It’s been a while.

Well…there was just nothing new to say. The old treatment was taking place and we just had to sit and wait for the next doctors appointment.

It was a really good family Christmas and up until Tuesday, things were ticking along nicely.

Everythings fine now, so I’ll spare the details but there were a few nasty moments during the Morton v Celtic match. Turns out dad had a stomach bug, he was fine up until about 20 minutes into the game and then it floored him, he was set to keel over.

I managed to get the attention of a steward, helped by the fans around me, who were great. As were the stewards and the St Andrews staff and the club doctor. I obviously escorted my dad to the first aid room but to give them room, I spent a large part of the game watching from just off the corner flag.

The second half brought one of the funniest moments of the year.

My dad went off to the toilet with two of the ambulance staff walking beside him. On his return, still with the stewards beside him for support, he gets to me and stops…and asks, “is it still 1-0?”

Haha, the doctor nearly chased him back into the first aid room. I wasn’t laughing at the time but ever since Thrusday night, I’ve been chuckling away. Definitely a moment that is very much my dad.

That and he has been apologising ever since as he thinks he ruined the game for me. Yeah, Celtic have ruined hundreds for me and they don’t apologise, so not to worry!

It’s a bit worrying as it means life has turned full circle. I can remember back in 1987, Celtic had drawn twice with Aberdeen in the Cup and there was to be a third match at Dens. I was a bit unwell in school that morning but I kept it to myself and then at lunch was throwing up. I felt if I said anything I wouldn’t be allowed to go to the game that night.

I went, was ill for most of the journey but can still recall the joy of seeing Brian McClair slide home the winner and shouting “bandy bandy, bandy bandy” at Aberdeen goalie Jim Leighton! Badly behaved at football matches even back then.

Anyhoos, that was Tuesday but Thursday was the day.

It turns out the tumour has greatly reduced. It was a 46 and now its a 9. No, I don’t have a clue what that means but the doctors seemed pleased and if its good enough for them, its good enough for me!

Its pretty much as good as the news could have been so we’re all fairly delighted at the moment. Today would have been a day to bury bad news around me as I wouldn’t have minded.

There is a hell of along way to go and there are going to be some gruelling days ahead but he’s on track at the moment and that’s pretty brilliant news!

Yep, its the 1st of December and the moustache has gone!!

At the close of play, I managed to raise £190 for prostate cancer, so Im delighted with that.

I really didnt enjoy having a moustache but Im not the only one.

On Sunday, I was lucky enough to meet Billy McNeill – you know, the Scotsman who lifted the Big Cup – and he has been growing one as well. Billy is well on in life and yet he absolutely trounced my poor effort. He said he was looking forward to getting rid of his as well, hes a good lad.

Wasn’t a bad football weekend all round, topped off nicely by Barca and Ibrahimovic putting Real Madrid to the sword in El Classico.

Of course, all the reall football stories have been happening on WeKnowSFA and the site has been getting a lot of hits in the past few days.

It is now featured in the SPL section of the NewsNow facility and Sunday saw over 3,000 visitors and over 7,000 hits on site. Which was fairly unexpected at this stage but heyho, its a good base to build from.

It has given me yet another thing to worry over but with the huge weight lifted from my top lip, whats stopping me from pushing on.

The old man is still striving on….December is always a hectic month for him but he is looking forward to it!

Right, heading off now but one question, anyone saw any Advent Calendars featuring The Saturdays?

Nothing prepares you for the celebration of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ than by having a chocolate for breakfast every day whilst looking at 5 pretty pop stars.

So…still not bonny….still not a proper adults moustache, but heyho:
My MoSpace

I’ve got a total of £125 on the site and I’ve got £15 to add to that from the weekend, so thats £140 raised. Which is fantastic…..feel free to give something if you want but I think thats a great total and all for looking stupid.

And its not as if I can turn around and say I’d have been wowing the ladies if it wasn’t for the moustache so its a lot of money for no real negative effect on myself.

Lets not talk about football, just cant take much more of that nonsense. They probably played as well against United as they have in a while but sheer mindless insanity at the back meant we turned a win into a loss. Idiots.

So…I dont want to talk about football….which is why I’ve rattled into setting up a bunch of football blogs:
Footballs Football – a general football site
World Cup 2010 – A World Cup site, I’d like to thank cheating Mr Henry for some interesting debate this week.
Champions League – all about the big cup in Europe
We Know SFA The latest addition to my emerging empire and a wry look at Scottish football.

