Hedgecutter

My dad worked as a safety rep for 3M at the time and sourced me a fancy welders mask for the big event. My mum wouldn't let me use it though and never let me look at it properly. Still raging about that tbh.

Little did I realise this would be the pressing issue. The company in question is an operator who puts a daily allowance on the employees lanyard which can be redeemed at their canteen. Anything above that amount has to be paid for by the person, and if you're a scummy outsider then you'll probably have to pay using your own card. The great crime apparently is that it doesn't work on the office vending machine, almost as if they're incentivising the healthier guff.

The richest aren't necessarily those who earn the most, but very often those who build up a decent amount over the years because of their frugality. On the flip side, those who live in the biggest house with the flashiest car don't necessarily have the biggest disposable income. The latter are the perennial misery guts who are constantly under stress to keep up with the Jones'. The under-the-radar ones who don't give a f*** about driving a Skoda rather than a Jaguar even though they can afford one, far less so. As a gross generalisation, the wealthier in society generally appreciate how 'wealth builds wealth' more than the not-so-wealthy who are more likely to piss it away on overinflated consumerist garbage. Not that I'm saying that everyone will do this, as there will always be greedy bas*ards in the world, but many will have their own charities and opt to give money to them in the future after giving today's money time to grow. Why give £X now when you can give £X+Y later sort of thing.

Are we assuming that every kid in a Scottish school was born in Scotland? That database deals with the official legal registration details, as opposed to unofficial ones written in a book at some sky fairy hut.

Whilst up at the bar yesterday, I took a fairly large sip out of my pint in order to reduce the spillage risk when carrying the round over to the table. Barmaid saw the pint was missing an inch and topped it up before I could say anything (had I wanted to), probably assuming that the head had settled too low. Small wins. Forgot that Tennents Ember existed anyway. A glorious blast from the past.

My other half has a new colleague who has recently moved into a house across the road from the office on the edge of Kingswells (a relatively affluent area of Aberdeen). One of the company perks is a free lunch in their canteen. This one guy has gone there for lunch every day last week. Normally there wouldn't be anything odd about this behaviour, except he's been on leave for the Easter Holidays all week. This current status is best evidenced by him wandering in wearing his lanyard and jammies at 11am (canteen opening time) this past Friday. Top marks for brazenness.

Can we please just get Price out now, even if it means paying him to stay at home. Sometimes one needs to put their hands up and admit when they've made a right royal f*** up of a decision rather than dig the heels in, and now is one of those times. Not next week, not the last game of the season, not when Fraserburgh or Buckie are playing EK, but now. Still doesn't have a scooby about his starting 11, and evidently has no clue how to manage a game when it's needed. "Either he goes or I go" would be a tad thermonuclear, but that's not far off from where I'm at just now tbh. Today just reinforced how weak the team are when required to win second balls. Fraserburgh were all over us from that point of view, and they spent more time in the final third in the first 5 mins of the 2nd half than we did in the entirety of the first, with the same conditions.

Eta: I genuinely searched "the dog has to die Alan Partridge" to find that. In my head it was from AP rather than RM.

Broch V Brechin ON.

For the sweet love of Christ please tell me that 'Mahon' isn't pronounced as 'Man': It is, isn't it.

FWIW, I've got a Dons-supporting friend who likes telling folk with an element of pride that he was born exactly 9 months after Gothenburg.

96 variations of Jax/Jaxx/Jaxxon registered in Scotland this year alone (and it's barely April!). I blame the parents. Good to see Kaiden/Caiden on a sharp downward trend after its ~2010 explosion though. Unlucky for those reaching working age. ETA: shout out to my parents for their ability to pick 'Aberdeen' names (big in the 80s but completely irrelevant for a while now) :

Shed load of rain predicted tomorrow on top of already saturated ground, so not particularly hopeful for a game this coming Saturday. At least I get a Wimpy if the Broch V Brechin game is somehow called off at 2:15.

Not another B team FFS.

