Parochial News Day

It's that day again so I thought I'd start with the important news,

Rapper stars in Dundee-made kilt
	Snoop at the awards ceremony in the Dundee-made outfit.
The MTV Europe Music Awards in Munich had a surprise Dundee flavour when rapper Snoop Dogg hosted the show in an outfit made by one of the city’s kiltmakers.
The Kilt Hire Co. in Commercial Street could not quite believe it when Snoop’s agent from America contacted the store and asked them to design a customised outfit for the rapper, record producer and actor to wear while hosting the show in Munich’s entertainment arena, Olympiahalle. Performances at the celebrity-studded show included those by the Foo Fighters, Amy Winehouse, My Chemical Romance and Babyshambles. Scott Shields, branch manager of The Kilt Hire Co. said after receiving contact from Snoop’s agent, there was an extremely animated atmosphere in the store. “We were excited last night as we were hoping Snoop was going to wear the outfit as there was a chance he wouldn’t — there was definitely a buzz,” he said. “It’s not every day we get something this big. “For the kilt we went for the Scottish-American tartan, which is mostly red and blue, and the three-quarter length jacket was custom-made with electric blue on it and a detachable hood.” The outfit included a customised sporran with Snoop’s name on in his very own copyrighted font. Scott continued, “His agent called last night to say Snoop had tried the outfit on before the show and loved it, especially as it had electric blue on it which went with his trainers, so it all tied in.” Snoop made his arrival at the awards show in typical gangster rapper style and began hosting the event flanked by girls on motorcycles. The 14th annual MTV Europe Music Awards was staged in Munich — the third time the awards have been held in Germany since the inaugural show in Berlin.

More proof that us Dundonians are down with the hood chillin to the hip tunes in a gangsta stylee whatever that actually means. It's more likely that the unemployment, access to hard drugs and rampant teen pregnancy get him all misty about home but there you go.

In much less important news,

Armed police in early morning raid

Man held in Dundee terrorism swoop

By John Paul Breslin

A MAN has been arrested in Dundee under the Terrorism Act after potentially explosive materials were seized at a house in England.
Police said the 31-year-old, from Goole in Yorkshire, was arrested in a residential area of the city at 1.30 am yesterday.
The Counter Terrorism Unit and firearms officers from Tayside Police carried out the early morning arrest at the house at 119 Pitkerro Road (right).
Another 31-year-old man was arrested in Goole on Wednesday on suspicion of offences under the Terrorism Act when potentially explosive material was discovered during a search of a house.
Material from this house has been sent for forensic examination.
Police said the suspect arrested in Dundee had been returned to Yorkshire for questioning.
Warrant
The man arrested on Wednesday is still in police custody after a warrant of further detention was approved at court on Friday.
A spokeswoman from the Counter Terrorism Unit said police were not searching for anyone else.
She refused to discuss whether the arrest had any connection to Islamist terrorism, although it is understood this is not the case.
Dundee taxi drivers said they had seen up to 10 officers at the house at around 3 am yesterday and had seen a policeman standing guard at the entrance since then.
One local resident said, “I went to bed at about one o’clock and there were no police, but when I woke this morning I could see a lot of officers going into the house.”
“I thought it was a burglary at first but it has to be more serious than that because there are so many officers going into the house and there has been someone guarding the entrance all day.

This one came a bit out of the blue especially as we live on Pitkerro Road. They've definitely confirmed there's no Islamic link so it'll be interesting to find out what's up. Mibbee he just planned on a big firworks party for Guy Fawkes night. That was tonight btw and there was a top display in Baxters Pary.

And in a bit of non-news Perth smells,

‘Nauseating’ smell tackled

PERTH and Kinross Council last night confirmed it has been investigating a “nauseating” smell noticed in Perth in recent days.

Several residents have contacted The Courier to complain of the smell, which has been traced to an agricultural works to the south-west of the town.

The smell was noticeable throughout Perth, with some people citing a possible sewage problem.

One householder, who wished to remain anonymous, said, “It’s been horrendous.

“I’ve noticed it most of the week and thought it might be a problem with the drains in Perth.

“At times it is nauseating.”

A businessman added, “I was walking down South Street when I smelt this awful stench.

“I thought it may have come from a lorry containing chickens.

“It’s something that needs looked into.”

However, Perth and Kinross Council confirmed it has established the origins of the odour and that the matter has now been passed on to SEPA (Scottish Environment Protection Agency).

A council spokesman said, “Investigations by our environmental health staff traced the source of the smell to agricultural works south-west of Perth. SEPA have been notified and are dealing with the matter.”

Dundee United 2-1 Rangers

My boys Wilkie and Robson stuck it to the dirty Huns and put us third in the SPL Garry is a happy man.

My Dad'll be happy at the score too, we watched the first 10 minutes on the telly with him. For those who are interested he's doing okay with the heart op stuff but he's picked another virus and the slowness of recovery is getting to both of the Auld Dears. My Dad's a good bloke and doesn't deserve all of this but it will get better. To cheer them up we told them that within a year we're planning on moving to Africa to do voluntary work for a year or two. My Dad was okay but my Mum's a bit gutted, what you going to do though?

In other news Brigit is still wrong

Parochial News and Dundee-Hab Day

Well it's been a while what with weddings and stuff getting in the way but the news and accompanying letters about our fair city soldier on. Currently we're having a resurgence of the Dundee Taxi Wars as private hire cars undercut the the normal taxis, it's been going on for a while now and I'm sure you'd love to hear all about it but I frankly think it's dead boring so let's look at this instead,

Ill-thought out ad

The offending billboard.

THERE are billboards in Dundee plugging divorce advice from a firm of solicitors. The ad shows some poor man rolling his eyes, while his wife is clearly nagging him in the background. Women must be furious at this ill-thought-out sexist ad. — Barry Boon, Dundee.

Yup one of our local solicitors is advertising divorce to get away from that shrew of a wife. The picture says it all, Poor Boab's stumbled home after a hard weekend of spending all his pay in the pub and the bookies and that shrew of a wife starts in on him right away. Well now Boab knows exactly where to go for help. Somebody should tell Blackadders that we don't need reminded solicitors are arseholes. Come to think of it is Blackadder really the best name to have if your a solicitor, surely advertising yourself as a relative of a famous comedy conniving bastard isn't the best way to create a sense of trust with your clients?

With Taxi Wars II: The Yellow Plates Strike Back ramping up as taxi drivers have a go slow to get their message across, I'm serious they're actually driving slower than normal in protest, we Dundonians must turn our eyes to other modes of transport. Whilst I continue to practice X-treme Urban Cycling other dudes and dudettes have to get their gnarly kicks from public transport which has it's own hellacious dangers, I'll stop that now,

Buggies should be banned

I watch people getting on and off buses with buggies and sometimes they have great difficulty with the larger ones.

I watch people getting on and off buses with buggies and sometimes they have great difficulty with the larger ones. I fear if there was ever a fire on a bus there would be a tragedy as passengers behind buggies would be trapped. Buggies should be banned. — Observer.

Too much time on your hands and a hatred of single mothers gives Mr Nutty McNutty of Nuttyville here some really weird ideas. I personally think they should ban old people from buses because they smell of wee but I don't feel the need to tell the world about it do I?

Also just so you know,

Clean cats

I HAVE two cats. One goes out to the toilet and clears up after itself. The other uses its tray. I would not go out in the dark to walk two cats at night. — Marion Bathgate, Charleston Drive, Dundee.

Cheers for that Marion! To be honest after 20 minutes of digging I found out what this was all about but if I have to go to all that effort I don't see why you shouldn't.