At the moment, I would like to draw attention to:
Smeato for Scotland boss
and
Caldwell GTF

So that should be more than enough for everyone, pleas ekeep checking back, there will be regular contact.

Football aside, its probably been a good week for the family.

My brother graduated from Paisley Uni – finally giving him the paper to prove he has immense computer skills, so that was good and thoroughly deserved.

And the family seems fine, we were all out for a meal on Saturday evening and everyone seemed to be in fine form….so again, thats pretty good news.

If we can only get around to fixing my problems…things might just start looking up.

Why, as Malcolm Tucker might say; “Oh Mr Ambassador, with your baldy head you are really spoiling us”

Couple of incidents of interest today, first of all, you know that I like my geeky things so it wont surprise you to know Im on twitter. You can follow me here and here.

Anyhoos, I follow a lot of nonsense, I like to get a constant supply of Charlie Brooker rants as it keeps me in fresh chat (boohoo Shug, boohoo!!) and keep an eye on certain things. I noticed today that Little Boots was getting a bit upset about people calling her fat on the internet. Thats just harsh isn’t it?

The lassie is ever so ickle, if she was fat you’d really notice, shes been on the road for quite a while and give her a few weeks, she’ll be back to what some folk call normal…but she was on Never Mind The Buzzcocks last week and she was pretty decent! I don’t know, if you’re going to call folk fat, save it for the ones who genuinely are.

Like me!

Yes, it was back at the Paisley football tonight and Fatty McCourt was doing his best to stop his team from winning. The way the teams lined up, one side were predominantly packed with runners (not my team) so getting a draw out of the game was no small feat but we had chances to win it, so that was annoying. Need to keep on top of it, my passing is still there but everything else is hanging on for grim life. I’m still better than Heid and Hoof though.

That wasn’t the biggest thing of the Paisley trip though, the train journey there was quite eventful. For those in the know, its a ten minute trip from Central to Gilmour Street but in that time, not only was there a bloke smoking, there was a lassie throwing up over the seats.

I thought that was going to be the low point of the journey but it was trumped by a young romantic with the name Barryboy. Even though the lassie was clearly not comatose and a bit worse for wear, Barry was still firing in there, “gies your number hen, gonnae?” The girl, in quite a daze to be fair, got her phone out of her bag and proceeded to pass it on – haha, wait till the phone calls start coming tomorrow!

Barry saved the best for last though, “I was gonnae try and get you to gies a winch but you’ve puked up. Mind you, Ive got some chewing gum, do you want some.”

Classy….and I wonder why Im single, I just need to change my tactics – chewing gum and spewing girls, thats the plan….I’m meant to be going for a quiet pint in the West End on Friday…..may divert the boys up to Framptons at the end of the night!!

Okay, as I have been a bit negligent in my duties of late, I am going to leave you with not one but TWO videos.

The first track is ‘Cornerstone’ by the Arctic Monkeys, new single just out and its probably my favourite track on ‘Humbug’. I know its in the red shed but I’m looking forward to next weeks gig:

And as for the next video…don’t have a clue what’s going on but that’s not really a concern, enjoy:

Sorry been busy growing a moustache:

Haha, for 16 days, thats quite rubbish isnt it?

Mind you, given the amount of hair on my head…thats not a bad return!

So yeah, just been busy with other stuff – the old man is still ticking away…he loves that big TV but is not happy about the inability to get a Disney Blu-Ray DVD to work.

I’ve been to a couple of gigs; Kasabian and Flaming Lips. The Lips, as usual, was one heck of a show but its starting to get a bit samey if you have seen them a few times – it could be tighter and not playing “Waiting for Superman” is a tragic decision.

If I can get the sound sorted on the video, I’ll post some clips from the show in the next few days…

Another reason for my lack of updating here has been the new blogs I have launched; two football ones:
Footballs football
and
World Cup 2010

feel free to check them and make some comments on the site…..please….and then dig them.

BBC, BB King and Doris Day, Matt Busby, Matt Busby dig it!

And just to reinforce how rubbish my moustache is, check this one out:

Of course, thats the man who lifted the big cup, so theres no shame in not being as good as him.

