As if my workload at this time of year wasn't hard enough, I have set myself an extra challenge this December - write a blog every day between now and Christmas day. A sort of blog-vent calendar, if you will, of my inane ramblings leading up to that most wonderful of things, my day off!


I don't think it is going to be particularly easy and I don't think the quality is going to be particularly consistent, but these concerns are of little consequence to me. The objective is to force myself, come what may, to jot down some thoughts and opinions on a daily basis, even when I don't want to. Especially when I don't want to. As much an exercise in self discipline as it is in creativity.


The concept of having a regime is not a new one for me. I have been fighting my lack of self discipline for a good couple of years now in an effort to get/keep fit with a combination of activities and with varying degrees of success. The fact is, fitness is its own reward and exercise does actually make me feel good both mentally and physically. You would think, therefore, that it would be relatively easy to pursue a fitness regime. That, after an initial period where you struggle to establish a routine, you would think it would be easy. It would become habit and you would carry it out without much thought or motivation.


You would be wrong. At least in my case.


I have yet to pin down exactly why something that you know on a rational level is good for you, i.e. exercise, that makes you feel good, boosts your energy levels, makes you more mentally alert, etc, etc is so difficult to keep up whereas a bad habit, e.g. eating junk food, which is almost exactly the opposite (makes you feel rough, depletes your energy levels, etc, etc) is so difficult to give up.


I suspect that it has something to do with the effort involved. Ordering a pizza, opening a bottle of wine or lighting a cigarette are all pretty straight forward and require the minimum of planning and effort. Yes, occasionally it might involve an impromptu trip to the corner shop but somehow these extra efforts never seem an inconvenience. Not when compared to having to get up fifteen minutes earlier to squeeze in a quick morning workout, or cycling to work in the lashing rain.

I suppose everybody is different. I know people who are more or less addicted to exercise and for whom the idea of polluting their biology with booze, nicotine or other evils is absolute anathema. I'm sure they have no trouble at all in avoiding the pitfalls of these temptations. Not so for yours truly. There's the rub right there. That little mischievous demon inside enjoys all the things that are bad for me.

A case in point was my realisation a couple of years ago that I had an intolerance to lactose. Rather unfortunate given my love of dairy, cheese in particular. Sparing you all the gory details the physical effects of dairy on my system are an unpleasant irritation. Yet somehow I cannot bring myself to completely give up on it! I know eating cheese, or ice cream or something similar will result in unnecessary physical discomfort, but I can't seem to help myself.

Weak willed? Perhaps. I suppose we shall see over the next 23 days....

Things that go bump in the night.....

Horror movies. I love 'em. It's rare for me to be genuinely scared by one, granted, but I love them nonetheless. From the camp shennanigans of Hammer films to extreme Asian torture porn and everything inbetween I always have time for a decent horror flick. I've always been particularly fond of films that use a subtle build up of atmoshpere and mood to freak out the viewer rather than relying on carnival ghost train shocks and gore. The original 1963 version of The Haunting, The Wicker Man, The Exorcist even The Texas Chainsaw Massacre all use this concept to varying degrees in order to terrorise the viewer, manipulating your imagination to make you feel like you've witnessed more than you have and set you up for the real shocks by building your sense of foreboding.

So it was then, that the thought of a film based around a couple who set up a video camera in their home in order to get to the bottom of strange noises and phenomena appealed to me. The critical and public opinion of the film all supported the notion it was a tense and terrifying experience. Despite my reservations about "found footage" horror films (due largely to the somewhat annoying Blair Witch Project) I finally decided it was time I watched Paranormal Activity to see what the fuss was all about. If you haven't seen it already it's only fair to warn you that there are spoilers ahead. If indeed it is possible to spoil the film more than it's makers managed to do!

Being naturally sceptical and a rational thinker it takes a lot for a film to scare me. It has been done in the past. I remember watching the original Japanese version of The Ring when it just came out (it was on VHS!!) and it freaking me out, largely due to the creepy, surreal atmospherics and perfect timing on the shocks. The walk home afterwards, from my friend's house to my own house in the dark, was taken at a slightly quicker pace than normal. The lights went on as quickly as possible when I got in. Not because I thought a dead Japanese schoolgirl was going to leap out of my telly and kill me but because my buttons had been pushed and my senses and imagination were tingling.

With this in mind I thought I would give Paranormal Activity every possible advantage. I (contrary to the advice on the cover) watched it alone. Lights down, volume up. Due to recent developments in my life I was also at the most physically and emotionally strained I have been in a while. I tried to clear my mind of any reservations I had and resolved myself to approaching it with an open mind. Then and only then did I press play.

It started sort of promisingly. Already experiencing some strange occurences the guy (Micah) has purchased a high end video camera, planning on recording them during the night to establish the cause. He is the sceptic. The girl (Katie) is the believer. She has suffered from paranormal disturbances since she was a little girl. There is a bit of backstory about her old house burning down under mysterious circumstances. The scene is pretty much set. It's worth pointing out all of this is told via the couple's video camera in a Blair Witch style. Herein lies one of the films main flaws, more on this later.

Initially the buildup is slow. A couple of weird noises. A lot of "did you hear that" moments. A door moving "by itself". Footsteps. You get the idea. Katie wants to phone a demonologist for advice. Micah wants to be a man and get to the bottom of it himself. He uses the phrase "I've done some research" about a million times in this film. His scepticism is understandable. After all there are perfectly reasonable explanations for strange noises and wobbly doors. This leads to some tension between the couple. Quite early on they were warned by a psychic that negative energy can make it worse. He also told them under no circumstances use a Ouija baord in the house. Can you guess what's coming?

Now quite how a Victorian parlour game is supposed to act as an invitation to a demonic entity is a little bit beyond my reasoning but its a horror film so lets roll with it. It was good enough for The Exorcist so I'll let it slide. Micah tries the Ouija board (or Weegee board as he calls it) against Katies wishes and gets nothing from it. He coincidentally leaves the camera recording the board as the pair go on a night out. While they are out the cursor moves about on the board and then spontaneously combusts. This is the first conclusive evidence that there is something genuinely supernatural going on. Frankly its evidence that something pretty malevolent and supernatural is going on. Micah's response? "This is cool, I'm gonna do some research!"

And so it goes on. Talc on the floor reveals demonic footprints (all caught on camera), these lead them to a charred photo of Katie as a child believed burned to ash 15 years prior. Crashing and banging, doors slamming, photos being damaged. It's all pretty conclusive. Even I, a hardcore dyed in the wool sceptic, would be prepared to accept that something pretty scary was going on and professional help was required. I'd phone the demonologist myself. Not Micah. With his "Research! Research! Research!" refrain he soldiers on.

This is where the film lost my support. I had imagined a slow burning story with the various disturbances growing in intensity as the film unfolded but remaining ambiguous, the lack of real evidence leaving Katie and Micah at odds. Him thinking her insane, her losing her trust and faith in him. This could intensify right up to a shocking finale and give everyone a good fright. I've always found the collapse of people's mental state the most effective form of horror. As soon as the film shows a genuinely inexplicable demonic event (pretty much the burning Ouija board) it tips it's hand and ruins the tension. Here is the limitation of the found footage format. An hour and a half of banging and groaning would be dull as dishwater in this context. Once there was a definitive demonic presence my inner sceptic scoffed and my suspension of disbelief was destroyed.

The atmosphere is shattered completely by the "dragging down the hall" scene, where Katie is yanked out of bed by an invisible force and dragged down the hall, much to everyone's consternation. Left terrified and with a vicious bite mark on her back (which is clearly demonic in origin - I would have made it look more human and put it on her arm or something, again for ambiguity) what should be a tense moment of desperate terror on the behalf of the couple just shatters the illusion even more. "I'll do more research" says Micah. Yeah, 'cause that worked.

Then of course is the ending. Now, the DVD has two endings, the one from the theatrical cut and an "alternative" (read as "original") ending that I believe they were made to change at the behest of Steven Spielberg no less. The theatrical cut ending is a complete and total joke. Katie, intent on leaving the house moments earlier, calms down and decides she wants to stay. She does a demon voice to indicate that she is now in the thrall of the spirit (in case the sudden change of plan and demeanour didn't give it away). During the night, Katie gets out of bed and spends some time watching Micah sleep. She goes downstairs and out of sight she screams a terrifying scream. Woken abruptly by this Micah runs downstairs to help her. There's more screaming and shouting and they reappear at the bedroom door. Micah is flung (by Katie) with supernatural strength at the camera which falls over. She then crawls over to the camera and undergoes a "surprising", "horrifying", "shocking" transformation into a demon faced woman before everything goes black. There is a shit postscript message on screen about Micah's body being found by police and Katie never being seen again.

It is seriously on a par with those crap internet things that have an image or video clip and they go "watch for the ghostly shape at the window" and after a little while there's a jump cut to a scream and a scary face. It completely dissipates any sinister atmosphere that remains. Laughable doesn't cover it.

The original ending is far superior (although it still has the stupid demon voice, WHY?!). It is more or less the same up until the point when Micah runs downstairs to help Katie. After the screaming and shouting all goes quiet until Katie appears at the bedroom door covered in blood and holding a kitchen knife. She walks up to the camera and cuts her own throat. Cut to black.
Much more sinister. The look in her eyes as she ends her own life is rather chilling and this scenario fits much better with a concept of ambiguity between paranormal or psychological.

