Laid Back Maverick

Gatecrasher Trance Anthems 1993-2009, just got in on random in background. Some good old tunes on there.

Interesting (to me anyway!) end of that story was that Greenpeace refloated the Rainbow Warrior and resunk her a year and a half later as an "artificial reef". 8 years later Greenpeace told lies about the Brent Spar (they now admitting to doing so!) to stop it being dumped in the deep waters of the Atlantic. Hypocrites.

Real men don't get jags. Actually, I used to be so feart of needles that I'd just tolerate the pain. Needles don't bother me so much these days.

Kilt was trying to discuss some of the exhibits in Kirkcaldy Museum with me, Napolean Dynamite and Mitre56 at the 5's. We all sort of looked a bit blank. I don't think any of us had been in the museum since school.

That's just a Cormorant with a quiff!

I followed that with £1.50 "house" vodka & cokes in a Kirkcaldy pub. I haven't drunk vodka in years either. I completely mangled Don't Stop Believin' and Radio Ga Ga on the karaoke too.

Hangover's starting to kick-in and my legs are getting stiff...

Cheers for the advice. I did some light interval training on Thursday night with my mate's running club. Did the half marathon in 2hrs 26mins which I'm still chuffed with considering it was my first HM.

Looking for a bit of advice. I'm doing the Dunfermline Half Marathon for charity on 10th May and I started training in late Feb. I hadn't been jogging/running for about six months before that. I got into the regular habit of jogging 30-45mins at least three times a week and one lap of Dunfermline HM (or equivalent) once a week but the past two weeks have become a disaster. I did 20 miles of hillwalking (with a bit of hill-running) two weeks ago but ended up with badly blistered heels which stopped further training for a week and since then I've been suffering from a bad cold which has really knocked the stuffing out of me - even jogging from the train station in Kirkcaldy to Stark's Park on Sat was a struggle. I was really hoping to do the event <2hrs, so has anybody got any advice in what I should do in my last two weeks? I can maintain a fast walk of around 4mph over an almost unlimited distance, so I know I could "walk" the event in a little over 3hrs but that just seems like giving up.

Spent a couple of nights camping up in Blair Atholl. First day, I climbed up Beinn Dearg via Meall Dubh nan Dearcag. An easy walk in up a landrover trail which gradually rises from 150m to ~500m, then a zig-zag up a plateau before navigating a boulder field. Some cracking views, but unfortunately the cloud cover was quite low. From Beinn Dearg, I completed the loop via Elrig 'ic an Toisich, Carn a Chiaraidh, Beinn Mheadhonach and back to Blair via Glen Tilt. Some pretty heavy going through the heather as there's not much in the way of trails beyond Beinn Dearg, but I did see my first ever Mountain Hares up Carn a Chiaraidh, which were changing into their summer colours (as were the Ptarmigans). I should've done Beinn Gharbh for another munro, but I didn't want to scramble across a boulder field on my own in the wrong direction. Total peace and quiet all day and only bumped into another person when I reached the bridge south of Beinn Mheadhonach (6hrs after setting off). Sadly, the 20 mile round trip took its toll on my feet which curtailed any walking on day two (I'd been intending to do Carn Liath and Beinn A'Ghlo), so I spent the day wandering around Blair Castle and watching Red Squirrels in the small patches of Caledonian pine forest. Both nights were topped off with a nice meal in the Atholl Arms, washed down with a few pints of Braveheart Ale (brewed nearby in Moulin) and a few nips of Highland Park. Magic. (Plus the amusing sidenote of an English lassie extolling her vegetarianism in the bar after finishing off Haggis and Neeps ) Probably my favourite photo of the trip - Beinn Dearg from Carn a Chiaraidh.

I decided to replace my balding mountain bike tyres with road-types, upgrade the rear mudguard to a something more substantial, and give the spokes a good scrub down. 3 hours later, and completing the job using torchlight, I only need to inflate the tyres. My sister donated me a footpump, so I'm happily stamping away, 55 PSI in the front tyre (max 60) and I take my foot off. The needle keeps rising and...BANG! The inner tube explodes and the sidewall of my shiny new tyre is shredded. Note to self in future, the footpump inflates on both the up- and down-stroke. Oh well...another trip to Halfords tomorrow for (another) new tyre and inner tube. May as well inflate the back tyre. And it won't inflate. Argh! I must've pinched on the rim when I was fitting the new tyre. Not a good night. At least the new mudguard fits well.

I watched Max Payne last night and it's arguably the worst film I've ever seen. The odd bit of stylish violence but that's about it.

For a while, every b-movie I stumbled across on Sci-Fi seemed to have Stephen Baldwin in it. (Think he made 5 movies exclusively for Sci-Fi)

Valkyrie. 6/10. Middle of the road. Why Bryan Singer pitched it as a thriller I'll never know. Everyone knows that the plot failed, so why not put more emphasis on the characters rather than the actual plot.

