who has apparently made it into the list of the top 6 DJs in the world. His argument seemed to be that Paris knows nothing about music or DJ-ing but is just playing at it. In his opinion, it's a bit like you or me thinking we could just go off and be a doctor or a dentist. What a nerve, eh? Myself, I wouldn't put being a DJ quite at the level of medicine or dentistry but I switched stations before I could hear any more. And someone was singing:

"For these err may mounnn-tains end this is may glen" and my wee heart sank. For I realised it is New Year! New Year, the time when anyone who lives in Scotland and loves Scottish music crawls into a corner and waits for us to get past Ne'erday - no, make that get past Burns Night.

O the times I've thought: just shoot me now. One of my friends sang The Road and the Miles To Dundee at a Ne'erday party in my house. I've never heard a more dreadful song, but I was told you can't say that because it's Scottish. She sang it in a semi-English accent. I toyed with the idea of going home but I was home. I sat through a rendition of Ca' The Yows Tae the Knowes - or Call the Yows To the Knowes as the singer called it, enunciating carefully - in a school hall and had to dig my nails into my arms to stop myself screaming: "Yer Scottish - gonny jist sing it Scottish!"

At some point, the accordion will appear, and the bagpipes. There will be a fiddle orchestra too. All introduced by Jackie Bird. It will mostly be poor quality stuff intended for an audience living furth of Scotland. And I just know all my exiled Scottish friends will be in ecstasies.

And no, it's not 'Scottish' music I dislike. It's bad Scottish music. I like the Proclaimers, Julie Fowlis, Karine Polwart and many others. They have some great songs.

There's a terrific list on Wikipedia if you're interested:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Scottish_folk_singers

You just won't hear much from them before the end of January.

Moving - let the fun begin

I've only just started getting ready to move house and it's doing my head in.

I've already lost the rag tonight because of Google's idiotic blog system which locks me out every couple of days - not a good idea when I wanted to get into the blog for a good rant!

Every agency I have to deal with has a form to fill in to do with change of address. And no, you can't fill the form in online and email it back. You have to print it off, fill it in by hand and post it or take it in. I know what that means before I even start: forms will get lost in the post, cheques for forwarding mail will get lost. I may start off thinking being there in person will prevent chaos breaking out but I'll bet it doesn't. The phone will be just as bad: messages will be garbled, names misspelled, information will not be passed on.

In the case of the Royal Bank, there are 3 separate forms for me to fill in. I've already decided I'm going to the branch to do that because experience tells me that way I'll at least get somebody's name and can then hold him or her to account when it all goes t*ts up. As it will.

The factor doesn't have a procedure for finalising my account and refunding my deposit (£500) and, given how bad they are at responding to any letter, it'll be a miracle if I get my money by summer. Of course, despite the fact I pay these bandits £120 a month in maintenance, I'll probably end up owing them money, so the deposit may never materialise.

The council tax form from East Renfrewshire Council is 5 - FIVE - pages long. I can't imagine how people without a degree manage to fill it in.

The Virgin Media website says I can transfer TV, phone and broadband online. I'll bet I can't.

Everything needs proof of identity. Renting the house across the road was bad enough. I have a passport but I don't have a driving licence with a photo - yes, I'm that old. Nor do I have printed bank statements - I bank online. Nor can I find 3 utility bills dated in the last three months - Scottish Gas is between quarters. But at least I know my credit is good, since I had to pay the letting agent to get a credit check carried out.

And, of course, despite my OCD tendencies and my endless list-making, I just know there will be one vital bit I forget in the move. And it will take me months to sort out. I wonder what it will be. Suggestions on a postcard...

Nigella

Years ago, I used to listen to talks by John Diamond on Radio 4. He was a great talker, soft-spoken and very clear. He was also a very good writer, with a fine wit and good insight and a sharp turn of phrase. I vaguely remember reading then he had a wife and kids, although he never mentioned them in his talks. I was grateful for that because I hate writers who raid their own lives and lay them out in the media for the world to see.

When John Diamond got sick with cancer and had to have most of his tongue removed, I remember thinking how awful it was for him, a radio person, to lose his ability to talk. I also thought how unfair it was on his kids, who were very young.