In short, I've done scarier farts. For it to have worked properly it would have to proceed as follows: The start is fine, we join the couple after they have started to experience the weird goings on. Micah the sceptic is determined to disprove a supernatural cause, Katie is convinced due to her past that she is being haunted by something. As the phenomena increase in intensity the relationship between them disintegrates, Micah increasingly convinced she is to blame and her increasingly enraged by his disbelief. Keep the psychic in, his support for Katie's viewpoint being a source of tension between them as Micah writes him off as a charlatan. As the film continues their nerves are shredded by tiredness and arguments and stress. Lose the demon voice but keep the original ending. Avoid any explicitly supernatural occurences. Certainly ditch the "found footage" style, although keep it as an element as Micah fruitlessly attempts to catch something on camera. Build the tension over 80 minutes and then batter the audience with the gruesome conclusion. The ambiguity adds to the horror as you can't be sure whether a demon is at work or a disturbed person. That means it could happen to you and that makes it scarier.

I think the one thing that is definitely true is that you shouldn't watch it alone. I would imagine I would have got more out of the experience had I seen it in the cinema. There are fewer more powerful factors in being scared than group hysteria. A cinemaload of people sitting there, not breathing, jumping at the shocks, covering their eyes, etc, etc can add to your own personal tension and heighten the experience. Having said that I would probably have been laughing too hard at them for it to have an effect.

Anyway. Rant over. If you have seen it and agree or disagree I'd be interested to hear your opinions. If you haven't seen it and read on past the spoiler alert anyway then congratulations, you've just saved yourself a lot of time and energy. Go watch The Haunting instead.

Just the facts.....

Fact: (n.) 1. Knowledge or information based on real occurences. 2. Something demonstrated to exist or known to have existed.

These definitions of the word fact are the definitions I personally have been familiar with since I learned the word. The exact time I became educated in the concept of "facts" is lost to me in the hazy mist of half recollection but I know for certain (or for a fact if you prefer) that I've known about what constitutes a fact for more than two decades.

I'm also aware it is a word misused and abused regularly by people trying to add weight to a flimsy argument by mindlessly and arbitrarily using it in conjunction with half baked, groundless notions frequently gleaned from tabloid newspapers. Phrases such as "The fact is, immigrants are coming over here, stealing our jobs and defrauding our benefits system." are commonplace in such arguments and are a blatant misappropriation of the term. The fact is, you read some nonsense in a tabloid and assumed it to be true before regurgitating it as your own opinion at a later junction to make people think you are informed.

Never before today, however, have I experienced such a grotesquely blatant abuse of the word fact.

If you live in the Inverness area then there is a high probability you have a copy of the 100th edition of that free publication of dubious quality, the ICA. If you do, lay it face down on a stable level surface then (including the back cover) turn four pages. This should leave you looking at a full page advert (handily this is pointed out at the top of the page for those who would mistake it for journalism) entitled "Facts are Stubborn Things".

Now, there is a good chance you don't have a copy of the 100th issue of the ICA or that you no longer have it as you have used it in lieu of toilet paper or otherwise disposed of it in a careful manner. Fear not, for I will summarise said advert for the benefit of critical analysis. Brace yourselves, we are in for a bumpy ride.

"WAR is a fact." This is the proud proclamation of paragraph one (under a photograph of a lady with her fingers in her ears). "You can doubt, disbelieve and deny there were world wars but the thousands of crosses spotting the cemeteries of the world cry out these were wars. Facts are stubborn things."

Fair enough. Almost. You can doubt, disbelieve and deny there were world wars but the thousands of first hand accounts, pages and pages of documentary evidence, photographs, film and so on proves that they took place. I would say substantially more so than the "crosses" (what about the non-christian casualties?) "spotting" cemeteries. War is a fact though. Or more accurately there were two world wars is a fact. It's a bit of a general statement otherwise. I'm tempted to let them off.

Having been forced to more or less agree with this assertion we move on to paragraph two where we are invited to ponder on the next statement.

"GOD is a fact." Uh oh. "If you were to find an expensive watch lying on the ground, you would not say it just happened. No, it is too intricate; it had to have an intelligent maker. This world is too intricate and complicated to have just happened. God is its Maker, not a "big bang". Admit this fact to yourself - for facts are stubborn things."

Now see what they did there? They read something in a tabloid (in this case The Bible) and because they believe it to be true they are running around asserting it as a fact. The fact (and it is a fact) that the world seems a bit complicated to us is clearly not evidence of any kind that there is an omnipotent universal designer. The evidence they cite? The Bible. A compiled collection of books, written by human beings over a long period of time, translated, re-translated, edited, adapted, confused and corrupted (all of these are actual facts), not to mention the fact that it is incomplete as there are volumes of scripture that are not included in the "official" canon for whatever reason, the most likely theory being they contradict the aims of organised Christianity and so are deemed heretical. See how I said theory when I was suggesting a possibility as opposed to stating a fact.

There are more paragraphs of more drivel wrongly defined as facts. My favourite is the paragraph "HELL is a fact". The evidence that proves there is actually and actual hell (and a fiery, brimstoney one at that)? "All reason and revelation says men like Hitler did not get their just punishment here. Surely these will not get the same fate after this life as the godly, holy people who accept the Saviour and live for Him."

What?! So, there must be a Hell because otherwise where did Hitler go when he died? Clearly my scepticism has been misplaced. How in the face of such concrete evidence and potent logic can I argue against the existence of Hell? Well for one thing there's the fact that according to Christians God forgives everyone their sins so Hitler wouldn't be in Hell would he, he would be in Heaven. "All reason says.." All reason says Hitler was a bad man, possibly mentally ill, definitely maladjusted and riddled with psychological issues.

I hate it when evangelical Christians appropriate the language of science and reason and apply it to concepts where it doesn't belong. There is a gargantuan gulf between believing something to be true and something actually being true. Fair enough, believe in fairies, but don't bandy around terms like fact and reason and truth when you lack the evidence to prove your so-called facts and truths.

"You can doubt, disbelieve and deny these facts, but that doesn't make them any less true." That's how the "article" ends.

I might be crazy but I'm pretty sure we have an Advertising Standards agency in this country. I feel obligated to investigate if this advert breaches their standards. I'm appalled at the fact the ICA feel it is acceptable to print an advert like this. I'm sure they saw only the amount on the cheque (they don't seem to bother proof reading or fact checking anything else they publish) and didn't stop to consider the content, but when you are producing something that is going to be stuffed through unsuspecting citizens letter boxes you have a responsibility to ensure you are sending accurate unsolicited information into their homes.

As you may have guessed I am not happy about this at all. Between this and the Pope's recent comments on his "state visit" I'm pretty riled up. I am sick to death of getting nonsensical propaganda through my front door from these sorts of groups and so I intend to pursue every avenue open to me to make it more difficult, if not impossible, for them to do so in the future. I encourage you all to do the same. I used to be of a more "live and let live" mindset but I have had enough. I'm not taking it anymore.

The organisation responsible for this is the Culloden Gospel Hall. Their website is: www.cullodengospellhall.com and their address is Culloden Gospel Hall, Keppoch Road, Culloden, Inverness.

I'm not talking hate mail, or anything illegal mind. I was thinking more complaints to the ASA and ICA, stern letters to the organisation, peaceful protests, that sort of thing. I doubt it will make any difference to the blind idiocy of these people but we owe it to ourselves, each other and them to try.

Rant over.

Are you being served?

Idiotic idea number 43: The Self Service Checkout.


It's a phenomenon that contributed to my absolute hatred of Tesco. Abolish the 10 items or less checkouts, replace them with self service ones and save a ton of money by employing less cashiers on your supermarket checkouts.


It's supposed to be convenient. It's supposed to minimise fuss and queues. That's the evil lie that they spin to propagandise us all into using them. The simple truth is it serves only two purposes - reduce the cost to the business of employing checkout operators and increase their margins on their products as this has a pre-figured element to account for the wages of the employee scanning it through the till for you. It's some scam I tell ya.


My issues with this are manifold. First off the bat, I spend my days serving other people in shops. This automatically predisposes me to resent having to put my own shopping through the till. Especially as I get paid to do it at work but am actually paying the supermarket to put my own shopping through the till. Highly offensive. In fact this is probably my biggest complaint about the whole charade. If I got a couple of percent off the cost of my shopping for doing it I would be quite happy to rattle it through myself, in fact I would go out of my way to do so, but at the back of my mind is the thought that by doing the retailer's job for them not only am I saving them money but I'm working for free.

Furthermore, it's not any quicker. Have you ever used one? I'm pretty quick on a till. I should be, I've been using the damn things for half my life (that's 15 years by the way) and take great pride in my transactions per minute. Setting modesty aside for a moment I am a till operating weapon. So you would think that putting my own shopping would be a breeze right? Right? Wrong.

The technology is a little bit hit and miss. Things don't always register properly. "Unrecognised item in the bagging area" messages became incendiary incitements to riot after the third or fourth one. It's not like a machine can deliberately accuse you of stealing but accuse you it does. Then you have to wait to get security tags removed, get your age verified for various products and before you know it you would have been better waiting in the massive queue for the proper checkouts. Happy days. Oh yeah, and don't forget this is technically costing you more money.

These are the obstacles facing the seasoned till operator. These are insignificant compared to the challenges facing the novice.

Today I observed a woman spend a whole minute and a half scanning the price label on the front of a dvd over the laser beam before she realised that she would have to scan the barcode. There is a strong argument to suggest she failed to exercise the most basic of common sense but I find it difficult to lay the blame entirely at her door. After all, she is paying for a professional to carry out this task for her, a task she clearly lacked the experience to perform efficiently. Instead she has been coerced into taking on the responsibility herself. Having worked with the public for a very long time I am extremely aware that a lot of people are intimidated by what seem on the face of it very straightforward and simple things and so for some the process of scanning their own shopping is less of a new and enticing way to shop and more of a Guantanamo style exercise in torture. I know I'd rather be waterboarded for an afternoon than stand in a queue behind six or seven untrained, inexperienced civilians fumbling with a self service checkout. At least it would be over more quickly.