And finally we move from our local paper to the pages of a national Sunday broadsheet where we can find out how the City of Discovery is seen by others,

This Modern Life The Habby Habit Kneehab, Wii-hab and me-hab: the new rehab John Hind Sunday October 14, 2007 The Observer For addiction workers, rehabaholics (people who habitually go in and out of rehab) and modern linguists alike, little has proven more addictive this year than any (and every) new word with 'hab' in it - and preferably at the end. Uttering some of these words, such as kneehab (rehab involving prayer), threehab (no booze, no narcotics and no tobacco) and Dundeehab (a holiday away from the city with the highest rate of drug addiction), they almost make old styles of rehab sound fab again. Others, like e-hab, DVDhab, Wii-hab and Blackberryhab, subcategorise the experiences (whether parentally imposed or due to physical injury) of cold-turkeying from new technology. Article continues In a nation hopelessly hooked on the 'habby' habit, a penniless professional crack fiend will recite his Rehab Portfolio, a professional golfer who's missed a tournament is said to have been in teehab and a healthy eating campaigner implores the poor and/or obese to go into kebabhab. There is now prehab, dehab and freehab for, respectively, the night prior to entering into rehab, the morning of departing rehab and the period prior to being implored to get back in again. There is me-hab for those believing 'the trick is to get away from oneself', thee-hab for those blaming everyone but themselves (usually during gabhab therapy sessions), and she-hab and he-hab for those identifying the opposite sex as the problem. Some, in groupiehab and girleehab, are just plain showing off. As are those who list celebrities they've shared a bucket with in Prioryhab. While those in Jihab sound like they might be taking the 'higher power' in Step 5 a little too seriously for their own good.

Cheers for that peeps!

Oi Brigit!

Brigit and I had a wee talk in the pub the evening after the wedding in which Brigirl asserted that the Marvel Villain Juggernaut is not that tall. Though this deep and important conversation was interrupted by a mad drunk woman climbing over the bar to harass the landlord I've always intended to prove the poor deluded antipodean wrong. Thusly I present the mighty Juggernaut,



If you'd like to note that Juggers, as we like to call him, looks pretty tall and the Marvel site puts him at 6'10" tall. Now I know Brigit probably doesn't remember the conversation but as a true geek I have to say nyah nyah nyah!

Don't let me down gently, in fact don't let me down at all!

I'm a bit behind in the old bloggingtypethinklikesay for the only good reason which is hanging out with mates got in the way. Last week we dived through to Ireland to chill with Rosa's Irish posse and this weekend we've suited and booted ourselves up for a bit of the Italian food and the hanging it gangsta stylee with the dundee posse. You all must be jealous of the exciting urban life I live.

The other thing I've been doing is this,


Let's talk about it later though eh?

Suffice to say that the whole marriage thing has made me realise how fantastic all our friends are and hope that you know we're thinking of you.

Unless you're battling online in which case I will shoot you in the face!

MeNoFearNoHaka

So its 45 minutes until New Zealand comes up against the rugby might of Scotland at Murrayfield. The beers in the fridge, the snacks on the table and Rosa's got her Kiwigirl t-shirt so it's game on and time for another sporting prediction from Garry.

We're going to stuff the All Blacks!

Some of you may think this unlikely but mark my words we can do it and once we do it'll be onwards to Scotland being crowned champions of the World!

Did that sound convincing?

Sometimes I go out by myself and I look across the water...

And whilst contemplating the silvery Tay I think to myself in a Michael Caine accent, "Self, what's it all about?". I stand there as the Sun goes down pondering the imponderables such as is there truth without beauty, what lies beyond the veil of death and can somebody be both a Dundee fan and a decent person. Eventually as the last misting of twilight hits the water I think fuck that for a game of soldiers and go to the pub to argue about last nights episode of Heroes with Irish Paul. Let's face it when push comes to shove, at the end of the day and when alls said and done it's not about whether the pint's half empty or full it's about who's on the next round.

The plane the plane!

What Graham needs.

Wedding photies!

I've been getting a lot of hassle about photies for the whole wedding type affair so here's a link to the photobucket. A'body who took photies will be updated on how to add your pictures so we expect quite a few updates in the next couple of months,

Wedding Photies

The boy done good!

So I went and got married to Rosa a couple of weeks ago. OK so that's perhaps the weirdest sentence I've ever typed and I never thought I would be typing it but there you go you can't account for stuff happening can you?

Anyway we had a few days of before the event so we could spend some time with the Mendes family and various mates that were arriving early and much fun was had by all as Marieke marvelled at the sheer quantity of pubs in Dundee, Ed became addicted to a table tennis on the XBox and Sarah and Rosa ran around liked demented 5 year olds shouting Kath & Kim quotes at each other. Through all this teetotal Irish athlete Ruairi was an oasis of calm-like stuff being competent at everything, the wee man even fixed my bike!

Rosa's auld dears arrived on Thursday and whilst Teresa was just as fantastic as expected Anibal was the most surprising. After three years of worrying what the scary Portuguese Catholic father would be like he turned out to be a sweet, interesting and fun guy, just the type of person you would expect to be Rosa and Eds father really so that was a lot of pointless worrying.

Anyway I woke up at 6am on Saturday the 18th of August and lay in bed for three hours in a weird kind of panic that continued for most of the morning. I wasn't worried about marrying Rosa, that's never been in doubt, but I was really nervous about going up in front of a'body and letting her down. Luckily my mates and Rosa's mates Brigite and Mike were great throughout the morning even if they did complain about my relentless pacing. The worst moment came when I went for a quick haircut after our greasy spoon breakfast. In a fit of bravado I decided to dive across the road and try out the new Polish barbers. The very nice middle-aged women seemed to know only two words of English 'scissors' and 'clippers' but it seemed impolite to suddenly run out the door so I sat with a deep feeling of dread as she combed my hair into a side parting. Now this something that hasn't been inflicted on my hair since 1985 and though I'm sure it's a hairstyle all the cool kids in Poland are wearing to whatever horrific death metal band is popular there right now the thought of turning up to my wedding sporting such a hairstyle made me finally realise that the phrase 'turned my bowels to water' actually refers to an actual physical feeling. This wasn't helped by suddenly wanting to vomit as well but being British I couldn't say anything to the woman let alone do a runner with half a haircut. Luckily she brushed it back at the end but not before I had visions of Rosa breaking my legs in front of a'body.

The rest of the getting ready wasn't quite as bad though we were running late due to helping my Dad get ready and there was a minor panic when the CD for Rosa coming up the aisle didn't play but then she came and everything was alright. Rosa was absolutely stunning and having her there completely relaxed, this and Reverend Bobs fantastic service made sure everything went great. Bobs reading was incredibly touching and he managed to get across how serious the ceremony was whilst keeping a sense of fun.

As to the reception it was simply the best party I have ever thrown with everybody getting on brilliantly and no fistfights much to Sarah's disgust as she believes every wedding should have one. I think this was helped by Rosa and I making fools of ourselves in the first dance as can be seen here and here.

To be honest I always figured the actual wedding would be something to get through but whilst stuff like posing for pictures was a pussy it actually turned out to be the best day of my life EVAH!

Go figure.

Cartoon boyfriend when you gonna rub yourself out?

So I can't be arsed whingeing about the upcoming nuptuals or worrying about my Dads recovery from heart surgery so lets have a look at another game.


