A Player's Perspective

 

The end of the longest season…EVER!!!
 
 
Well here we are at the last home game of the season; though don’t be surprised if with ten minutes to go from kick-off it’s postponed. It really would not surprise me if over the next hour or so a sudden tornado will pass by, followed by a monsoon, a batch of quick frost to instantly freeze the floods left behind, and finishing off with a freak snow blizzard to leave 6 feet of snow on the pitch. Of course though it wouldn’t be truly Scottish weather unless the next day, with the snow melted, we are out sunbathing in temperatures surpassing 20 degrees.
 
But fingers crossed that this won’t happen and we will manage to get the game underway. I think I can speak for most people when I say it has been an enjoyable season. We’ve had our ups; Gala, Kelso and Aberdeen at home, some of the photos from the Halloween party, GHA and Peebles away, but also our downs, Dunfermline away, GHA at home, a lot more of the photos from the Halloween party, and Kelso in the cup (but let’s not dwell on these too much!). Ok so no promotion, but a successful season nonetheless I feel. If you asked someone at the end of last season what our hopes for would be this year, I don’t think many would have said a top four finish! Yet here we are!
 
With two more games to go, wins are needed to ensure the 3rd place spot above Gala, but far more importantly, only two more games are left for a certain winger to score a bloody try! Otherwise I think said person may go down in the history books of being the only winger EVER to not score a try in a season. Perhaps though if a certain full-back with possible relations to said winger would pass the ball…I’m sorry, I seem to veer off topic.
 
Obviously today we are without Sam who will without doubt be missed. In fact he was also absent the last time we played Stirling. You know what; I think he’s just scared of Stirling! First a wedding and now a baby on the way?! Likely excuses if you ask me! Sam’s absence from the club I’m sure will be noticeable. He really did provide all players with someone to look up to, from mini’s right up to his fellow senior team mates. Ironically, everyone else provided him with someone to look up to as well, though in a more literal way.
 
With this being the final home game of the season, it obviously means that this is the final Players Perspective of the season *pauses for ‘awwwwws’ from the crowd* ………… *is thoroughly disappointed for not getting one!*. So for now let’s take a moment or two to discuss what we have to look forward to over the summer and next season. Well over the summer, we can be joyous at the fact Gordon Brown is no longer PM, but then within days of the elections decide that we all now hate David Cameron and begin moaning about him. We can also watch England massively underachieve and get put out at the quarter final stages of the world cup, whilst an exciting Holland or Germany are put out by a boring Italian or French side and we can watch as a British Andy Murray with the hopes and expectations of a nation, is beaten in the semi-finals of Wimbledon and once again becomes that useless Scottish guy!
 
As for rugby related events, we can watch Watsonians get relegated which, as an obviously mutual representative, brings me no joy at all…*stifles laughter*. We also have a new league format next year which should be good, and Scotland, a team who are as predictable as their countries weather, have a tour of Argentina to look forward to. Let’s hope it’s an Irish performance and not an Italian! But as for now, 7’s anyone?

Winter Olympics

Feel the Rhythm, Feel the Rhyme! 

            Sunday 11.30pm, just back in from the pub from watching the Canada versus USA Ice Hockey final, went to bed and felt a little bit sad. Why? Not because I lost a bet with Ray after flipping a coin to see who got to support which team (USA…you owe me a pint!), but because that was the final event of this years Winter Olympics. No more getting in from nights out at some ungodly time and staying up till an even more ungodly time watching some Eastern Europeans and the occasional North American winding in and out of some poles on skis. No more sitting down for a “ten” minute break in the afternoon from studies to watch highlights of some Russian guy on ice succeeding in spinning 37 times on the spot in about 4 seconds flat and then following this up by jumping and doing the same in the air before landing so smoothly that it was as if he hadn’t jumped at all. I mean I can do all these things that these figure skaters do…I just don’t want to.

            Something that I love about events such as the Winter Olympics though is how all of a sudden everyone is an expert and a critic, including me. “Yea ok so the Russian guy might have been perfect, but the Swiss guy missed a quarter turn on that triple loop!”, “yea the Chinese girl in the aerials did hit the double full with ¾ twist…but her knee was a little bent, did you not see that?” We watch the first few competitors launch themselves headfirst down a one kilometre runway on a tin tray at 90 mph or hurtling down on a giant sledge thinking “wow! That’s amazing!”…That is of course after we’ve all sung in our heads “feel the rhythm, feel the Rhyme, get on top, its bobsled time, coooooooool ruunnniiiiings! But then we start to listen to the commentators; and so it begins. “That line was far too high through that corner!” “Ooh he took a bump coming round Thunderbird there!” (That’s right; I even know the names of some of the corners!) On that though, I do wander how badly bruised some of these skeletoners… skeletonists… skeletonians… some of these skeleton people get. I mean they must get endless shoulder injuries the amount they bounce off those side walls! Still, probably not as many as Lewis though.   

