Morning

You woke with the light of the sun splitting her blinds apart. The mornings had been getting warmer and quicker to come than the winter, and you were slightly worried that this would mean that you'd be lucky to find the time to continue with dreaming. Last night's ideas and thoughts come flooding back into your head and suddenly you're awake, trying to claw back at the sleep that's flowing away like sand through fingers.

The alarm clock is still waiting to go off. This pre-alarm waking happens regularly.

You decide to wait. Sure enough the alarm will go off, and then you'll have to get up, but you are already awake and your mind is ticking over and over. There's a feeling that your dream was both really great but scary at the same time. Slowly, parts of the beige filled cinema reel fall into place and three events are remembered, though the order is jumbled.

A train, four children, and a microwave. No more information can be gleened from the dream, so you give up. The alarm patiently waits. Minutes left now, you suppose. You glance over to the window to see if there is anything more to be assumed about the day from the sliver of sky seen through the blinds but there is none, only the slightly contrasting look of bright sunlight and dark sky. You let out a slight moan, a whimper, and strech upon the bed still inside the warm duvet that you sleep in. Your toes wander onto a cold part of the bed and recoil in fright.

That's the bit of the bed I used to sleep in, you are thinking. The previous nights phone calls are still in your call history, but the contents forgotten for now, and even as you lie there in a relaxed state, the alarm is still waiting. For the next few moments there is an air of expectancy in the room and giving in, you go to check your phone. There are no missed calls from me, not even a text message. The vacant part of your bed that you so religiously taught your self to avoid during the night is wasted space without me in it. It won't take long for you to reclaimed it.

The alarm breathes in, and then shrilly goes off. You jump up, grab at it, first placing it on snooze as an automatic reaction, and then turning it off as you remember you've been awake for minutes already. Another glance at the desolate looking phone screen and I've still not contacted. You feel misery and shame and worry, and your axious face cannot be seen by anyone but still is painted on it.

You get out of bed and remember the last thing I said to you. "I've just about had enough" and you start to take apart the phrase. "just about" implies hope, you think, that maybe I was being rash, but at the same time also implies exasperation. The "enough" part is the sucker punch, and saying that just as I left was dramatic effect used perfectly. I intended it that way, our invisible audience hanging on every syllable I utter.

You leave your room and walk to the kitchen. Without my tea making you're left to fend for yourself. The kettle is popped on and you rummage for a teabag. It's boiling slowly, slower than the alarm clock took to sound. You move into the front and there I am, sleeping on the couch. I came back, or I never left. You stand there, confused. I stir as the kettle grows louder. I look up and in my haze I look at you and say "Morning."

The kettle clicks off and calms down. I look you up and down. You are still looking at me. There's a silence thicker than smog.

You then say: "Morning".

Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want

Good times for a change
See, the luck I've had
Can make a good man
Turn bad

So please please please
Let me, let me, let me
Let me get what I want
This time

Haven't had a dream in a long time
See, the life I've had
Can make a good man bad

So for once in my life
Let me get what I want
Lord knows, it would be the first time

Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want by The Smiths

Football / Football III: Mark Learns to Speak American

Last year I commented on my friends, the Texans, and their eagerness to play five a sides with us when they hadn’t been brought up on endless games of football as we know it. It quickly became part of the jokes that we would one day play a game of Football with them, take them on at their own game. It never happened, for shame. Earlier this year I watched the Super Bowl and finally began to understand the complex game of Gridiron. So, with the dawn of the season a few months ago, I decided to start really getting into it.

Firstly I had to learn the rules. Some say the best way to learn the sport is to play it and without the ability to actually rustle together 10 or friends willing to learn the game too, I had to resort to the next best thing – EA Sports’ Madden NFL 10. The problem with this is that at the same time as learning the basics from which to be able to play the game well, I actually had to learn how to play Madden its self, which was not easy. After a few games, watched with intrigue by Steven, we both slowly came to appreciate the way the different plays are created, how they are applied, and how the differing teams (Specials, Licking, Defense etc) all work together. So far so good.

