The Wrong Target

Hullo.

I was going to write about the St Mirren game on Saturday (there will be more on that later). However, a couple of stories appeared in the Paisley Daily Express yesterday, which quite frankly demonstrate what a hair tearingly frustrating place Paisley is. It also shows why it is such a hole.


On page 3 was a story headlined “FURY AT SALMONDS UNIVERSITY SELL-OUT” where the FM, Alex Salmond is critisised by all right minded Paisley Buddies, and Hugh Henry, for giving the go ahead for Paisley University to change its name to The University of the West of Scotland. Mr Henry, I should point out is my local MSP, and he is “Furious”, claiming that “The SNP made great play about retaining the name of Paisley in the title. Now we find that with no consultation and no publicity, Alex Salmond and the SNP have betrayed Paisley, its history and its heritage”

This is clearly humbug from a former minister who would have been bound by the position of the Scottish cabinet when they gave the mearger of Paisley University and Hamilton’s Bell College the thumbs up. I am also offended because this is really small beer compared to the shooting at the weekend of Andrew Devlin outside of Suzy Q’s nightclub in Paisleys Stock Street (pictured).It is one of the great failures of the New Labour led executive that the criminal gangs survived and prospered. Its no surprise that Mr Henry would want us to forget their failings on that front, but to pick on something so trivial… Scottish New Labour really have lost the plot.

A New Season Awaits

Hullo.

Tomorrow the football season begins all over again. Here in Scotland, we hope that the season will go on to conclude at next years European Championships, held in Austria and Switzerland. Crucial fixtures in the Autumn against France (away), Ukraine (Home), Georgia (Away), and Italy (Home) will determine if we get there.

In the meantime the domestic season gets underway. After last seasons dramatic escape from relegation, the mighty St Mirren begin their last season at Love Street with a visit from Motherwell, who have provided some happy memories of late for the Saints. On top of their 3-0 defeat in the Scottish Cup last year, St Mirren were undefeated against the Steelmen last season, culminating in the 3-2 win on the penultimate day of last season which sent Dunfermline into the Scottish League.

Of last seasons squad, the biggest losses are Kirk Broadfoot, who has moved to Rangers, and top scorer John Sutton, who has gone to Wycome. After the departure of Adam and Lappin, this leaves Van Zanten and Kean as the surviving key players from the 2005/6 promotion/championship side.

Gus McPherson has not been idle in the transfer window. He has brought in 4 players, Mark Howard from Cardiff, Will Hainning from Oldham, Gary Mason from Dunfermline and, prehaps the bigest coup, Craig Dargo from Inverness. Dargo is a former Scotland under 21 player, and has scored a lot of goals with Kilmarnock and Inverness. It will be unfortunate that he will not start against Motherwell, as he is a key player.

This season, I think that we will finish just outside the top 6, maybe about 8th. Gretna will fight it out with possibly Inverness for survival. As for the championship, it will be Celtic by 5 points.

Enjoy the rollercoaster.

New Pearl of India No Less

Hullo, so where was I before last week and all the PC problems.

The other week there it was my birthday, and the purple rhino asked me where I would like to go for dinner. Sutherlands (posh Scottish restaurant) used to be nice (we haven’t been back for a couple of years), we’ve been to Minsky’s (ultra posh New York deli diner in the Glasgow Hilton) lots of times. I thought that it would be a good idea for us to go to a restaurant that we haven’t been to for years, The Pearl of India which the last time we went, oooh on Guy Fawkes Night 2004 was on Aitkenhead Road across the road from Hampden. It was small, but the best curry house that we’ve been to.

We booked the table for the Saturday, the day before my Birthday. We were surprised to learn that the Restaurant had re-located, and re-named itself New Pearl of India. It was now on Cathcart Road, across from the entrance to Mount Florida Train Station. We met up with our friend Fi and headed up there after a bit of shopping in Paisley.

When we got there, we were taken to our tables. The new premises are a lot more spacious than the old place, with a more modern feel. We started with the Popadoms/spicey onions/sauce combination, with Ange asking for Mango Chutney. Straight away the standard was set very high, excellent popadoms and spicy onions which tasted of onions.

