COWAN-GATE

Tam Cowan in today's Daily Record (I bought it for the £500 Crossword, honest) claims that Motherwell should get a bye into the fifth round of the Scottish Cup because Inverurie Locos' pitch is unplayable*. The short arse has a short memory because it wasn't so long ago that his club Motherwell had to cancel an SPL game against Hearts because their undersoil heating wasn't working. And it wasn't even the first time his club had committed such an offence.

Or maybe Tam is scared that the great leveller of a tricky away tie to non-league opposition in the Scottish Cup will see his team, who aren't exactly setting the SPL on fire, become victims of a great giant-killing act. I certainly hope so.

* Maybe Forfar and Brechin, who both had games postponed because of the weather, should be similarly punished.

I have no gripe with Tam per se - after all he is funnier than the entire output of BBC Scotland's Comedy Unit - but I find his complaint rather hypercritical.

As a collector of Girl Group CDs I was chuffed to see Volume 4 of "Here Come The Girls" finally pop up on eBay. (I already have Volumes 1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10). After opening the bidding, I was rather annoyed that I forget when the auction was closing and saw that I had been outbid. Only, that is, until I saw that it finally went for £16!! If someone wants to pay that much for it then fair play to them but not for me, thank you.

Note: I also have Girls in the Garage (Vols 1-9, need 11/12 and one of the two singles), Where The Girls Are (1-5), RPM's excellent Dreambabes series, (1-8), Early Girls (1-5), Femmes de Paris (1-2, need 3), Canadian semi-bootlegs Ultra Chicks (1-6) and a load of other one-off girl and ye-ye collections.

Talking of eBay, I had a run in with an individual who thought it was okay (and he even admitted it) to bump up the low price of the CD he was selling with excessive postage and packing costs. I'm sorry but to me that is just greedy profiteering. I told him so and gave him a chance to refund some of the excessive postage. He declined so I gave him negative feedback. I didn't want to but his arrogance left me with no choice. He seemed to think that P&P costs should include the cost (petrol? shoe leather? Happy Meal on the way?) of taking something to the Post Office!! A lesson learned methinks and that lesson is, don't deal with money-grabbing dickheads.

Regular readers will know that along with my mate Dave, we run the Jocknroll website. Well, we've decided to change the Pop Pourri blog page on the website to a Blogger blog and incorporate it into the site that way. It also means that Dave can post his thoughts too - both of them! Dave and I are also regular contributors to The Scotsman's Recommends section so you may see our Top 5 musings from time to time. Last week, I had Best Scottish Band for 2009 and others are imminent.

What a day I've had! I got up at the crack of dawn (okay it was about 8.30 but for a Saturday morning In January that's pretty good) and headed out with my list of "things to do". First stop was the David Gray salon to get a "four on the top and two everywhere else". The girl who cut my hair wasn't too chatty, which I prefer, and she was tipped accordingly. Even though the salon advertises Gents Cut "from £7" mine is always £4 because I don't have much hair to cut (I'm not going bald, it just takes me longer to wash my face - I'm here all week!). The dan diver is handed over and it's off for task 2. A trip to the sorting office followed. I had to collect a parcel and I was pretty sure I knew what it would be. I was right - it was our first competition win of the year.

I thought it was going to be a webcam from the Community Channel but it turned out to be a pair of them, with headsets. A prize is a prize is a prize as they possibly say in Competitionland. (The next step is usually to find out how much they're worth and pop the information onto our spreadsheet - yes, we're that sad but then again we do win a lot of stuff so it's nice to keep track of how much we've won!).

Next stop is the Pitreavie Business Park to visit a plumbing supplier and post some comps into the DePress (that's what I call the Dunfermline Press because it's so parochial, small-minded and dull). From my pre-Christmas of trying to find a particular type of ceramic tap head (I didn't find it) I now know where almost every plumbing supplier is in West Fife. At the Business Park, there are three right next to each other. There was a customer car park space at Graham's so I felt obliged to go there first. I got a new shower head (an Alterna Single Mode Rub-Clean Shower head, no less) and accompanying PVC Hi-flow Shower Hose for the measly sum of £13. (I'm sure when I looked at the prices on the shelf they totalled about £20 but I wasn't going to argue, would you?) Actually Graham's almost lost the sale because I waited five minutes to get served and I was at the point of visiting one of their neighbours/competitors when someone appeared to serve me.

With the competitions posted it was a brief trip up one junction of the motorway (the quickest way) to "the big Asda" (or Azdaz, if you're a local) for some 'normal' shopping, which included The Sun (we're collecting the holiday tokens). the aforementioned Daily Record and some Chupa Chupa lollies (I don't ask why). I also checked out the price of storage boxes and there was a 65 litre one for £7.83, which worked out at about 12p per litre, the same as Tesco's. I make a mental note and crack on.

I return home rather satisfied with myself and have a celebratory brunch of boiled eggs on toast. But no rest for the wicked as I bag up all the recycling (plastic, tins and bottles) and put them into the boot of the car. With the go-ahead from she-who-must-be-obeyed to buy the storage boxes I head back to Halbeath. I deposit the recycling first and get the storage boxes before heading home for a well-earned coffee.

I get home to witness a site that would bring a tear to a glass eye. That's right, may four-year old daughter is playing her first game of Trivial Pursuit, albeit the kids version of the Disney one. I'm so proud I could put an announcement in the paper. I haven't been so chuffed since she named the balls you pot in snooker - in order! Not only that but Mrs Cat is soundly thrashed as The Flickster gets the necessary six cheeses in no time at all. Sure there may have been a lot of leniency/selective questioning by The Good Lady Wife but a win is a win and one I shall remind her of at regular intervals.

I squeeze in a couple of games of Tiger Woods 08 (Wii) into my hectic schedule. I'm shit at it - it's official. I just can't seem to pick it up. I've scored -9 on the Wii Sports Golf but this is a whole new ball game, so to speak. After two rounds of 90+ I return to the old faithful, Tennis on Wii Sports and a quick three sets to love victory cheers me up and pushes my ranking over the 2050 mark.

Another pop star death and another change to my running order for tomorrow's show. Having already binned show-starter Annette Funicello's "Tall Paul" for The Stooges "1969", I've now had to move "1969" to the second half so I can fit in something by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich. After much deliberation I plump for their only UK number one, "The Legend of Xanadu". The Good Lady Wife asked me if I'd rather they died on a Monday! I'm saying nothing.

A man's work is never done. I've still got to write a couple of Top 5 for Recommends, start putting together radio shows for 18th and 25th January, have a coffee, finish the big Daily Record £500 crossword, do some competitions (you've got to be in it to win), have a coffee, finish the Mojo crossword, burn some CDs and then, only then, I might have time for a cuppa. It's a full life and a wonder I have time to go to work!