The Kids are (not) Alright

I'm sure you've all read today about the two brothers from South Yorkshire who attacked other children in a sadistic attack.  They have been sentenced to an indefinite period of detention.  This sounds like a decent sentence until you hear they will serve a "minimum of five years".  

Being the UK Justice system that means they will be out in 5 years, be given anonymity and allowed to spend the rest of their lives as free men, like Thompson and Venables who murdered Jamie Bulger in the early 90s.

The pair, aged 10 and 11 at the time of the attack, threatened to kill their 9 and 11-year-old victims. 

During their 90-minute ordeal the victims were stamped on, forced to strip and hit with bricks. 

So who's to blame here? The offenders had a chaotic upbringing with their violent father, mother and five brothers.  They were shown "extreme" horror films and the younger brother had access to pornographic DVDs and smoked cannabis grown on his father's allotment. This may be extreme, but it's not uncommon nowadays for children to be brought up in a home of this nature. 

You might think this is a "big city" problem.  Only happens on sink estates.  Nothing to do with us.

I disagree.

I don't think it matters where you live. We have feral children in the village.  One in particular roams the streets, mother has no idea (or concern) where he is.  She has 4 kids from different fathers and the wee lad is just left to his own devices. 

With a bit of guidance I think he'd be ok (although he always has that wee glint of devilment in his eyes!) but there's no doubt he'll be in the new "superjail" at Peterhead before the decade is out. 

He's accumulated a gang of others with less than stringent parents (including my old friend Ms Audi A3's boy, who's never off the streets). 

We won't let our two out of the garden as I don't want them getting involved with them.  There's always the worry that your own kids, less "streetwise" than these bairns who have had to fend for themselves since they were toddlers, will get abused physically or mentally by these urchins.

It's a shocking indictment on the country, if we have this kind of thing in a wee village in Aberdeenshire, nowhere's immune.

Lord of the Flies house rules I guess.

Music tonight, another Scottish band for you - Franz Ferdinand and the excellent "Take me Out"

Hogmanay in the Snow

Hello Folks

Well here we are at Hogmanay again.  God knows where the time goes to.  With 2 wee ones our Hogmanay will be a quiet one, at home, couple of beers, watch the (repeated) Still Game, avoid the now turgid Only an Excuse and to bed by 1am. 

I know it's cliched to lament the death of this Scottish Tradition, but I'm going to anyway.  Gone are the days of first footing.  As a kid I sat in my grandparent's house with an Advocaat or Snowball.  As the Grieve of the farm, all the workers came to Granda's house for a dram.  It was the only night of the year he drank (apart from the occasional Sweetheart Stout which I still have a fondness for) and a smile still comes to my face as I remember my Dad and Uncle helping him to his bed! 

As I grew older I'd go into the village and go round the houses until the early morning.  You knew everyone and were welcome everywhere. 

Now New Year is organised, forced jollity.  It's become a parody.  I can't think of anything worse than standing in the centre of Edinburgh with a bunch of Tarquins and Cecilias dressed in tartan telling you how their great great uncle was "Scotch" and how they love our quaint traditions..........

As is also traditional, it threw it down with snow here last night, we had around 8 inches, so I've spent a good chunk of the day clearing snow.  In our whole street I think three of us have done so.  The rest are probably sitting writing letters to the Evening Express to complain about it.

Now I know the city council have been a disgrace and many older people are housebound because of the mess of the pavements, but I have to say we have had people clearing the pavements almost daily and the gritter was round the street today. 

People need to take a bit of responsibility for their own lives.  It took me a hour to clear the snow, gave me some exercise and it was a beautiful day to be out.

As our street is full of single mothers and single blokes in their 30s who have inexplicably been given pensioner's houses by the council (I dare say they have 'issues' which mean they just have to jump to the top of the council house queue), you would think they would get off their arses and do a bit of light manual labour and maybe do their pensioner neighbour's path while they are at it.

But nope, no sign of them.  Society is dead right enough.  However to be a 'local' here you have to have lived here since birth and be able to trace your family back 5 generations. 