For our starters it was a selection of Bhagis’, Pakoras and Chicken Chaat. Now Ange loves the sauce that covers the Chicken Chaat here, so at every opportunity she was asking for the recipe for the sauce, to no avail. Again the starters were excellent, though sometimes I do wish I had a bit more discipline when eating the starters, knowing when to leave room for the main course is a skill, especially here.

The main courses were excellent. A good curry is one where all the flavours can be tasted, and not be suffocated by spicy (chilli) heat. Clay Oven in Cash and Carry land in Glasgow was the last curry-house to carry that off, and the New Pearl certainly did it here. I had Lamb Jalfrezzi, which was excellent. Warm, but enough to let the flavours reach my palate. The rice was good too, but one of the things we came for was the Nan Breads, particularly their Peshwari Nan. This place does the best Peshwari’s that the Purple Rhino, and myself, have tasted.

The Purple Rhino and Fi both had mild curries which rather than be the blander counterparts, were all flavoursome with a hint of sweetness. Ange had her speciality, Chicken Makhanni Massala, while Fi had Chicken Pattia. We all shared a bowl of Chicken Chasni too. These particularly complimented the Peshwari Nan.

Afterwards, we headed back into town to meet up with Fi’s partner, Ferg, who had been at the Scottish Open golf tournament. A good night was had by all, and I would thoroughly recommend the New Pearl to anyone.

See you next time.

Oh Number 9

Hullo.

Sorry I haven’t been blogging of late. I have just been really busy with stuff, that and a touch of writers block. However, there’s nothing like a birthday to cure writers block, especially if it’s mine. Later on, I’ll be writing about the utterly magnificent meal that we had a week past Saturday. However, I have a little something to get off my chest.

Those of you who have looked at my Blogroll will have noticed a blog called Bloodbus, which is the factual account of a Glasgow bus driver. It is factual because dear reader, and I would plump your cushions up before I start, I have seen things as bad as those chronicled on Bloodbus.

Myself an my partner had got to Glasgow Central, thinking that we were living in a modern society when we found out that the trains had finished for the night at quarter past 12, half an hour earlier than they finish on Thursday’s and Fridays (go figure that one!). This meant a trip on the No#9 to Paisley, the “catch the dafties in the one net and put them all on the same bus” special. I don’t think the 14th was a full moon, but what we were about to experience, a full moon was the only explanation.

After we got on, the next stop was at Curry’s on Jamaica Street, where about 20 people tried to get on. There was no room for them, so the bus doors stayed shut. Someone on the outside tried to open the doors, and a crown of people tried to get on. The driver tried to get them off.. We didn’t move for a couple of minutes until everyone who had tried to get on, was back off. Not the only hold up of the night.

We got to Cessnock and the bus stopped again. This time it didn’t move. We were seated so couldn’t see why we had stopped. I thought that the bus had broken down because we had begun to move slowly. Then word spread, someone was standing in front of the bus. Sure enough we got confirmation that indeed there was someone, who wanted on, standing in front of the bus, not letting it go past until he got on. I believe there were people taking pictures on their camara phones for posterity (go on, try and search for in on you-tube, its bound to be there).

After about 5 minutes we were let go, either because the guy was too drunk, realising that he had no chance of getting on the bus, or that he heard that the police might be on their way. Either way we were on our way home. All we needed was a quick taxi once we got back to Paisley, which we got thanks to the Purple Rhino’s new pal Claire.

See you next time!

The Thrill of the Chase

Hullo.

Just a quick one, not one about my holidays this time, but a quick posting about TV, especially as I haven’t written about the TV for a while.

Actually, its more about The Chase, BBC1’s new(ish) Sunday Night drama. Its one of these horribly clichéd Sunday nighs shows where if its not about Doctors in the 1950’s, then it must be coppers in the 1960’s. This one is about a family of vets, who have lost their father, in suspicious circumstances.

However what lifts this programme from the bland to the annoying is that I feel that every male character is just poorly written. Their dialogue is clichéd, their characterisation is 2 dimensional. It is a pity as the programme itself looks quite interesting, if not a tad unchallenging.