It was years before I realised his wife was Nigella Lawson. She is the daughter of Nigel Lawson, one-time Chancellor of the Exchequer under Thatcher. I thought then: it takes a special kind of narcissist to make up a name for a child based on his own. When Nigella Lawson began appearing on TV in cookery shows, I also remember thinking it was good she was able to support her kids. I didn't know then she was already in tow with Charles Saatchi.

I don't watch cookery programmes - the less time I spend in the kitchen these days the better it suits me. That said, I do watch the Hairy Bikers but that's more for the bikes and the scenery than anything. I suspect Nigella's audience is mainly men, most of them staring right down her cleavage. She's done a good job of creating the Nigella brand. She's got TV shows in the US, I believe. Or at least she had until the Grillo girls and Charles Saatchi stepped in last week.

You have to hand it to the Grillo girls' defence team: it was a master stroke to depict Nigella Lawson as a cocaine-addled nutjob handing out drugs to her kids. And I suppose you have to hand it to Charles Saatchi too for fuelling the doubts about Nigella's reliability by adding yet more information about the drug use. So the Grillo girls got off and Charles Saatchi got his revenge on his ex-wife. He strikes me as a man you wouldn't want to beat at Scrabble unless you had your running shoes on and, of course, he's going to get his revenge on the Grillo girls too by suing them. Well, he's rich. He can afford to do it and, as a friend of his put it this week, he couldn't care less what anybody thinks of him. And Nigella? Well, chances are, given the squeamishness of US television people she'll lose her contracts there.

Of course, she also has the press and TV to thank for the publicity she's received over the past weeks. I switched off BBC 'national and international news' last night because the main item was Nigella Lawson. But ITV and Sky news were the same. Is there really nothing else more important happening
in the world or have we become so obsessed with 'celebrities' we're in danger of disappearing up our own erse? Or could it be that the media hate successful women, especially the ones who don't fall over themselves to bare their souls - or anything else - in the press?

I googled Nigella Lawson and read a wee bit about her. Her mother was a depressive and probably a drunk and battered her kids. If they hadn't been a politician's kids, they'd have been whisked off to a place of safety by social workers. In addition to losing her first husband to throat cancer, she also lost her sister to breast cancer. No much luck in life so far. And it doesn't look as if things will be getting better any time soon.

Fresh or what?

I like avocados. When I went to Chile, I realised that a lot of our family-by-marriage own fields full of avocado trees - and grow loads of aubergines, grapes, tomatoes and other plants that are fairly unusual in Scotland but are everywhere in Chile.

Our Nelly in an avocado field belonging to Don Luis, her brother-in-law. 

About a fortnight ago, I bought a couple of avocados in the supermarket. They were pretty small, pretty dear (79p each) and pretty hard but I thought if I softened them up they'd be great. I kept them in daylight on the kitchen counter rather than the fridge. And I waited. A week later, I tried opening one up and discovered it was still rock hard. I pried it out of its skin and ate it but it had the texture - and flavour - of a stone. Yesterday I tried the other one. Still fit only to be used as ammunition. I tried eating it but finally threw it out. 

Today I went to Whole Food Market and bought two avocados. They cost me 1.79 for the two and the taste is a world away from last week's experience. They are marked 'ripe' and they are. They are also marked 'Produce of Chile' which really pleased me. I ate one tonight with chopped organic tomato (also from Whole Food) and a wee bit of salad dressing. A feast. No other word for it. 

I'm guessing wherever the supermarket avocados came from, they were imported over a long distance and refrigerated. I don't mind supermarkets doing that but I would like them to come clean and tell me the produce is chilled. I'm a grown up. I can work out chilled avocados will be the same as chilled pears or tomatoes or apples or bananas: keep them as long as you like but they'll never ripen. One day they'll be rock hard and the next they'll be rotten. 

Next time I'm in Sainsbury's I'll ask if I can make a suggestion and recommend they supply food fit for eating instead of cannonballs. And next time I'm in Whole Food Market, I'll compliment them on stocking Chilean avocados that taste the way they should. 

Born to care?

Friends who are 'carers' for their elderly relatives will be pleased to learn that I'm getting a touch of the treatment they all too often get from those they look after. And it's an eye-opener.

I volunteer from time to time with Contact the Elderly. It's a great charity, set up to try to combat the loneliness of old age by including the very elderly in a range of social events. Yesterday, I agreed to pick up two elderly ladies and drive them to afternoon tea in a house shared by another eight elderly people, looked after by two wonderful carers.