I think the rest are just edited by his son (just like the Silmarillion) and aren't necessarily the finished product.

Was it The Silmarillion that you read? Beren and Luthien is one of the chapters in that. I've tried to read the Silmarillion twice, but just found it a bit hard going - there's far too many names to remember if you try to read it from start to finish. (Seriously how many names does Gandalf actually need?!?). Although if you take it seriously, then Saruman, Gandalf, Radagast and Sauron were all Maiar in the beginning, so surely Saruman, Gandalf and Radagast together could have defeated Sauron ages before LOTR? (Although, I suppose that's the same as the "fly the ring to Mt Doom on an eagle" argument isn't it)

"The Regiment: The Real Story of the SAS" by Michael Asher. Very good read, which cuts through all the bullshit and romanticism of the SAS that's evolved over the years. It covers the first 50 years from WW2 Africa via Italy and Normandy, Malaysia, Oman, Borneo, Dhofar, Northern Ireland, Iranian Embassy, Falklands, and ending with the first Gulf War. Only downer is that the last section covering the first Gulf war is practically copied and pasted from Asher's previous "The Real Bravo Two Zero" or Peter Radcliffe's "Eye of the Storm: 25 Years Action with the SAS, but I suppose there's only so many ways you can write MacNab is a lying arsehole. Compared to some of SAS books out at the moment, it openly acknowledges mistakes that were made - including the killing of civilians in Northern Ireland.

Having spent two years living in Drongan and going to school in Auchinleck some of those old Ayrshire mining villages are grim (not saying the Fife ones are any better though) - Glespin has to be one of the worst though.

I do! I've never convinced the missus to cross it. I walked between Corrour Station (the station in Trainspotting) and Glen Etive a few years back - it was the most knackering yomp through bogs and burns I've ever done, but to emerge into that bit of Glen Nevis was just magic. It's almost Himalayan. Thankfully, the reverse walk from the car park is a lot easier! My next mission is to walk up The Fara near Dalwhinnie. I hear it's got some nice views, is fairly close to the train line, and there's a wee bit of scrambling if you want it. Sounds good!

Glen Nevis to the Steall Falls (and the shoogly bridge) is one of my favourite walks down that way. Walk Highlands route

Some fantastic shots here!

Good film, but I think the book's better - although I was struck by the fact that after they'd started to eat the dead bodies, people started dying off mysteriously (maybe I'm just being cynical). If I remember rightly, the film doesn't point out that if they'd actually climbed down the hill (rather than up and over) they'd have found civilisation far quicker.

Have a look at the map here (You need Adobe Acrobat though) I used to get the bus to Colinton and walk to Swanston and climb straight up between Caerketton Hill and Allermuir Hill (it's quite steep but the quickest way up). From there I used to vary my route, but it was usually a varying route over the hills down to Glencorse reservoir. If I was feeling fit, I would sometimes extend the route by following the road to Loganlea Reservoir then climbing Scald Law, Carnethy Hill and Turnhouse Hill. I always return back to Swanston via the track west of Castlelaw hill (as it avoids the firing range), but that's a force of habit more than anything else (there's an interesting fort just off that track too).

Even closer to Kdy, you have Falkland Hill (i.e. East Lomond), West Lomond, the Bishop Hill and Largo Law as easy walks to break you in. (If you like birdwatching, even the hill behind Vane Farm is worth a climb). Those were the hills that got me in hillwalking when my Dad dragged me up them as a kid. As Gaz says, there's fun to be had in the Ochils - I regularly do the Mill Glen circle of The Law, Ben Cleuch and Ben Ever (nice circular route) and I've found it to be usually quiet. The Pentlands are not really taxing either, there's plenty of circular walks to be made from Swanston Golf Course (just avoid the firing range!). The first munro I ever climbed was Cairnwell (for the reasons that Gaz states) but I've never really been a Munro bagger. The last Munros I climbed were probably Sgurr Nan Gillean (Cuillins) and the South Kintail Ridge a couple of years back and I've been favouring long-distance valley walks (Corrour Station/Glen Nevis, West Highland Way, Lairig Ghru etc.) more recently. I'm missing the high ground just now though - they call Caithness "the Lowlands in the Highlands" because it's so flat - but I'm planning to walk from Altnabreac railway station back to Thurso when the weather's more suitable. I think that's about 20 miles in total.

Ladder 49. A firefighter is trapped and lies injured in a burning warehouse, the film splices the rescue effort with flashbacks of his life. The emotion is laid on a bit thickly at times, but I thought it was a decent enough film. I still don't get the "Irish-American" obsession with kilts, tartan and bagpipes though. 7/10