            Watching the Ice Hockey final, something else that you couldn’t help notice was the atmosphere. Obviously for something like the Ice Hockey gold medal deciding match between the USA and Canada in Canada, it goes without saying that there is going to be one hell of an atmosphere. But throughout the whole event, cameras panned over throngs of people watching, cheering, celebrating etc. This enthusiasm was, somewhat surprisingly, very apparent in one event in particular. For those of you who watched the curling, you will know what I’m talking about! Who would have thought that people could get so excited and vocal over eight people sliding some shiny stones down a slip way of ice…160 times!?

Well I’m not going to lie, I was one of those excited people sitting on the edge of my seat as David Murdoch lined up the Hammer to take a possible double in the tenth end against Sweden in order to progress Britain through to the semis. (Told you I’m an expert now!) My disappointment of his success in taking only a single though was high because I too knew that Sweden had the advantage going into the eleventh end with the hammer, an advantage that, to the heart break of Britain, Sweden, who reminded me of some punk rock band, managed to utilise. Still they weren’t quite as rock and roll as the Norwegian teams trousers! Trousers that have a fan club page on Facebook with currently just over half a million members!

But alas it’s all over and now I need to find some other way to skive from my uni work. Hmmm, I do have an idea, it’s a bit of a long shot though but maybe…just maybe I’ll manage to play a bit of rugby!

 

Tourists 

            Now I’m sure the vast majority of you picked up your programme today, opened straight to this week’s eagerly anticipated edition of The Player’s Perspective (as you always do I’m sure!) fully expecting to see a page of ranting and raving about Valentines Day. Well sorry to disappoint, but my early fans will be able to tell you that that topics already been done! Now I know what you’re thinking, “wow! The Perspective’s been going for a year now?!” As they say, time flies when you’re having super awesome reading fun!

            But no, today I shall not discuss my views on Valentines Day for even though I do now have my own, as a certain Kiwi hobbit once referred to her, “Minnie”; my views remain unchanged. I still think it a commercialised, pointless, depressing (that’s right, got to think of our single friends out there!) and over emphasised waste of money! No, instead I would like to talk about tourists, with focus on two particular species. A strange and rather random topic you ask? Well not so random for me. For those of you who know me, you will probably be aware that I work part time at the Whisky Experience in Edinburgh. Oh it’s a hard job alright when your average day comprises of wandering around a shop, selling a bit of whisky, taking the odd tour, getting all the cheap whisky you could ask for, not too mention the occasional free whisky tastings…jealous yet?

            Now as you can imagine we get a whole variety of different nationalities, of whom I give a whole variety of different reputations. You have the Scandinavians with their perfect hair and skin, The Eastern Europeans with their harsh tones and chiselled jaws (and that’s just the women!), and you have your Mediterranean countries with their laid back “I don’t care…I’m going to sleep!” attitude. Moving a bit further afield and we come across the never smiling Indians and the always smiling Aussies, the super rich Japanese and the “aw yeah mate the world cup’s ours for sure this year! Choke!” Kiwis.

            Then we carry on over the Pacific and come to that great land (and key source of amusement!) the United States of America! Now Americans are tricky to assign a particular reputation because there are such a variety of them! There are big ones, small ones, very big ones, funny ones, very very big ones, old ones, very very very big ones, young ones but the ones who stand out the most, apart from the very very very very big ones, are the, shall we say, not so bright ones! Now I’ve heard some stupid questions whilst working at the Whisky experience, and 99% of the time they will come from an American mouth. “What’s that?” one lady came up to me once pointing at the picture of a postcard, “that’s a Highland Cow” I answered, now I know this was actually quite a reasonable question, she probably had never seen one before, but if it had ended there then I could have let it go, but when she asks me how do you spell that and I say “H.I.G.H.L.A.N.D cow as in the highlands up north” and she replies “yeah I got that bit, but how do you spell cow?” well then we just have a problem.

            Now that was just one woman and so the American race should perhaps not be held accountable for one person. However, what doesn’t help the American case is when one of the most frequently asked questions, not just to me but to all my colleagues as well, is “so Haggis are real animals right?” We actually have a tally in our staff room for every time this is asked and it really is nearing the hundred mark!