Toon is another classic game from Greg Costikyan who's other great comedy game Paranoia has already been mentioned. Based on all your favourite Warner Brothers cartoons it's rules are simple and easy to learn whilst offering an incredibly good simulation of their subject matter, frex none of the characters can die instead they get amusingly squashed/spiked or whatever and sit out the game for three minutes. Like Paranoia playing it can be either fun or frustrating depending on how much your willing to through yourself into the genre but, also like Paranoia, once you throw yourself into it the abandoning of normal roleplaying structure is liberating and incredibly good fun and fun is what the game's all about. So enough of that let's get on with the PC building malarkey...

Every Toon has four attributes, Muscle which is how strong and good in a fistfight he is, Zip which is how fast and dextrous he is, Smarts which is how umm smart he is and Chutzpah which is how much of a wideo he is and these are all decided on the roll of a single 6-sided die.

Our boy rolls 2 for Muscle, 3 for Zip, 3 for Smarts and 6 for Chutzpah. So he's not all that strong and only average when it comes to speed and brains but he can charm the birds out of the trees and get them to buy the pints all night.

The Toons also have Hit Points which weirdly enough are points that measure how much you can be hit. These are worked out by rolling a single 6-sided die and adding 6.

The wee man rolls a miserly 1 which when 6 is added leaves us with a rather poor 7. He's definitely a bit of a wimp but who cares when death only lasts long enough to nip out for half a fag.

Now the Toon needs to be described. You can choose or roll his species but the rest is up to you.

Our boy rolls a 33 so he's a rat. Ratski, as we'll call him, is normal rat sized though he walks on hind legs, he wears a bowler hat and bow tie with collar and carries a cane. Ratski's a wee chancer who's always on the lookout for an easy score of good food, easy living and the love of the laydeez.

We then have to choose a natural enemy.

As a rat Ratskis natural enemy is pest controllers of course.

We then choose the Toons Beliefs and Goals which are exactly what they seem to be.

Ratski's Belief is, Work is Bad - This character will go to any lengths to avoid working including using more energy and time than the actual work would have required. Ratski's Goal, Find and eat pie - The wee man is obsessed with pie and will go to any lengths to obtain and eat pie.

The Toon also carries 8 items 4 of which can be normal and 4 of which can be anything that the Animator (GM) allows.

Ratski's normal objects are, String Marbles Bottle of Glue Newspaper His other objects, Two-headed Coin President Nixon Mask Itching Powder Anvil

Toonboy then gets to sort out his skills of which there are 23 with a level of between 1 and 9 which has a starting value of the attribute it's based on frex Ratsko's Fight is based on his Muscle and thus starts at 2. There is then another 30 points to add to the skills to the maximum of 9. To use a skill you roll two 6-sided dice (2d6) and you are succesful if you roll under the value with a roll of 2 always being a success even if your skill is 1.

Let's not pedantically work our way through the skills except to say that whilst we'll give him a range we'll concentrate on his personality as a chancer who'll run rather than fight. You'll see them on the character sheet.

We can also spend some of the 30 points for skills on special powers called schticks which cost a varaibale amount of points each and are rolled against at a value of 5.

Ratski's a bit of a wide so let's give him Quick Change/Disguise which lets him disguise himself as nearly anything as long as he makes the roll.

The last thing you do is draw a picture of your Toon. I can't draw to save my life and since the old life isn't in danger I'm not going to try. If you want to try please send the pictures on a stamp-addressed postcard to the usual address.

But I gotta know what's your fantasy

Now back to G making a character from every game he owns. Rosa's been ok about what she calls my 'stupid boy-project' because it keeps me quiet and means that I'll mibbee manage to sort out all the books that are boxed up in the spare room in time for the wedding. What this actually means is that books are now strewn about the ho0use as I leaf through loads of old stuff I forgot I had and decide that even though I haven't even considered digging a certain book out in 15 years I really don't want to get rid of it cos y'know I might need it at some point. Anyway whilst digging through my old stuff I've come across the first RPG I ever bought so lets make a chracter for Final Fantasy.

Sorry but that's the best image I could find.

This whole roleplaying thing started for me a little earlier when My Uncle Andy got me The Warlock of Firetop Mountain for my 10th birthday. I was immediately hooked into the choose your own adventure books and less than a year later when I picked up The Fighting Fantasy RPG at the incredible expense of £1.75 I was stuck with this as my hobby for life. Anyway let's get started,

Our adventurer has three statistics Skill, Stamina and Luck. We determine Skill by rolling a 6 sided die and adding 6, I roll a 5 making starting Skill 11, Stamina by rolling two dice and adding 12, I roll a 6 and a 1 so starting Stamina is 19, and Luck by rolling a 6 sided die and adding 6, I roll a 5 making starting Luck 11. The adventurer carries a sword, a backpack, a lantern, up to 10 provisions, amount is up to GM, which can be used to restore Stamina and a potion of Skill, Stamina or Luck which can restore the relevant statistic. And that's it really apart from naming him, let's call him Bob.

Combat is resolved by rolling 2 dice and adding Skill withe the loser losing two Stamina. Luck can be rolled equal or under to inflict more or take less damage though you lose a Luck point and run the risk of the opposite effect happening if you're unlucky. There are additional rules for multiple combatants and doing stuff like moving silently, pretty much all additional actions require you to roll under your Skill with 2 dice, but that's pretty much it. There then follows two dungeons for your players to explore done in a format familiar to anybody who's ever played a Fighting Fantasy gamebook. They're both good fun and we kids had quite a few happy hours of this.

I never got any of the other books as by the end of that year I was running a Middle Earth Roleplaying campaign which was a huge leap in complexity but I can't think of a better introduction to roleplaying. It cost so little that you could take a risk, already had a format which every bairn of my age was familiar with and whilst simple it still managed to do a decent though basic job. Top game!

Dundee United 0-1 Barcelona

Should have been 1-0 to United but the ref was an idiot who disallowed a clearly onside United goal then gave away a dodgy penalty.

Parochial News Day

There is only one story in the news this week and it's that Dundee United are set to give Barcelona another famous drubbing tonight!

BARCELONA THOUGHTS

Most thoughts at Dundee United today turned to Barcelona as preparations for Thursday’s glamour friendly against the Spanish giants got under way (writes Tom Duthie).

With a stand-in goalkeeper and a striker to find, however, Tangerines boss Craig Levein also had other things on his mind. Fan and player focus for the next few days, though, will be firmly on Barca, who flew into Edinburgh at lunchtime before heading for St Andrews, where they will be based for the rest of the week. With the Spanish season finishing little over a month ago, their pre-season work only started on Saturday and, as well as games against United and Hearts, Frank Rijkaard’s superstars face double training sessions most days here. Not on the plane from Spain were Copa America stars Lionel Messi and Raphael Marquez, they will remain on holiday until next week, while club captain and key defender Carles Puyol is missing pre-season work because of injury. Heading for Fife, though were the likes of Ronaldinho, Deco and, of course, massive summer signing from Arsenal Thierry Henry. At Tannadice, Craig Levein made no attempt to hide the fact the prospect of doing battle against such talent meant there was an extra buzz about the place when his players arrived for training this morning. “Of course there is. This is a game everyone wants to be involved in, and all the players will be trying to show they should be,” he said. “I’m no different. To be working towards a game against Barcelona is nice.” That won’t stop the gaffer taking care of the business he has to in the run up to the start of the SPL season on Saturday week, tickets for the opener against Aberdeen are on sale now, and his search for a striker continues. Now added to the many calls he’s been making about an attacker are enquiries concerning goalkeepers after it emerged Lukasz Zaluska had broken his foot and will be out for six weeks. “You’ve no idea just how much work I’ve been doing to fix up a striker. I’d like one for Thursday, but the most important thing is I get a player of the right quality so I can’t say that will happen,” added Craig. “Now I’ve also got the goalkeeping situation to think about as well. We knew Lukasz had a problem, but didn’t realise how bad it was until he got a scan and he didn’t either. “With the Barcelona game so close, it is obviously a big disappointment for him, but these things happen in football and now it is a case of looking around for cover.” Craig was happy with yesterday’s 2-2 draw against Raith at Stark’s Park, a game that saw young Ghanaian Prince Bauben make his debut. The 19-year-old has been on trial and has signed a three-year contract. He is seen as one for the future, but his early progress suggests he may force his way into the squad sooner than expected. “He’s got talent, though the reason he played yesterday was because he needed games. “The game was a good exercise and very competitive. “It gave the boys a good run out and I was pleased to see (Christian) Kalvenes and (Willo) Flood get action.”