Last night I also caught the South Bank Show featuring the guy who should have won Best Actor at the Television BAFTA’s the other week, Michael Sheen. It was an interesting interview, partially touching on his current work playing David Frost in the play “Nixon/Frost”, which is supposed to be turned into a film soon. A lot of the interview though centred on his excellent portrayal of our dear leader, Tony Blair, in the dramas “The Deal” and “The Queen”.

Finaly, I just want to say that I have been blogging for exactly a year now, starting on my yahoo360 page. Im not sure if I am any the wiser as to what I am doing, but I have enjoyed it. You can judge here if my prose has got better, or just more purple! Here’s to the next year.

Maspalomas 2007

Hi there

You know there was a discussion on blackandwhitearmy regarding what people were doing on Saturday the 12th of May, the date when the mighty St Mirren came from 2 down to beat Motherwell (at Fir Park mind) 3-2, only to hear that Dunfermline had lost at Inverness and that the mighty Buds were safe.

Me, I went to Playa de Ingles to a Gay Pride festival.

It was my girlfriend’s idea to go after hearing about it on the plane. I just thought why not. We weren’t sure what time the parade started so we headed there about midday, arriving at about 1 o’clock at the Yumbo centre, a kind of multi storey version of the Piazza circa 1988. After some wandering around we found out that we were about 3 hours early for the parade. But we also found out about the concert, which started about 8:30 in the evening.

We wandered to the courtyard area where the concert was due to take place and caught some of the sound checks, we caught the Jacob Sisters who threw the biggest hissy fit I have ever seen, and we caught Marc Almond and Bucks Fizz too.

After that we then went for some food. We went to this Chinese restaurant in the Yumbo centre, where the food was incredibly greasy. The owners even tried to ration ice cubes! Once we had finished we reckoned it was time for the parade, so we wandered outside the centre to find a spot for the parade, which soon enough came round the corner!

There was a high proportion of Scots at the parade, which was good. We have an image of ourselves as buttoned up repressed presbytarian types, which is far from the truth, given enough sunshine and hedonism. Sunshine really should be on the NHS (translate vitamin D12, the magic one that we can’t make ourselves!)...

After the parade we went to the top street and mingled with the participants in the parade, got some pictures, and then headed down to pick a spot for the concert, which I will write about next time. We thought about a first floor view until we realized that we would probably need to sit down at some point so we sat down outside Buddies Bar (yes, a Buddies Bar, in Gran Canaria of all places), got some drinks and relaxed waiting for the show. Except we got talking to a girl called Emma who was perhaps a bit too, um, open! Its not that she wasn’t good to talk too, but she was just a bit too frank about certain things, that’s all.

Anyway next time, I’ll be writing about the concert, see you then.

Spirit Of The Sea

So, what did we actually do on holiday during the day?

On the Tuesday, we went into Puerto Rico for some shopping, while on Wednesday we went to Anfi Del Mar for a tour around their timeshare apartments. We left there feeling sick, because it was so nice, and because we couldn’t afford it at that moment. Which brings us to Thursday (the 10th of May) and our trip on Spirit of the Sea – “The Dolphin and Whales search trip in Gran Canaria”

We booked this trip through our rep, we were to be at the boat for the 12:30 trip. We turned up slightly early and made our way to the boat. At this point I should warn you against the timeshare sellers, which are somewhat akin to Jawas. The favored trick is to offer you a free scratch card, which you open to reveal your prize. A blue star is usually a t-shirt, while a gold star is either a MP3 player, a Digital Camera or (more likely) a free holiday. When you win the gold star they insist that you travel to their offices, and they are insistent on this. On our way towards the ship one of these traders stopped us, and we went through the rigmarole. When Ange “won” he got stroppy when we told him that we had booked to go on the Spirit.
We left Puerto Rico and headed south west. The picture above shows us heading away from Gran Canaria. The yellowish tinge in the air is evidence of the Sirocco winds (the winds from Northern Africa)

After about 45 minutes traveling we slowed down. At this point I remembered to put some Suntan Lotion on. Not remembering to put it on would cost me later on (when I developed a pinkish tinge to my arms, I also felt a bit unwell). Our guide then started to talk about dolphins & their habitat. Then there were dolphins spotted… in the distance.

As we got closed, they began to swim around the boat, not in a menacing way but in a playful manner. It was really good to be this close to dolphins as they danced around the boat. The picture above is probably the best one that I took on this trip.

