So once you've eaten haggis and peeked longingly under kilts, what Scottish thing can you do next?

It's time to curl.

The sport of curling is a big deal here -- Scotland won a gold medal at the last Olympics. So we wanted in on the broomstick action. Rory's wife Jane, the maestro of event management, rounded up a dozen curious folk and booked us both rink and coach.

I think I expected a wee frozen pond in the middle of a field. Instead there was a clubhouse with a wood-paneled porno set ambience, beer on tap and curling memorabilia smirking at us from behind glass.

Oh man, I thought with a shiver, this is gonna be like those movies where the zany city people stumble into the outback Australian pub, and the weatherbeaten locals look up from their beers and say, What the fuck are you doing 'ere?

But they just ignored us. We all noted the massive window overlooking the rink, through which the regulars would be able to witness our spectacular debut. Then one of the guys reported they'd overheard the coach telling his cronies, "Got some amateurs coming in today. Should be good for a laugh."

The coach was a prime specimen of maleness, tall and thick with an alluring shrub of chest hair bursting out of his polo shirt. He rattled off a list of Rules Not To Be Broken. He was terrifying.

He told us to go put on our clean shoes. We trotted obediently to the change rooms, getting pumped by giving ourselves mighty curling alter-egos like The Broominator, Curl Gurl, and Broom With A View.

It was crispy out there on the ice. We lined up along the edge like baby ducks, tentatively dipping our feet over the edge.

"Curling is the best cardiovascular workout you can get," he began, "The University of Edinburgh have done studies to prove it."

We huddled on either side of him in two neat little rows. He explained how the game worked, something about circles and curls and lines and sweeping and team captains. My brain whimpered and I only heard, "Blah blah blah blah!".

Finally it was time for him to show us his prowess. The stone sailed neatly along the ice. He put his hands on his hips and gave a satisfied smile, "Yes. That was a good shot.

"Right, you each have a go, one at a time."

Holy shit. I had been here before. That patronising voice. My lack of comprehension. The public showcase of uncoordination. In front of boys, too. Eww. Yes, it was that sickening feeling just like high school P.E. class, only now my breasts were better developed.

So what you have to do is lean on your broom a little, lunge off from this starting block thingy, and push the stone down the ice towards the big circles. Sounds easy enough. But according to coach, we were shite. "Too hard!", "Too soft!", he said in bored tones. That was when he wasn't scoffing at the lesson going on next door.

"See those people over there?"

"Yes sir."

"That's no way to teach someone to curl," he shook his head and the manly chest hair nodded in agreement. "No way at all."

We moved onto sweeping.

"You have to sweep HARD. You can press right down on these brooms. You won't break 'em. Even I can't break 'em."

We all nodded and scrcch-scrcched at the ice. I used to be a dab hand at sweeping the floors at KFC. But sweeping on ice, sideways, while running after a speeding stone was quite a different prospect.

By the time we split up into teams I was really packing it. All around us, seasoned curlers were rushing up and down the ice, sweep sweepity sweep, grunting, shouting, sliding halfway down the rink on one knee like Torvill or bloody Dean, their toupees flapping gently. But I could not get the fucking stone to move, my instinct was to try and lift it and throw it, and seeing since it weighed 44 pounds, all I was doing was slowly disengaging my arm from its socket.

"See, I bet you saw curling on TV and thought it looked easy!" came the helpful tip from the coach.

Soon enough he buggered off, probably to go break large trees over his knee for fun. We started figuring out this great sport for ourselves. Some of the group were naturals, I'm always in awe of people who just get the hang of things right away. Some of us took a little longer. Before long it was great fun and strangely addictive. I could have wept for joy when mind and body finally connected and I pushed the stone then remembered to let go, only to have it knocked out of play a minute later (damn Scots. The sport is in their blood).

We played a few ends and the Yellow Team consistently defeated the Red Team, darnit. Two hours of sweeping and stone-pushing and chit chat flew by. Soon our time was up and the coach reappeared with a water dispenser on his back to spray the ice, strutting around and waving his hose.

"What a man," I sighed.

"He is just like Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing," said Rhi, "The big blokey bloke about town who knows all the moves."