It's all just so frustrating. We used to be a nation of shop keepers. We used to understand and appreciate service. Within the next ten years we will be a nation of vending machines. I suspect part of the problem is that people think they know better these days. The don't think they need expert knowledge. They have access to Google. That's all you need after all. Wikipedia holds the answers. Who needs a decade and a half of experience in a particular field. Just look it up on the internet. This is a particular issue in the frequently underestimated field of retail. Yes it is technically a very simple job. But it is made more complex by the vast array of human responses to the slightest of stimuli. There are subtleties and nuances in customer service. There are judgement calls you have to make and can only really make with a deep enough back catalogue of similar scenarios to call upon.

Machines cannot do this. They have to treat everybody the same. It's in their programming. They can't tell if you are an accomplished till operator or a total novice. They don't care. They can't work from an opening gambit of "I heard this song the other day I can't remember what it was called do you have it?" to a completed sale of the exact song the customer was looking for. Behind every till there should be a skilled operator. If there was a viable third choice of supermarket in Inverness, I would be using it right now on the condition that they didn't have self service checkouts.

It's just not right.

I love it when a plan comes together....

In 1972 a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a high security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the A-Team.

Few paragraphs evoke such happy childhood memories as these words. As the military drum beat kicks in and that legendary theme swells, I am instantly transported back to Sunday afternoons at my grannies house, watching the A-Team and Monkey (not "Monkey Magic" as it is irritatingly and very incorrectly called by some people). Happy, happy times.

It's one of the few tv shows from my childhood than I can actually watch now. Oddly enough Monkey is another, but when I try and watch say, Manimal, Airwolf, Knight Rider, Streethawk or any of their contemporaries I'm generally slightly appalled that I used to watch them. They are frequently tragically bad in almost every respect to the point that even nostalgia can't save them.

For some reason the A-Team has endured the ravages of time. Even as I type this I have season 4 on DVD playing in the background. It's an episode I've seen before and follows the standard formula that every episode (more or less) of the A-Team follows. It should feel boring and pointless and predictable but somehow it doesn't. But why? Can it simply be that my fond familiarity with it cushions me from all the things I should hate about it? Is it just that the warmth of my memories for it are enough to negate it's bad points?

Surely not. I am after all a cold, emotionless machine driven by logic and reason! So there must be more to it.

Firstly the formula is a good one. The setup, bad things happening to good people. No one else can help them so they seek out and retain the A-Team, followed by the first encounter between the team and the bad guys so Hannibal can formulate a convoluted and usually effective plan. The one or more of them are captured, they improvise their escape and soundly whip the baddies, deftly sidestepping the military police who always just narrowly miss the opportunity to capture them. Yeah it's a bit corny, yeah it's a bit predictable, but it's a very satisfying configuration.

At it's heart is a good versus evil conflict where the good prevail. Hannibal and Co. are considered outlaws but in the Robin Hood tradition, standing up for the weak and defenceless in the face of the corrupt powerbase in society. Hannibal particularly is driven by a moral compass that knows little equal and will eschew payment for the team's services if it means they get the opportunity to stick it to the villains. His sense of justice is not limited by man's laws but by an instinct for what is right. He shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness and likes nothing more than to see a bully get his dues.

Criticised for being too violent the makers took great pains to ensure nobody actually gets hurt. The A-Team never kill anyone. Clearly a sidestep to avoid the censors it fits nicely with the A-Team's style. They aren't criminals and aren't interested in murder. Hannibal's love of "The Jazz*" dictates that simply killing his enemy (despite numerous threats of his intention to put slime balls in the ground) is too easy and far too dull. Much more satisfying is the challenge of playing them at their own game and bringing them down for the forces of law and order to deal with. If they nearly get captured by the authorities in the process all the better. That Hannibal. He looooves The Jazz.

For what is essentially pulp tv the writing is surprisingly good. Yes, there are the spectacularly mental episodes (Cowboy George anyone?) but the consistent relationship between the team members is masterful. It's the sort of male bonding experience that Kathryn Bigelow could only ever dream of realising. You get precious little of their back story but you know they all served together in 'Nam, they all got set up together and they all have nobody else to rely on but each other. Brothers in arms in the face of adversity. It's the same dynamic that makes the like of Lethal Weapon succesful and it is no less succesful here. Loyalty is the order of the day. No matter what life throws at the A-Team, they can always rely on each other.

The other great key to the shows success is quite simple. Everybody loves a montage. Especially one in which four guys take some hay bales, a welding torch and miscellaneous scrap that they find lying around and turn it into an armoured assault vehicle. Sure, sometimes they end up with a vaguely peculiar contraption (such as a cabbage cannon, honestly) but it's always satisfying to see those barn doors fly open at the behest of an armoured agricultural machine rolling eagerly out to punish those who would prey on the weak and defenceless.

So anyway, I love the A-Team. The fifth season went a bit mental, with Robert Vaughn pulling their strings in return for a pardon and the weird little special effects come CIA agent being added to the mix, but it's still very satisfying to watch. Tongue in cheek and yet sincere where it needs to be and brimming with a timeless heroism. I recommend it to everyone and feel very, very ambivalent towards the film (casting being my main issue - George Peppard is absolutely irreplaceable as Hannibal, Tommy Lee Jones may have been able to pull it off when he was younger but not now) but will probably watch it anyway just to see. Iconic to the last - the van, the catchphrases (I love it when a plan comes together!) it's deeply satisfying formula - all of these have embedded themselves in our collective popular culture consciousness. I find it difficult to fault.

All hail the A-Team!

*"The Jazz" has nothing to do with the musical style and everything to do with the thrill of the chase. Hannibal is well documented as loving The Jazz and never takes the simple quiet course of action when he can stir up a hornet's nest of danger to keep things interesting. Usually it involves the attentions of a couple of carloads of MP's intent on sending them back to jail.

Hail To The Chiefs

Well there we have it. Mere weeks to go until our Presidential election and the candidates have gone and had their debate and everyone is talking about it.

Who do I think won? I don't know, I didn't watch it. Not because I'm not interested in politics or what the political parties have to say. No, I didn't watch it because I'm not an American and we aren't electing a President. We are (last time I checked) voting for somebody to represent our localised section of the community in our national parliament who will voice our views and concerns either as part of or in opposition to the government.

Things I'm not voting for:

The party leader I'd most like to kiss (according to a poll I've seen it's David Cameron).

The party leader who talks the best in a group on telly. (I'm assured it's Nick Clegg).

Well any party leader really. As recent history shows you aren't necessarily going to get the party leader you vote for. From Tony to Gordon without a single vote cast (in this instance not necessarily a bad thing) suggests that who's in charge today is not necessarily who will rule the roost for the next few years.

I'm not sure but I think it's the Tories that have turned this into an issue of personality over politics. Who can blame them? The X-Factor, Big Brother and Heat magazine have taught them well. Why have substance and worth when you can have fake tan and a stylist?

For the record based on the available evidence I would say Clegg talks the talk, Brown walks the walk and Cameron is a reprehensible twat. Give me hard working, driven and experienced over posh and smug any day of the week.

I must confess the thought of a Conservative government gives me the fear. I can't believe they will do anything but coddle their rich chums at the expense of the rest of us. It's what they do. Any suggestion of change is laughable at best and definitely downright suspicious.

My recent encounters with politicians have taught me a lot. You can agree with a politician without agreeing with his party politics. The value is in being represented by someone who will grind your axe in parliament, ask the difficult questions and stick to their guns. Someone who won't be swayed by how it looks to his party or the media.

Don't ask me who that is. I thought I had decided on my vote but now I'm not so sure. I need to examine closely my local candidates and try to fathom who is the best person for the job. The only things I'm really certain of are I won't be vting Tory or BNP.

The most vital thing anyone can do is not believe they are protesting or changing anything by not voting. True the events of the last couple of years have disillusioned everyone about the worth of parliament and politicians but don't let that put you off. I guarantee you the Tory and BNP supporters will vote.

If you don't vote I better not hear you complain about the government after the next election.
And we are living in a right wing utopia it will be your fault.

Fear is the mind killer.....

What are you most afraid of? It's spiders right? Or maybe clowns?

The range of things that strike fear into people's hearts is vast, as vast in fact as the range of things there are in the world. Some of these are pretty reasonable on the face of it - take Atomosophobia for example - the fear of atomic explosions. It's perfectly understandable to be afraid of atmoic explosions, they are pretty scary. The issue arises if you spend your time worrying about the possibility of an atomic explosion on a daily basis.

By far the most irritating phobia I have ever encountered is Decidophobia, the fear of making decisions.

Making a decision is a simple act. A quick assessment of the situation, a moment's thought on potential outcomes then decide what you want to do. It's easy. Honestly. Consider your day to day life. Consider the millions upon millions of tiny decisions you make moment to moment, mostly without even thinking about it. It's built into our psyche to reflexively decide on a course of action. Not necessarily always the best course of action, but a course of action nonetheless.

Why then do so many people find it so difficult to make the simplest of decisions?

I'm fairly certain it is down to a fear of having to take responsibility (Hypengyophobia, Phobia fans!) for their decisions. Nobody wants to take the blame for anything. The buck gets passed from pillar to post and nothing actually gets achieved. I have no doubt that Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan had no problem at all in making decisions and indeed were probably quite happy to answer for the consequences of their decision making. Achieved rather a lot between them methinks.