Price to be both the Messiah and an unpopular figure ("ach, it was mere luck in the playoffs") next season. Can seriously see it happening.

Please be Alloy Steele.

Finished 12 points behind Alloa too. Big difference with that I suppose is that nobody was expecting it, and promotion was more of a 'nice to have'. Not so much now where there's serious pressure to get up asap, otherwise there's the realistic chance that we'll end up one of the perennial mid-HL-table teams (although most seem to eventually have a shot at the title on a cyclic basis tbf). If Brechin didn't have the SPFL history behind them then there's no reason why they should be seen as any bigger than a team from a similar sized town such as Turriff (granted they don't have the Dundee area to tap into as well as Aberdeen, but you know what I mean). This is a critical season.

"How dare you leave me for work then just expect to waltz back into my life"

A former teacher of mine was (supposedly) a black belt in karate and punched/dented his metal filing cabinet during classes to reinforce this.

Any dots before the @ in an email Gmail address are completely superfluous. I.e. if my email was hedge.cutter@gmail.com then I'd still receive an email even if somebody accidentally sent it to hedgecutter@gmail.com

At this late stage of the season, it's absolutely mental that Dunfermline could realistically be in a league above or below Falkirk next season.

Why can't Brechin beat any of the top 5 and Buckie not beat anybody outwith it just now?! We know the first part, but the latter is such a mystery that it's almost deliberate.

Sitting at Heathrow, hearing the call for an Edinburgh flight spoken in a SE accent as "Edinbraaaaaaugh", and pretty much every Scot within a two gate radius inadvertently saying "Braaaaugh" together.

Despite being force fed the Easter story at primary, I couldn't tell you the significance of any of the Easter days now. One of them involves a stable and a manger, I know that much at least.

Killing a bit time on my last day in Lisbon and have to admit that whilst I've enjoyed myself, I would hate to be here in the summer. It's only March and the entire city centre feels like one extended 'Royal Mile at peak season'. The most popular tram/bus are already standing-space only for 40 min trips (out to Belem for example), and queues are exceeding 30 mins. Part of me feels guilty for adding to it. Avoid the TimeOut market textbook tourist-trap like the plague and catch a quiet bus to Mercado de Campo Ourique instead, where there are mainly locals. Don't waste valuable wine-drinking time queuing for that Santa Justa elevator. Instead, just walk up the small hill and onto the bridge viewpoint for free (we went down the lift instead, joined by just two others). The 'Lisboa Card', which has saved me at least €25, is exceptional value. Granted it's made me go to some strange places to extend my my money's worth, such as the cod & tile museums, but I found them far more interesting than expected. An extension to the coach museum is in a classy former royal riding school at Belem; under the radar, hence nobody was there (polar opposite to the neighbouring monastery). My top tip to anyone with such a card: organisation and consistency are not Portugal's strong points. Some attractions require you to buy a separate ticket using your Lisboa Card whilst others accept the card as a ticket, and there's little to tell you this. Whilst the Oceanarium isn't fully on the card, it's excellent (recommended to me why a colleague from Lisbon), and I'm miffed as to why it gets so little attention on the guides. Felt exceptionally smug in Sintra yesterday after joining what I thought was the queue to get a ticket for the massive pre-paid queue, only to get in ahead of the pre-paid folk lined up halfway down the hill. Waltzed up to the Imitation Well (v.cool with the tunnel system btw) as one of the first dozen there. Pasteil de nata, even those from the shop in Belem are massively overhyped imo. The ginja shots (nothing to do with ginger) on the other hand are tremendous. If one can, I'll be seeking out a bottle of that later today. ETA: got onto the first tram/bus I could from the aforementioned Mercado after a fine feed to escape the rain last night. Turned out to be the infamously crowded Tram 28. As you can see, it's a bit quieter once folk start retiring to their hotels (we were the only ones left on this wee dodgem rollercoaster through Alfama, so just stayed on til the Metro station at the terminus):