Living where we do, we have experienced major disruption at the hands of the new Tram Network. Not being able to park your car in your street may sound trivial. Build that up over a period of 9 months though. Then add the fact that the having the car outside the house is critical for us with a small child and add the further fact that the guys undertaking the work for the trams arrive on site at 6am every morning and have a shouted conversation the length of the street then you can probably see how the annoyance builds up.

Imagine my rage then when I stumbled round the corner from Lidl last night to see a fully constructed, replica tram at the top of my street full of ‘dignitaries’ quaffing champagne and patting themselves on the back for a sterling job well done. That’s champagne. Not tram pain. Tram pain is for those of us who have to live with the consequences of their decisions.

- Cheers lads. Mine’s a pint of Best.
- Oh, sorry Mr Palmer. I’m afraid you are not invited. Your name’s not down so you’re not getting in.

I’m starting to feel this is becoming the tram blog so I’ll hastily change the subject.

Chimpanzees on Segways.

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First port of call was the endless array of Russian spammers who think that I (as forum administrator) won’t be suspicious in the slightest of around 400 registrations on a Scottish non-league football site from users with .ru email addresses. Hmmm. No brainer.

I decided to leave them a message on the forum using Google Translate:-

Я на вас душ спам, Виагра продаже bawbags. Вы никогда не получите прошлом мне и зарегистрироваться в нашем форуме. Понятно?

Now class. Notice anything odd?

Я на вас душ спам, Виагра продаже bawbags. Вы никогда не получите прошлом мне и зарегистрироваться в нашем форуме. Понятно?

That’s right. There is apparently no word in the Russian language for bawbags. Which is a huge oversight really, given about a dozen of the aforementioned bawbags try and register with the official Spartans forum each day.

Second target of my anger today. The tram pricks. As usual, they surpass themselves. A note was left in our stair last week outlining the work being carried out from Monday onwards. Fair enough. We read it and there was no mention of not parking in our street. In fact, reference was specifically made to maintaining local access.

Today, whilst working from home, I nipped out to buy some lunch only to find our car surrounded by police cones with notices in front of it outlining the fact that any vehicles ‘parked illegally’ will be towed. Better move it thinks I and proceeds to drive to Leith Links to dispose of the vehicle in a less controversial spot.

Except of course, they’ve obviously been out ahead of me and painted double yellow lines just about everywhere. In fact, the roads around Leith Links are so yellow that half a dozen Munchkins would not look out of place. I ended up driving round for about fifteen minutes (essentially because everywhere is diverted so you can’t just go direct to where you want to go in Leith at the moment)

Brilliant. I love trams.

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We listened to Jesus Jones, EMF and Faith No More. Where did they all go?

I am the same age now as my parents were when I was a teenager. They seemed really old back then, yet I still feel really young even though I’m 40 in a couple of years. Whilst we are on the subject of 1991, I’m already 11 years older than Kurt Cobain ever made it to, yet he still seems strangely older than me. Getting older is certainly more than a bit of an odd experience.

Nothing really much has happened since the last time I posted. It’s all a bit work – home – work – home at the minute. I’m just grateful there is a work element to that. A lot of people don’t have that luxury at the moment. On the family front, Sam has come on somewhat and can now find and point out the hidden ‘Pontypines’ in his ‘In the Night Garden’ book. A useful life skill no doubt.

Monday this week saw the two year anniversary of my Grandad’s death. It’s another sobering thought that 2 years have passed so quickly. Visiting the cemetery on Sunday, I realised that more than half of the grief of the last two years has actually just been anger at the way he was treated in his latter days and the lack of care.

For the past two years I’ve been unable to separate the man from the manner of his death and I’ve continued to be angry as a result. I have to be reasonable about it. He was 88 years old. A good age by any standard. Hardly cut down in his prime. It’s time to remember the man and forget the traumas of the hospital and social services. He had a good life and the bad bit at the end was only a miniscule part of it.

Speaking of graves, Edinburgh City Council seem to be digging their own. Princes Street closed, buses rerouted everywhere, traffic grinding to a halt yet no work going on. The German contractors have said “Nein” and it’s all ground to a halt. Oh dear. I’ve got a feeling they need to sort it out soon or there will be hell to pay.

I watch and wait.

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It turned out that the girls were from Real Radio and were giving out Tunnocks Teacakes and a Real Radio car sticker. Needless to say, I was handed the same and continued on my way.

It’s great for the workies. Now, instead of standing around all day looking into holes whilst the rest of us endure horrific gridlock, they can stand about all day eating Teacakes and sticking Real Radio stickers on the windscreens of their diggers.

They were needing a distraction.

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After months and months of tram related inconvenience, I finally felt the urge to bawl one of the flourescent jacketed pricks right out of it. I am working from home today. I like working from home. However, what I don’t like is when the tram workers switch off all of the power without warning causing me to lose the last half hour’s work because the PC just switches off.

The final straw. The camels back was broken. Out I went.

Basically, I lost the plot and ended up having words with the head monkey outside who informed me they had found a fault. No shit Sherlock. The whole street has no power and my document doesn’t have a summary. Now a fault is one thing, but this happens every second day and it’s not just power. Sometimes it’s water as well. Anyway, he just gave me a “not much I can do pal” shrug.

Completely unimpressed, I stormed back to the flat, beaten but unbowed. I had made my point.

Note to burly workers: Jokingly asking me to stick the kettle on when the power eventually does come back won’t prevent you from getting a dry slap. You are a big man, but you are out of shape.

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