Don't get me wrong, there are some decisions you wouldn't want to make lightly. Depending on the context you could quite literally be taking a life or death decision with far reaching consequences for you or for other people. These will obviously be more difficult to make although crisis decision making frequently offers less time to ponder than you would hope for, the pressure often forcing your hand and making the process easier.

My point, quite simply, is this: make a decision. If somebody asks you a straightfoward question, give them a straightforward answer. Getting it wrong is (probably) not going to kill you. Get a spine, feel the fear and do it anyway.

Otherwise we will never get anything done.

Pulling a half G on the Andygraph!

Now, as anyone who knows me knows, I like a drink. I've had a mixed relationship with alcohol over the years but consider myself on fairly friendly terms with the stuff these days. It's only comparatively recently however that I have discovered the joys of drinking wine.

I'd always considered wine to be a bit too middle class for the likes of me, put off by the snobbery and elitism that surrounds it. I just want a drink that tastes nice, I don't really want to dissect the experience.

It's not that I have anything against people that do, that's their choice and I understand perfectly the desire to analyse and evangelise something that you love. Just try to have a conversation with me about films. It's just something I haven't the inclination to care too deeply about.

Wine snobs are insufferable. Who cares what the soil conditions were like when the grapes were growing or which region is famed for what? The only thing I worry about with wine is if it's nice to drink or not. That's why I invented the Andygraph.

The simple fact of the matter is this. All wine eventually tastes good if you drink enough of it. Regardless of how much like antifreeze it tastes, after enough of it you will not only no longer notice it's bad but will start to genuinely believe it's good. Some people might try to deny this but the fact remains that if you persevere with enough quantity of any wine of any calibre I guarantee you it will eventually seem very drinkable. This is where the Andygraph comes in.

The premise is simple. Using a 125ml glass as the basic unit (or one "G") the Andygraph measures the precise number of G's you have to consume before the wine can officially be called drinkable. The finest of fine wines should be a big fat zero on the Andygraph, tasting like the elixir of the gods from the first sip. In a real world example, the Canarian red wine I was drinking on holiday (that they kept in the fridge!) was hitting around 6 or 7 G's on the Andygraph. It is possible after the initial tasting to estimate a wine at a high G rating only to discover that it is several G's lower on the Andygraph than originally predicted but it is impossible for the reverse to be true.

It's on responsible to point out that the Andygraph is a bit like flying a fighter jet - pull too many G's and it's highly likely you will lose consciousness and suffer potentially permanent damage. Caution is recommended!

The pure joy of this system of rating wine is that it requires no specialist knowledge, no years of research into wine making and the effects of various factors on it's flavour. All you need is a bottle of wine and some tastebuds. It's other great benefit is that it is transferable to other varieties of alcoholic beverages. The next step for me is to research the effects of food on the G rating of wine and try to incorporate this into the Andygraph. It'll be hard work I'm sure, drinking a variety of wines in combination with a broad selection of fine foods, but I think I'm up to the task.

Better run through the jungle....

There you are, coiled in the shadow of a wooden barricade, breath heavy behind your facemask, enemy fire pouring in over your head. You peer through the cracks between the planks of the bunker, desperately trying to pinpoint your foes while your heart beats a frantic tattoo in your ears.

Hopelessly pinned down, you pick your moment, popping up and letting loose a rapid volley of shots before throwing yourself back to the safety of cover. You had just enough time to see the enemy take a round straight between the eyes.

The cry goes up, "Player eliminated!" But there's no time to get cocky because the rest of them are still out there and the fire is still coming in thick and fast. And let me tell you, it feels good.

It's difficult for me to pin down precisely why I find rolling around in a forest, with a gun, trying to shoot people quite so much fun.

There's a definite regression to the games of 'war' I played in my youth. Crawling through the fields behind my grannies house in Dalneigh, down by the canal, commandos on a mission and then the inevitable squabble over who shot who first. Not an issue when you have visible impacts and referees.

But there is more to it than that.

It's not just a guy thing either, an excuse for us to let off some testosterone induced steam and establish extreme alpha male-ness
over our social group. There are plenty of ladies who enjoy the experience and get just as into it as the guys. In fact I find the notion of it as the preserve of Mike-From-Spaced or the Off Roaders from the Fast Show types as grossly offensive. Admittedly some paintball venues don't do much to dispel this wannabe-TA myth.

It's strategic. You have to think about your next move, you need to plan. To achieve that you need to cooperate as a team. The satisfaction of seeing your plan unfold, Hannibal Smith style, as the game progresses is difficult to beat.

The joy of working in a squad, firing and moving to outflank an entrenched opponent, should really be experienced by everyone. A testament to how the power of a group of like minded people with a common goal will easily eclipse that of the individual.

Teamwork is essential. That doesn't mean there aren't opportunities for individual brilliance or inspiration. Desperate acts of heroism or flashes of tactical inspiration can turn the tide of games and provide plenty of fat to chew over later in the post battle buzz.

Then of course there's the competitive nature of the sport. This is possibly what puts people off it but to me is one of the attractions. It's less about winning or losing for me and a lot more about doing either with class, style and a sense of humour. I like banter and between matches, as the rivalry increases, you get plenty, even if most of mine is lifted straight out of war movies.

It's all just so much fun!

The biggest factor that puts people off is probably the idea of the pain you will inevitably suffer when you get hit. It's true it does hurt a bit when you take a hit but (depending on where you are hit) it's not that sore.

Also, because your adrenaline is up from all the running around and getting shot at, you don't feel it the same as you would normally. I have also found that how much pain you end up in is as dependent on the venue/organiser you choose as it is on how much and where you get hit. I find I'm usually in more pain from the exercise than the paintball hits!

Properly organised and controlled games should mean you don't get 'overshot' and end up black and blue and you actually have fun. Locally I've had the most fun at Wildwoodz Paintball near Tore (www.wildwoodzpaintball.co.uk).

Their emphasis is firmly on fun and fairplay and their customer service is outstanding.

Anyway my point is this: don't knock it 'til you've tried it. In fact, make the effort to try it at least once. If nothing else it's fantastic exercise and gets you out into the fresh air.

You never know, you might enjoy it.

A Couple O' Travelin Wilburys Man!

After 475 miles of driving, 229 tracks on my shuffled iPod and 5 days of meeting up with a total of 35 friends, some old some new, our East Coast road trip is finally over.

It's been a lot of fun. More fun than I anticipated especially given the amount of driving I had to do. Highlights include the trip to the Niddry Street Vaults in Edinburgh (see "Who You Gonna Call" in my previous blogs), what became a twelve hour pub marathon on Tuesday where we managed to catch up with 15 friends we hadn't seen in a long time and get a sit down, table service meal at four a.m. and meeting little Charlie, the latest addition to our good friends the Hendersons.

A big thank you to you all for making our week so much fun.

It wouldn't be a holiday for me though without some level of misadventure creeping in.

Navigation proved a bit fiddly. I zigged plenty of times when I should have zagged and while city to city was plain sailing, and even getting to people's houses where we were staying was relatively simple, additional travel was fraught with wrong turns, dead ends and a lot of frustration.

Unbelievably the worst example of this was in Elgin. The main road through the town was closed for some reason and the authorities, obviously quick to react to whatever had required the road to close, had been somewhat slower off the mark with their diversion signs. By that I mean there weren't any. Half an hour added to the journey. Thanks a bunch.

This was definitely nothing compared to the service provided by The Crown Hotel in Inverbervie, the accommodation we had chosen so as not to impose on our friends Scott and Jane who have two small children. The alarm bells were ringing when we got there and discovered, on a quick inspection of the room, pristine copies of what we can only assume were complimentary editions of Mayfair and Asian Babes. All very reasonable you might suppose until you realise you have been put in the family suite.

We quickly threw our bags in the room and headed for our friends in Johnshaven, just down the road, to enjoy a splendid evening of banter, one of the best takeaway curries I've ever had and a fine selection of whisky. Being a touch inebriated we called a cab and headed back to our hotel.

Imagine our surprise when we discovered our hotel had been locked up for the night. Despite having a front door key on the set of keys we had been given the door would not budge, clearly having been locked from the inside. We tried the doorbell and we tried phoning but to no avail. In the end we had to call the cab back and make an emergency landing on our friends floor. I was not amused.

In the morning I retrieved our bags from the room and tracked down the proprieter to explain why I wasn't going to be paying for it. "We never lock the door" she said. The conversation that followed was a little bizarre. "You just turn the handle and push" she told me. No? Really? Is that how doors work round here? I was expecting a Star Trek style automatic door that makes a swooshy noise. If only I'd tried that when I was stood out in the cold at half one in the morning.
"I'm not bothered that you couldn't use the room, I'm worried my door's not working properly" was another gem. She didn't have to sleep on a floor the previous night!
My suggestion that perhaps another guest might have put the catch on the lock was met by "everyone was bedded down by that time" despite the fact I hadn't told her what time we had come back. At that point I began to smell a rat, handed her the keys and left.

As redundant as it seems to say it I heartily recommend you never stay at The Crown Hotel Inverbervie!

That was the worst mishap that befell us this time in an otherwise fantastic week. Now it's a weekend of putting up shelves (thanks Ikea) and then back to work. Boo.

All Hope Abandon Ye Who Enter Here........

Ikea. No other word has the power to strike such terror in my heart. Unfortunately for me any trip with Barbara to Edinburgh comes with an unwritten rule that there will be an expedition to the towering temple of consumerist doom.

It's difficult, especially as a retailer, to legitimise the loathing I have for Ikea. I understand why people (mostly in my experience women) adore it. Yes, they have lots of well designed products (subjective). Yes, they are affordable (subjective). Yes, they are all available in one gargantuan warehouse environment (objective). All sounds good on paper but in practice, for me at any rate, shopping at Ikea is closer to eternity in the first circle of hell than the exciting and vibrant retail experience it is claimed by many to be.