I feel fully confident in a 2-1 victory for the Tigers and you all know how rarely my sports predictions are wrong.

It's the suede denim secret police!

So I'm off work after taking a fall off my bike leaving me with a bad arm, broken finger and awfy sair skint knees. Luckily I can report that wearing a helmet is now officially a good thing as though my old noggin was cracked hard on the pavement I ended up with nary a lump. So as I'm laid up at home I can actually start on my RPG characters with a new edition of an old game,


Now Paranoia's a strange one to start with because in many ways it's the antithesis of what's expected in RPG's. In most games players are expected to co-operate to achieve their goals whilst in Paranoia they are gleefully encouraged to stab each other in the backs, other games have a clearly defined mission whilst here the mission is invariably impossible, an excuse for players to stab each other in the back or a long-winded joke and finally where other less fun games discourage random player deaths it's unusual to play though 5 minutes of Paranoia without somebody getting theirs and it doesn't really matter as every character has five clone backups ready to take his place. This all makes Paranoia the Marmite of roleplaying, you either love it or hate it and very little will convince you otherwise.

Before we make the character a bit of a skiffy to the background. Paranoia is set in Alpha Complex a gigantic post-apocolyptal underground city ruled by The Computer. The Computer was originally installed to keep the citizens safe but has gone completely mad and is now involved in a perpetual hunt for mutant commie traitors. The players play Troubleshooters who's job it to hunt down traitors which of course they are. Think Brazil, THX 1138 and Big Brother chucked into a blender with The Marx brothers and you're about right. Okay on with the character,

First we're asked for the characters name and gender. Making him male's easy enough as to name this is a bit unusual in that it's done as Name - Clearance - Sector. He's red clearance so we'll call him Ronnie-R-Gun and not worry too much about it. We then hace to roll a 20 sided dice/2 for 6 skills the assign specialities and such. Rather than bore you with details I'll nip off and do that.

We now roll for the characters Service group and appropriate firm to find his day job. Ronnie is in the Armed Forces working as in the Ammunition Fresheners firm. You then pick a specialized skill, Ronnie gets energy weapons to make him leet with lasers. We then roll for the mutant power, having a mutant power is treason BTW, Ronnie get's Matter Eater which allows him to munch down on just about anything which can prove very handy when trying to eat at the staff canteen. After this is a quick roll to see what secret society Ronnie belongs to, being a member of a secret society is treasonous of course, and we get Communist. Ronnie is a Godless Communist out to destroy all that is good in Alpha Complex! He also gets more skills particularly Propoganda which is very very treasonous. To finish off we give Ronnie two tics, Ronnie is an habitual nose-picker and giggles like a girl when stressed. And here he is,

If anybody's wondering the base mechanic is to pick the relevant skill then try to roll under it's number with a 20 sided die eg Ronnie would have to roll under 12 to shoot somebody with his laser. You know it's not until now that it hit me that the new Paranoia doesn't have any of the normal stat we'd expect in an RPG like strength, intelligence etc but instead replaces them rather niftily with the general Knowledge and Action skills. This works really well for the loose type of play encouraged in the game by keeping everything simple.

That was actually quite fun though I'm not sure if it's interesting to read as peeps who don't play RPG's will probably find it even more incomprehensible than my normal blog but there you go. I'll inflict more on you soon.

In just 7 days I can make you a man!

I've never really mentioned my hobby of playing roleplaying games which I've been doing for about 24 years now. I'm currently running Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay every week or so which was supposed to be an epic, dark fantasy quest but has turned out to be more Blackadder in Fantasyland as my players bumble their way from one mishap to another. A great example of this is Rosa's character Podwit a pie-obsessed, psychotic hobbit currently planning on faking his own death in order to avoid having to marry some lass he picked up in the pub when he should be concentrating on trying to save the world. I worry about Rosa sometimes.

Anyway this has all come up as this bloke mentioned in an RPG forum I visit his intention of creating a character for every game he owns and as I need a stupid project to distract me from all the wedding stuff I've decided to do it myself and inflict the results on you lot though I'll probably get distracted after the first few but it's something to do.

And yes you're right I am a sad wee geek who really should get out more but what can ye dae?

Will you buy this game?

Uh Oh We're In Trouble!

A short missive because I seem to have not blogged in some time. I've tried on a few different reasons for this and none of them seem to fit. In the end I think it's been a general laziness with the whole intraweb thing mixed with a growing unease about the upcoming nuptials.

Now don't be worried I'm just as sure as ever about getting wed to the daft Kiwigirl and it seems she's still deluded enough to think I'm worth it but this whole wedding thing is a complete pain. The bastard thing creeps into every part of your life until it seems everybody's talking about it and just when you seem to escape you find yourself babbling on about it. After this you start to chuck on everybodies elses expectations and you end up in some sort of twilight zone. It's late over here and I feel the need to shoot things in console land so I'll give you one really weird example...

Asking the Father of the Bride for her hand in marriage.

Now I personally consider this sort of crap to have gone out with brothel creepers and would never have considered asking Rosa's Dad as fucked up a question as this and wasn't surprised when Rosa said that despite being a bit old-fashioned it's not something he would expect. Now this is all knowing that Rosa's Dad is a Portuguese Catholic who could reasonably be expected to be a bit traditional, it's no a bad thing to be traditional, but if he didn't have trust in his children Rosa wouldn't be who she is. Contrast this with the lassies in my workplace who were all dying to know about me asking for my girls hand in marriage and what the father said. This is quite a wide mixture of age and education that all thought that decades of feminist thought should be thrown aside because it's 'romantic' for somebody to ask for their ownership. The question of course is what would happen if their fathers said no? Would they actually cast aside the love of their life because their dad wasnae keen? This sort of shite permeates peeps ideas about what weddings should be and it is really worrying. People are really fucked up!

Suffice to say it was important for both Rosa and I to speak to the respective parents and both her Mum and Dad were absolutely lovely when we dropped the bombshell, as were my auld dears, and whilst I'm quietly crapping myself about it I'm sure they'll be great when they come across.

Anyway it's now 5 weeks till the day so I promise to blog at least once a week til then.

The World was a mess but his hair was perfect

Well it's been a funny month since I last blogged. In awfy good news my sister is no longer marrying the abusive English bloke in Spain this week mainly because, as my niece Caroline says, he's a fucking psycho. I never realised how much of a weight on my shoulders the whole sister marrying fuckwit was until I heard this though it's still unlikely that she'll be coming to the wedding. Still a relief though likesay.

The wedding itself seems to be almost sorted with kilts and rings ordered, venues organised and food being prepared. All that's left is getting the invites out, sorting out the music with the DJ and organising transport for the wedding party. We were in town at the beginning of the month looking at all the stuff we could have bought with the money we're spending on this, actually quite cheap compared to most, day and wondering whose fault it all is. Turns out it's mine but there you go eh? Saying all that I'm really looking forward to us all getting together for a big party that's all about me!