New Year's resolution - don't get so worked up about the insular inhabitants of the village I live in!!

Have a great Hogmanay and see you all in 2010.

Last music recommendation for this year is a classic Come Together by the Beatles.

My Faith in Human Nature was Coming Back Then..........

Well it's been a busy week here at MacBeth Towers. The first half of the week was taken up with Senior Son's stage debut in his Theatre Group's Panto at the Arts Centre in Aberdeen. The wee man did brilliantly. Being the youngest and smallest cast member by some distance everyone was a little concerned he'd freeze when the curtain opened and he was confronted by an audience of about 300. But he rose to the occasion. The cast of 20 kids aged from 7 to 15 staged a brilliant show, with two teenagers in particular giving amazing performances as Ugly Sisters. The amount of work put into this show (the two women who run the Theatre Group wrote and directed the show) was incredible and no-one fluffed a cue or line all night. I was there for the performance the night after as a chaperone for the kids and again the show went down incredibly well.

A couple of weeks previous, I went with my dad, sister and brother in law to see my nephew play football. He is captain of his team and plays sweeper. They expected a tough game against a side who are signing up talent from all over the North East. It didn't help them - they were destroyed 8-1. My nephew has a real chance to play at a higher level, he strolled through the game and has excellent timing of a tackle. The tall centre forward for this side scored 6 goals and I was struck by the teamwork and togetherness of their team, whilst the other mob, thrown together as individuals and with no camaraderie, simply fell apart when the going got tough.

These occasions have really shown me for every "hoody hooligans terrorise neighbourhood" story, there are kids out there with genuine interests doing great things and making their communities proud.

And that was going to be the end of an upbeat blog tonight. But I have to give special mention to the boys in blue who decided to park up in the car park in our village centre tonight in order to stare menacingly at any passing motorists/pedestrians. Is our village viewed by Grampian Police as a notorious 'hood' which requires this kind of policing? Or maybe it's a nice cushy place to sit and while a couple of hours away waiting for the end of your shift.

It's a real shame their car is obviously soundproofed as this is the only reason I can think of for them missing the maniac in a Subaru driving down the main road of the village at around 50 miles per hour with the obligatory huge exhaust howling as he went.

Surely our wonderful Police service wouldn't take the easy option and turn a blind eye to this prat and instead wait patiently for the first poor sod to drive past with a rear light out.....would they............

It's 1980s pop week here on Tragic Kingdom and let's kick off with Duran Duran and Rio. Over the top video, expensive clothes, great chorus, oh it's all so vulgar and all the more wonderful for it.

Sport for All; Family Thoughts

Evening All. Apologies for missed blog yesterday, I bet you were all devastated about it! I was out last night to the Premier League Snooker, my dad's birthday present. A good night and great to get out with dad for the evening - it's only as you get older you appreciate your parents properly. It's scary how much I'm like him, appearance and personality wise. You really do morph into your parents eventually! I remember travelling all over Scotland in his lorry with him, praying he'd change the radio from Radio 2 to Radio 1........now guess who listens to Radio 2, along with Radio Scotland and Radio 4........oh god........!

The AECC in Aberdeen was full for this event. Sky come up here every year for their Premier League Snooker and Darts. Every time any decent sized national sporting event is brought to Aberdeen it's a great success. The Aberdeen public is generally starved of top notch sport so we lap it up when it comes here. The Seniors Open Golf at Royal Aberdeen is another example. As is every time the Scotland National Football team plays at Pittodrie. And that's at any age group. Take the Under 21s to Aberdeen you'll get 10,000+. Play it in Glasgow you'll get about 2,000 there.

So thanks Sky, keep coming up the road with the Darts and Snooker. There's no chance the SFA will follow suit with the football, they think Scotland ends at Cumbernauld. But there's surely room for a PGA European Tour golf event (Trump International perhaps, just to piss off Tilda Swinton, whoever she is), some more one day international cricket at Mannofield, a higher profile for the 10k run at Balmoral or even an Aberdeen Marathon. I can but hope.