            However, I would like to finish off by talking about a group a lot closer to home, the French. Now my views on the French have always been relatively good! Cheese eating surrender monkeys they may be but at least they’ve always been friendly, and show a lot of genuine interest in what you have to say. Well that’s certainly the case in small numbers! However, when the rugby comes to town as it did last week, the fans come to town, and when the fans come to town, the fans come to the whisky experience…in their hordes!! I’ve never seen such chaos! Hundreds upon hundreds of them running riot in our shop, talking over me during tours (I kid you not, one even answered his phone whilst I was speaking!), hitting on the female members of staff, helping themselves to the whisky for the whisky tastings. And this was just Saturday when they were in groups of only maybe ten or twelve at a time! On Sunday we had the prospect of a pre-booked group of three hundred to look forward to! Saturday night I did not sleep well.        

 

Christmas

            There is one thing that I know that has crossed all your minds in the past week at least once; doesn't time fly! Don't worry though I'm not Matt Parkman so I've not been reading your minds (well done for those who understand that reference! Don't worry for those who don't, you're probably just a bit too old). It's just that I have been exactly the same. It seems like only yesterday that the festive season was upon us for yet another year. It seems like only yesterday that I was planning to get a little extra uni work in over the holidays; it seems like only yesterday that I didn't get any extra uni work in over the holidays; it seems like only yesterday that I was munching on advent calendar chocolate; it seems like only yesterday that I once again realised that advent calendar chocolate is really not very nice; it seems like only yesterday that I heard Slade on the radio for the first time that year; it seems like only yesterday that 3 weeks later I once again found myself leaving the shop I was in when that song came on!
            Yes, Christmas really is a very repetitive time of year. So many things are just the exact same year in, year out. The same songs are played, the same stuff is on TV, all Tesco seems to be selling is Turkey, Chocolate and cheap alcohol, Delia Smith's latest ingredients become the must have item on the dinner table, the sets of Eastenders and Coronation Street miraculously become the only places in Britain to have a white Christmas etc...  
            But is this really a problem? I don't know about you, but I think that the week of wanting to kill every time fairytale of New York comes on at the end of December is worth the 3 weeks of previous enjoyment whenever it came on at the start of the month! Also, I love The Great Escape! Did you know that there has only been one year in the past 17 that The Great Escape has not been on during Christmas day?! I can't imagine that one year that missed out would have been a very merry Christmas! As for the Tesco thing…well who complains about that?! Turkey, chocolate and cheap booze! One word for you people; Heaven! And finally, Delia Smith, Eastenders and Coronation Street…well to be quite honest I really couldn't care less about them…but you get my point I hope; that tradition is not a bad thing!
            Let's face it, where would we be without Christmas tradition? It is Christmas tradition that makes this time of year so good! For the younger generation (and perhaps some of the older kids too like Yogi and Muzz) the eagerly anticipated arrival of a big fat man in a red suit (oh could be nasty to so many people here…but its Christmas so I wont!) is what they've been looking forward to all year. Pop fact number two; did you know that Santa actually used to wear a green suit until Coca Cola changed him to red?! Man I'm a fountain of useless knowledge! But moving on, for others is about the retelling of "The greatest story ever told" and the miracles of Jesus. Ok so I'm not a religious guy so not really my forte, though I was once the star of the Nativity play in my old primary school! The role of sheep number two has never been played with such magnificence!
For others Christmas is about having the family together again, all sitting down to open presents, all arguing about who gets to open presents first, all sitting down for lunch, all contributing to the traditional argument at lunch about nothing.
But despite the arguments, the day is never ruined due simply to the activity involved! Arguing over who gets to open presents first? Despite instantly going into a sulk because he had to open his main present last last year, as soon as he unwrapped the Action Man with full Ninja add on pack that my mum had bought him, the smile on my dad's face! Well it was like he had never sulked before! As for arguing at lunch! Well how can you stay angry when you have the best meal of the year spread out in front of you?! Oh the food! These days for me it is the food that I look forward to most at Christmas. Call me a glutton if you wish but before I do I have a proposition for you all! Why do we restrict ourselves to only one amazing meal per year? Think about it people…Christmas dinner every day?! You know you all want it too!
 
Merry Christmas!       

 

Winter

 
It's that time of year again. The alarm clock goes off and it's subsequently put on snooze (or in my case reset to an hour's time) because the room temperature now feels below zero and the duvet is just too warm! But then we do eventually get up, shiver towards the shower, enjoy the heat of the water, step out the shower to what feels like temperatures now below zero Fahrenheit and get dressed with trembling hands. That's right, it's winter!
 
There are actually quite a few tell tale signs that mark the beginning of winter for me! As a person it is the serious drop in temperature. As a student, it's the moment you first push that dreaded money draining button, the central heating! Whilst wrapping up in five layers has served me well for the past month, it's just not enough anymore. As a Biggar rugby club player, it's the beach that I take home with me after Tuesday night's training! Yep, training in the horse centre has commenced! As a farmer it's that first time when you use the quad bike's exhaust to heat up your welly's. That noise was the sound of eighty farmers going "huh?" Well let me tell you it works! What you do is fill the welly with the exhaust fumes from the bike and hey presto, warm wellies! I really am a pioneer in foot warming techniques! But I feel I've sidetracked, back to the topic in hand and I'm going to finish on one sign that just pure outright annoys me. This is the sign as a shopper! You go into any shop and what's the first thing you see? You've probably guessed it already because I know I'm certainly not the only person in the world with this grumble, but when you see Halloween and firework decorations…on the Christmas tree…well that's just not right!
 