I know my two ladies quite well now. One is very funny, chatty and loves her outings. She's quite a reader and also keeps herself up to date with current events via the TV. She walks with a stick and is not always too steady on her feet, so I always give her my arm to the car and put her in the front passenger seat. We have rare blethers as I drive.

I know the other lady does not like this. There's absolutely nothing wrong with her mobility and her health seems fine so she goes in the back of the car. She's deaf and it seems she won't wear her hearing aid. She ignores everything I tell her. So when I'm helping her into the car, I say: 'Put your bum onto the seat first and I'll help you to swing your legs round.' No, no, not her. She complains about how dark it is (it's broad daylight) and how she can't see where the seat is. We need a torch, she says. I tell her we don't have a torch (we've had this conversation a few times already this year) but we'll be fine: I'll help her and make sure nothing happens to her. Finally, I get her into the car. Now for the seatbelt. I know this is going to be traumatic (it has been every time I've picked her up). I pull the seatbelt out, pass it across her middle and put the buckle in her hand. I tell her to hold on to it while I go round the other side of the car and plug in the buckle. By the time I've gone round the car, she has somehow managed to pass the seatbelt round the back of her head, losing hold of the buckle in the process. I go back to her side of the car and we start again. I say: 'Hold onto the buckle and don't move.' I can hear myself getting sharp. I can also hear the lady in the front laughing - she too has been through before - often.

Eventually we get to the house we're visiting. I always leave plenty time for the loading and unloading of the car. I take the lady with the stick up the ramp first and hand her over to the carer on duty at the door. I go back for the second lady. I've told her I'll be back for her and to stay in the car because it's pouring rain. No, she's out of the car and wandering away from the ramp towards the steps. 'There's steps, there's steps!' she tells me. 'I'll not manage the steps.' I reassure her and guide her to the ramp. Again, she complains it's dark and she can't see where she's going. Every few yards, she stops dead and says nervously: 'Are there any more steps?' 'No steps,' I say. 'No steps at all!' Finally, we get into the house.

I deliver her to a seat in the conservatory next to the Christmas tree. The carers serve sherry and I notice she has two glasses. When I look over, she's talking quite happily to the person next to her. What was that about being deaf?

An hour later, our hostesses serve afternoon tea. Both my ladies eat well: sandwiches, vol-au-vents, wee sausage rolls, mince pies, mini eclairs, washed down by plenty of tea. As we're helping to clear away the tea things, one of the carers tells me one of my ladies is getting agitated about making sure she's home in time for her evening meal which is served at 5pm. Yes, it's the 'deaf' lady, of course. I remind her I've spoken to the kitchen staff in her sheltered housing block and they'll plate her meal and keep it till she gets there. She frets loudly to everyone around her for the rest of the afternoon.

Just after 5, we go through the steps on the ramp and the getting in the car and the putting on of the seatbelt performance in reverse. This time the rain is torrential and I'm soaked from dashing round the car in pursuit of the seatbelt buckle. I drop the ladies off. It's only been four hours and I'm knackered.

I really want to tell the 'deaf' lady she's a whiny old git. But I know the complaining is pure attention seeking and she does it because she's lonely. But dear reader, if you're a full-time - or even a part-time - carer, I take my hat off to you - chapeau!

The Evils of Amazon

Some of the wee kids in our family are already old enough at 4, 5 and 6 to know what they want for Christmas. This is a two-edged sword: all is well if you can get what they want. So for one it was a princess doll that turns into a mermaid. For another it was a race track with miniature cars. Both of these were in stock in the shops so that was easy. The third wanted the Operation game with the Minions on the front of the box. ToysRus - sold out. Tesco Direct, Asda Direct, Argos - the same. A Google search revealed this was obviously the game every kid in the UK wanted Santa to bring. For various reasons, I'd left it quite late to shop for it. The only place it was available was Amazon.

I try not to do business with Amazon. I saw bits of the recent TV documentary about their employment practices and it was pretty horrifying. But before that I'd seen and heard some horror stories about their zero hours contracts, low wages, sending people home in the middle of a shift because they didn't need them - sometimes in the middle of the night.