Democracy through design I've heard it called. The reality is more like communism, the objective a subtly engendered conformity, herded round, doing the Dawn Of The Dead shuffle in the direction of the arrows past all of the wonderfully affordable, vibrant and exciting modular designs imported from Sweden. Most of it is nonsense but some of it is good. To get to the good stuff you have to get through an awful lot of nonsense.

But that isn't the end. If you survive the showroom, using the little pencils to note down all the product codes on the little pads and the accompanying bay numbers you have to head into the sinister market hall to get to the warehouse where you will finally collect your items.

Another maze of arrows and prescribed cattle flow leads you round past a cornucopia of cheap stuff that you really don't need. I don't think I've met anyone who has been to Ikea who doesn't have an unopened sack of 100 tealights somewhere in their home.

It's the sweets on the counter premise for grown ups on a massive scale and it is extremely effective. Even I find myself picking up items, thinking "this will come in handy" only to come to my senses in the nick of time. The worst part about this area of the store is you haven't even got what you wanted yet and they are already convincing you to buy more.

Finally you reach the warehouse and the stuff you actually came for in the first place. Picking your way through the racks you locate the necessary bays to collect the various flat packs required to assemble your oh-so-cleverly designed tables and chairs and what have you. Only you can't because there aren't any left. Oh you can get the legs for the chair but the seat element you wanted is gone. Several hours of browsing, trailing and fighting the urge to buy complete and total nonsense rendered worthless in the seconds it takes you to realise they don't even have what you want.

That's the point I usually crumble and get filled with a Michael Douglas in Falling Down feeling that reinforces the necessity of strict gun control laws in this country.

This time we minimised the pain. Knowing what we needed ahead of time we skipped the showroom, cut straight to the "home organisation" department, grabbed what we needed and headed out with the minimum of browsing and only a few minor excess purchases. Nothing short of a miracle.

More like Purgatory then Hell then, at least this time round.

Who you gonna call?

It may come as an absolute shock to you that I am a card carrying, dyed in the wool sceptic when it comes to the world of the supernatural.

I've always been interested in myth, legend and folklore and in my younger days I was undecided about some aspects of the supernatural although the realism and rationality of maturity have left me in no doubt of the preposterous nature of so-called paranormal activity.

This has never been illustrated for me so perfectly as it was when I visited the Niddry Street Vaults in Edinburgh, purported to be the most paranormally "active" site in the capital, if not the country. So legendary are it's multitude of spectres and poltergeists it even attracted ghost hunter supremo Yvette Fielding and her Most Haunted accomplices.

The vaults themselves do have an impressive atmosphere about them. According to our guide they started out as an open street of traders which was eventually built over and became the vaulted storerooms for the tradesmen and retailers constructed above.

Limestone construction proved to be incompatible with the storing of goods however as they vaults let in too much moisture and so were eventually abandoned as storage. Lying empty they became a refuge for the city's poor and disenfranchised who set up their own community beneath the South Bridge.

As with all ghettos the inhabitants fell prey to criminals and ne'er do wells, out of sight of the authorities. Burking, murder, rape, child abuse - all commonplace activities in the vaults. This bloody and sadistic history forming the basis of the many alleged hauntings of the vaults.

Eventually they were sealed up and remained undisturbed until three students in 1973, aware their flat adjoined the vaults, broke through the wall for a swatch and had a party in the vaults. So terrified by the evil they experienced they never returned to the flat. The landlord of the flats, clearly shrewd in the extreme, immediately purchased the vaults and made them a tourist attraction.

Up until yesterday I had never actually visited any of the Edinburgh vaults although I was aware of their existence and their reputation. With an afternoon to spare and a tourist spirit we decided to take one of the many guided tours of this most grisly of attractions.

It turned out to be quite enjoyable if only because it was a bit of a laugh. Some of the historical tales (gleaned supposedly from police records and other written sources) of crimes committed - the murder of a man caught molesting a woman's son, the death of a large group of people who, seeking refuge from fire were asphyxiated and cooked, the stone vault becoming a massive oven - were interesting and engaging. Standing in the dark, damp vaults it was easy to imagine the horrors that people must have faced living and working in them.

Then it started to get a bit silly. One tale in particular undermined the experience for me. That of a seventeen year old girl lured into a meeting of the Hellfire Club where fifteen of its members subsequently raped her, roasted her alive on a spit then ate her ("they even made her eat parts of herself!" our guide declared with grim sincerity) in a dark occult ceremony.

Apart from the obvious practical inconsistencies (how exactly does one eat oneself once one has been roasted alive on a spit?) my biggest problem with this tale is the lack of any documentary evidence to back it up. "We had no idea this had taken place" our guide told us, "until a psychic entered this chamber and figured out what had happened".

I have grave misgivings about psychics and mediums. Largely because they are all charlatans and liars. Yes that's right Derek Acorah, I'm talking to you and all of your manipulative ilk. Perhaps a debate for another time, it's sufficient for my purposes just now to emphatically state that all so-called psychics and mediums are simply con artists adept at cold-reading, generalising and manipulative vulnerable people. Usually for money. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.

Anyway, the guide's credibility quickly drained away as he maintained a highly amusing and slightly irksome level of "What was that? Did anyone else hear/see/feel/smell that?" theatrics. Yeah mate it was traffic noise. It was dripping water. There was nothing there at all you've just made it up.

A couple of the people on the tour seemed to be buying into it although I don't think anyone got really scared. The highlight was a room that had been used by a modern day witches coven (I know, I know) in the late nineties until the atmosphere turned sour and they were too scared to go back into it. The stone circle they had made in the centre of the room was claimed to be imbued with evil powers and our guide did a great job of hamming this "fact" right up.

Supposedly a sceptic, foolhardy on the fumes of his own disbelief, ignored his warnings to stay out of the circle. When he stepped in he felt a presence and challenged it to do something to him. He promptly suffered a (non fatal) heart attack and was carted off by paramedics.

As a result the guide would not allow anyone to step into the circle while he was in the room. He left the room ahead of us to give us the chance to try it out. Despite it pandering to him on some level I obviously had a wee dance in the circle. I was horrified when I felt the overwhelming urge to giggle like a schoolboy at how nonsensical it was. Maybe it did have dark powers after all.

It's easy to be dismissive of the notions of hauntings, especially when the brochure lists among the catalogue of supernatural occurrences "an adolescent boy vomited in one of the vaults" (spooky) and "regular occurrences of panic attacks and visitors leaving the vaults" being two of my favourites. I firmly do not believe in ghosts and ghoulies.

The vaults however do possess an atmosphere that is sinister and oppressive. They are dark, dripping and cold and feel very out of place under the streets of a modern city. It's easy to see how impressionable minds could be convinced they are experiencing strange phenomena and witnessing the materialisation of spirits. In those claustrophobic cells your imagination can run riot, and the sensory deprivation of the darkness would easily give rise to mildly hallucinatory imaginings.

From that point of view it was an enjoyable experience. Out of your comfort zone it's a watching a scary movie on your own sort of experience where the only demons you are likely to encounter are your own expectations that you drag in there with you. Our tour group seemed relatively sensible, I would imagine in a larger group of "believers" the tour would be an absolute riot of ghost train proportions, each person's hysteria magnifying the other's.

So a mixed experience although ultimately rather satisfying. And proof to me of that age old adage - I ain't 'fraid of no ghost!

Throw me the idol, I'll throw you the whip...

Raiders Of The Lost Ark. One of those films that has been permanently etched on my psyche due to excessive levels of repeated viewing in my youth. I will always think of it with great fondness as one of those taped-off-the-telly videos I had with the adverts paused and the wee tab snapped off so I couldn't accidentally tape over it. I'm fairly confident that every frame is inscribed indelibly in the jumble of neurons in my brain. This probably explains why Alfred Molina's ultimatum to Indy in the opening sequence ended up repeating itself in an endless loop during a run-in I had with a shoplifter yesterday.

It was around lunchtime, I was going about my business in retail land on a relatively quiet day, the usual throngs of shoppers more than likely spending some time with their mums. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a shifty pair of eyes at the other end of the shop. My spider-sense tingled.

When it comes to spotting somebody up to no good there is no substitute for years of experience and good instincts. I can't explain exactly what it was about the way this particular person was behaving or looking but it triggered the gut feeling that he was up to something. Closer inspection revealed he had a Farmfoods shopping bag literally stuffed with contraband and was intent on leaving without paying for it.

He left the shop with me hot on his heels and, I suspect, oblivious to my presence. He set off the security alarms as he left and as I began to ask him to return to the store he decided to make a break for it. I grabbed his arm as he ran and he dragged me several feet until we were standing more or less in the neighbouring store. He stopped and turned to me and I braced myself for the possibility the whole thing was about to degenerate into a brawl.

"Let me go and I'll drop the bag" he said. I'm pretty sure I blinked with surprise. "Drop the bag" I said, "and I'll let you go." He didn't seem to get the idea. "No let me go first, then I'll drop the bag." We went back and forth on this line of debate for what felt like ages but couldn't have been more than 10 seconds. It took him a while but I think eventually the idea dawned on him that if he held onto the bag and I held onto him, I technically had the bag of stuff anyway. He slowly lowered the bag to the floor and true to my word I let him go. Somehow the thought of a brawl on the floor of the jewellers didn't really appeal to me. Throw me the idol, I'll throw you the whip. That phrase was circling round my brain for the duration of the confrontation and the rest of the day, which I spent pacing like a caged animal, amped up on adrenaline that I never had the chance to release.