But what else does winter mean? Well it means dark evenings, coldness, dark mornings, coldness, rain, coldness, early kick-offs (means having to get up at like 10 on a Saturday morning!! Just not on people!), coldness…think there might be a recurring theme here. But look at me, focusing on the negatives! There are plenty of positives too! No annoying twittering birds at 7 o'clock in the morning, new series of Top Gear (starting tomorrow night!!!!), for me personally; birthdays (don't worry you don't need to get me a present…but it would be rude not to), Top Gear, Christmas (despite the early decorations), Top Gear, New Year celebrations, Top Gear, New year sales, Top Gear…again perhaps a recurring theme here.      
 
There is one quite big omission from the above lists though that the more astute of you may have picked up on; snow. Well that's because I'm no longer sure which list it should come under! The kid in me says it's a positive. Those days of snowmen, snowball fights, sledging, snow angels, drop kicking massive snowballs left by other people. Oh the joy! But the grumpy old man in me says, COLDNESS! It says horrible rugby trainings and games, driving at 10 mph, cold, wet feet, unpleasant walks to lectures and shops etc, gritter machines, drop kicking what obviously was once a massive snowball the day before but has now pretty much entirely turned to ice. Have you ever seen a person just stop dead upon making contact with something in a flying dropkick pose? Well apparently it is very funny as the following 10 minutes of my "friends" rolling on the floor laughing suggests. As it is though I think on snow, for me the negatives do outweigh the positives, not because it can be a nuisance, not because of the cold, not even for the limp I had for three days after being defeated by the ice-ball, but for the simple fact that I'm now thinking about snow negatively. It's a sign. A horrible, horrible sign! A sign that I think I am now actually finally growing up! I know, how depressing.   

 

The BNP

Warning! The following may contain politics!
 
Friday night, the start of the weekend, and for many a night to let loose and go out on the town. All over Scotland's towns and cities, pubs and clubs are brimming with young people as they take advantage of no work or uni or, if from Carnwath, only 3 cars to smash in, the next day. However, last Friday I found myself in the minority. I found myself in my flat with a pizza (a high protein energy pizza that is! Because I always eat healthily the night before a match *cough*) and the wonder that is BBC I-player. So what did I watch I hear you all ask! Well let me tell you, never have I felt so intelligent and current affairish as I did when I clicked on play to Question time! Now before I go on, I shall warn you, today's edition of the Perspective is going to be a little more serious, but don't worry, it's still going to flow with the usual sarcasm that marks it out!
 
            Now Question time is one of the last things I would ever choose to watch, being beaten only by programmes of Paris Hilton and Jordan, and Big Brother. However, my interest was peaked after reading many a Facebook status update slating the living hell out of Nick Griffen on Question time. Now for those of you who don't know, Nick Griffen is the leader of that most respectable political party…hope you all caught the sarcasm there…the BNP, and last Friday the BBC had him on the panel for Question time. Now I have only ever watched Question time once before and I noticed a bit of a pattern in how it worked; David Dimbleby asks the panel a few questions on the financial situation of the economy *yawn*, the audience asks a few questions on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the non-labour politicians blame everything on the labour representative, whilst the labour representative brings up a totally different point entirely that puts Labour in a good light and gets an applause.
 
Fridays show though was a bit different. First of all there were no questions on finance, and the wars I think only made a slight appearance. But the biggest change was that the labour representative, in this case Jack Straw, was the unsung hero of the night! He destroyed Griffen! Though I suppose it would have been quite an easy thing to do seeing as he had just about an entire audience behind him, and even the possible BNP supporters that might have been in the audience I think had hidden their pointed hats and were quite possibly the quietest they have ever been!
 
But in what ways was he destroyed? Well Jack Straw used his Photon Plasma Canon and blew his head off! Ok that might not be true, but that would have been quite a show! No what I mean by destroyed, is he couldn't answer half the questions asked. I mean he actually answered at one point "I don't know". Bet it just fills you with confidence as a racist…err I mean as an anti immigration supporter *looks around to see if anyone noticed*…think I got away with it. 
 