Music tonight, I'm coming right up to date with a NEW RELEASE.....it's ok it's not as radical as you think, it's by everyone's favourite Hibs fans, the Proclaimers! Check out their new single, Three More Days, it's got everything you want from Auchterarder's 2nd biggest exports (after Jimmy Shand), unique harmonies, a key change, acoustic/electric guitars, and almost naive lyrics sung from the heart. One of Scotland's most underrated bands.

Kids

It's been a long day. Already after 8pm and my two little darlings are still not in bed. They are sitting here with me watching Rainbow. Man this takes me back, George, Zippy and Bungle. And they seem to be as mesmerising to this generation as they were to me.

The wee one has had a bit of an infection so has been off nursery. Hence, the good lady has had to go to work this evening, leaving dad in charge. That's why the TV is on, they won't go to bed and we've had an eventful evening.

The 2 year old is potty training, but decided tonight to use the hall as his potty and has wee'd all over the shop. The pillows are strewn all over our bedroom again. Their toys, neatly put away in the box by mum earlier, are all over the living room floor (oldest looking for his DS, youngest wanting to use the box as a car).

I'm shattered. I haven't got near the report I took home to finish from work this evening and there's little chance of even getting it started before 10pm. If I get the boys to go to bed before 9pm tonight it will be a miracle. Then I'll have to tidy up.

But I wouldn't change the wee rascals for the world!

My muscial recommendation tonight is The Rain by the Cult. Not as well known as the likes of She Shells Sanctuary, it's still a great slice of goth rock from the mid-80s. Can't help thinking they since here comes lorraine though!!

Friday tomorrow, hurrah!

Blog Number One

I've read other blogs for quite some time now. I always said I'd get round to starting one of my own and tonight's the night. There's two reasons for this (apologies to Rod Stewart for nicking a song title from him in sentence 2. Start as you mean to go on my man):

• Number one son's parent's night went well. He needs to improve the layout of his writing, can dad help? Yes he can, he'll blog and show him how to present a page (or not as the case may be). See mum I was listening to you as you regaled me with the story of the parent's night. I stayed at home with son number two before you start having a pop about me not being there!


• The Conservative Party's announcement today about the increase in the Pension age to 66.

Now this blog will be a place where a guy who has just turned 40 vents his spleen a bit. And it'll be pretty eclectic, whatever takes my fancy on a certain day will be written about, but politics will feature a fair amount. So as good a place to start as any, especially with us being in the conference season.

New Labour have done my head in. Slippery, disingenuous, incompetent, arrogant and sleazy, you just can't imagine things could be any worse.

And then "Boy" George and Call Me Dave turn up and casually advise me "sorry old boy, country in a bit of a mess, you'll have to work another year". And you can bet your life it'll have gone up again by the time I think about spending my days on the golf course.

You end up with the idea that these Labour and Tory clowns are basically two cheeks of the same backside. It appears they've decided the people who do actually work will be made to do so until they drop down dead.

You know who you are - the "hard working families" they patronise once every 5 years when they want your vote. Then they squeeze every single penny they can out of you for the next 4 years, before giving you a few quid back as another bribe in the budget preceding the next General Election.

A cynic would suggest this latest bright idea is a ploy to make sure they don't have to pay any state pension to us at all, as we'll all have worked ourselves to death before we get to pension age. Either that or it's like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. You get to 66, sorry it's now 67 until you get your dosh, 67th birthday arrives, sorry mate 68 now and so on..............

Never mind, our private pension pots are teeming with cash........oh hold on, Gordon stole all the cash out of there too..........

On a brighter note (I will try to end on a positive note when at all possible!!), every post will end with a recommendation of a song I think you should listen to/download. You'll find as we go along how much I love music, probably taken from my Dad who was a drummer in a band for many years.

Recommendation 1 - I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better by the Byrds. Listen to the vocal harmonies, awesome.

Well hope you've enjoyed Post 1. I think I'm going to enjoy this!!