I`ve got a pretty bad track record at causing harm to strangers when I go to Muay Thai beginners classes. I dont go often, just when I`m unable to get to the advanced classes later in the week. I dont really like going to the beginners classes as I usually get partnered up with someone who either has never done MT before, or has just started and thinks that they know everything already.

The problem is that I tend to end up hurting people quite badly. Not on purpose you understand, it just kind of happens.

A few examples in recent years -

I once caught this boy with a flying downward circular elbow. I hit the pad as expected but the power forced the guy to punch himself in the face and knock himself unconscious. I never saw him again after that.

Until that is I started my current job … where I found out that he is a guy who not only works for the same company, but is also hilariously senior to me and has not yet said a single word to me despite the fact that I`ve been here for nearly a year and see him every day. Perhaps this could explain a few things.

Next up was when I was training with this girl who must surely be the tiniest girl in the whole wide world. I`ll be darned if she weighted more than 7 stone. Once again an elbow went through the pad and smashed into her head causing blood to go everywhere.

There have been others, but they have all deserved a beating one way or another so of course I was looking forward to my session with the beginners last night.

Things started badly right from the off.

Just warming up by practicing some low kicks on our own. There I was minding my own business when this girl wanders into my sphere of death and I smash her with a low kick to the thigh. She had to go home after that. Couldn’t walk.

Anyway, after all that I end up get paired off with this girl called Sarah ….. who can really fight. She had good boxing technique and could throw a kick.

I started off only going half power against her when she was holding the pads. Then she said something like “Come on! Really go for it".

So I did.

Smashed in a full power bodykick from my right side. Bang!

It was only then that she told me through the tears that she had a congenital spinal problem and that I`d knocked one of her discs out of place. ……. well I mean …. come on! How can that be my fault? She told me to do it…… officer.

Think I`ll give it a good while before I go back to a beginners session, just in case the law is there waiting for me.

Its the first weekend I`ve spent in Edinburgh in ages having spent the last few weeks in Fife, Liverpool, Preston and Coventry. All this jet set lifestyle has left me with absolutely no cash whatsoever. Problem is that I ran out of cash with a whole week to go before I next get my massive pay cheque

To solve the problem …. and it was a problem trust me, even ran out of mashed up cow!, I invited my parents up for the weekend.

This is a good way to get through the last week of an expensive month because

1 - My parents are loaded.
2 - I am an only child so can sponge off them as much cash as possible.
3 - My mum makes an amazing stew which lasts me at least 3 days:

This is the stew pot after my two giant bowls full for my dinner this evening. This stuff will keep me going through past pay day and ensure that I dont have to take up a real job over Christmas.

One thing I did do over the weekend was go on the Edinburgh wheel:

Seen above along with the excellent German market currently in full swing in Edinburgh city centre.

Get some top views from the …. er….. top:

Its three quid to go on it. Luckily my mum paid

Every few months I buy one of those muscle and fitness comics to get a few new ideas of things to try in the gym just to keep things fresh.

One article I was reading was called “Banking on Growth - We tell you definitively what the top 10 bodybuilding supplements on the market are and why they work", snappy title eh? Mostly it was stuff that I already knew ….. mostly.

Amazingly at number 4 in the list of things to make you bigger came — Caffeine. I`ll let muscle and fitness take over here.

……. caffeine is also a bodybuilders best friend because of its ability to burn bodyfat, buffer muscle pain and sharpen mental activity ….. snip ……. Ingested pre-workout, caffeine increases muscle strength and helps the body use more fat for energy, a nice feature for anyone looking to get or stay lean.

Wow! Next time I`m at the gym (tomorrow) I`m gonna rack up a stock of coffee beans and eat the bas*ards. Gotta be cheaper than the other things on the list that I take:
Multivitamins
Creatine,
protein powder - Basically just ground up cows that tastes of strawberries, bananas or chocolate – presumable depending on the type of cow that was used.

I reckon with the undoubted power of caffeine and ground up chocalate cow I`ll soon look like this boy here:

Maybe even bigger!

On another note I had a meeting with my manager today in Costa. The meeting was basically an opportunity for me to explain to her why I had resigned.

Only kidding Sandy. I just know that you were dying to ask me what it was all about.

Hope that didn’t trigger a heart attack

Apologies for the site recently being updated as often as the excellent Unorthodoxy. The reason for this being that I spent most of last week away at my parents place near Liverpool and also in Preston.

I was at my parents mostly because everything is free there, and I was in Preston for a University reunion on Saturday night. I was really looking forward to the reunion because it would have been the first time we had (nearly) all been together since we graduated in 2001. Sadly Lukas had to pull out due to a very nasty illness and Paul ….. well ….. Paul just forgot, which is astonishing really considering we had it all planned for nearly 2 months. Oh well.

That still meant meeting up with a couple of my former lecturers. Tony Nicol, an ex-Marine Commando who made my life hell for 3 years, and his partner Linda Snape who was my second supervisor on my BSc honours project and amazingly awarded me a first class mark.