"If only your name was Baby, you could meet him at midnight for some horizontal sweeping."

We finished in spectacular style, with one member of the group crashing to the ice just as all the club members were back inside and watching from the mega window. Ohhh it looked painful. I feared for his spine and felt guilty for thinking, "Wow, I'm so glad it wasn't me!" Last I checked he was recovering nicely.

There's no escape from old people. I spent a lot of my weekend on the phone to them. They call in for all sorts of reasons. They fall over or get ill or burn their steak or worse still, they die on us. It's an intense sort of job.

"My purse fell down the toilet," announced one lady today.

"Oh dear. What happened?"

"It was in my pocket, and I bent over, and it fell out of my pocket, plop. I feel so stupid."

"You shouldn't feel stupid... it's easy enough done!"

"One press of the button and it was gone."

"Oh dear."

For the next fifteen minutes she outlined this very complex tale. Between the accent and her rising level of distress, it was hard to figure out what was going on. Soon enough I realised that it had been sorted for her, now she just needed to vent a little.

"Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Would it do any good to call a plumber?"

"Well, it's been 24 hours, I'm not sure what they could do..."

"Oh hen. I'm so sorry to be taking up your time, I'm so sorry."

"Not at all! You can talk to us any time you like!"

"It's just been a bad day, hen. A bad day."

After my shift, it seemed I was the only one on the bus without a snowy white perm. The main topic of conversation, as always, was the buses. How late the buses are, how early the buses are, how they go too fast, how they brake too sharply, with bonus commentary on every bus that passes.

"I waited 15 minutes for the 1."

"Well I stepped out the door 5 minutes before the 1 was due and it whizzed right past me."

"Oh look, there's another 1 now in the other direction."

"Aye. And there's a 2 coming roond the roondabout."

"Hold on, looks like another 2 behind it."

"Two 2's in a row, that's not right."

"You're right. Now there's a 22. Where's the 22 off to?"

"I don't get the 22. I like the 1 or the 2."

"Aye. Me too."

A brown perm with a tweed coat sat down beside me, just as we went past a pub. There were a dozen skinny lads lurking round the door, one of them sprawled on the pavement with his face covered in blood.

"Oooh what's going on there?" she asked me, without waiting for an answer. "You know they try and try to make this city more beautiful, but the likes of them just love to ruin it."

There was a chorus of creaky ayes around the bus.

Finally it was my stop. I was leaning against the pole, trying to stay awake, when I noticed an old man watching at me with a goofy grin. I raised an eyebrow.

"Smile, hen! Even though yer heart is breaking."

I laughed, hopped off the bus and took my breaking heart home, where I could finally talk to someone under seventy.

Well, things aren't what they used to be, I can tell you that much, and I've been here twenty-three years.

People work funny hours now. They work from home, they work on the road; it's all modems, mobiles and bullshit. What happened to an honest 9 to 5? I come in around 8 and they're still here, eating donuts, looking nervous, getting their feet in my way.

And if they're working late, they're working. It's been a good five years since I've caught execs getting down and dirty on a desk.

All the sexiness has gone out of the workplace.

You don't even see people photocopying their body parts anymore. Those all-in-one machines put an end to that. They're just not built as sturdy and they're always doing something. I mean, you can hardly hop aboard and xerox your ass when there's a fax coming through at the same time.

Hot-desking was another disappointment. A desk without knick knacks is like a body without soul. Back in the day, I could look at the little troll doll on top of the monitor or the World's Greatest Golfer coffee mug and think, now there's someone I'd like to know better.

Now I'll tell you what hasn't changed, and that's my job. Have you see any great advances in Hoovers? No you have not. They're still goddamn noisy and cumbersome and they knock the walls around no matter how good you are. And they can give cleaning products all the fancy names in the world but at the end of the day it's the same old some chemical shit in a bulk container that makes my skin tingle.

-- If you sniggeringly call a housemate 'Bruce' behind her back because she listens to Mr Springsteen all the fucking time, avoid forgetting her real name and accidentally calling her 'Bruce' to her face. The ensuing silence will kill you.

