2007 Questionnaire

1) Was 2007 a good year for you?
I’d have to say no. Money stresses following the wedding begat health worries which in turn begat work concerns (although my manager has been very helpful, supportive and understanding having gone though similar problems.) Michelle and I had a disappointing first year of marriage concluding with an awful first anniversary. However hard it has been we can both agree that we are still glad to have taken that trip down the aisle – We’ve had each other if little else.

2) What was your favourite moment of the year?
Holding my niece, Lucy, for the first time was a highlight. Krakow for Nigel's stag was amazing.

3) What was your least favourite moment of the year?
Jimmy died.

4) Where were you when 2007 began?
Michelle and I were in the flat as I was unwell with the flu.

5) Who were you with?
I was with Michelle, Fudge and Frankie – My wee family.

6) Where were you be when 2007 ended?
I was at Jim and Maxine’s for the bells with Michelle, Sparkie, Michelle, Nigel, Iona, Shaw and Lindsey. After midnight we were picked up by Laura and Stoo for a night at the Kelly.

7) Who were you with when 2007 ended?
I just said.

8) Did you keep your new years resolution of 2007?
As I do every year; lets recap: -

Do the Dishes Every Day
RESULT: Fail – Not even close. They still pile up until I have no option but to eventually do them.

Lift Weights on a Semi Regular Basis
RESULT: Fail – I did join a gym but even I am not cheeky enough to suggest every three months is “semi regular”.

Join a Creative Writing Workshop
RESULT: Fail – I did try to do this in September but missed enrolment by a week. I’m calling tomorrow to enrol for 11^th January.

Make a Baby
RESULT: Fail – this was a joke in which I said I’d make a baby out of paper mache and try to convince Michelle she gave birth to it. After much thought I decided this would be cruel. There is still no desire for the pitter-patter at this stage for me.

9) Do you have a new year’s resolution for 2007?
I do and will, in a short time, inform you of them for your amusment.

10) Did you make any new friends in 2006?
Work acquaintances really – I have enough friends I think.

11) Who are your favourite new friends?
Kenny and Wee Alasdair and big Colin are who I chat with most often in work.

12) What was your favourite month of 2007?
February – Lucy was born.

13) Did you travel outside of the UK in 2007?
I barley travelled out of East Kilbride.

14) Did you lose anybody close to you in 2007?
Jimmy died, he being my grandfather.

15) What do you wish you'd done more of?
Living and smiling.

16) What do you wish you'd done less of?
Worrying.

17) What dates from 2006 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
5^th January – Eli was born.
14^th February – Lucy was born.
12^th December – Jimmy died.

18) What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I was 26 and I went to Kirsty and Gary’s for dinner and drinks.

19) What song will always remind you of 2007?
Anything by Mika; shit songs for a shit year.

20) What was your favourite TV program?
My favourites of the year would have to be Lost’s third season, Brotherhood’s second season, the hilarious It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and a new show called Pushing Daisies.

21) Favourite film of this year?
The Bourne Ultimatum was amazing, as was the blood soaked 300. Hot Fuzz was very funny but did not split my sides as much as Superbad. John McClane proved that old heroes still kick ass in Live Free or Die Hard. Lastly (I’m not really sure these count because their not yet out in the UK) but The Coen Brother’s No Country for Old Men is an excellent return to form and Charlie Wilson’s War is a fantastically scripted true story of one man raising the funds for Americas first covert war. There are others, but these are the ones which stand out for me at the moment.

(links to be added later)

For One Day

Last year I spoke of Christmas as a state of mind, but what about the barriers to have cross to enter the state? You might be stopped at the checkpoint because you’ve got too much baggage. Worried about money, stressed about your living situation, sad over people you have lost; these are just some of things the state requires you to leave behind before you enter.

But it’s not so easy is it? How can you be excited about the joy your gifts may bring to others when you know the cost of that joy? How can you wake up on December 25^th on a bed that is on loan and feel joy? How can you not look at your Christmas tree and see the gift that will remain unopened. You can’t pretend these barriers don’t exist – that had been my original thought to suggest, but no, it can’t be done.

All I can suggest is smile. Yes you might have to scrape by and live on toasties for a while in the new year, but would you really trade it for the look in your families eyes as they see the gifts you bought. When you see what they hold in their hands is not just merchandise but an embodiment of the fact that you love them. It may not be your own bed but a look to your side will show you that all you need for Christmas has been with you all along. As long as you have them it will be okay – they will make it better for you just you will make it better for them. For the ones we’ve lost? Honour them. Honour them with memory and laughter and love. Celebrate them as you celebrate the day.

Christmas, as an adult, should be the one day of the year in which you should exile all negative thought. It may be hard; there could be tears and anger, maybe blood, but fight hard. Fight hard and then rest, and when you awake on the day, for that one day (because you deserve that day!), feel love and nothing more.