So what can I tell you about the BNP? Well basically they're against immigration. That noise you just heard was the sound of thousands of building contractors groaning at the prospect of having to dump their Poles and hire the Irish again. They also claim not to be a racist organisation, a claim they make whilst denying membership to any non-white people, not that I can imagine they get many membership applications from such people though, and also at a time when Griffen is photographed alongside a man called Stephen Black in 2000. For those of you who don't know who Stephen Black is, at the time of said photo he was the leader of a party, quite a famous one actually and not too far from the BNP in ideology, one of the major differences being the BNP don't walk about in costume and big pointy hats!
 
 
Poker

RoyalFlush.jpg image by HfortuneD

            It's Tuesday afternoon and I'm sitting in the library having given up on my uni work and looking for inspiration for a topic for this weeks programme. Writers block is a pain in the ass indeed, something which I regularly suffer from, and something that really does not help when you do a course like mine, a course that requires you to write about 17 billion essays a week!

            So I look to my right out the window…trees. I could talk about trees! Let's see what do I know about trees? They have leaves; they're made of wood…well that's about as far as that's going. What about to my left? I see rows and rows of books. What can I say about them? Well they have covers; they're made from wood…perhaps not the most exciting of subjects. I look about my cluttered desk and see the scattering of a variety of different books about Roman forts and camps including a rather large tome written entirely in Latin. Can't read a word of it of course but it does make me seem very smart to passers by! Don't worry though I'm not going to bore you with Roman camps. Next place to look; along the bottom of my desktop bar on the computer screen to see what web pages I have opened. Six on different Roman writers, one, as always whenever doing any coursework, on Wikipedia and finally the last on the marvel for boredom curing and procrastination that Facebook really is. Well it's now Wednesday afternoon, Facebook poker called. Don't think it would be a good idea to talk about Facebook though, well not if I want to get this finished before tonight! Though it has given me an idea of what to talk about, something that is very close to the hearts of many players at the club.

            Over the past few seasons poker seems to have become a bit of an institution at the club. Many a Thursday night's training has been followed by a wee game with a wee friendly £5 buy in to make things a bit more interesting. This £5 buy in can then be followed by another wee £5 re-buy…though for a good number of people this then is followed by another…and another…and maybe another…"I'll win it back" is the cry as a certain Kiwi/Croatian looks on in glee watching as the kitty rises. Personally I have participated in only a few of these events and whilst my winnings stand at an admirable £50, as a student I can't afford to gamble my precious beer money away too often! Though as my Facebook poker account currently stands at $803,000 (the signs of a well spent 3 and bit years of uni!), maybe I should look into it a bit more.

As it is though since watching a Louis Theroux programme once about gambling in Vegas, I've learnt not too get to caught up in it! In this programme Theroux interviews a woman in her 60's and her 30 something year old son in their small, slightly run down house in Vegas. The woman was a problem gambler, spent her days on the slot machines and when asked what her current losses were over her life she replied quite casually "oh probably about $4 million". The son to his credit remained smiley and insisted it didn't bother him that his mother was throwing away his inheritance "It's what makes her happy" is his reply through obviously clenched teeth. I don't think you will find a better example anywhere of "it all adds up!" However, although it may seem like it, I'm not trying to turn people against gambling and poker in any way whatsoever! I would never do such a thing! I like playing for Biggar and if I take away Ants' primary source of income I might find myself playing for Lanark or even Peebles! *Pauses to shudder at the prospect*. All I say is that be careful and if you do find yourself with 2, 7 unsuited…call that bad boy!!

 

Change 

            Well here we are once again, back at the (near) beginning of yet another new season. So what has happened since the last time we spoke? Well quite a lot actually. Scraped by relegation last season, had a fairly successful 7's season winning a few pieces of silverware here and there, got put through our paces at pre-season courtesy of Pete a.k.a "Rambo", welcomed a few new faces, won two out of three pre-season matches, are now attracting enough numbers for two teams to training (38 were counted last week!) and are now, excuse the American terminology, five and 0! Wow things really can change over the summer! Which is precisely the topic that I would like to cover today: Change - a good or a bad thing?

            Well without doubt for us, in the above scenario, change has definitely been a good thing! I don't think a lot of people after last year would have put us sitting undefeated at the top of the table after five games! And although sterner tests are still to come, the boys are playing with a confidence that bodes well for the rest of the season!

            But what about change elsewhere? Well a pretty big issue at the moment in Scotland is the change in the licensing laws. No longer are bars and clubs allowed to advertise happy hours and drinks promotions and no longer are supermarkets allowed to sell booze at ridiculously low prices. Now this is going to affect a number of people in a number of different ways, which to me results in both good and bad change. First of all the good change: the supermarkets. No longer will Tesco post annual profits that equate to the wealth of the U.S, Europe and Asia combined. Now they will only be rich enough to buy 7 of the planets.