-- During the Official Inquiry into Mysterious Short & Crinkly Hairs in Shower, it is okay to walk off to the pub with the excuse, "Well don't look at me, I'm a redhead."

-- If you discover a housemate has been using your laundry powder, it is perfectly reasonable to add bleach to her bottle of fabric softener.

On the Scottish buses at Lost In Transit.

It is too early for people to be saying it is too early for Christmas stuff to be in the shops. Let's not hear another word of it until 23 December.

Cross-posted to Lost In Transit

There were two grumpy Aussie guys sitting behind me on the bus yesterday, the new arrival and the weary veteran.

"What's the deal with the weather over here mate?"

"It's shit. And soon it will be dark. Shit and dark."

"What does everyone do then? Watch telly? Go down the pub?"

"What else can you do when it's shit and dark?"

"Aww man. I'm gunna miss the summer. I was only thinking today I haven't had decent bit of fruit since I got here."

"That's because they can't grow anything here because it's shit and dark."

"Yeah. We are lucky to be from Australia."

"Yeah. Wish I could get my visa extended, but."

Some time ago, UK supermarkets and other food retailers recognised that not all Brits were content to live on chips and lager alone. To cater to this sliver of society, they each introduced a house brand of healthier options. Now discerning customers can buy their favourite foods from their most trusted brands, safe in the knowledge that evil fats have been replaced by friendly sugars, artificial flavourings or ground cockroaches. And to make these product ranges even more appealing, they gave them wacky names...

ASDA ‘Good For You!’
It’s the exclamation mark that puts the delightfully sneering tone into this brand. Imagine your neighbour has just leaned over the fence to tell you he won £10 million in the Lotto. Of course you will spit right back, “Well, good for YOU!”

Safeway ‘Eat Smart’
The alternative is to Eat Stupid and pour lard on your cornflakes.

Boots ‘Shapers’
Dear Boots,
I am writing in regards to your ‘Shapers’ range of products. To me the word ‘Shapers’ suggests transformation or sculpting, like control-top pantyhose, corsets or mumsy foundation garments. With this definition in mind, I recently purchased one of your pre-packaged Shapers sandwiches. When I applied said sandwich to my thunderous thighs, I noticed no real difference in their shape, apart from a slight thickening due to congealed mayonnaise. Could you kindly refund me the £2.19 and deduct 2.19 points from my Boots Advantage Card?

Sainsbury's ‘Be Good To Yourself’
‘ ... Go Buy A Vibrator’.

Tesco ‘Healthy Living’
If they can’t be arsed to give it a more imaginative name, then I can’t be arsed to buy it.

Marks & Spencer ‘Count On Us’
Dear Mr. Marks & Mr. Spencer,
I have been an enthusiastic consumer of your Count On Us range of products, including the Voluptous Vanilla Iced Dessert and the Rancher's Chicken Flatbread. After awhile, one comes to think of Count On Us as a name one can trust. However, recently I found myself having a very bad day indeed; I missed the bus and my boss yelled at me. I was disheartened to discover that I could not count on Count On Us in my time of need. Why didn’t the Chargrilled Vegetable Pizza call me a taxi so I wasn’t late? Why didn't a gang of Thai Curry Flavour Curls come round and beat up my boss? If you are going to name your products so boldly, there needs to be some sort of warning label on the packet, Not Suitable For Those With Co-Dependent Tendencies. Otherwise I suggest you rename it to something like We Won’t Be There For You At All.

Today, after getting off the bus at Fountainbridge, I slipped over. Taking a tumble is nothing new for me. But today, I quite literally slipped on a banana peel.

Tomorrow I will be on the lookout for flying cream pies.

“Hello darling daughter, how's life treating you in...

— Enn-bruh

— Ennenbruh

— Edderburrow

— Edenbuh

— Eden, the Garden of

— Ennerbrow

— Ededbra

— Ed from Radiohead

— Edward Scissorhands

...?”

Six months in Scotland already! Unbelievable. Six months ago I didn't know there was such a thing as a Chocolate Hob Nob.

