MISERY GUTS' REVIEW OF THE YEAR

PERSONAL HIGHS

Getting my own hospital radio show
Interviewing top snooker/pool referee Michaela Tabb on the aforementioned show
Putting an entry forward for the Hospital Broadcasting Association awards (I’m in for three categories)

PERSONAL LOWS

A ridiculous amount of sick leave due to persistent throat, stomach problems and depression.
Resigning from hospital radio show committee after one meeting and having to stop doing show for Nevis Radio as a result.
No quiz show appearances.
A lack of motivation

BOOKS ENJOYED:

Dawn of the Dumb – Charlie Brooker
Song Man – Will Hodgkinson (the first book I've borrowed from a library in years)
One Hit Wonderland – Tony Hawks
Pies and Prejudice - Stuart Maconie
That's Me In The Corner - Andrew Collins

FILMS ENJOYED:

Sicko

MUSIC ENJOYED:

Dropkick – Patchwork LP
Attic Lights – Friday Night Lights LP
Jackie Leven – Lovers at the Gun Club LP
The Spooks – With and Without CD
Various – Scotbeat Volume 1, 2 and 3 (thanks Lenny)
Teddy Thompson – In Your Arms 45
Melee – Built To Last 45
Duffy – Mercy 45
Soulseek
The Searchers (very underrated)
The Fabulous Artisans
Raymy
Attic Lights (Velocity, Dunfermline)
The Vaselines (Carnegie Hall, Dunfermline)
Ronnie Spector (The Arches, Glasgow)
Jackie Leven (Edinburgh and Perth)
Edwyn Collins (Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh)
I Am Kloot (ABC, Glasgow)
Frank Satan and His Husbands (Cameo Cinema)

TV ENJOYED:

Big Bang Theory
Damages
Dexter
Mad Men
The Gadget Show
Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe
Harry Hill’s TV Burp
University Challenge/Mastermind/In It To Win It/Only Connect
QI/Mock The Week/8 Out of 10 Cats
Watchdog/Crimewatch/Rogue Traders

RESTAURANT I ENJOYED:

The Wee Restaurant, North Queensferry

TECHNOLOGY OF THE YEAR

Flip Ultra Camcorder - My daughter's nativity came out a treat.
Nintendo Wii - I'm addicted to the tennis on Wii Sports and Super Mario Karts (The Good Lady Wife enjoys Guitar Hero III)

HEROES OF THE YEAR

Michael Moore
Charlie Brooker
Chris Hoy
Mark Cavendish
Lenny Helsing
Stephen Fry
Andrew Collins

VILLAINS OF THE YEAR

**Cristiano Ronaldo - A divin' cheating prima donna. Four petulant kicks at opponents in the last few months shows what he's really all about.

**Office Dickhead - Before I went off on Christmas Leave I had a run in with a middle-management sort who was extremely rude to me on the phone. He started with a bad attitude and got worse so I hung up on him. I expect to be in the shit when I get back to work but if he thinks he'll be getting an apology he can go fuck himself. It's not my first run-in with this knobhead but I hope it's my last.

Fife Council 1 – Attempts to get a bus shelter for my morning bus stop (an exposed stop on a wind tunnel of a road) were met with a rather pathetic response of “sorry, not enough people use it and besides it might get vandalised”. They even said that a shelter had been earmarked – it’s just they weren’t gong to do anything with it!

Fife Council 2 – One of the four Fife Councillors covering my area decided to insult me in an e-mail and then made the mistake of forwarding it on to me! He even had the brass neck to cite a “stressful day” for his insulting words. I made sure I got an apology and I made sure I passed his original comments on to the local press (who did nothing with it, partly because they hate me) and the “opposition”. I also complained to the Council but they’re as much use as a roof rack on a helicopter.

Life Property Management – Gritted our road when we didn’t need it, didn’t want it and didn’t ask for it. They billed us anyway. After a while they actually refused to discuss the issue with me and again the local Councillors were as much use as an ashtray on a motorcycle when it came to getting some sort of help. It’s bad enough that we have to pay for neighbours who don’t cough up their factoring charges without being charged for unnecessary work. Property Management is unregulated and LPM continues to paint themselves as some sort of “good guys” but they’re not. They held a meeting and then charged the cost of the hire to the residents, whether they attended or not. Total bawbags.