There's something about shoplifting that really gets my goat. As far as crimes go it's probably, objectively, at the lower end of the scale (although in this instance the criminal in question had about £200 worth of stock in his bag) and yet it inspires a disproportionate level of rage in me. I can only put this down to taking it personally. If you ask the British Retail Consortium they will tell you that last year shoplifting cost British businesses £1.1 BILLION. They say businesses but the brunt of that cost is borne by the British consumer in higher prices, etc. That's a ridiculous amount of money that could be put to much better use somewhere else in the economy.

Personally, I hate people who think that they have the right to take what they want and not actually work for a living to earn money and things. I take great pride in the fact I have put in years of hard graft to achieve the lifestyle I live and have the things I have. I hate (and I don't use the word lightly) people who feel the world owes them a living. However, like all human failings, it has been around forever and will continue to be around forever to come. Some people, and this is a fact I accepted long ago, are just wankers. It's all part of life's great tapestry I suppose.

On balance the whole debacle did nothing to dampen my post-holiday good mood, in fact it had quite the opposite effect. It's always nice to thwart somebody on the rob and the recovery of so much stock in one go is enough to keep me smiling for a couple of days.

Cost of a Farmfoods bag full of boxsets - £200. The look on the faces of the jeweller's staff and their customer while the drama unfurled before them - priceless.

People are strange...

..when you're on holiday.

Or maybe it's just my seemingly innate ability to become the centre of orbit for lunatics the world over.

Over the years I have met my fair share (perhaps even more than my fair share) of, to put it delicately, eccentric individuals. Admittedly my line of work puts me in the firing line of the more unusually minded members of the community but it's the people I have encountered outwith my profession that have been among the oddest.

There was, for example, the man in Amsterdam airport about 10 years ago who asked if he could sit at a spare seat at the cafe table I was sitting at. Expecting him to sit down and mind his own business while I carried on reading my book I nodded my assent. Schoolboy error. His opening gambit set the tone for the conversation. As he sat down he placed two large brandies and two bottles of beer on the table. "I'm not an alcoholic" he told me. That was his opening line. Swiftly followed by both brandies. I attempted to maintain all my concentration on my book but to no avail.

What followed was a string of tall tales all about this man's ever so interesting and exciting life. He was Polish-American and apparently had done it all. He had met Bill Clinton (this was just after the Lewinski scandal) and had told him he had disgraced the office of President and was "an asshole" as a result. He had shared a drink with John Lennon's ghost on the night he was shot. His greatest endeavour however put these achievements in the shade. "I signed a deal with the devil" he told me. Expecting a metaphorical tirade about how he wasted his life pursuing a career at the expense of his family or some similarly tired cliche I braced myself for the inevitably dull punchline. "I sold my soul to the Devil," he continued, "but I outfoxed him. I signed the document using my middle name, not my first name, so he won't get my soul when I die." At this point I was desperately trying to attract the attention of Amsterdam airport's armed police.

That encounter came to an end when the fellow shouted to another person sitting in the cafe to come and join the conversation. It turned out to be Josh Hartnett who, obviously used to dealing with random weirdos at that point in his career (it would have been a year or so after The Faculty) made some excuse about having to catch his plane and left. Four hours later when I boarded my flight I discovered I was sitting next to Josh Hartnett. I thanked him profusely for abandoning me with the crazy person and then spent the next six hours being bored to death by his self obsessed wittering.

Another odd encounter happened on Academy Street in the town. It would have been around a similar time, after a night out with the girl I was seeing at the time. Walking along the street we got talking to an American man who was apparently on holiday. Seemed like a nice enough guy (lot's of remarks about young love and similar) and then out of the blue he decided to tell me about how he "owned three major American cities", was in the Mafia and then proceeded to offer me a job. To this day I wonder what would have happened if I'd accepted his offer. I suppose I'll never know for sure if he was a Mafia Don or not.

Anyway.

I've been thinking about this phenomenon lately due to some encounters on our recent trip to Tenerife. Barbara shares my track record for attracting what can affectionately be called "Crazies" and so when we are together it really is just asking for trouble.

It started on the plane on the way over. One chap in particular marked himself out as being of special interest, henceforth to be known as "Drunky-Ginger Man" or DG for short. DG worked his way through several cans of Stella and half a bottle of champagne. Presumably after being at the bar in the airport given his state of intoxication. He lapsed between being unconcsious and semi-concsious throughout the flight, his stupor so deep at times that the cabin crew began to fear for his safety. When we were disembarking at Tenerife he became a tragi-comic figure as three flight attendants tried to ensure he had all his relevant documents (including passport) and get him off the plane. His prospects didn't look good.

Our coach connection to the hotel was short of two people. DG wasn't on the bus. Even money said he was one of the missing people. An hour and a half later we had checked in, dumped our luggage in our room and headed for the bar. Several drinks later we left to hunt down some late night food in the resort. Who did we pass, sat on a plastic chair, passed out by the pool but DG. Somehow he had managed to find his way to the hotel, presumably by some instinct that was immune to the effects of all the alcohol. He was to reappear from time to time over the course of the week, innocuously innebriated and apparently having a whale of a time.

Stark contrast to the harmless Drunky-Ginger Man was Fiona. We first met Fiona on the first night we were at the hotel when I managed to lock us out on our balcony. It was at about half one in the morning and the hotel bar was locking up for the night. Our first attempt to attract attention worked, with a hotel security guard attracted to our somewhat desperate cries for help. As he approached we appealed to him to go to reception and ask them to come up and let us back into the room. Smiling broadly he told us to keep the noise down. "Not a problem," we told him, "we just need some help first". He told us to keep the noise down again. I don't think he understood what we were saying. I don't think he could speak any English other than "keep the noise down." Then he buggered off, leaving us hanging.

Plan B. I assessed the possibility of a controlled leap from our balcony (first floor) to the ground. No danger. A sheer drop, onto concrete with no way of reducing the height of the fall seemed like madness even to my drunken brain. A couple of balconies across I spotted a tiered wall-come-flower-bed arrangement that looked liked a decent prospect for clambering down. All it would take would be a deft hop across a couple of dividing walls, a short leap to the tiered wall and job's a good 'un. Thankfully for me Barbara has much more common sense than I and did a tremendous job of dissuading me from this loopy course of action. We opted for Plan C, shouting loudly at the one remaining human being in sight (who was locking up the bar) in a vain attempt to attract his attention. He disappeared in the opposite direction, bin bags in hand and took our hopes of rescue with him.

Just then we hear a voice from above us. A neighbour, attracted by our shouts, had come out to see what the fuss was about. Perhaps she would prove to be our saviour? As it turned out she had attended the same "how to help people stuck on a balcony" course as the hotel security man as she opted for the telling us to keep the noise down approach. She then started mumbling to herself so quietly we couldn't hear what she was saying and then disappeared back into her appartment. In the end I managed to break back into the appartment with a sudden and direct application of force to the sliding door that popped it off it's catch, opening it. So much for security! With one eye open and a sense of relief that we had invested in the safety deposit box for the room we retired to bed.

Fiona was to feature quite heavily over the next couple of days, largely due to the fact (which we found out later) that she was a paranoid schizophrenic who had flushed her medication down the toilet the day before we arrived. Her outlandish behaviour escalated over the next day or so culminating in her battering seven bells out of her mother by the pool before drifting into a very unsettling, very strange tirade to herself, talking about herself in the third person with a lot of references to spirits, her own death and the FBI. In the end her sister had to be called in from England with additional medication which settled her down almost immediately.

There were so many more. The dildo-wielding transvestite at the carnival, Frank the Mancunian bin man (not a bloody chip-shop anywhere can you believe it?), Frances the Glasgwegian care worker and a man so convinced that all foreigners are stupid he spent five minutes trying to explain his complaint to the girl at reception in single words, spoken loudly and slowly, only for her to tell him in perfect English that she couldn't understand what he was trying to tell her.

I love people. I love the fact that no matter where you go in the world there are plenty of loonies to keep it interesting. Genuine characters who, love or loathe them, give you pause for thought and plenty to talk about. As infuriating and loathsome, as ignorant and insulting, as irrational and unreasonable as they can be, I somehow can't bring myself to completely write off humanity.

At least not all of it anyway.

Once more unto the breach....

After my adventures earlier this week you would think I would be sick of travelling. Well I am. The rather obvious downside to this fact is that I have just embarked on the bus journey to Glasgow necessary for catching my flight to Tenerife tomorrow.

I'm trying to keep my eyes on the proverbial prize but it's not easy. I am grateful for the fact that I can actually get the bus to Glasgow. On Friday the future of this trip seemed in real jeopardy.

So far though it has started well, with the first of what I hope will be a series of comedy asides to distract me from the tedium journey.

One young lad attempted to take his holdall onto the bus only to be told by the lady checking tickets that it would have to go in the hold. His initial protests were cut down by the firm statement "if you want to travel it goes in the hold - non negotiable!". He went on to claim he required the bag as it contained his 'asthma inhaler' which, it only seems right to point out at this stage, not only looked rather heavy but made a distinctive chinking sound as he swung the bag about.

All credit to him he'd picked his flimsy cover story and clearly intended to stick to it no matter what. "I need my inhaler" he implored. He came rather unstuck when the Megabus staffer suggested he remove it from the bag and perhaps keep it in his pocket. This course of action seemed only sensible as rummaging in a giant holdall (especially one full of bottles of booze) for a tiny inhaler could waste valuable seconds in the event of a serious asthma attack.