Secondly I had to find myself a team. I decided, like most, to choose not a team that’s absolutely brilliant, but not one that’s shit. I had chosen to support the Arizona Cardinals during the Super Bowl earlier this year, so I decided to read up on them. I read their Draft picks, learned some of their player names and their varying histories as time would tell them. Slowly, and surely, I became a Card fan. I was told however to choose another team; it’s best to have two teams they said. So I chose the Houston Texans as a nod not only to my Texan friends, but that they are the perennial underdogs, having never got to the Playoffs yet. So, like supporting Chelsea and Aston Villa, then. Plus, I have a higher chance of seeing the Texans play, don’t I?

Thirdly I had to watch the games. On Channel 5 on Sundays they show the NBC Sunday Night Football match – 1.05am to 4amish. It’s difficult to stay up, yes, and I haven’t managed it the last two weeks, but I stayed up all night to watch my team beat the NY Giants on the road, my first taste of the thrill of the NFL. The main problem is that the Sunday game is late – on Sky they show two other games. The 1pm and the 4pm kick off games. Without being able to get Sky I was stuck – from next month however I will be able to see them, as Sky is possible in our new flat. With NFL.com showing the highlights, I can see most of the games I want anyway.

How successful has this reattribution been? Well… quite. Steven has taken an active interest in the games and the scores when I talk to him, it gives me another string to my sporting bow, opens up a world of knowledge and trivia (such like teams names) that I was blissfully unaware of, and has, rather crazily, gave me an excuse to buy something that I have always wanted: a sports uniform with a players name on the back. See below, modelled by the lovely Noah who is supplying me with my 11 Larry Fitzgerald Wide Receiver for the Arizona Cardinals jersey. I’ll post again when I have it possession.

For those that care, the Cards are 6 for 3 (6 wins to 3 losses) and are top of the NFC West. The Texans are 5 for 4 in the hotly contested AFC South, which is being steam rollered by the Indianapolis Colts.

Also: Cheerleaders.

How to Fix A Problem Like Football

On Saturday my sporting national team won a game in which they probably were expected to and my other sporting national team lost a game that no one really with their head screwed on would’ve expected them to. In rugby, we comprehensively played Fiji off the park in the first half, giving up our dominance in the second half to introduce some replacements, which is fair enough. It was a promising start to the career of a manager brought in to change the team up after a slightly weak last few years of unimaginative rugby. The exact opposite happened in Football. We lost a game against Wales in an embarrassing way, it should have been more, and as I understand it has cost our dear national team manager his job. We’ve gone from being exciting, hard to beat and great to watch to dull, insipid, useless, and pretty much one of the easiest teams to get past – in a group of only one good team, we failed to come second, and in our group no team even made it to the playoffs. What a fucking waste.

Or is it? Should we have expected any more? Our team is rubbish isn’t it, a useless bunch of almost-rans that should be embarrassed to play in the jersey? No, definitely not. We have some good players there and they should be able to play. Darren Fletcher is arguably one the Manchester United’s best players, Craig Gordon is better than all three of England’s 1st choice goal keeps by a mile, McFadden, Fletcher, Ferguson (a moot point as he will never play again) and even Hutton, who all play week in week out for strong, if not stellar, teams should be able to play well in an international.

So it must be the manager. In domestic football the manager is too quick to be blamed, when sometimes the players are at fault, but that’s because they are playing for their wages. They should be playing to their best, because the manager could just drop them afterwards if they don’t play well. In international football you can’t buy a new player (though Scotland are trying to) so it’s up to the manager to get the players to rile up and play as a unit – work with what you’ve got, and Burley can’t. So he’s got to go, and someone who can should come in. I suppose this is related to the fact that there must be someone else who can, I suppose.

Football in general is in a pretty interesting flux at the moment, regardless of how well our national side is doing. With the introduction of the third and fourth linesmen what stand behind the goals and check for penalties, UEFA have inadvertently admitted that they’re current situation is shit. What is the current situation? Well, TV replays are not used during game.