And that weird Kiwi I suppose.

In other news I was out for my mate Danny's smoker the other week which was fun but obviously not fun enough as I seem to have drunkenly ended up at his girl Claires smoker in The Cage which is a rock/goth club that I only ever end up in when I'm pished out my skull and always hate it. Claire's always fun to dance with though.

This of course led to us having to go to the actual wedding last Saturday which was fun though it did remind me how much I hate the special Hell that is wedding receptions and I hereby choose not to commit to staying the full evening at ours if there's a chance of getting a squad of us together to head down to The Reading Rooms to check out a band and drink some of that special voodoo juice known as Red Stripe. I know this is going against all tradition but if it gets me out of having to dance with all my aunties what can I do?

You know why living in South Africa is shitty?

Because you don't get to watch Frost and Peggs Perfect Night In.

Take it Eddyboy take it!

Parochial news day

I'm refusing to make any comment on the utter shambles that was the recent Scottish elections however tempted I am to mention breweries and pissups. Anyway there's much more important news in Dundee,

United want Jason back
	JASON SCOTLAND (right) could be set for return to the SPL with former club Dundee United.
Dundee United want Jason Scotland back at Tannadice (write Graeme Finnan and James Masson).
The Trinidad and Tobago international was a big hit with fans during his first spell at the club, which ended in controversy when he was surprisingly refused a fresh work permit two years ago. That subsequently led to him signing for St Johnstone and the 28-year-old has continued to show his class in the First Division, bagging 25 goals for Saints this season. That’s triggered interest from several clubs and, although United boss Craig Levein was unavailable for comment, Saints manager Owen Coyle confirmed the Tangerines are one of them. However, with Scotland’s contract running until the final week in August, the McDiarmid Park club would be looking for some form of financial compensation if one of their prize assets was to move on. “Craig (Levein) called me out of courtesy to let me know of his interest in Jason, and I appreciate the gesture,” said Owen. “We haven’t given up on Jason, but, obviously, finance always comes into play. “He is under contract here until the end of August, so we can play him for the first month of next season. Any club wanting him before then will have to pay compensation.” Meanwhile, following yesterday’s news that goalkeeper Derek Stillie will quit United at the end of the season to pursue a career in law down south, the Tannadice outfit have been looking at a possible replacement. Polish goalie Lucasz Zaluska is currently on trial at the club. The 24-year-old plays for Korona Kielce in his homeland. McINNES SIGNS St Johnstone midfielder Derek McInnes has re-signed for the club on a one-year deal. “I am delighted that Derek has signed as he has done well for us on and off the park,” said Owen. Paul Sheerin, Simon Mensing and Scotland are the only three Saints still to pen new deals.

I'm sure you're all aware of the love for Scotland in the Gourlay/Mendes household and we all hope that the Tangerines can scrape the finances together to bring him back home.

Monopoly vote

I URGE people to vote for Dundee to get onto the new UK Here And Now Monopoly board game. We are currently in fifth place and it would be great if we could get the city up as high as possible. — Nathen Tyrrell, Dornie Place, Dundee.

Now this I can get behind. C'mon boys and girls cast your vote for the City of Discovery here.

Sadly there's been no recent news about the greatest rock band in the world The View but the Tele did receive this letter.

Don’t forget about McFly

McFly.

A LOT has been written about The View and Arctic Monkeys playing at the Caird Hall but not about McFly ,who performed there on April 6. McFly are a chart-topping band who did a great concert with all their hits and more. I was there with my eight-year-old daughter and we loved it and are so glad that a big group like McFly came to Dundee. — Sharon and Louise, Dundee.

I've been trying hard to forget about sodding McFly for months and you two have to go and remind me.

And finally a piece of shocking news,

Bald men

I AM constantly amazed at the number of bald men in Dundee. A visitor could be forgiven for thinking there was some kind of giant Right Said Fred look-alike competition taking place. Wigs should have to be worn in public places. — Snappy Chappy.

Whilst I've never noticed this outbreak of baldiness in Jute City I vow to keep my eyes peeled for slapheads from now on. Perhaps I'll start carrying some hats to hand out to the follicly challenged so Mr S Chappy is not so offended.

Separated at birth!

My good friend Graeme


And Nasser Hussain


The resemblance is truly scary.

For Rosa

Love For Love

Ithers seek they ken na what,
Features, carriage, and a' that;
Gie me love in her I court,
Love to love maks a' the sport.

Let love sparkle in her e'e;
Let her lo'e nae man but me;
That's the tocher-gude I prize,
There the luver's treasure lies.

Okay boys you can stop making videos now...

Because what's the point after Hump de Bump?

You lot have all probably seen this before but numptyboy here has mainly been listening to Ukranian folk music and Billy Bragg which left me right out of the loop.

We could crawl but I'd rather drive she said!

Once again a big gap in my blogging but frankly I've been too fair puggled from my new mode of transport to get up the energy. You see both I and Rosa have been getting increasingly fed up with the gym over the last four or five months as it became massively over-susbscribed and starting letting families bring their weans in on weekends so we decided it was time to tell them to get tae and invest in a different keep fit so there was only one solution.

I bought a bike.

Not a motorcycle that would make me feel all easy rider in a Julian Cope/Jimi Hendrix stylee or even a cool wee moped that would go with my German army parka and give a whole Quadrophenia vibe.

A pushbike.

Now I'm given to understand that a lot of people actually enjoy bicycling. I've even met a few and some of them have even been British but they were all quite strange anyway. I mean the biggest biking event in the World is the Tour de France and every competitor in that is on drugs, they tell you it's performance enhancing but I honestly believe you need a good puff of crack to even consider going in for that and there's tons of bikes in the Netherlands which is a country full of peeps on drugs. Marieke, Rosas brother Eds wife, is a very keen biker and generally seems a nice normal girl apart from her deep hatred of baboons but looking at the evidence she's probably secretly mental.

Anyway so we spent a wad of cash on a bicycle and associated paraphenalia, though I did manage to avoid buying a dayglo bodystocking or anything like that, for me to ride to and from work on. I was a little worried that I might crap out after a day or two so I implemented the cunning plan of spending all my travelling cash on beer thus forcing me to use the bike albeit with a massive hangover. So there I was first thing in the morning, MP3 playing cool indie-rock into my ears, rad skater helmet on my head when I realised the really really major flaw in my plan.

I live on a hill.

Quite a big hill actually. In fact now I come to mention it there's a bloody extinct volcano in between me and my work, not exactly Mount Etna or anything but enough to make sure that I've got to go around the bloody thing and frankly going up hills is a hell of a lot harder nowadays than it was when I was 12. This is compounded by the bike having 21 gears. What the Hell am I supposed to do with 21 gears? When I was young 8 or 12 gears was a lot and they were generally the sole province of nutters with racing bikes, I spend most of the time guessing what gear I should be in and hoping that the chain won't come loose. Even worse it seems that there are drivers out there who want to kill me. Now I'm quite used to peeps wanting to kill me, usually within an hour of meeting me, but these peeps haven't even met me and they seem hellbent on running me over. It's not the peeps in Micras or Fiestas either it's always blokes in gigantic 4x4's with massive bull bars who seem offended by my very existence. So every morning I arrive at work wringing with sweat, a fearful gleam in my eye and very very shaky legs. Bloody bike!