Parcelnet – Delivered several parcels over a few days and decided to drop them all over a six-foot fence instead of taking them back and leaving a card. Poor service and no subsequent response from the company as to what the outcome of my complaint was. Piss poor.

Stagecoach – Drivers still not knowing which tickets to issue, which way they’re going or which stops they should be stopping at. I have a good relationship with the Operations Director (built up over hundreds of e-mails) and I pity him for having to work with such numpties.

West Fife Taxi Drivers Association – I don’t use taxis; haven’t done for years and John Aitchison, the mouthpiece of this “body”, is responsible. This man’s continual “the-world-owes-us-a-living” whining in the local press about how hard done-to taxi drivers are is just pathetic. He told lies to the Dunfermline Press about the Yellow Taxibus (saying that woman weren’t safe on it) and subsequently taxi drivers wouldn’t pick up people who had just got off the Yellow Taxibus in James Street for onward travel. What is laughable about him and his organisation is how they claim to be doing all these courses to improve behaviour of drivers even though a member of his own family had her licence taken off her after a number of driving offences and repeated warnings. The biggest laugh of the year was when they suggested they should be treated like public transport. He’s got more neck than a bag of giraffes – start charging the same fares as buses and trains and improve the quality of your service and drivers and that might become a reality but until then shut the fuck up. They say you never see a poor bookie; well the same applies to taxi drivers.

BBC – Took six weeks to finally get feedback for an interview I had. I realised that I hadn’t performed well at interview but this was really rubbing salt into the wounds.

Ryanair – Deleted two e-mails without reading them. Would rather pay full price than use them again. The prices may be low but if they can’t get basic customer service right then passengers will desert them. They’re complacent and arrogant as the press releases on their website show.

Silent Calls from Home Improvement Companies who are “not trying to sell me anything”. Yes you are, fuck off and get a proper job.

Radio Forth/Forth One – Took a vote in the office and switched to Radio 2. Fed up with “personality” DJs who love nothing better than to sound superior by spouting the same old “trivia” about the same old records. Too often the facts are wrong. Maybe I’m the only person who bothers to correct them. I don’t care; it shows a lack of attention to detail and if they can’t bother getting their facts right then I can’t be bothered listening. Also, they made an arse of a couple of competitions and when I pointed the errors out they were quite dismissive of my observations. The takeover by Bauer isn’t exactly going to improve things. Commercial radio is dead, god bless Terry Wogan. I didn't mind Boogie in the Morning (thinks he's the bee's knees) or Grant Stott (sort out that Wee Touch of Tartan feature - there's more to Scottish music that Deacon Fuckin' Blue) but the rest of them melted into an interchangeable Wallpaper of Sound. Don't get me started on the never-there-because-she's-always-on-the-sick Head of Music because she knows hee-haw.

**eBay - Or more specifically the robbin' twat who tried to charge me £2.20 postage for a single CD sent Second Class in a used Jiffy Bag. At least Dick Turpin wore a mask. What what more amazing was the people on the eBay forums who seem to think it was okay to bump up the postage on any item that's cheap. They even suggested that it's okay to increase the cost of postage to cover costs incurred in taking said item to the Post Office, whether it be bus fares or petrol costs. Where does it stop? Add another 50p for wear and tear on footwear.

**Public Transport - Those ignorant people who put their bags on seats during rush hour travel. I regularly target these seats, just for sport. Let's not forget those people who feel that they can't sit on anything less than one and a half seats and I'm not just talking about chubsters.

WHAT DOES 2009 HOLD?

Fingers crossed for a nomination at the HBA awards in Blackpool
Doing an Introduction to Dreamweaver course so I can take the Jocknroll website to the next level and earn some money from it – look out Google!
A possible appearance on Eggheads
Doing a Pass Plus driving course to cut down on car insurance.
Learn to play my guitar
Weight loss, motivation and contentment
Marriage to Kate Winslet

Please note that this blog entry may well be altered over the next couple of weeks as I remember stuff!

How was 2008 for you?

(**Updated: Tuesday 30 December 2008)