Sweeties, Pies and Ginger

Karen and I went out in Edinburgh this evening with my Sister and Brother and did one of the Capital’s longstanding walking tours. The Witchery Tour has been running as long as I can remember, but I’ve just never got round to doing it. It was Karen’s idea, as she’d seen an advert for it in the in-flight magazine during the trip up from Stanstead. So we booked ourselves on and also booked a vegetarian restaurant for after, but more about that later.

The Witchery Tour takes you through a load of Edinburgh’s old closes, which are long narrow and steep little passageways that run from the Royal Mile down either side to the roads at the bottom of Castle Hill. While you’re wandering after your guide, who just happens to be a ghost, you are regaled with tales of old murders and mad old women. Your are also surprised along the way at various stages, but if I told you where and how, it would spoilt your fun if you ever get round to doing it.

It’s definitely worth doing and takes between an hour and an hour and a half to complete. When you’re finished, especially in winter, you’re in dire need of a pint and a hot meal, so we hotfooted it round to Bann’s vegetarian restaurant on Hunter’s Square. Wow, is all I can say, why can’t we have veggie restaurants like that in Cambridge? You should have seen the menu; I could eat practically all of it! It got even better though, as they had some really cushty beer in bottles, so I didn’t even have to drink shite lager.

The food was so good that I had to go up to the chef at the end and thank her profusely for producing such excellent food. Apart from Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons, I’ve never been to a restaurant where you can get vegetarian food of the highest calibre. It’s also made me even more set in my ways about good beer in restaurants as well, it’s not that hard and it improves the dinning experience for those who’d rather not drink wine.

If you’re ever in Edinburgh and you’re looking for a good place to eat, then you could do a lot worse than going to Bann’s. I know that next time I’m up, I’ll be doing everything in my power to get back there and see what’s on the menu.

The shopping's finished, the beers bought, I'm half drunk already, so it must be Xmas eve. Seems like this years gone in a flash, but it isn't quite over yet. Going round to Karen's folks tomorrow and then up to my folks for New Year, at least this year I've got a job. So we've been able to buy pressies, last year was just too depressing for words.

Where ever you are, what ever your up to, have a very merry Xmas.

Well I don't think I made too much of an arse of myself at the departmental Xmas night out, although I did have to explain why I'm so loud on a couple of occasions. The night started off with a quick bottle of St. Peter's Organic Ale in All Bar One, as Karen was waiting on an old Uni friend, I then proceeded to The Eagle where I had a a pint of Greene King Abbot Ale, which was in fine form. It was from that point that things started to go down hill...

One of the things that gets up my nose is the lack of good beer in restaurants, most only seem to pay attention to how much of a premium they can stick on a bottle you can buy for half the price in a supermarket. This is true of the establishment that we went to for our food, now I'm quite a fan of the Loch Fyne chain or restaurants, as I love seafood, what I'm not a fan of this their shite selection of beer.

Initially, they assume everyone in a large party will be drinking wine, so you have to butt into the inevitable, "who wants white, who wants red?" argument. "So what beer do you do then...?", to which the reply was, "Bud, Becks, Fosters and John Smith's", great I though, shite or even shiter. So I ended up having to either drink water, or John Smiths, which is quite frankly like drinking some bland tea coloured partly flavoured water.

So why is it so hard of restaurants to sell some decent beer...? It's not like I'm asking for 10 real ales on tap, just a modest selection of bottled beer. Why should I be discriminated against just because I don't drink wine, or cheap shite beer...? Find me a restaurant that sells good beer and I'll go there more often, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person who feels like this as well.

It's my departments xmas meal tonight at a local fish resturant. I'm just hoping I don't make too much of a tit of myself...

Once upon a time I decided that I really needed to integrate my photo album with the rest of my website. I set about creating a theme that would use a similar style to what the rest of the site uses. Shame that IDS is written the way it is, as it was a complete bugger to do. It was so bad, that I had to mangle the Perl source code to get the effect that I wanted. This meant that I wouldn't be able to upgrade very easily and it was just taking far to long. So I've given up on that idea and just installed the latest version, so I'm now back where I started. So if you feel inclined, you can check out the latest photos that I've stuck up there.

Finally got some new glasses today, which means it's nearly seven years since I got my last pair. Since your supposed to get your eyes tested every couple of years I've been a bit on the lax side. My old glasses were pretty beat up, but I'd no idea just how bad they were until I wore my new ones for a bit. I put my old ones back on, just top make a comparison and it was like looking through a sheet of tracing paper, how I ever saw anything I've got no idea.

I went to the tip on Sunday, as I can't be arsed to lug all the rubbish to the end of the road on Friday's just to find we've missed the bin men. Imaging my surprise when I'm emptying the big metal bin outside to find a wee mouse stuck at the bottom. I've got no idea how it got there, but it had fair made a mess of the contents of the bag. After getting the lurking cats back into the house I managed to free the poor wee thing back into the field.

Channel 4 has a programme on Wednesday nights called Faking It. They take someone with no experience, give them to a mentor and a month later they have to convince some judges that they are the real deal. There has been a radiographer who did fashion photography, an insurance salesman who did stunt work and a Lawyer turned garage mc. Wednesday's offering was a video games tester turned racing driver and what an arse he turned out to be.

I'd kill to be given a chance like that, he went to the Johnny Herbert racing school at Rockingham for five weeks and was taught by a team of current and ex racing drivers. They even shipped him out to Monaco for a weekend to met David Coulthard and live the international al life of a racing driver. So what did this guy do…? He totally blew his chance by being an arrogant, cocky dickhead.

He seemed to think that due to having tested a few racing games, he'd be able to breeze the whole thing. He especially thought that woman they got into to help with the act he was going to have to put on of the judges interview, was a waste of time. How wrong he was going to be on that one. He just seemed to lack the commitment shown by some of the other people who have been in the other programmes.

He really didn't seem to care what he mentors were thinking and he came across as not really paying attention to them. His best lap times came when he was pissed off at them for dissing him, so he proved he could do it, just not when it mattered, when he had to do it off his own back. When it came to the final race, he did really well, although he still finished second last. It was his arrogance and lack of listening that let him down in the end though.

All through the interview he just kept on opening his mouth and sticking his feet further and further in. He even started going on about how they used special baked tyres and stuff, absolute bullshit. He was the only person out of all those who have done this programme that I really wanted to fail, he was so far up his own arse it was untrue.

I haven't even mentioned the argument he got into with an American tennis player in Monaco. He just summed up what is wrong with young drunk English blokes abroad, it was painful to watch. It's just such a shame that this opportunity was wasted on such an arrogant tosser, I just hope that after seeing how he came across on the programme he's going to take stock of his attitude.

It had to happen sooner or later, but I had to install a load of Oracle database software on my computer at work. I've even had to write a couple of SQL queries. After years of studiously avoiding having anything to do with the spawn of Satan, I now have to get into bed with it. Arse.

Sometimes I really wonder what some car drivers are thinking, impatience isn't a virtue. Neither is trying to force me into knocking an old lady of her bike as she cycles harmlessly down the side of the road.