To be fair I'm actually enjoying some of it. Every morning I get the choice of riding along beside the most beautiful river in the world and saying hello to Dundee's very own highland cattle or taking different routes and rediscovering parts of my home city I've not seen in years, it wakes me up for work in the morning and let's me de-stress in the evening as I concentrate on trucking right and listening to my music and I do feel a weird twisted sense of accomplishment at the end of the day. Now all I've got to do is move somewhere flat.

As I made the move to shrink my carbon footprint Rosa went the other way and bought a car. It's quite a nice Hyundai Elantra 1.6 litre and was definitely needed as the wee Micra whilst a good car was really not designed for the amount of countryside driving the girls work runs to so even though it seems strangely grownup it's a good buy.

And for the last big buy of the month I'm typing this on our new computer that my very good friend Pete built for us at an amazingly low price. To be honest whilst the dual-processors are incredible and Vista Ultimate 64 is really really cool we really only needed an PC that took less than an hour to startup but Pete seemed so excited it seemed churlish to say no. The decision to have it built definitely had nothing to do with the way my XBox 360 hooks up to the media centre allowing all my music and videos stored on the PC to be played through it. Honest.

Don't worry kidders we are still working on the wedding an a'that but I'll bitch about that another time. :)

You know what I'm doing that you're not?

I finally managed to pick up Brian Lara Cricket 2007 this morning and it's sweet as though there are some glitches. I'll tell more after spending tomorrow playing it with mates. Now if only you peeps would get Xbox 360's and broadband we could get a game on.

Parochial News Day

It's a while since I've blogged about the local goings on in the City of Discovery so I thought it's time to have a look especially as someone dear to us all has contributed to the vibrant debates about life in the fair city,

Don’t pick the daffs

ON MORE than one occasion recently, I have seen groups of people emerging from Baxter Park, Dundee, clutching big bunches of freshly-picked daffodils. ON MORE than one occasion recently, I have seen groups of people emerging from Baxter Park, Dundee, clutching big bunches of freshly-picked daffodils.

More often than not they have young children with them. What kind of a role model is this providing?

Are they going to “blame the kids” the next time something is stolen/vandalised from local amenities?

Also, when walking through Baxter Park, I note that many of the flower beds are trampled.

Would the people who think it’s okay to pick flowers from parks think it’s okay to pick flowers from private gardens? It’s the same thing. — Flower Girl.

[Our photographer took this picture of trampled and damaged daffs in Baxter Park.]

I can reveal that Flower Girl is none other than our own dear Rosa who after witnessing this heinous crime decided enough was enough and it was time to resort to the ultimate sanction in any true Dundonians armoury and write a stern letter to The Tele. I now rest assured that the perpetrators are black affronted at their behaviour being made public and will mend their larcenous ways. It's also nice to enter the esteemed company of people like our next contributor,

Bring back hanging

IT IS about time the Government did something about crime. Politicians are very hard on smokers and they have to toe the line.

But those who take drugs or have a drink problem are still getting off.

I am often shocked at the sentences given out for assault.

Criminals sent to jail come out and do the same things again. Jail cannot be that bad or they wouldn’t want to go back.

Bring back hanging and the birch. There would be a big drop in crime. — O.A.P.

It's good to see the older generation showing such depth of wisdom and compassion in a confusing modern world when it would be so much easier to reach for simplistic, reactionary solutions. The day we stopped beating criminal scum was just the beginning of the slippery slope that leads to us not being allowed to beat our own children dammit!

In the news section on Friday we had our obligatory story about Dundee's very own rock superstars The View,

Dundee chart-topping band The View returned to their home town to make their latest video. Double A-side The Don and Skag Trendy will feature images from Dryburgh, where band members Kieren Webster, Steve Morrison, Pete Reilly and Kyle Falconer grew up.

The View went to number one with their debut album Hats Off To The Buskers.

We are incredibly proud of the wee lads and the album is pretty sodding good though hearing songs about Dundee in the charts and seeing the city in videos is incredibly weird. Either way get hold of the album now and if you're up my way I'll take you for a pint in the Campbelltown Bar. though just mind and dinnae pick the daffies!

Scotland will stuff the Netherlands in the Cricket World Cup!

I think I've covered that pretty well.

So far I'm enjoying the cup and I'm not dissapointed in my countries showing at all, especially Smith's getting a best ever of 51 against an opponent like Australia. We know we're minnows and even Fat Boab, who appeared to have been hijacked on his way back from Majorca to fill out numbers, did okay against the Aussies.

I'm more looking forward to The Black Caps fucking England over on Friday though. Let's face it England will be lucky if the make it to the semis. Years of throwing out random ODI teams then getting awfy chuffed when you stumble across a few wee wins does not a World Cup winning team make whilst New Zealand seem to have been building themselves up in recent years and I have a lot of faith in the return of Shane Bond. He's called Bond for fucks sake folks! I'm not sure if New Zealand can win and I believe this'll be a close competition but I truly believe they'll beat England.

Although not beat as truly as the way that The Saltires will beat Netherland though!

Garry plays a bit of cricket

So in my manic anticipation of the ICC Cricket World Cup I downloaded the Brian Lara's Cricket 2007 demo tonight for a looksee before I get the game at the end of the month.

My first disappointment was that this didn't have a two player option which was a major feature of the 2005 demo and guaranteed I bought the game. A bit of a missed opportunity for new players there and I know it made it more difficult for some mates. Otherwise I do have to say the graphics are still only touching next-gen though the player animation is very very good. Weirdly most of the players featured just look wrong, Flintoff in particular is made to look like a jowly git though there is a really good animation of him fucking up a bowl, except for Shane Watson who is a spitting image of the youung Aussie himself. So it's all okay as long as the Shanester is there in all his mullet glory. I do hope that the finished code is a touch better though.

Gameplaywise I feel little has radically changed but everything has been refined. At bat I felt more in control whilst at bowl I was tantalised by the feeling I had more options at my fingerprints than came up in the 5 second flash of buttons. Both are clearly designed for pick up and play with extra options dependent on both your knowledge of cricket and skill at gaming. It's a balance that Codemasters were clearly striving for in the last game and are clearly moving even further in to. My only possible problem is with fielding which, in the demo at least, has become a little too twitch orientated for my liking.

In short I wish the demo had included a versus mode to let us see how the game really works but what's there shows a highly playable and very accessible sports game that many will miss out on because it's cricket. I'll buy the game and believe that's it's worth a rental by anybody.

This actually came from a forum where I just meant to ask if anybody had checked out the demo, I'm a bit black affronted at how long it goes on for.

Keeping it random

I'm not incredibly motivated for the old blogging at the moment but you've got tae give it a go eh?

I posted this elsewhere after taking my nephew to an ice cream van but best make the most of it. Sometimes I'm quite impressed by how weird organised crime can actually be especially when you find out about stuff like the Mafia Pizza Connection but nothing has ever struck me as quite as weird as the Glasgow Ice Cream Wars which was a very violent turf war between none other than ice-cream van owners that ended with attempted shootings, murder by arson and a twenty year legal battle through the Scottish courts. Of course these guys were selling 'sweeties' as well as ice cream but it's still fascinating in a fucked up way.

Check out The Scotsman for some more detail.

In more recent and parochial news the Tele reports a Dundee fan has been banned from Dens after shouting racial abuse at Jason Scotland during a home game against St Johnstone last month. This is only too right racism should be seen as completely unacceptable in sport and players like Scotland have brought a lot to Sottish football.