His counter to this was to claim that he couldn't take them out of the bag at which point he seemed to either realise he had been defeated or that this was an unexpected line of questioning that he hadn't prepared for. A little bit foolish given the glaringly obvious nature of the question. Accepting he had been bettered he gave up his argument and stowed the bag.

Not exactly hilarious I know but I'll take anything coming my way on a bus ride down the A9.

Maybe I'm a bit weird but there was a certain hilarity for me in his attempts to negotiate after he had been told this was an impossibility if he wished to travel, coupled with his obvious belief that the Megabus lady had never encountered such a well thought out cover story in her career. Nice try though.

Given that this is the level I have descended to for entertainment I think that my arrival in Tenerife can't come soon enough. Roll on tomorrow!

The campaign trail.

Well that was an interesting couple of days!

What was intended to be a flying visit to the Scottish Parliament to deliver the petition in opposition to proposed cuts to Highland Rheumatology Services turned into something altogether meatier.
The meeting with Nicola Sturgeon itself went fine. The points the HRU 5 (as I have taken to calling them) raised were all listened to but of particular and unconcealed interest to the overlord of the Scottish NHS were the two vital aspects that a) claims of consultation with the patients and wider community had most of their basis in myth and whimsy and b) the figures quoted to support the necessity of cuts were fundamentally incorrect as a result of either incompetence or dishonesty.

Form your preconception now, I shall not influence you either way.

The whole experience was not unpleasant and rather interesting and didn't feel a million miles away from The Thick Of It, although with the apparent abundance of American born assistants and staff there was a vague sense we had stumbled into a slightly shit spin off of The West Wing.
MSP Dave Thompson, who had arranged this meeting for us, has certainly proved himself in my eyes with his fierce and unshakeable support for this campaign. I salute you sir, if I can stomach my distaste for seperatist scottish nationalism I might even consider encouraging people to vote for you. Government needs impassioned public servants who are willing to fight for the little guy, regardless of party politics.
It seems only right to lay some praise upon Dave's gloriously enthusiastic and helpful assistant Hayley. She proved her worth admirably when she heard the news we had been stranded in Edinburgh overnight thanks to the bad weather, leaping into action to arrange a hotel for 2 of our number, the remainder being given refuge by the redoubtable Sam and Baker.

I doff my cap to these fellows for their lack of hesitation in offering 3 wayward souls a bed for the night and sharing their bread and beer.

I feel additional praise should be heaped on the lovely Emma on the pharmacy counter in the Princes Street branch of Boots who arranged some emergency medication for those who had been caught short by our predicament and to the gentlemen in the Carphone Warehouse who charged up our phones on Friday morning.

Ali, I'm sorry I ruined your day off by not getting to work on Friday. Believe it or not this was the most upsetting thing about being stranded down south.

Come Friday the weather had alleviated a touch and so we were able to return home via the scenic route - a six and a half hour train ride via Aberdeen.

As usual in a moment of (admittedly quite trivial) adversity, the silver lining of human decency and community spirit shone through. Even my faith in politics and politicians is beginning to grow. Almost makes it all worthwhile.

Oh yeah, we also got Lorraine Kelly to sign the petition. Top that.

Ban The Bull

It was with a vague mixture of surprise and pleasure that my eyes settled upon the front page of yesterday's Courier. Gracing the front of the paper was a large (out of focus) image of a can of Relentless energy drink, clutched in the pseudo-militant fist of a disgruntled mother. Her 13 year old son had apparently been sent home from school due to the severe level of the ill effects he was suffering due to drinking a can of said "energy" drink before school.

This woman, Ms Mackenzie (no relation), has successfully lobbied her local Scotmid to restrict sales of said drinks to customers who are 16 years old and over. They have imposed this ban on "underage" energy drinks sales with no legal obligation to do so.

Bravo I say. Those who spend more time than is healthy in my immediate proximity will have heard me ranting on this particular subject before. I have issues with so called "energy" drinks anyway but I find the combination of children and energy drinks especially loathsome. Hyperactive children are a pain in the ass generally with their fidgeting and squawking and all round annoyingness. Hyperactive children on Red Bull are a horse of an entirely different colour.

I had a can of Red Bull once. One can. Once. The resultant palpitations and sweats were enough to convince me there is no merit in the claim that it gives you metaphorical wings or even any energy. It just made me edgy and paranoid and left me feeling slightly in fear of a heart attack. Admittedly I seem to be particularly sensitive to caffeine. I don't (can't) drink coffee. It's probably not the effect it has on everyone. But what it definitely didn't do was give me any energy. If anything it left me feeling more tired and worn out.

Subsequently I have been told, although I have no evidence other than the word of a nutritionist, that caffeine over-stimulates your adrenal gland. This basically leaves your metabolism in a physical "panic" state which obviously is detrimental to your physical well being. I'm not sure about the basis for this theory but I do know that almost 2 years ago I cut out nearly all the caffeine consumption in my diet and felt much better for it. Even tea. It's all hippy herbal nonsense for me these days or caffeine free. But I digress.

The problem is less a physiological one for me and a mental one. A brat with a can of Red Bull believes that it is going to give him/her some magical stimulant effect and make them really hyper and mental like and in the truest placebo style they start to act up. It's similar to those experiments that were done where people were given what they thought was alcohol and the belief they were drinking alcoholic drinks led them to behave in a drunk manner, psychologically protected from how big a twat they are being by the belief they are drunk. Same thing with infant energy drink syndrome.

Symptoms of IEDS include (but are by no means limited to):

Fighting with posters out of the poster racks, moving CD and DVD header boards around in the sections because its OH SO FUNNY, pushing every button on the listening posts really hard just so you can push every button, loudly "singing" when listening to music on the headphones on the listening posts and giggling like a fanny at nothing.

Arguably they are similar to the symptoms of chronic marijuana abuse among older members of society but as Ms Mackenzie so righteously points out in the article in the Courier, energy drinks are a gateway drug to the harder highs of alcohol and illegal drugs. She is currently lobbying mp's and other retailers in an attempt to get a blanket ban on the underage sale of these drinks. Ms Mackenzie I salute you. More power to your elbow!

I want to ride my bicycle...

Or do I? My adventures on Shanks' Pony on Sunday led me to a renewed motivation to get back on my bike and start cycling to work again. I have had two aborted attempts this year already where I managed it on the Monday of the week and then found an excuse to stop by Tuesday. Some of these excuses are a lot more legitimate than others (atrocious weather being the main one) but they are all just ways of justifying my laziness to myself.

I think I might have cracked it this week. For the last two days I have cycled to work and feel infinitely better for it. It undoubtedly helps that for the last couple of days it has been bright and clear rather than dark and snowy which I find to be rather off putting if you plan to spend half an hour in it. It has however been lung searingly cold this week. Monday morning was a particularly savage assault on my respiratory system, not to mention any areas of exposed skin. It was bloody marvellous!

Although my out of condition legs actually hurt right now, and probably will until the end of the week, I can't stress enough how much better I feel for all this exercise. I am much more awake when I get to work, I sleep a lot more soundly. My appetite is massive but I burn off the extra calories and then some so I feel physically better. Slow, depressed and sluggish becomes quick, alert and enthusiastic. Listlessness turns to drive. Magic.

I've rounded out a day of physical exertion by watching the first episode of Underbelly. Regrettably it's a bit shit. Bad writing, bad acting and awful (not to mention pointless) narration. It's almost like an extended Crimewatch reconstruction but without the drama. Or maybe a late night edition of Home and Away. Everybody in it looks a little bit like somebody else, mostly British soap actors or minor celebrities. Perhaps whoever was responsible "was just trying to silence the devil voices in his head". That's an actual line from the actual show.

My devil voices are perfectly silent tonight, worn out and looking forward to a night of restful sleep. Just enough time for a Shameless before bed though...

Tragedy....

I had planned on a sermon on the joys of exercise this evening, however plans have changed.

Upon arriving home this evening I was met with a troubling sight. One of our tropical fish was lying on the substrate at the bottom of the tank, snout poked under a rock looking decidedly dead. Closer inspection revealed that this was in fact the case and so I had to remove the little fella from the tank and dispose of him. Now he's swimming along in fishy heaven.*

My immediate thought was that perhaps tank conditions might have done for him, but the remaining fish in the tank seem happy enough, temperature and so on all seemed stable (in the past we lost a tank full of Tiger Barbs to a catastrophic heater failure). As it turns out it was most likely natural causes.

We inherited the fish tank from the previous owners of our house who left the (built into the wall) fish tank when they moved, including it's inhabitants. This particular fish essentially came with the house when we bought it almost 5 years ago. Given that he was resident here before us it stands to reason that he was at least 5 years old when he popped his fins.

A quick delve into the average life span of Gourami fish suggests that they typically live for about 4 years. By this standard he had a good innings and was due to go at any moment. Unlike the fish that had become murderous in my parent's fish tank several years ago. The piscine equivalent of Ted Bundy, this fish had been systematically attacking and killing their other fish in the tank. Something needed to be done, or so I was informed. After a brief show trial that paid little heed to the concept of due process Bundy-fish was sentenced to death.

My initial appeals for a humane execution - in this case bag him up like a funfair goldfish and place the bag in the freezer where the gradual reduction in temperature would have resulted in painless unconsciousness then death - fell on deaf ears. Not quick enough I was told. Too drawn out. Do as the French do was the decision. Decapitation.

Further protests from me were again ignored. "Sounds a bit brutal" I said. "Are you sure you don't want to reconsider the freezer option?". The course of action had been decided however. Bundy-fish was to have his head hacked off. It transpired that while they were perfectly willing to decide Bundy's fate they were much more reluctant to carry out the sentence. "You need to do it" they said. Me. The main opponent of this course of action.