This means moments after an event we can see if it was right or wrong, and the ref can’t This is highly ridiculous that the most watched sport in the World cannot do it, when even Rugby Union which has it’s audiences limited to 20 or so nations does it. Or even American Football, the only place that takes place properly is in America.

Football needs to adopt these rules soon.
- Referees can only talk to the captains, and vice versa. This already is a rule but it’s never penalised if it’s broken. It should be.
- No swearing on the pitch. This is turn would mean…
- Referees are miked to the TV coverage. And linesmen.
- TV evidence, obviously.
- More cheer leaders
- Lingere leagues (NSFW)
- Better team names
- Unlimited substitutions
- Salary cap
- 39th International Premier League Game

The Tale of Gin and Tonic

Let it never be said that I don’t drink, for I do. As a true Scot I like to take a drink and I’ll happily have one with my meal, with friends, or sitting on my own watching Gossip Girl in my pants. My favourite colour of wine is White, much to my father’s dismay, my favourite beer is tied at either Tiger or Peroni, but I will accept any others, and my favourite spirit at the moment in Gin.

Yes, gin, the London Dry variety. I started drinking it thanks to an ill advised night at Stuarts where we “made” cocktails. After drinking basically a complete pitcher of Sex on the Beach (without any sex) and having to go out and buy more peach schnapps, I ended up drinking Gin, straight. That was a silly idea and probably contributed to my only known moment of blacking out. I suppose if there were anymore I wouldn’t know about them, would I?

I drink Gordon’s, as it’s the mainstay of my Gin drinking. Recently introduced to Hendrick’s and it’s weird I-thought-it-was-a-joke usage of cucumber (something I hate in my sandwiches) I suddenly was open minded about my Gin. Like someone who only drank McAllan being introduced to Talisker I appreciated the different flavours and textures, before stopping myself and realising I was sounding like a pretentious wanker.

But, much to my dismay, last weekend during a healthy drinking session with the parents, I was treated by the staff at the Copthorne Hotel to Beefeater, a Gin I’d been told to avoid. Like someone saying “Oh, you know, I really like Famous Grouse” during a conversation about Caol Ila and The Glenlivet, I am sure many Gin drinkers will baulk at the barefacedness of my admission it was nice, but it was.

After all it’s just gin, isn’t it. Now, Wine, I have no clued about. Absolutely no clue what so ever. So I suppose maybe that’s where I will go next. Maybe. Pass me a Gin, quick.

A Certain Type of Invisibility

When I was young I sometimes felt like I was invisible. This lasted ‘til I was about 13 when, no longer did I feel invisible, as suddenly girls were not just other people, but girls. I mean, pretty things that talked to you, made me nervous, and scared me to endless sleepless nights. Not much has changed since then mind you… but the moment that I realised was on the spectrum was an overheard conversation whilst being invisible in a classroom during an English lesson.

The teacher put us into different seats so that we weren’t sitting next to our mates. Seeing as my mates in the class totalled 4, at most, it was the luck of the draw that I was going to get one of “them”. I mean the trouble ones. As previously mentioned, a state school gives you three things when graduating that you use in the real life – awareness of the nutter-eyes that will save your skin in pubs, homophobic insults that will give you a thick skin, and the ability to bluff your way through any exchange, be it with a teacher or a pupil.

I was sitting next to three girls who colluded together to gossip even when they were from different social circles. Overhearing this whilst studiously pretending to be reading some bullshit poetry my eyes were opened.

“You fancy Craig?”
“Yeah”
“He’s a pure dick mind?”
“Aye, but he’s funny though”
“Nah, you should fancy someone hot or good a football or something”
“No, that’s not what I fancy. Someone like… Mark or that, who’s funny but quiet.”
Pause.
“Hoi, did you hear that Shieldsy?
“…SPLUTTER AHEM COUGH…”
“Hahahaha”

At this point I’d like to use this: :( Anyway, it was a watershed moment. The girls knew who I was and suddenly I realised that anyone notices you to an extent and even if you have no hope of a good opinion, people having any type of opinion is better than none. Not to blow my own trumpet or anything, but I had a few “girlfriends” at high school, where dates amounted to little more than hanging out and maybe once or twice going to the cinema. Oh how times have changed… ahem.