In less parochial and more Dundee is the Rock'n'Roll Capital of the World the lead singer of the new Greatest Rock Band in the World as first mentioned by me months ago The View's Kyle Falconer had travel up from their triumphant night at the NME Awards for a special appearance at Dundee Sheriff Court for a bag of charlie found in his pocket after a gig. Now I know Sheriff Arthurson commented on his role model status and many of you will agree that he's being a terrible influence on the youngsters of today, I can hear the cries of 'think of the children' as I type but sod that this young man is just doing his job. It is the right and expected place of young rock stars to take as much drugs, have sex with as many young girls and make complete prats of themselves at as many parties as possible. One of my favourite stories from the last ten years was the bassist of those other great Scottish rockers Primal Scream getting knifed whilst out partying in New York but not noticing because he was so off his head on everything he could get his hands on now that's a man showing commitment to his chosen profession.

In more personal news the council has finally got it's collective finger out of it's arse and confirmed our wedding venue so we'll be sending out the invites real soon now. It's a bit of a weight off the auld shoulders really. Which reminds me of a letter in last weeks Tele,

No regard for park users

I HAVE had several frustrating discussions with Dundee City Council officials over the past week or so regarding the works being carried out to the main terrace through Baxter Park.

I am disgusted at the total disregard being shown to public.

The closure of the terrace without any prior warning means the park has been divided in two.

I urge anyone with similar concerns, or anyone being inconvenienced going to or from Albert Street, to contact his or her local councillor.

If anyone would like to discuss this with me first, please phone 07838230646. — Parklife.

Now Mr Parklife, if that is your real name and if not why try to be anonymous whilst handing out your phone no, I understand your frustrations but some of us are trying to plan for once in a lifetime events and to be totally frank don't give a flying fuck about a sodding minor inconvenience to you. Don't you have something better to do than hassle the council about something that's going to disappear in a few weeks? Wanker. If anybody would like to forward my feelings or even add your own the number is included. Remember texting is cheap wherever you are and can be incredibly satisfying.

Slightly more humiliating is that my XBox 360 has started blogging and not only is the wee man funnier than me he manages to do it every day the git! Apart from that I've mostly been using my state of the art console to play Doom. Yup I have a £300 console and I use it to play a 15yr old game, Rosa is not impressed.

I'm also still playing Oblivion but I'll talk about that and Patrick Fucking Stewart next time.

The first rule of Mime Club...

Is that you do not talk!

General havers

I'd like to apologise to my reader for not posting in the last fortnight as I've been no well I'm afraid. Since I've been off work not much happening here so I'm just generally blethering about what's been entertaining me.

In order to avoid the whole Valentines Day nonsense Rosa and I went to see Hot Fuzz the new film from Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg and it was truly laugh out loud funny in it's satire of English village life mixed with as many Hollywood action movie cliches as can possible be put in. A special note has to go to Timothy Dalton who is clearly having the time of his life playing the manager of the local Somerfield. This is a must see if you enjoyed Shaun of the Dead and Spaced and live in South Africa. Everybody else should go too.

I've also been watching the old Channel 4 six-parter Ultraviolet this week. For those who never came across it Jack Davenport plays a police detective whose partner is turned into a vampire which leads him to joining a shadowy organisation that hunts the vamps. It's a silly idea that works because it's done completely straight making it quite reminiscent of television espionage or police dramas. Good stuff then which is only slightly let down by Davenport who never quite convinces in his role. How on earth do we end up with Torchwood when stuff like this isn't continued?

I also got an XBox 360 from the girl at Christmas and it is absolutely fantastic. Currently I've been sucked into Oblivion which is an incredibly large first-person rpg in which you can go anywhere. My character Gadje McNed has turned out to be a right nasty piece of work who will literally steal anything not nailed down. Good stuff. I got Splinter Cell Double Agent with the machine and whilst I love this and all the other games in this sneaking stylee series it reminds me of the first one in which I took six months trying to get around a corner due to it's rather extreme difficulty, I still love it though. And the last game I'm sucked into is Gears of War the big shooter from last Christmas. The single player game is everything promised with cover being vital and this is improved with a fantastic online co-op game. Unfortunately once you go into an online versus game the cover mechanic is thrown out of the window leaving you with a disappointing run around and shoot peeps game. You still get to shoot your mates in the face though so it's not a complete waste.

A bit of drfunken blogging

Sorry peeps but I've got to do this drfunk or not at all and yes you can call me Doctor Funk for this evening, I've even put Sly and The Family Stone on for Funk Gods sake!

This has been a pretty hard week for me as I not only got confirmation that my sister and her two youngest won't be coming to our wedding but she's planning to marry the obviously abusive Londoner called Darren in June. Putting aside the fact that both me and Rosa think that somebody we've never met is an abusive partner what the fuck is Angela doing here? I never saw myself as the marrying type but when it came up the only peeps I cared about being there were my auld dears my sisters and heir kids. Angela has torn a large part of my heart out.

On the other hand fuck her. I want you here if you can, I would count Ed as a mate without loving his sister and Sara hand I are going to be legendary, but I'm going to stop worrying about who comes. Marrying Rosa's the important thing for me and it's all I really want.

Frankly I'm tempted to get married beforehand and spend my honeymoon time wandering Europe with Ed and Marieke but that won't happen.

My sister and the kids not coming to my wedding has left an awful hollow space inside me.

And in today's Parochial News

A picture from about 40 years ago of where I live .

Sit-in call for NCR plant

THE 650 WORKERS to be sacked by NCR should resist the closure of their plant and occupy it in a bid to make the US management change their minds, an economics lecturer at Dundee University said last night.

In what appeared to be encouragement for a return to the flexing of industrial muscle of the 70s and 80s, Dr Carlo Morelli maintained the last Dundee occupation—at the Timex factory at Milton of Craigie—while failing to halt the closure, prevented further manufacturing closures in the city.

He said, “If management at NCR will not manage, the workers should do it themselves.

“They are perfectly able to manufacture a number of things there but everything that may happen is predicated on one thing—that the redundancies are resisted and the way to do that is through the occupation of the factory.”

Dr Morelli pointed out that— unlike Timex or Upper Clyde Shipbuilders, which were heading for meltdown anyway—NCR was a very profitable company with no financial reason for closure except profit.

He said, “What we have is a company doing extremely well and simply trying to maximise its profits from its manufacturing process.

“This is all being driven by the financial rationale of a globalised financial system and the people who are paying the price are 650 NCR workers and their families.”

It was a manufacturing plant with a highly-skilled workforce, he said, and the question is how the workers can challenge the decision to close the plant.

“The solution would be for the workers to take control and challenge the management’s right to manage.

“If they will not manage, then the workers can do it themselves.

“This is exactly the kind of thing that is starting to emerge in Latin America, and if the workers at NCR adopt this approach, you can bet your bottom dollar it would get a huge measure of support not just in Dundee and throughout the UK but globally.”

Dr Morelli (pictured) said resistance by workers and unions, scuppered Ford’s plans to establish a factory in Dundee which would have undercut wages and conditions in the rest of the motor industry.

“I think action by the NCR workforce can change minds.

“They could occupy the plant, carry on making cash machines or other items which they could do very efficiently, but these questions can’t be asked until they challenge the redundancy plans.

“It may well be that NCR will change their view and say they will keep the plant open.”

I'm really not sure how I feel about this. The Timex strike was a really bad time in Dundee and it's easy to say that it resulted in companies not being able to undercut conditions and pay in industry but it was Dundonians who suffered in the end. If workers were to go through with an action like this I would support them but I'd have real doubts about the outcome. It's all a worry really.

