Grumbling Tummy

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The postal voting papers for the Scottish Parliament and Local Government Elections 2007 arrived this morning and we’re duly crossed and numbered accordingly. Let me say how I voted by picture.

Gran would be proud as she consistently voted for the SNP. I’ve only ever voted Lib Dem or not voted, but I find the current Scottish Lib Dem policies full of holes, unnecessary complexity and in general flawed. For the first time, the SNP’s policies seem to be the best choice from all the main stream parties that will actually make a difference.

Recently, I’ve also found myself believing that Scotland can rule itself, indeed it would be highly beneficial for us Scots to be in complete charge of our own land. Now I’m not advocating the English should be thrown out of an independent Scotland, but we could consider them as refugees :-D.

Technorati Tags: elections, independent Scotland, local government, Scotland, Scottish National Party, Scottish Parliament, SNP

Could this possibly be my shiny new replacement car for the BMW?

Last week the BMW decided enough was enough! Can’t really complain after 190k miles and nearly 11 years in my service, 14 years in total. Sounded very much like the camshaft or something around the top end had gone badly wrong. A friend, who is a mechanic, had a quick look the other day and found cylinder no 4 was completely gone.

Today saw it being traded in and a shiny young pretender taking over its role. I’ll keep the make and model a surprise for another day. Keep watching to find out what exciting motor vehicle is now sitting in the driveway.

My boiler stopped working late afternoon. Upon discovery of the fault I phoned Scottish Gas to report the problem. The woman in the call centre accurately took down all the details and escalated the problem to “get an engineer out that day”. I was impressed that this may be possible but didn’t expect to see one until first thing tomorrow. Sure enough, within a couple of hours I had two service engineers (one was a trainee) out fixing the boiler. They knew exactly what they were doing, were very professional in their approach and dealt with the fault promptly.

All I can say is a big thank you for the better than 1st class service provided by Scottish Gas. I can’t praise them highly enough on this occasion. In fact, when I come to think about it, I can’t ever recall having an problem with this organisation.

I’ve been a member of their heating system support plan since owning my own home. I’d advise anyone with gas central heating to consider joining. They will even come out once per year and service your heating system as part of the plan. It only takes one more call out per year and it will have paid for itself over and over again.

Congratulations go out to Craig and Alison Murphy on the birth of their first child. A wee baby boy.

Just trundled downstair to get another helping of pasta. It has been a few hours since the first glass of champagne was consumed but still the floor seemed to be pretty unstable. Would whoever is rocking the house STOP it NOW!

We’ll a second serving of pasta and another half glass of champers and I’m confined to lying on top of the bed (dress state not disclosed) surfing the web. Got another half glass to go, by which time I’ll probably be ready for passing out.

So I’ll say goodnight now… zzzZZZZzzzzz

I was hunting about tonight for something to drink with dinner. Damn, the milk was out of date, drank the last of the orange juice earlier in the day and there wasn’t a single alco-pop in the house. Fuck it! The champagne chilling in the freezer was opened and a glass duly poured. So what was the occasion?

Eventually done those pile of dishes that have been hanging about for days and days and days ….

Just heard a loud series of bangs and crashes outside. Looked out the window to discover a lorry slowly drawing forward after backing into my nice picket-fence! The neighbour wont be pleased as this was the fence he painted the other week.

Now I’ll stand correct if I’m wrong here, but isn’t it reasonable to expect the driver’s mate to be out directing him while he is reversing. They weren’t even making any deliveries in our cul-de-sac!

A few of the neighbours also heard and saw the accident. They were ready to jump out and take the details of the lorry but I was out there as quick as a flash. Thanks go to the neighbours for looking out for me.

Now I’ll need to go through all the bollocks with their insurance! I can see them getting billed for my time to get this all fixed ;-).

Anyone know a good fencing consultant and no I don’t mean one who knows about swords!

Came home this evening to find the following flyer posted through the door:

I read and re-read the flyer, looked inbetween the lines and no where could I find mention of my involvement in this caper! No one is doubting the part the Browns played in disturbing the thieves but it was my information that saw them apprehended. Ah well! Another case of me being the anonymous hero. At least the victim of the crime has shown his appreciation by painting both sides of the front and back fences. Job saved :-).

By the way, this image is completely straight! If you are seeing this on a slant you may want to consider a day or two off the sauce or Midori if that is your tipple (”Still Game” reference)!

Today is yet another Bank Holiday Monday in Scotland. I can’t stand these Monday holidays as they mean all the idiots of the day turn up to the Sunday night dancing and ruin it for us regulars. Come on you half-wits, I don’t turn up on your weekly Saturday night piss-up, throw-up and late wake-up, so why do you ruin my Sunday night activities?

It was very easy to stay in last night and watch some TV rather than venture out into the Twilight Zone Holiday. Things were made even easier by my own personal Aubrey knawing away at my backend, well that’s how the tail-end felt!

I watched the start and final few moments of Swordfish, which was interrupted by the BBC interview of Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli who blew the whistle on their nucleur programme. The guy has balls, well maybe too much balls, since he got them trapped in a “honey trap” by the Israeli secret service! This was a classy piece of TV journalism. The British Press are great when they do this kind of journalism, not so good is all the nonsense and propoganda spread on a daily basis through the tabloids, broadsheets and TV news programmes.

Well it has been a bad week for all things mechanical. The second failure of the week has just occurred: my good watch packed in yesterday evening. Wouldn’t mind if it wasn’t so god damn expensive to service.

I’m tempted to disable and turn off everything else mechanical just in case the “Bad Things Happen in Threes” theory is right. God knows what will be next. Please let it be something cheap and/or disposable for once!

See Ask Dr Universe for more meanderings on this very topic.

Feeling much better today. Well I was until Bobby (the mechanic) went to do an oil change on the BMW, only to discover it was running on 3 cylinders. After some investigation it looks like that there is a burnt valve. Top end of the engine will require a strip down and rebuild. However, there is still no guarantees that will fix the beast. Its not until you strip ‘em down that you can get a good feel and look about!

This could cost major bucks. I’m not a happy bunny.

It hasn’t even been a week yet since “Rumbling Tummy” came into existence. Already I’ve started to look at every element, every experience, basically every waking moment as possible content for the blog. I’m even working on how I can awaken from dream state just at the point where the whole dream can be recalled. There must be some interesting stuff in my subconscious.

Does this mean I have a problem? No way, I can give up anytime I want!

Watch out for my next fix posting in a few hours.

Woke up this morning intending to do the gardening this afternoon. Unfortunately my stomach decided otherwise and I’ve been running back and forth to the toilet all afternoon. I suspect I’ve got my own personal Aubrey knawing away!

Ah well! There is always tomorrow…

There is absolutely no foundation to the rumour that all the neighbours are selling up due to the sight of the jungle at No15. Well it is only two homes out of eight - okay its out of seven as I really can’t count my own. Hopefully the SOLD signs are just about visible on both sides of the photo.

It probably has more to do with them knocking out sprogs and not having enough room to accomodate the little darlings. Personally, I’d let the little darlings have their own annex homes, some may describe this as a “garden-shed”. I have my own “kiddie home” in the back garden!

It could also be attributable to the more than 400% profit they are making on the deal.