            But what of the consumer? Well the residents of Lanark and Carnwath are going to be devastated! The possibility of a rise in the price of Buckfast is surely going to start riots! I can see it now as they arrive in their Saxos and Corsas with holes in the exhausts and spoilers that would look to big on a 747 jumbo jet, armoured with white La Coq Sportif tracksuits and helmets of Burberry, descend upon their local off license shouting their war cries of "haw you! I'm gonnae nut ye!"

            Then we need to consider the elder generation. Well as a neighbour to Dumbiedykes in Edinburgh with a bedroom view overlooking a small park I am regularly treated to a morning, afternoon, early evening and the occasional night show of "Hobo's in the park". Now the majority of you out there will think that the possibility of getting rid of these Hobo's would be a good thing. You would however be wrong! These shows can at times be very entertaining! Especially the other day when I watched as two were having obviously a very educated political discussion when one came out with "Yeah it's all totally the governments fault. That Blair need's to go" (but with a lot less T's being pronounced). I'm not worried though, I don't think that the new licensing laws will have that much of an effect on my shows. I mean how much more expensive can they make 3 litre bottles of Tesco value Lager and Asda Price Cider?

Sticking with bad change, there is another group of the younger generation out there that will be affected badly by this change. The student! Gone are the days when you will see young adults in the cities queuing in Asda and Tesco with three trolleys, each struggling to contain 12 crates of Tennants and Strongbow as they stock up for the week, not because they like it, in fact few people do, but instead for the simple reason it costs £2 for 300 cans! But why is this bad change I hear you ask? Because I've still got a year to go! That's why!!!

 

 

Valentines Day 

 

            It's the 14th of February, what else can I talk about other than relationships? Love is in the air as boyfriends, girlfriends, wives, a few husbands, and secret admirers all over the world are buying cards, flowers and confectionary in order to express their love and affection for that special someone. Restaurants are fully booked as couples plan a romantic evening of champagne and oysters, jewellers are stocking up with heart shaped trinkets and travel agents are offering deals on weekend breaks to Paris and Venice. It's a busy couple of days in the run up to this occasion, but I want to ask a question: is Valentines Day really worthy of such fuss?

 

            Well to answer this we need to split into three separate groups of people. The first two of these groups are the young couples and the old couples. Surely for such couples though a day of romance can only benefit their relationship…or can it? Picture it; you're a young man waking up this morning with a smile on your face thinking "great it's the weekend, time to relax". You get a phone call from the missus saying she'll be over in an hour. That's fine I'll spend the day with her. She arrives and with a big smile on her face presents you with something you never want to see unless either; a) it's your birthday or b) you have one to give her in return. Yes that's right the dreaded envelope with no address on it, only a name…your name. Your face drains of all colour as your mind screams "oh dear god! What is it!? It's not my birthday! It must be our anniversary! Yes that's it! Our anniversary!" and then with an air of triumph you say "happy anniversary" and lean in for a kiss. That's when it all goes horribly wrong. She pulls away. "You think it's our anniversary?" she asks with a frown? "Err…no of course not. That was obviously a joke!" you reply as the beads of sweat appear on your forehead. "Pancake day?" "I DON'T BELIEVE YOU!" she cries as she throws the envelope in your face and storms out. You pick it up and open it to reveal a pink flowery card covered in hearts. "Bloody Valentines".

 

            As for the older generations, that's a completely different story. Wives have gotten used to the fact that men are useless with dates and are deliriously overjoyed when celebrating an anniversary that their man doesn't just look back with surprise when she says happy anniversary to him. To receive something for Valentines Day, well that is usually responded with, "what's happened?", "what have you done?", or "who is she?" When he answers "Gary from the pub" you wonder where you went wrong.

 

            The third group though is often forgotten about on this day. This is of course the singles. What does Valentines Day mean for them? Well being a member of this most prestigious of classes I can speak quite truthfully. We hate it. I should probably say that that is a general statement but I won't because I think it is fair enough to say that there aren't any single people out there who actually like Valentines Day. But can you blame us? For the month running up to this apparently vital date we are bombarded with pink and red notices sprawled on shop windows saying things like 'perfect gifts for your valentine', 'presents for that special someone' or 'ha-ha! You're single!' Then we put on the radio and all we hear is Celine Dion and Bryan Adams. Don't get me wrong, I like Bryan Adams but there's only so much 'everything I do, I do it for you' that one man can take! TV though can provide a slight getaway from it all. They're so preoccupied in selling you couches and car insurance that it seems they have forgotten about Valentines Day.

 

            But this all seems like the ramblings of a frustrated bachelor. Well that's because it is. But you have to agree with me, single or not, a date that is celebrated by feeling forced to spend vast amounts of money for each other to prove your love in the name of a saint I doubt the majority of people will know the actual story about shouldn't really be taken that seriously? But I'll let you be the judge of that yourself.