But this fear of invisibility returns in older age, not about girls, but about managers. I am certain that one of my “bosses” doesn’t even know what colour my skin is, never mind how ginger my beard has become. Nor did I think that anyone knew what I wanted to do, but it would appear that some people do know who I am. In the office invisibility breeds in my job, as we rarely talk to many other disciplines in good circumstance – probably when they’re using our lack of delivery as an excuse for their lack of delivery, even if it’s true or not. Those bastards.

Sometimes, in my quieter moments, I wonder why sometimes people can’t see what lies directly in front of them, in plain sight. It’s frustrating to say the least that, no matter how often you think that maybe it’s bleedingly obvious, they keep ignoring the facts presented to them or laid out in front of them. I wonder why people have this blindside to the answer or the brain signal that allows them to just turn away from the correct path.

A certain type of invisibility I suppose.

On My Recent Travels

Last year I travelled to Sheffield to help out with the recruitment process for the company that I work for, enticing these new graduates into the company for them to be better at their job than I am, but for me to be able to “manage” them in the way that I am managed myself. This sometimes feels like preaching to the converted – the very pretty and lovely Filipino girl that I talked to for around 20 minutes already knew about our company and probably was already going to apply for it, so talking to me, fumbling and stumbling over each word and sentence awkwardly as the longer I looked at her I realised she was very very pretty, utterly sweet, and actually flirting back with me... that might have put her off moving to Aberdeen.

The preferred method of transport to these far flung places is by air and this means that I have to go through the scanners and be searched by men regularly. I packed only a hand luggage bag, remembering to buy a mini sized toothpaste tube (that I left in Sheffield) and not to pack any shampoo, crossing my fingers that the hotels would remember to give me such items.

I needn’t have worried – I was put up in the pretty nice Thistle in Newcastle, but was amazed at being put up in the Hilton in Sheffield. Two double beds? Why thank you, that’ll do nicely. £3.95 for a bottle of water...? No, not at all, thank you very much.

In the days leading up to Sheffield though some things slotted together that reminded me that fate likes to play silly buggers with me. Recently, as far back as the spring, I have slowly been loving Fleetwood Mac, as their rank in my favourite bands creeps slowly into the top 5. There they reside at the moment, buoyed by the stunning trio of albums of Fleetwood Mac – Rumours – Tusk, and the blues explosion earlier material.

Last week a man that I work alongside sent an email round explaining that he had tickets to see the band play Glasgow, dates that I had missed out on completely. I couldn’t afford them, as they were going for a premium. Gutted to say the least, sick to the stomach in reality. So, it was all forgotten – I just soothed the pain with this Spotify playlist.

Arriving in Sheffield after listening to Fleetwood Mac on the train from Manchester, we went to check in. There was several sparkly dressed ladies looking rather lovely in the lobby asking for a taxi to the Sheffield Arena.

To go and see Fleetwood Mac. I was disgusted at fate giving me such ample chance to see them again, but pulling it out from under me once more. Then, to rub salt into the wound, whilst I was eating dinner with Jane, the played several of Fleetwood’s hits. This is me shaking my fist towards the ceiling, Mr Fate, you utter bastard.

These little jaunts remind me of how easy flying is when it’s not to the USA or further a field, as I was not once asked for my passport at any of the check in areas, as they were all done online. Domestic flights really don’t need them. Luckily, to be honest, as the company misspelled my name on every document, preferring the non-rule adhering Sheilds variant of my name.

The more I fly the more scared I get of it. I directly blame going offshore for this: wearing the survival suit and the life jacket that I wear, and then not wearing it on a plane. There’s something unsettling about that.