I wrote the following late one night, the first week we arrived in Edinburgh. The entry just curled up in a musty corner of the hard drive and hid over the summer. It's a completely unedited sprawling mess, but I decided to post it anyway, just to preserve that wild panicky overwhelmed holy shit energy of the time.

...

Recently I was wandering through a website called Should Exist, where people can submit their ideas for inventions that don't exist but really should. As a naive traveller, I've figured out a couple of inventions that don't exist but I bloody wish they did.

UNIVERSAL CHANGE ARRANGER
After four different flights to get here with long stretchy stopovers, my wallet was choked with four different currencies. Jet lag and chronic clumsiness turned me into a wreck every time I had to buy something. Every time a shopkeeper would bark "5 euro!" or "six dollar!" I would look down at my wallet and feel my stomach drop. All the foreign shapes and colours would blur into one big metally mess, leading me to bleat, "Sorry!" and trembly-hand over the wrong thing every time.

What I propose is some sort of Smart Wallet, so when the shopkeeper says "50 roubles!" or "30 bazillion yen!", the wallet would understand and the correct amount of money would rise up into your hand, perhaps presented on a nice silver platter and a note that says, There you go, dickhead. All you the weary traveller would have to do it hand it over. No more embarassing fumbling of coins! No more, "I'm new in town and still trying to get used to your weirdo money."

AUTOMATIC COAT RETRACTOR™
How many bloody coats does one NEED in this country? It's supposedly spring in Scotland, but you couldn't survive without a coat. so a typical afternoon wandering in and out of shops in princes street means having to take your coat off once you leave the breeze outside and get blasted by the overheated shops. so i am forever tangled up in my coat, swearing and fidgeting, trying to wrestle handbag straps and shopping bags and baskets and sunglasses. and then when you leave you have go through all that in reverse.

If only your coat could somehow be built-in to the human body. Attached to your back and with a press of a button, it would peel away from your body and disappear like retracting a seat belt. oh how tidy this would be! Press it again and ZAP! It shoots out and curls around your body again and off you go. Being in Edinburgh, I'd also go for the optional umbrella attachment, in which a brolly pops up from the top of my head and unfurls at the first sign of rain.

CONFIDENCE BOOSTER 2000
Last week living in the youth hostel, i was intrigued by those seasoned backpacker types. these are the ones who are cocky and chat up all the skanky blonde barmaids over a cheap gin. they've walked barefoot though the himalayas, blindfolded. and backwards. they Did Europe on 3 pence a day. They've slept with six Russian women at the same time. they have artful stubble and smell like molten gym socks.

at first i thought they were looking down at me but really they weren't looking at all. they sit on the stairs in the hostel and block your way and carry on their conversations without so much a glance. i feel so awkward and meek, so far from home... i'm scared of their confidence... it's like they're just pissing all over a map of the world.

there needs to be an invention for those days when you're wondering why you left somewhere where everyone thought your jokes were funny, all the familiar places and faces and furniture are gone. nobody knows anything about you, there's no history, all you have is that first impression. there needs to be an invention, a nasty hurty injection, a pill you can swallow, one that feels like home, like comfort, that lets you know you'll be okay sport, that this mood will pass and it's okay to be shitscared and you'll feel better in the morning.

MIDNIGHT THOUGHT DECODER
Very late at night is the only time when things make sense. It happens in that sneaky sliver of time between awake and asleep.. a blend of perfect clarity and fuzziness. In that moment all these new experiences that seemed overwhelming in daylight suddenly make sense. they arrange themselves into into nicely structured stories. The mind churns out punchlines that zing, dialogue that crackles. But the body is so very tired, fading, the eyelids feel like lead. Sleep always wins the struggle, so those ideas fade from your memory like a new photo hitting the light.

There needs to be some sort of machine, it could plug into your ear and ransack the brain, a machine that transcribes those perfect words and stores them safely while you sleep. Then in the morning you could wake up, rub your eyes, say oh my, that was a strange dream about me and Ed from Radiohead, roll over, and there would be a little jar beside your bed labelled MIDNIGHT THOUGHTS. All those words you have no recollection of thinking would be there waiting for you, as trusty and tasty as homemade jam, all ready for spreading on blogs or emails back home.