 

            On a bit of a side note though, the universal symbol for love, the heart, has an interesting story behind how it became said symbol. You should look it up, it's…interesting. Just thought I'd throw that in their so the next time you send a card with a printed heart on it, just think if that would have been enough for Saint Valentine's lady.

Leaders 

 

            For those of you who have been living in caves for the past month and did not yet know, Barack Hussein Obama has recently been sworn in as the 44th U.S President. Who'd have thought that a man with a name like that would ever become president? Now for me, Obama winning the election was fantastic news. Not only did it end the reign of Bush (one of the few men in the world capable of saying in front of thousands/millions of people "For NASA space is still a high priority" and "rarely has the question been asked: is our children learning?") but it put the most powerful office in the world in the hands of someone who actually seems to know what they're doing. I mean even I, someone who knows as much about politics as Pete Brown knows about doing things 'your way', thought from his inauguration speech that "here's the man for the job".

            But what about other leaders from around the world? How do they compare to Obama? Well I suppose we should start at home with our very own Gordon Brown, a man with the charisma of a radish. Can u imagine Brown in the white house? Suppose it wouldn't be all bad, Britain would quickly become the more economically powerful of the "special relationship" and it would be the Americans telling the press to "shut the hell up about recession, we don't know what it means!" Then there's Putin. Him in the white house could be fun. People would learn Judo and go hunting tigers in the forest! Then we'll all sit round, get drunk on vodka and tell tales of the power of the motherland. Sarkozy could be an interesting president. Americans will still eat but my god they'll now eat well! The war in Iraq will probably end aswell, he's French, he'll surrender. Zapatero (the Spanish Prime Minister) I don't think would make a great president though. Sure people would work in the morning but then they'd all fall asleep at two in the afternoon.

            But what of non political leaders? Well I think Frank Hadden would do a pretty good job. When he took over from Matt Williams he was effectively taking control of an outfit who had been governed by nothing short of a moron… remind you of anything? Look how that turned out. Scotland under Hadden, although undoubtedly a few damp patches, have done a pretty good job with their first win over the barbarians, their first 100 point win and two consecutive home Calcutta cup victories, the first time that's happened since 1984-86. Sticking with Rugby Coaches, just over the border we have Martin Johnson. Suppose it would make sense to appoint him to the presidency even though he's never governed before, after all they appointed him head coach of one of the biggest rugby teams in the world despite having no coaching experience. Graham Henry I suppose would be the primary candidate for the job from the rugby world though. Under his rule, the U.S would dominate the world. Up until it comes to a world war that is where he'll be by far the favourite to win but will choke in the semi's and will have to be content with sweeping countries aside for another four years. Warren Gatland would probably do a good job though he would be more suited too a smaller country, build them up from a couple of poor results and then blow everyone away in a European war.

            Anyway one thing is for sure, any of the above would make a more competent president than the last. I don't think enough emphasis can be put on how much of an idiot I think Bush is. I mean here's a man who has an entire book devoted too funny/stupid quotes he has made, a man who once said "it's not the pollution that's harming our environment, it's the impurities in our air and water that are", a man who also once said "our enemies are cunning and resourceful, and so are we. Our enemies continue to think up news ways to harm our people, and so do we". I could go on forever with these. In fact the man even has a term named after him: Bushism-a term applied to a number of peculiar words, phrases, pronunciations, linguistic errors or gaffes made by George W. Bush. How on earth he got voted for a second term I will never know!

New Year 

 

            Well it's time to put you all out of your misery. As I'm sure you are all aware from my first article, I left you all on a cliff-hanger as to what the article was going to be called. Well after an agonising wait for you all as I'm sure it must have been, Biggar's best kept secret since Malky Bruce's age can finally be revealed; A Player's Perspective, worth the 4 week wait I'm sure!

            Today I'd like to talk about New Year as it seems quite an appropriate time to do so, and what it means to different people. There is no escaping it, for a large majority of us it means a big party. Many of us will choose to stay in Biggar and take advantage of the bonfire but many will also make the short journey to Edinburgh to attend the world famous Edinburgh street party. I was one of these people last year and can I just say what a mistake! Princes Street at the best of times is overcrowded so just imagine what 100,000 people all crammed in at once is like. Even once you get used to being pushed about by hundreds of drunken revellers you realise that there really isn't an awful lot to do than just wander about. There are a few mediocre bands that you can see in the far off distance but to get a decent spot would mean to fight your way through a crowd three times the size of your average American! I think not. Suppose we could queue for 35 minutes to pay £18 for a beer. No? Fair enough. So what did I do for the 40 minutes I was there for? Well it was in a way time well spent. Me and my group of friends shouldered and bumped and wriggled and gang charged our way through the crowds to find a good spot to watch the fireworks. When the bells came the whole £5 that I paid for my ticket seemed worth it. I'd never seen fireworks like them before. The cascading waterfall effect down the cliff of Castlehill was particularly stunning and the noise was overwhelming! My advice for any future Princes Street goer, go at 11.50pm and leave at 12.10am, that way you get the only bit worth going for!