It turned into a top night in the end with much to enjoy as Tony reminded me in his email this morning:

We had a really good night out. I was ok until the challenge of drinking the pint of lager faster than Claire could drink an alcopop - that was the begining of the end for me. My judgment had gone trying to ballence a tray of chips on the open side of a piza box seemed like a good idea at the time until i was abruptly reminded about gravity ….

I was impressed by Claire’s singing and also by Marc not getting into a fight .

Good to see that my reputation has not dwindled with age

The six and a half hour train journey back to Edinburgh with a raging hangover and less than 3 hours sleep was not much fun…. not fun at all, especially for the boy sitting next to me. I`ve learned that snoring loudly in very public places does not make you popular. Not popular at all.

Walking along today to catch up with the Kapow team, who are doing splendidly BTW, and this guy walked up to me said “Are you looking for a goose?".

“Whoa?” was about all I could manage. “You lookin’ for a goose?", he shouted, impatiently like I was the one who was playing thick. What the hell was this guy on about? Some kind of mad new underground black market selling geese on the side.

Turns out not.

Some goose had escaped from somewhere and was wondering about the streets of Edinburgh looking lost.

Perhaps he had gotten wise about Christmas and decided to make a break for it. If so his mission failed.

Because I ate him.

Just back from the wedding of Andy and Lauren. Spent the night over in a hotel called the Woodside hotel in Aberdour.

All in all it was a top weekend. The guys had a civil ceremony at a ruined castle:

Luckily the room where the ceremony was held had a roof.

The evening reception was top and the hotel was cool too, but see if you can spot the problem with the view we had from our room:

Magical. Blo*dy great yellow spotlight shining through the window all night long. Kept waking up thinking the aliens had landed. Because of that I had to drink my own bodyweight in whisky just to get to sleep.

If I was in charge of my office we would know by now the person responsible for breaking the gents toilet on my floor of the office.

The other day someone managed to not only com0letely block the toilet, but also managed to rip the toilet seat completely from its hinges. Now ask yourself this: How bad a curry must you have had the night before to cause the toilet seat to be ripped off its hinges?

Gotta be something pretty serious surely.

I mean, I can cook a mean Thai curry and every so often have been known to leave some bog roll in the fridge over night just to be on the safe side, but what this guy had must have been off the scale.

Anyway, our office does not have a culture of blame so the criminal is free to walk the streets of Edinburgh. Beware, he could be coming to an office near you.

Thing is, if I was in charge there would be a witch hunt and the person who smelled of curry the most would be branded with branding iron across his forehead —- “STINKY BAS*ARD” it would say! and he would be banned from curry houses the land over.

See, I should definitely be in charge.

Not being put off by last weekend, I plan on having another at the same time this week, starting Friday and ending Monday morning.

This time I`m going to be in Fife, a wonderfully diverse and cultural place if ever there was one.

The reason - a friend of Fi is getting married. She and her finance met in April and were engaged in June. Compared to some of my friends in South Carolina who were introduced and hitched within 30 days, their relationship has lasted for an eternity.

They guys I know who did that in South Carolina are divorced now, but I`m sure that wont happen to these guys…….

The weekend went pretty much as expected. Coventry is the armpit of the UK. I`ve lived and worked in a good number of cities and towns in the UK and Coventry is easily the most miserable and depressing place I`ve ever been ……. and I`ve worked in Alnmouth, Exeter and Glasgow!

Can you actually believe that it took two full hours to find a pub on a Sunday that was 1, open, and 2 serving food. In fact the last but one place I went into told me that the only saloon that sold food at the weekend was a Wetherspoons. Needing a beer before I could go anywhere near one of those god forsaken places I ordered a pint of the finest local ale. Its called “Brew". Shocking ale, really bad. Tasted like pure evil. I should know, I once bough a bottle of Sweetheart Stout!

Only two good things in Coventry.

1 - A road leading out of Coventry
2 - The Cathedral:

Obviously the Cathedral was heavily bombed during the second world war and its now just a shell with the new cathedral built beside. Worth visiting if you happen to somehow end up being in town.

Anyhow, I was down in Coventry for Fiona’s sister’s 30th birthday. You all know how much I was looking forward to that. So on Saturday night I was put in charge of lighting the birthday fireworks in the back garden. Some guy had brought along a batch of fairly big rockets. Everyone laughed as I started strapping them to Sarah’s legs shouting “burn the witch!!!! BURN THE WITCH!!!!!". Still dont understand why they were laughing.

Anyway, there was not enough power to lift her into orbit, sadly. More rockets next year.

Well normally you look forward to the weekend eh? Not for me. I`m spending this weekend in Coventry at Fi’s sister’s 30th birthday party. Its fair to say that Sarah ad I dont always (ever) see eye to eye on every (any) subject. So staying in her house for 3 nights on her 30th birthday weekend fuelled with alcohol the week following she quit her job as the only French teacher in a city centre school in Coventry much to the dissatisfaction of her university lecturer father, who is no longer talking to her and will be the only person I have for company over the weekend ……… will be fun.

On the plus side it was my collegaue’s birthday today and we took him for 2 or 3 beers after work. This guy is legendary for being able to soak up as much alcohol as an armoured tank. So tomorrow morning is gonna be fun! Lots of coffee I think!