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.