             However, New Year doesn't just mean a party. For some it means a fresh start. A chance to change something about yourself. Maybe a change in appearance such as loosing weight, changing your hairstyle or even, from rumours that I've heard concerning a certain Mr Nesbit, plastic surgery. For others a change in personality might be on the cards. Perhaps learn to not take things to seriously and see the funny side of things such as certain satirical articles published in certain sporting programmes.

            New Year also provides a time for many to take up new hobbies or interests. May I suggest to those not already involved, rugby is a pretty darn good option for this! I mean what is there not to like? Not only is it a great way of socialising and meeting new people but its legalised brutality! What more do you want from a sport?

            For the majority of women though (and some men too!) New Year means the January sales. It's the time of year where bargain hunters come out of their lairs to feed. This annual phenomenon has always been somewhat of a myth to me though having never been shopping too soon after Christmas but this year I decided to join the pack. So on Boxing Day I ventured out into the wild in search of fresh bargains. When I got to my hunting ground on the plains of Livingston though it was complete chaos! I looked around and realised I was way out of my depth here. Seasoned veterans with 19 bags under each arm, obviously stocking up for the rest of the year, rushed from shop to shop adding to their collection and able learners with a few years experience under their belts were not far behind them.

However I realised I was not alone. As I looked around I couldn't help notice my fellow rookies. They were easy to spot with that scared, lost, hopeless expression on their face. Some had managed to take shelter under escalators, behind benches and anywhere else they possibly could…but they were the lucky ones. I saw 19 get trampled under foot…they didn't get back up. I wanted to help I really did but there was no chance. I felt like Simba in the canyon. All I could do was take refuge with three others behind a decorative palm tree until the stampede passed. I'll never forget Francis, Audrey, Xiao Ling and those 9 days we spent hidden away. Mind you it was only 3 days for Xiao Ling.

It was a Sunday when we felt it safe to emerge from our den. We were tired and hungry having only had Chinese food between the three of us but for those of us who had made it we were grateful just to be out alive. Next year I think I'll bring a gun.

A New Age  

            If, like me, you were one of the ones who was more eager to find out who was being named and shamed in the Horse's Mouth rather than who was in the team for the match that was about to be played when opening your programme on a Saturday, you would probably have shared my disappointment upon hearing of the Horse's retirement. The departure of the Horse has left a gap in many programmes, a gap which, after a somewhat satirical sevens report, I was approached by Al Stewart to fill. Of course to fill such boots is a monumental task but with great enthusiasm I accepted the challenge.

So here I am sitting in my room on a Wednesday evening thinking 'what the hell am I going to write about!?' I could look back at the email that Al sent me full of suggestions of topics but that would mean searching through an endless supply of junk mail on my hotmail account to find it something that I'd much rather not do as it annoys me no end, I mean does anybody actually want a new and quick way of keeping their pets nail's trim? And as for Livegirls.com asking me to register with them! I don't think so! My loyalties lie firmly with XXX.com thank you very much! But anyway I drift from the matter at hand. So what am I going to talk about? Well I was mulling this over and over again in my head for quite literally minutes before it came to me; names. Where better to start than the very start and the one thing that every new thing needs is a name, something I had yet to provide my new project with.

So I was thinking away, trying to come up with some sort of witty or clever play on words that I could incorporate my nickname into such as the Horse had done only to discover that this is so much easier to do if you have a nickname so bang went that idea. After a quick mental brainstorm I thought perhaps something to do with me personally. "Memoirs of a Teen" sounded good but that would only work for the next couple of weeks. "A Student's Thought's" also crossed my mind but again that wasn't really a long term solution because even after I graduate in the hopefully not to distant future, I intend to commit to this article just as many of my fellow players before me have committed themselves to this club…wait a minute, that's not right…Anyway moving on, I realised that another downfall of "A Student's Thought's" was that it wasn't really very rugby orientated.  Maybe "A Player's Thought's", nah doesn't really roll off the tongue very well but I do like the use of Player. Again minutes flew by as the brainwaves went to work to come up with something that went well with player and then ding! It hit me! "It's perfect!" I thought. It met the criteria, it was simple, reasonably clever, it rolls off the tongue, it has something to do with me and what the articles about, and as an added bonus it even has a little bit of alliteration, which for the younger ones and those of you from Lanark is when words in the same sentence begin with the same letter. "But prey, tell us what said name is going to be!" I hear the whole three of you who really care shouting. Well you'll just need to purchase the next edition of the BRFC programme to find out.