Merry Christmas everyone.

We Won't Have a Christmas This Year

We won't have a Christmas this year, you say
For now the children have all gone away;
And the house is so lonely, so quiet and so bare
We couldn't have a Christmas that they didn't share.

We won't have a Christmas this year, you sigh,
For Christmas means things that money must buy.
Misfortunes and illness have robbed us we fear
Of the things that we'd need to make Christmas this year.

We won't have a Christmas this year you weep,
For a loved one is gone, and our grief is too deep;
It will be a long time before our hearts heal,
And the spirit of Christmas again we can feel.

But if you lose Christmas when troubles befall,
You never have really had Christmas at all.
For once you have had it, it cannot depart
When you learn that true Christmas is love in your heart.

- Verna S. Teeuwissen

Christmas Message 2006

Christmas Message 2005

Jimmy

James Ambrose Senior is my father’s father. To my cousins he has always been 'Papa', but even at a young age ‘papa’ felt an odd word to me (equally true of My fathers mothers moniker 'Nana') and so I opted to call him, as others did, by his name; Jimmy.

For as long as I can remember Jimmy and Annie (the would be ‘Nana’) have lived in Rosebank Tower in Cambuslang. Jimmy would dress each day in a shirt in tie and tend to his small but lush garden on the veranda. He enjoyed popping into the bookies for a wee flutter (always on the double initial horses) and he could probably be tempted by a wee pint at the Black Bull just seeing as he’s passing, and sure why not a half of whisky too.

Jimmy won’t be at ‘The Bull’ this week, nor at the bookies. His garden, cultivated for decades, was sadly left behind when he and Annie were moved to home a few weeks ago and, as much as he may wish it, there will be no shirt buttoned and the tie will remain on its hook. Jimmy is dying.

How long has it been since I first heard those words? Months? Years? I’d place my money on the later. “Jimmy is dying” you’d hear and then only days later “Jimmy’s out the hospital, he’s okay”. Jimmy reinvented the emotional rollercoaster in the last few years with a multitude of miraculous comebacks. His remarkable fortitude in the face of Cancer and multiple surgeries even became a source of dark humour – my Aunt once remarked that she was going to stop telling people her father was dying as it was getting embarrassing to receive condolences on one day and congratulations on the next in so many occasions. If only today were one of those days, If only we could share another black laugh, if only, if only, if only.

While writing this post I received a phone call from my mother suggesting I join my father and his sisters at The Princess of Wales Hospice via taxi. That was 16:20. By 16:40 I was stepping into my taxi which, to my eternal regret, was also the time Jimmy drew his last breath. I met my dad on the steps of the hospice 50 minutes later at which time he simply told me “he’s gone, son”. For what seemed like a long time after that we stood together and cried over his father, my grandfather, Jimmy.

Jimmy Ambrose
20/12/1921 – 12/12/07

Mallett's Mallet

Ignorance is Bliss

I was talking with someone the other day about the TV show Lost. He’d never seen the show and wondered if what he had heard about it is true. What he had heard that it was an equally weird and irritating show which offer more questions than it does answers. So that got me started, and once I got started, the public perception of Lost became, for me, a symbol of the gradual breakdown of society.

I watch the show, I love the show! Do I care about the answers? Of course! But I’m in no rush to get them. You’re watching a story and the story is about the journey just like any other story. You’re not supposed to have the answers – if you did there would be not story! You don’t flip to the end of the book and you don’t ask what happens at the end of the movie! But see there’s the problem – even as I type this you’re turning over those pages and you’re asking that goddamn question.

The books stay on the shelf because you’ve not got the patience, or the stamina, or even the will to enjoy the journey anymore. You hate the films that ask questions because you’re too lazy to wait for the answers – Stick on Scary Movie 9 instead. And when you find something on the TV that keeps you guessing at every turn, gives to adventure, romance and suspense you click the channel to some more Reality TV and fire another bullet into creative storytelling. And the funny thing is – you loved that show! But shouldn’t it be done by now? Why won’t it tell me what’s going on? How come they’re not all dead like I read in The Sun that time?

Pick up a f***ing book, watch the f***ing movie, enjoy the f***ing show, and for f**k sake don’t ask if we’re there yet, just enjoy the scenery. Trust me – it’s better than any national karaoke, dance or modelling competition out there. And it’s sure as f**k better than watching some dipshits being thrown out of a goldfish bowl.

THIS WEEK
I Watched: - The Dirty Dozen, Grindhouse Presents: Planet Terror.
I Read: - The Fourth Hand by John Irving
I listened to: - Five Men in a Hut by Gomez and The Essential Bob Dylan