I'd also noticed a trend in Amazon, now that it has cornered so much of the book market especially the Kindle market, to set prices that are starting a to look like they've been plucked out of the air. So a newly released book by a popular writer - say Lee Child - could be priced at £15.99 for hardback, £16.99 for paperback and the same for the Kindle version. I'm not paying those prices. I order my books from my local library or, if it's a book I want my own copy of, I buy it in a chain store. In kids's books, luckily, there are other online options and I use them. Foreign language DVDs have also shot up in price on Amazon - anything up to £22 a time.

I was in a tight corner here, so close to Christmas and I was going to have to bite the bullet. So how much was the Minions Operation game? From other suppliers: £22.99. from Amazon first time I looked, £32.99. When I went back in to the site next day, it was £35.99. Boy was I mad - but I didn't really have a choice.

It's made me even more determined to avoid buying from Amazon.

Mandela

I went to South Africa nearly 30 years ago. I went with friends to visit people who worked for the Leprosy Mission in Swaziland and we had to land at Johannesburg and drive across to Manzini.

It was the apartheid era and we found out the reality of the political set-up before we'd even left the airport. At the car hire, we collected our keys and went to pick up our cases and head off to the car park. The white woman behind the desk looked quite shocked: "Leave them," she said, "The boy will get them." She waved and a black man in his 60s came over and started putting our cases on to a trolley. My friend's husband tried to help and was told off by the car hire woman: "Let him do his job." To be honest, this old man looked too frail for the job...

In our 10 hour drive, we had a few comfort stops. We had a late lunch on the South African side of the border in a restaurant where all the customers were white and all the waiters were black. The portions served were huge. We ordered something described on the menu as 'baby beef' which turned out to be steaks so big they overlapped the edges of the plates. Soft drinks came in large bottles. The request for coffee brought us a cafetiere each. The prices were ridiculously low. I imagine the wages of our very attentive waiters were also low.

We'd come from a country where we routinely boycotted South African goods: Nice grapes. Nope. Put them back. They're South African. The signs of apartheid and of downright inequality were glaring. Once we got lost - turned right instead of left - and found ourselves off the tarmac road and driving over a red dust road through an African township. The contrast with white South Africa couldn't have been clearer as we went from large houses set back from the road and surrounded by high walls and electric fences to shacks we weren't sure even had electricity or running water.

In South Africa, Swaziland and on a wee side trip to Mozambique we met many white South Africans. They were all very friendly. They lamented the boycott that kept major sporting events away from their borders. They really missed the golf and the rugby. We didn't argue. We were guests in their part of the world but we made sure people knew we had come to visit Swaziland not South Africa.

When Mandela was released from prison, I sat in front of my TV and watched him walk out. It was very moving. Here was a man we had only ever heard of. He made a speech. I had the sense, as we all did, that this was the start of a new era in South Africa.

Shortly after that, I went to work back in Argyll & Bute. I was running a course for teachers in a hotel and, as always, spent the evening with the course participants in the bar. At one point, I went up to get a round in. I was served by a young - white - woman with a strong South African accent. I asked her where she came from. Pretoria. I asked her how long she planned to stay in Scotland. She hadn't decided. I said I'd seen Mandela's release and found it very moving. She launched into a rant: the worst day of her life was watching that man leave prison. Her country was finished now that he was out. He would ruin South Africa. She went on a bit more. When she paused for breath, all I could think of to say was: "It's not your country and if you go home one day I hope you'll remember that."

I doubt if she heard me. If she went back to South Africa, I  hope she settled okay and has made a good life contributing to the new democracy. South Africa is far from perfect but it has started along what Mandela called 'the long road' and I wish them the very best in the sad days after his death.

Good health, everyone!

I found this on a friend's Facebook page:

I started off thinking okay, fair dos: if you have a medical condition that affects your life on a daily basis (I'm lucky - my gut problems only affect me part of the time), you don't want to be dwelling on what's wrong with you all the time. Take the optimistic view. Mustn't grumble. Always look on the bright side of life. It'll get worse before it gets better. Et cetera.

Then I thought haud oan a wee minute. If you're sick, you're sick. If you're chronically sick - like with lupus, MS, ME, cancer, bi-polar disorder, diabetes, cerebral palsy, fibromyalgia - does anybody really think you can get through the day without considering your condition? Can you just ignore the need for a wheelchair or a walker or for special arrangements so you can use the bus or the train - or the toilet? Can you forget about the need for special foods and just have a burger? Walk when you know you're not fit? Be 'normal' when you're not?

