A brief history of mine

Back.

Yup, managed to survive the trek across Europe and return safely and in schedule.

We set off on Friday morning, and early start was required due to having to travel from Glasgow to Prestwick, a mere jaunt of 45 mins or so. We did, of course, have the delay of arguing about something totally innocuous, which is a tradition when we're travelling. It usually results in us deciding not to go, me jumping in the car and driving 200 foot before stopping and going back. So, this meant we were a few minutes late leaving, and I had to hammer the 1.0L Corsa along the M(A)77, a shitty little road which is claiming to be something it's not. We got to the airport in plenty time, and I dropped the passengers off at the door before parking, to save them the walk. The car park wasn't too full, so I got to choose my space, then sauntered into the airport myself. A "Gate Closed" sign greeted me. It had just been erected as the scouting party arrived, but had been up for a few minuted before I got there. To give them credit, they checked us in without a problem, but it could have been messy.
Flight was pretty uneventful, got to Milan, which was hot and sunny, a nice change to what we had left back home. Done a bit of jumping on bus to town, metro to nearest station to hotel and taxi the last leg. The room wasn't ready, fortunately the lovely receptionist spoke perfect English, with either a scunthorpe or swedish accent. Yeah, I don't know why I couldn't tell which either. We headed to the bar to wait out the cleaners, leaving our baggage at reception to save humphing it around. When the lovely lady came over to tell us the room was ready a few minutes later, we headed back to reception to ask for our bags. "They're in your room sir." was the bemused response. A nice touch, UNA Scandinavia gets a little mention for that one.
We wandered around the area a little, enjoying the sunshine and looking for food. It became clear we were outside the actual centre, about 20 mins walk. It was surprisingly difficult to find any place open for food, so we ended up wandering into a kind of bakery which did slices of pizza, on a kind of really thick base. I have to say, it was tastier than a cheese and onion pastie from Greggs. To get into the centre of town we were advised to get a tram. You buy a ticket for 1 Euro at the hotel reception, or one of the magazine stands dotted around and it's valid for 45 minutes travel on the trams, or one journey on the Metro. Standing at the tramstop for mere minutes gave me time to figure out which way town was, and which number tram to get. The system was pretty easy, even for the Itialianly challenged like myself. A number 33 arrived, we jumped on, and I attempted to hand over my tickets to the driver. He waved me up the tram, obviously completely uninterested in such trivialities. I idly wondered how they knew your ticket had been used, but thought nothing too much about it.
We arrived in the dead centre (Duomo) to the view of an amazing exhibition of the redirection of poor people's cash into a high profile advertising campaign for the catholic church. We decided to just have a glance and then go get some food, saving the proper investigation for Saturday.

Gym #2

Went again today.
This time Paul and DJ joined us, so the only one missing is Pao, who
won't go 'cos he reckons it's rubbish. Actually there was probably a
better explanation for that, but I kinda switched off since he was
boring me.

We all went on the treadmill and plodded for ages. It was quite good I
suppose, we were knackered at the end.

Did fitness tests, Dom is +7, I was -14, Paul was obviously 0 and DJ
scores 0 too.

Don't really have any interesting stories about it - altough DJ and a
strap-on came up in conversation.

Anyway, I'm off to Milan tomorrow, and the weather looks decent, so
fudbuckets to you all

Mr Universe

So, we did it. Went to the gym.

It was great, we did a fitness test. At the risk of unleashing the wrath
of Dom, I'll post the results. That way we can update the scores as they
(hopefully) increase.

Actually - bollox to that - I'll zero the scores to save embarrassment.

So -

Al - 0
Dom - 0

Hopefully this won't be a competition, it's more meant as a record to make
us feel good about ourselves.

Unless I do better, then it's a competition.

We'll keep you posted with updates at least weekly. Unless we don't feel
like it.

Oh, little story for posterity

We get to the gym, get our shorts on and pop on the scales just as we're
going into the gym itself.
"80kgs" says Dom, "me too!" exclaims me, strange coincidence since our
builds are quite different.
So, one workout later we get showered and dressed, grabbing all our wet
towels and gear in our bags.
"Want to see if you've lost any weight?" says I jokingly on the way out.
"Yeah! Good idea!" says Dom, and jumps onto the scales, now fully clothed
and carrying a sports bag full of wet stuff.
"90??!??! How come I've put on 10kg after a workout???!??!".
I smiled serenely and never cracked a light.

This is a test post

Did you know you could update the blog by emailing it?

I know how to do it but I'm not telling you.

Not not here
Hrmm. It was looking like I was going to be leaving the land of the insane for a while. But I'm not. This is purely due to the addition of funds which will be used to stabilise the pile of money I currently sleep on. It does get a bit squished after a while unless you fluff it up, or add more; and I'm not much of a one for fluffing.
So, I suppose some effort should be put into entertaining the masses with tales from my laugh a minute life.
Oh dear, I got nuthin'

I (re)joined the gym today. I've been getting much chiropracted and actupunctured for a while now and have permission to exacerbate the damage by lifting heavy things, so I'm going back tomorrow. Interestingly a number of workmates have decided to join me. Dom will be there, fighting the flab, Paul may well come along, toning some abs and Dave will be there, umm, probably just deriding us for being unfit and not using the equipment properly.

In other news: I'm off to Milan this weekend for a fun-filled experience of testing Paolo's Italian cursing lessons to the full. There will be wine.

Oh, and before I forget, I watched Alien Vs Predator last night. It was shit.

Matchday Report
We all went out the other night.
It was a bit of a plan for a while, but we finally managed to organise a bit of a night out. Our good friend Pao had arranged a table in a lovely little Thai resturaunt in Edinburgh, one he frequents while he's living his nomadic lifestyle up here in Sconny Botland.
Now, I would have thought this through a bit more. We're not exactly renound for being the quietest of groups, or politically correct. As an example, one of the conversations consisted of Andy winding up the group about something, I've no recollection what, but the resultant put down from, umm, one of us, "Ah, but we know what women's fannies taste like", said with just the right amount of venom, gives an idea of the quality of our verbal output. So, it might not be a venue that Pao frequents any more.
We also drank in a pub called The Blue Blazer which, despite our reservations, turned out to be a leather thong free zone, and actually had a fair old collection of whiskeys, beers and other non-gay drinks.
Needless to say, I missed the last train home. So, we proceeded to drink a bundle more things and get acceptably drunk, then get a vastly overpriced taxi home.
Ratings
Pao 7/10 - Extra points for booking the venue, but loses points for some confessions that will never be repeated or believed
Andy 6/10 - Loses points for being a bit unwell, but gains a few for sharing the cost of the taxi
Paul 7/10 - Points for being the drunkest when I arrived, but not falling over all night
Dom 8/10 - Some never to be forgotten lines escaped his warped mind as the evening wore on
Al 10/10 - As always, witty and chatty, with countless entertaining stories to regail the crowd with. (The crowd, of course, were smart enough to refuse to listen)

So, same time next week then?