Rangers 5-0 Dundee United

This and the New Years Day stuffing by Falkirk are not good but I refuse to get down about this. The team Levein played on New Years day was the exact team that beat Aberdeen two days earlier and the fact that they gave the game away in the second half shows how tired they were. Rangers had just got rig of they're idiot manager Le Guen after, in a bid to prove who was in charge, he told Rangers and Scotland captain Barry Ferguson that he would never play for the club again. Suffice to say Le Guen found out who was in charge and got replaced by Scotland coach Walter Smith last week and Ferguson captained the team against United. Whatever else I think of him, and I'me very angry that he abandoned the Scotland job, Smith is an inspired manager who did fantastically with Rangers in the 90's and there's normally a change in how the team plays when a bad manager is sacked so I'll take the drubbing with good grace.

I'm still pissed off that Smith abandoning the Scotland job means we probably won't get into Euro'08 though. :(

In which Garry wanders through Youtube

You know when I started blogging last year I though this is it finally my voice will be heard, lives will be touched by my startling prose, deep-seated political views will be changed and we will all begin to question Globalisation, the Free Market Economy and Economic Imperialism. From this small beginning we would enter a new golden age of peace, love and understanding and McFly would be sacrificed to Mighty Cthulhu in an orgy of blood and violence!!!

Sorry got a bit carried away there.

Instead I've mainly bitched about letters to the local paper, inflicted my favourite poems on you and wittered about music. Och well eh?

Anyway last night I opened a bottle of beer and sat down to begin my great crusade against the forces of oppression. This was it I was finally going to make my mark on the world.

Right after checking out my Hogmanay videos on Youtube. They'rr from Stonehaven and I quite like the peeps throwing fire about but from there it was all downhill. You see the problwm with Youtube is that there's just so much fantastic crap on it that you never seem to get around to checking it out but last night it turned out that I had plenty time and plenty beer to finally check out the good stuff.

For true brilliance the first place to go is sunny Turkey famous as the gateway to the Middle East, future member of the EU if they can ever get around to stopping the Kurd oppression bit and purveyors of dodgy film rip-offs the most famous being Turkish Star Wars with it's blatant stealing off Star Wars footage blended cunningly in with the story of two middle-aged space pilots who crash on a desert planet and proceed to battle dodgy evil peeps. Highlights include a fabulous training montage in which you get to see our heroes buff bodies as they build up their kewl powerz by hitting rocks, the cantina fight scene with it's Turkish kung fu and a subtle plot full of romance and danger. I don't know much about art but I know hilarious crap when I see it and this is it. Sublime.

Close behind in brilliance comes Turkish Superman with it's ground-breaking special effects and powerful central performance. Frankly Superman is scary as hell in this film.

But ludicrous films are not just the provenance of our European cousins our American ones can be just as bad. In the 90's schlock director Roger Corman owned the rights to make a Fantastic Four movie but he had to make a movie in order to retain. At the last minute they threw together the first Fantastic Four movie at the last moment. The whole movie's there in 10 minute chunks if you can bear it. I recommend it if only for Reed Richards ludicrous haircut.

I've also come across peeps just being daft I mean why would anybody dare to try the MC Hammer Dance when we know that Rosa is the true mistress of the Hammerstylee even if she's a little out of practice and says she'll batter me if I ever put up a video of her getting down. I'm a little disappointed that the actual episodes of Red vs Blue have been taken down due to Disney releasing them as DVD's as it is a piece of genius which should be loved in that special was by all Halo fans Bowchickawowow!

So it looks like the human race is doomed to keep repeating all the same mistakes but at least we've got plenty of hilariously funny videos to watch as civilization falls and hey you never know I might get around to posting my 10 point plan to solve the Middle East crisis later. Right after I check out these Sims 2 videos though.

Shocking Parochial News

NCR jobs bombshell

NCR today dealt Dundee a devastating jobs blow, with 650 posts being axed from its manufacturing plant at Wester Gourdie. Amid anger and tears, staff were told at a mass meeting that what was once a city industrial giant will, by the summer, be reduced to a skeleton operation of around 100.

Swingeing cuts had been expected in light of increasing competition for work from the company’s factory in Hungary, where costs are lower.

But employees streaming out the gates of the factory after today’s announcement said they were stunned at the extent of the redundancies, announced via video-link from America.

Said one, “We knew it was going to be bad, but 650 jobs is a shock. People are very upset, very angry. What do we do now?”

NCR Corporation said in a statement it plans to shift the focus of its automatic teller machine manufacturing in Dundee to “new product introduction and production of low volume, high complexity products.”

The company cited a changing market environment and competitive pressures for the decision to cease high-volume manufacture of ATM products in the city.

Management said they anticipated that current manufacturing-related positions in Dundee will be reduced by approximately by 650 by mid 2007 — a proposal subject to consultation with unions.

Controversially, given recent assurances to the contrary, the company confirmed the work will be shifted to the plant at Budapest, as well as Beijing and India.

After more than 60 years NCR shafts it's Dundee workforce so it can outsource the labour to Hungary and China and no doubt increase shareholder confidence. In the 1980's both Reagan and Thatcher talked about how loyalty to corporations would result in their loyalty to the workforce and a lot of people believed their lies. Since then we've had Timex leave Dundee and more recently Tesco and and Michelin cut jobs across the board and the same thing is happening all across the country normally in already deprived areas. For a small city with high unemployement like Dundee the loss of 650 jobs can be crippling for the local economy.

Workers gutted.

Reacting to the devastating news Fintry man George Devlin (42) emerged from the meeting a broken man. He said emotions were running high inside the NCR plant.

“They never even told anybody who’s going, they just said 650 will go by the middle of the year. They just told us it is in the hands of the union.

“Inside it is just total anger and disgust at the management.

“Last year they told us a big pack of lies.

“They said the Hungary plant was never going to affect the Dundee plant.

“I believe Hungary without a doubt has affected us.

“I think there has been one factory in Canada closed, one in Brazil and one somewhere else I can’t remember. They seemed just to be keeping places where they can get cheap labour.”

Mr Devlin, the father of three young children, said he was so disgusted with the news he walked out before the meeting ended.

“I walked out because I didn’t want to listen to it any more.

“The head man wasn’t even there, he was on a video ‘I cant be there’ blah, blah blah.

“Inside the meeting they were not answering questions, it was just a big shouting match.

“There are women in there crying one of whom has been there 36 years. She couldn’t even speak on the microphone: she was so upset she couldn’t even talk.

“I have only been there two-and-a-half years, but I feel really sorry for people who have been there a lot longer.

“It does look bleak for me now. There’s talk on Michelin going down the same road. I don’t have a clue what’s coming for me now.

“I think we will get compensation of some sort but it does not make up for not having a job.”

Asked what the future now held for him, he said, “It’s bleak, very bleak.”

Kevin McKenzie said, “My wife doesn’t have a job and it looks like I’ll not have one either after this.”

Scott McIntosh from Hilltown, a test technician, said, “They’ve not got a care about the working person — they’re only interested in the bottom line and more money for the shareholders.

“It is sad for the workforce and sad for the people with young families.”

Charleston man Derek Shaw (49) said, “I hope they stay in Dundee at least in some form.”

Peter Gow (62), of Ardler, said before the meeting, “Over the last few months the speculation has been detrimental to the whole workforce regarding the status of the company here.

“Last year promises the company made that Hungary would not be detrimental here look questionable today.

“I feel in the long term there is going to be a reduction (in production) of some form.

“We can only hope the outcome today is not as drastic as we may fear.”

Frances Tanbini (63), of Dundee, said she would not be substantially affected given her age, but added, “I do feel sorry for younger members of the workforce.”

But all of that's okay as long as the shareholders are happy. Makes me sick!