My own view of disability is different. If you're disabled, forget the hifalutin philosophy expressed in this poster. Don't disown your condition. It's part of you. There are many other people in the same position. Demand that it be recognised and accepted that the human race does not conform to somebody's vision of what's 'normal.' Expect to be given your place in society along with everyone else.

Don't settle for being excluded from certain hotels in Scotland because they don't have disabled access or for being pushed across the car park in the rain because there's no disabled access to the restaurant.

Don't let people put you off doing the job you want to do because your history of mental illness and the likely recurrence of your condition make it uncomfortable for other people.

Don't let people talk to you as if you're a child because you walk or talk funny.

And promise yourself, whatever your disability, you'll have a good life. You deserve it.

Independence (no politics involved, honest!)

I promise you this isn't a political rant!

I've been enjoying watching the reaction of the TV, twitter and press people to Scotland's 2014 independence referendum. I don't mean the people at the Scottish end of things but the big beasts from London. (Although I think the TV station in Scotland that's got a handle on the issues is STV and I never thought I'd say that in my lifetime.)

At first, it was good fun watching Jeremy Paxman on BBC2 and Krishnan Guru-Murthy on C4 News staring mystified at Alex Salmond. They had no idea what to make of the referendum at all. But now the Channel 5 and Sky people are also struggling to get their heads round what's going on in Scotland. The only thing that stops Politics Now having a laugh at Scotland's expense on BBC2 is that Andrew Neil looks as if he'll headbutt the first person that tries. As for BBC 1's Question Time from Falkirk last Thursday, what an embarrassment that was - that panel was picked by a London editor and it showed. And frankly, the Have I Got News people need a damn good shake after last Friday's show. Message to HIGNFY's director: a bit of respect if you don't mind - we pay the licence fee too.

The twittersphere has, sadly, fallen into the hands of trolls who seem to have little to do but insult Scotland all day long. Log in and search under @indyref for oft-repeated stories about how England is being bled dry by Scots living on benefits, drinking Buckie and eating deep-friend Mars bars; how the Spanish PM will 'block' Scottish entry into the EU - as if he could - and no mention that Rajoy said that as a message for his own revolting Catalans; and how the Welsh first minister says we can't keep the pound - well, he's Labour - he would say that. Whether you plan to vote yes or no in the referendum, how do you feel about being roundly insulted by the likes of Katie Hopkins, whose sole achievement seems to be she was sacked by SirAlan on the Apprentice. 

London-based newspapers and magazines are no better.The Guardian is even more anti-Scottish than the Telegraph - and that's saying a lot - with its jokey wee articles about Scotland lowering its corporation tax so much after independence that the whole of the north of England will implode. New Statesman has sort of tackled the independence issue: this week there's an editorial (no prizes for guessing which side NS comes down on) and the front page cover has a wee tiny drawing bottom right hand side that I think might be an actor from Braveheart.

But the referendum is happening outside London, init? And although we claim we live in a union, what happens in Scotland isn't likely to affect what happens in the south east.

But how about this? The ignorance of the media people is not limited to events in Scotland. In terms of news, we are very badly served by TV, radio and newspapers which never seem to tell us anything about what's happening in the UK outside the south-east of England. I exempt from that the BBC's news website, where you can at least get a bit of news from such far-flung places as Northern Ireland, although you have to remember a lot of the BBC's news comes from the police and court reports, so you might get a fairly biased view of what's going on. As for Europe, well, forget that. If it isn't a story about the EU banning curved cucumbers and encouraging the populations of Romania and Bulgaria to emigrate to the UK, the press, TV and radio won't give it a mention at all. The only place for European news that most of us in Scotland have found is Eorpa - in Gaelic, with subtitles.

But if it's news of the USA you want, you'll find plenty of that. Which is a pity, really, since the US is just a holiday resort for most of us. Our closest neighbours and trading partners are in Europe and the far east. Not that you could tell from the UK media.

And it's worth remembering that, whatever the result of the referendum, we'll all still be living on the same island and we'll all be trading as well as living together. And the world is bigger than London. It would be great if our media could remember that too.

Clutha and after

It's great to see people leaving flowers at the site of the Clutha tragedy, but if you want to give more than flowers, why not donate to the emergency bikers charity?

http://www.scotservs.org.uk/