does anything ever really change?

Scotland got beaten and once more proved to be glorious in defeat!

Now all the calls are for the manager to at least resign, if not to hang, draw and quarter himself  and that followed by some very public humiliation. I'm not too sure if we have any better, either in the managerial or player area. The sad fact is Scotland just doesn't have the talented football players to enable us to compete at a level far above our position as a small nation in the company of the giants we would love to beat on a regular basis. To compete and win at that level, as many Scots fans would love,  beating  sides like Holland, Italy and, I hate to say, England is precisely what we need to be doing. We were eliminated from the World Cup long before we faced Holland at Hampden last Wednesday. The world-class footballers, competing at the highest level for clubs all around the world, which we watched back in the seventies and early eighties just don't exist these days.

But, we need to move on. The weekend is here and not only that, summer has made an appearance too! About bl**dy time!

oh well

I'm glad I'm not the only one who was excited about today's date, though many of those who were celebrating were doing so because of the pallindrome effect.

Yes today was the 9/9/9 and many chose to make this their wedding day. Maybe it would be worth it just to be able to remember it for something down the years. Once the euphoria has worn off and divorce is looming, I suppose being able to say you were wed on the 9th of the 9th of the 9th is something which will endure.

I wasn't getting married but still enjoyed that time this morning when it was oh nine, oh nine, oh nine, oh nine, oh nine, oh nine.

That's passing quickly though and the next distraction for us footie fans here in Scotland is the game tonight against Holland. A win against a much better team who haven't lost one of their seven qualifying games in this tournament so far isn't beyond the realms of comprehension.
Especially if you are Scottish!

And, now that a certain Mr. A. Murray hasn't won a grand slam in tennis (again) we need to turn our dreams somewhere!

more unwelcome records

I've just had a quick look over some of the posts on this blog.

I was looking to see what had changed in my life over the last year and, as it turned out, I didn't have far to look.

There are some major changes even going back half a dozen or so. And yes, I do know those six or seven posts cover almost twelve months. I do realise how lax I've been when it comes to writing. (wrists slapped!).  Anyway, I'll get round to talking about some of those changes in a subsequent post.
 

One thing which has stayed constant however, is the good old Scottish weather. 
It's still bl**dy raining!! 
I heard on the radio this afternoon that Tyndrum in Perthshire has had one of the three wettest September days on record. I used to live a couple of miles down the road from there and believe me that is WET. 
Roads are closed, rivers burst their banks and road and ferry transport has been disrupted because of the weather. Glasgow had half the rainfall usual for September in one afternoon. In the past week, the Borders region had its wettest day ever. Not even the wettest August/September day. No this was wetter than ANY day, spring, summer autumn or winter!
This all came on top of the BBC weather forecaster this morning stating, "we will have some nice hot September weather today". B*st*rd!


When I said last summer that the weather couldn't get any worse I was wrong.

new start?

I've been occasionally posting to my Harley blog but to be honest it's not the same as being able to indulge myself in the cynicism I could elsewhere. It's also getting to the dark days of winter and riding the bike is becoming a lessening occurence.
So I've decided to revive "Ranting n Raving".
I started by trying to experiment with a new look and somehow managed to screw that up! So, until I get a bit of time to experiment with HTML-ing the look, this will have to suffice.(got it fixed now)

I'm moving

Rather than think up another "13th" ploy to try to keep this blog going I'm re-directing you to my latest venture. What may be yet another, for me, "middle-age crisis"!

My Harley and Me

should auld acquaintance...

It's the final day of 2008.

In just a few hours it will be in the past and a new year will be under way, bringing with it the usual new hopes, plans and dreams. So maybe I should use a few words just to say farewell to the old year and pick out some of the highlights.
Or maybe not. I can't think of any personal highlights and the public ones will no doubt be written about in countless blogs, columns and reviews of the year. It is stock to write interminably about what went on during the previous twelve months.
As if only the columnists have the memory or the ability to use an internet search engine and therefore must remind and enlighten all us sleeping witnesses to the events around us.

2008 wasn't a bad year for me. It just didn't have too many outstanding and memorable happenings.
I went on holiday a couple of times and it rained. I took a lot of photographs (not as many as I would have liked as it rained a lot of the time!) and learned a good bit about the craft of photography. I did a further qualification at work, though for the majority of my time in gainful employment I was wishing I wasn't. (It's just boring and no longer challenging and I have still not found the exciting new career I believe I deserve!). I'm still living the single life. Not ecstatic about that but not grieving either.

So, as I look forward to a new year I'm comfortable that I didn't waste the last one but at the same time I'm not going to make any big plans for the next twelve months.
I'll just take it as it comes.

Happy New Year.

and finally

It's the last of this year's "thirteenth" entries.
To be honest, the whole idea of writing on every thirteenth was conceived purely as a way of excusing my laziness.
I was getting fed up with the regime of writing regularly and so came up with a way of assuaging my conscience but still allowing me to persuade myself that I wasn't giving my blog up entirely.
Not that I wanted to do that either. I enjoy having this space on the web. It's mine and I appreciate having this bolt-hole for my thoughts. Over the couple of years I've been doing it, it has maybe moved on from the rant it was initially intended to be. Hence the title! But it is still my place and it gives me the opportunity to indulge in one of my pleasures. Writing, not complaining!
So, from the start of 2009 I intend to get back into the habit of sitting down and regularly writing something. What it will turn out to say only time will tell. What I must do is to be disciplined about it. No more lame excuses or subtle plots to try to get out of what will be hard work at times but will always end with satisfaction as the ultimate reward.