This one was taken as they danced around the boat. They were also dancing around the foam that the boat was making. I tried to see if I could get some pictures from the bottom of the boat (the boat had a glass bottom) but to no avail.

It just didn’t feel long enough. It felt like it was too soon before we were on our way back to Puerto Rico. The journey back seemed a lot quicker too. Hmmm maybe the sunburn was getting to me even then. Still it was a great afternoon, not even bumping into another one of those timeshare touts could ruin our day. I would feel really rubbish the next day though.

See you next time.

Playa De Amadores

The area of Playa de Amadores, as I have hinted at is a quiet area, though it does have several beachside restaurants. The day before we came back we went to the Europa Centre at the top of the hill, and discovered that as well as shops, there were some more restaurants and bars, the sounds of agitated football fans alerted us to this possibility. We are annoyed at this as we were not told about the nightlife, just the shopping here. Especially as the restaurants nearest our hotel, on the beach front, was such a mixed bag.

We ventured out to the beach on the Wednesday night, just to see what was on offer. The first restaurant we came across was Ciao Ciao, an Italian eaterie. We were put off going there because the staff would not give us time to make up our minds (Memo to restaurant staff: we like time to think about what to have, being hurried tends to put us off). So we walked along a bit and came across Restaurant Belize, who had a Tapas menu (Second memo to restaurant staff: we are not typical Brits abroad, we would actually like to sample the local delicacies).

The first thing that grabbed us was the size of the drinks, we were both given pint sized glasses, which were frozen before being taken out for the juice to be put in. As a result our Coke’s were ice cold when we got them. We ordered 3 Tapas between us, Albondigas (which is meatballs) Cheese Croquettes and Canarian Potatoes covered in Mojo Sauce. Canairian Potatoes are potatoes boiled in sea water and boiled until the water has dried up. The Mojo sauce is strange but very nice; it is supposed to be spicy but is not spicy at all. You can taste the cumin in it though. The Purple Rhino was wowed by the croquettes thought, mainly because they were covered in Tomato & Cream sauce. Not much else to say about the Albondigas apart from Mmmmmmmm…… This was followed up with a Bolognese Pizza which was excellent. The base was super thin and crispy, yet the middle wasn’t soggy at all. The top was excellent too.

A couple of nights later we went down to the beach again, this time we went down the right side of the beach. We went past a couple of restraunts that looked like they were closing. Just past the London Pride bar we came to Los Geranios Restaurant, which was completely different to the Belize. Again we got our large measures of soft drinks, super chilled. I ordered Salmon Ravioli, while the Purple Rhino ordered Lasagne.

At this point can I say that the Salmon Ravioli was really good, it was covered in a creamy tomato sauce (I had expected a white/cheese sauce). However it was spoiled by what happened regards my girlfriend’s dish. Ange received her Lasagne, and the top was burnt. Because the top was burnt she asked for another one, thinking that it had been in the oven for too long, the waiter said that he’d see what he can do. The owner/head chef then arrived and after asking why she didn’t like it. He then said that it wasn’t burnt, that this is the way that HE had been making lasagne, and that any lasagna that she would ask for would look like that. He then chopped up the lasagne to show that in his eyes this was not a burnt lasagne.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Basil Fawlty lives and stays in Playa de Amadores. And boy, did the toys get thrown out of the pram that night! His behavior, his rudeness and his attitude completely spoiled the evening for us. He especially didn't like the fact that the Purple Rhino had tasted Lasagne in 12 diferent countries, and none of them were burnt like that.

I started this blog talking about the Europa centre, which we were lead to think had only shops, but had some nightlife. Before shopping for food to sustain ourselves on the long trip home, we went for something to eat in an eaterie called Little Italy. We both had Lasagna, which was really nice but may have been devoid of meat.

No mention of our gastronomic holiday should pass without a mention for the neighboring hotel to us. When we were fed up of the second barbeque night we went into Gran Amadores and to their pool bar called “Scotch Corner”. There I had a Chili Baked Potato, while the Purple Rhino tucked into what she described as the best toasted sandwich she has had in years. We go away to try and sample different cultures and tastes and we come back raving about a toasted sandwich, strange!

See you next time, when i will be blogging about Dolphins!