Some further to-ing and fro-ing occured. Eventually I gave in. Worn down by the insistence that I was the only person capable of doing the deed in an efficient and minimally cruel way I capitulated on the condition that once it was done none of us would speak of it again. A chopping board was prepared. The sharpest, heaviest kitchen knife I could find was selected. Bundy-fish was retreived from the tank. The one factor none of us had accounted for was that he would fight to cling on to life to the end. Overlooking the fact that a fish out of water flaps about all over the place was perhaps a mistake.

In the end it was a rather unpleasant ordeal, more so for Bundy-fish than I, admittedly. It was over fairly qickly though, the deed done and a heaviness in my heart for the fate of a poor wee fish that hadn't really done much wrong. Sullenly I cleared away the evidence and disposed of the body.

As if this wasn't enough, my mother took to calling me (alternately) "fish killer" and "murderer" for some months afterwards, despite her insistence to the contrary before I undertook the execution of the hapless fish. The futility of fighting this became apparent very quickly and despite her complicity in the murder of the fish, I decided to let it go. The incident was soon forgotten about, although it occasionally plays on my mind from time to time. Somewhat annoyingly a couple of months ago my parents were telling me about another fish that had to be "put down" for similar reasons. This time, they informed me, they were much more humane about it than I was and placed said fish in a bag of water, you know, funfair goldfish style, and put it in the freezer where it painlessly passed into a coma and died. What a brilliant idea. If only I'd thought of it all those years ago when Bundy-fish had to die. My outburst that followed this revelation is unrepeatable here.

The point to all this is simply that I'm a little bit surprised at the attachment that you can develop for a pet as ambient as a fish. They aren't cute, you can't stroke 'em and they don't run to greet you when you get home or fetch your slippers and or paper. I suppose they do have a personality of their own as such and the deceased from today's unfortunate turn of events was the finest specimen in the tank. He shall be missed.

* I should point out that as I am a staunch atheist I don't believe in heaven of any kind. I should probably also point out that as, in the Christian tradition at any rate, animals do not have souls they wouldn't go to heaven when they died anyway.

Walk It Off

Due to an excess of red wine last night I found myself leaving the car at my parents house and resorting to walking to work today. No great hardship really, I used to walk to work all the time and it only takes 45-50 minutes.

As it turns out, I'd forgotten how enjoyable a walk it is. Admittedly in nasty weather it can be rather unpleasant and a bit of a chore but this morning I was met with a crystal clear sky and that glorious golden liquid sunshine you get early in the morning. Beautifully cold crisp air cleared the mugginess of last night's indulgence. The wintry skeletons of the trees revealed a view across the Moray Firth as far as the snow capped hills of the Black Isle. Sometimes it's better to slow down and savour the world. Three deer were foraging in the stubbly, frosty grass in the fields by the Smithton roundabout. I've seen grouse and birds of prey that I'm not qualified to identify on the same route in the past. A murder of crows scavenging by the retail park. A blackbird the apparent victim of cat, a rabbit lying dead by the fenceline of the farmland next to the A96 gleaming with frost.

All of these things you miss when you move too quickly. The details. It lifted my mood tremendously, finally cracking the shadow cast by this seemingly endless and dark winter. Happy days.

Set me right up for the day. Had the most productive and enjoyable day at work I've had in a while and even now, although I'm bloody knackered, I'm feeling rather relaxed and happy.

It wasn't just the glory of nature that cheered me. Being the better part of an hour it's a prime opportunity to listen to some tunes, something that you can't really do (at least not safely) when you cycle and the drive doesn't last long enough to really get into some music. There's also some quality thinking and reflecting time where I sized up my life and decided that really on the whole I am happy and content and have little to complain about. Sorry if this seems a bit smug but it is actually true.

So I have spent the rest of the day in high spirits and brimming with zest for life. It's unlikely to last, my inherent cynicism will inevitably reassert itself in the next few days. I'd be surprised if Thursday wasn't a turning point when I will be taking Barbara down to Edinburgh to deliver the "Save The Highland Rheumatology Unit" petition to Nicola Sturgeon at the Scottish Parliament. I'm looking forward to this trip, somewhat surprisingly given my dim view of politicians generally. I think it is likely to either generate some faith in my soul for politics or snuff out the last embers of it. Either way it will be interesting to see how things turn out. Word on the street is we should get some tea and biscuits out of it. Paid for by the taxpayers. Get in.

9 more sleeps...

Pretty soon I'm going on holiday. It's a package holiday, to Tenerife of all places, all inclusive and completely not the sort of holiday I would normally sign up for. Normally I prefer to avoid resorts, faovouring the turn up somewhere and try to absorb some of the day to day normality of the place I'm visiting.

I'm looking forward to my week away immensely. My last holiday abroad was at the end of last summer and was less of a holiday as an intensive kung fu training session which was fantastic but not what I would call relaxing. My last week off work was last October when I took my customary "brace myself for christmas" week off to do nothing but skulk around the house playing xbox. I need a break.

Don't get me wrong. I love my job and have done so more or less consistently for the last 9 and a bit years. It poses it's own problems and is responsible for many of my frustrations but it's also a source of much joy and satisfaction. Right now though I'm finding it really tiring.

I'm convinced that it's the time of year. Almost everyone I know seems to be suffering the same level of mental fatigue and I have decided to put it down to a sense that this winter is never going to end. I can't figure out why this year is any different to previous ones. Maybe its the abnormal amount of snow, maybe its the recession, probably a bit of both. Hard to put my finger on. Whatever the cause it's bloody depressing.

So in 9 days time I will be kissing this winter goodbye for a week and swapping it for lounging by a swimming pool, in the sun, drinking beer. No work, no danger of being called by work as always happens when I'm on holiday. Just me, my lovely girlfriend and my stack of light holiday reading. This trips books include: "Last Man Off Bataan" by Carlos Romulo, "The Last Battle - Berlin 1945" by Cornelius Ryan and "The Invasion Of The Moon 1969" by Peter Ryan. If any of these are any good remains to be seen but I hope they are on a par with my current book of choice "Defence Of The Realm, An Authorised History of MI5".

Dry, dusty, factual and full of data. I love that in a book. I'm about a third of the way through it but it will eat up our luggage allowance so it won't be coming on holiday with me. Recently I have rediscovered my love of non-fiction, especially history, especially military history. I've been working my way through The World At War box set of late but I'm finding it difficult to find the time. It's a shame because I'd love to watch the whole thing from start to finish but at 30 odd hours that's a bit of a mission. I heartily recommend it though. Although I'm no expert I thought I knew a thing or two about World War 2 but as it turns out there's a great big bunch of stuff that I had no idea about. I love it.

So I have a week of lounging, eating, drinking and reading ahead of me. I cannae wait.

Dances With Smurfs

Imagine you just had a really vivid dream and in this dream you are a gibbon (funky or otherwise). Now imagine that in this dream you did the nasty with what (in your dream induced gibbon state) passes for the sexiest gibbon in the jungle. Then you wake up in the arms of said gibbon and realise it wasn't a dream.

I love happy endings.

In case you hadn't guessed by now I've just seen Avatar. I know I said I wouldn't but I did. You know, just to see "what all the fuss is about". If you haven't seen it and intend to I would advise strongly against it and suggest you read no further in case it spoils any surprises for you. Not that there are any.

In terms of plot there's not much to say really. It's basically Dune (off-worlders come to strip planet of valuable resources, one goes native, is subjected to the various rites and traditions of indiginous people, becomes their spiritual leader by riding the biggest baddest predator on the planet and then leads them in an uprising against the environment rapers) only in a jungle. Nice one Jim.

I'm more confused about the 3D element. This after all is going to change how we experience cinema forever. First off I had a toy when I was a kid that was a little binocular viewer. Into this you inserted discs that were basically little cardboard circles with tiny little slides in them. At the pull of a trigger on the contraption said disc rotated and a new slide slotted into place that was an amazing "3D" scene from a Disney film. I particularly remember Snow White. The effect was better than the 3D in Avatar but basically the same.

The result is hugely unsatisfying. It doesn't look real or make anything look solid. Granted there are some shots where it achieves quite a cool depth effect but only when nothing's moving against it. As soon as there is any action it just becomes distracting and looks a tad fake. Almost like one of those little paper theaters. In fact, South Park is about as three dimensional. The edge of the screen becomes a horrific barrier to your immersion in the visual effect and anything that hovers at the edge of the screen screams at your eyes to focus on it blowing the whole show.

There's also that weird "foiling" effect on the colour, especially with the live action bits. That was also distracting and very, very annoying. Any scene with rapid action (and there are a few) blurs beyond all comprehension and I got the sense Cameron was crossing his fingers and hoping nobody would have noticed this limitation of the technology.

I could go on all night (the film did). The whole thing reeks of somebody coming up with the technology first and then trying to find an idea to fit it, settling for a quick fix of rehashed ideas, paper thin characters and unsatisfying set pieces. There is nothing in it to justify it's 3 hour running time apart from lots of pointless extra shots to show off the tech at the expense of plot and pacing.

If you like any of the following things then maybe you should check it out:

Women marines using their breasts to stage a jailbreak, a lingering close up on Sigourney Weaver's Avatar's crotch whilst wearing tight shorts, inter-species sex, bald space marines who hate the natives, heavy handed moral messages, mechanised suits (not good ones I might add), six legged alien creatures and trees. Lots of trees. Oh yeah and a stereotypically "strong" female character who proves she's as hard as the boys. I think Cameron just has a thing for women in vests.

If, instead, you prefer films to have character, charm, story and emotion watch Pixar's Up instead. In fact, just watch Up and forget Avatar was ever made. You'll thank me for it later.