Funny story, McNeill’s nickname was Cesar…not after the Emperor but after the actor Cesar Romero. Turns out that Romero was the driver in the original Oceans Eleven and when the film came out, McNeill was the one out of the young Celtic players that had a car, hence the nickname. A bit more inventive than the usual footballer nickname.

A few years later, Romero landed the part of the Joker in the campy Bang, Thwack, Kerpow Batman TV show – featuring the Mayor of Quahog Adam West. Romero was asked to shave off his moustache but he refused and if you look (not even that) closely, you can see his moustache underneath his white face paint.

I’ve now raised over £100 (£115 to be exact) for the cause and Im absolutely delighted – if you want to see more and check out my page:
My Movember page

Go…look…laugh…Movember

Movember

Turns out I’ve became an overnight internet phenomenon. I recorded the minutes silence at Sunday’s game to give the impression of what happened from within the Celtic end, and it was quite good that I did.

Turns out the foreign feed for the games either had mics turned up to the max…or were recording from outside the ground. Inside the Celtic end, it was as close to silent as you will get (even sidestepping the political reasons behind the furore) but there was singing in protest outside the stadium.

Thankfully, my video captured the silence within the stadium, so I stuck it on the internet to counteract some of the other footage kicking about. You leave it alone, next thing you know is that it has around 3,000 views and BBC Reporting Scotland is using it on the 1830 news. Cheeky gits, I should be asking for a rebate on my licence fee:

A slight edit here guys to add in a link to the BBC site where my video can be seen…I’ll leave it others to make up their own mind about it:
BBC Thieves

So that was something of interest, but there was probably more important stuff on The Gadget Show on Channel 5. For one, Suzi Perry….but she delivered a run through of five top websites that you may not know about:

You Convert It – A file conversion site.

Supercook– A recipe search engine. Hmmm, I have eggs and beans in my kitchen, tell me what to do with that supercook?

Alternative to – You tell them software packages you wish to replace and they provide you with alternatives

Joobili – If you have limited dates to travel, put them into the site and it brings back local public holidays, festivals customs, planned riots etc – so if you want to experience local flavours, this could be a decent site.

Animoto – takes your photos and videos, choose music and the site then makes a video for you.

And yes, I’ve tried it for you all, aren’t I nice?

My first try on Animoto

Interesting programme on Channel 4 – The Execution of Gary Glitter – probably not as clever as it thought it was and I suppose my first thought was “is he going to get royalty payments for his songs being used?” and then I thought “is Gary Glitter watching this?” Wow, that would mess with your mind, watching a TV show where you die in it.

More news and updates as the week unfolds!

Sorry, that’s an old joke I use, I don’t have any grandparents alive and none of them passed away in the war…no news at the moment is good news

It’s been the usual pattern of life for me in the past few days, highs and lows coming all too quickly. At times you feel as though you are being totally taken for granted and taken for a ride by people who really should know better, the next minute you are realising that there are people around you who genuinely care about you, so that’s great…and just got to learn to minimise the areas that bring me down and focus on the up moments. I’m not great but I do my best…if only to let myself down at certain moments.

However, even when I’m trying hard and it doesn’t seem enough, it is good to see the times that I don’t do much but it reaps rewards. I’m not even a week into the Movember malarkey and I’ve managed to raise £70 for the cause. Well, I’ve not raised it, friends and family have chipped in and for that I’m very grateful because to be honest, it is not as if growing a moustache is a challenging activity. It is annoying the flip right out of me already though and making me look rather foolish…or foolisher!

If you want to have a look at my Movember page and see how my team and me are doing, this should be my link:

Movember

Not really spoke to my folks much this week but I’ll have some time to catch up with them on Sunday, hopefully all will be well and can lay the foundations of a decent week ahead. After Sunday’s game, there is a break for international football but much hilarity will hopefully be had by the release of Lloyds XI annual figures and then Uefa will announce the punishment for they two bad turnstiles which antagonised good natured civilians and hopefully the offensive flag – which hasn’t been uncovered in any media footage yet – will be put to rights.

What do we want?

JUSTICE!!!!

With a Blue-Ray player alongside it, he has definitely catapulted himself into the modern era, he’ll be getting an iPhone next and Twittering away. One of the things I am planning to do before he starts his radiation is to try and get him up to speed with the internet and be much more comfortable with using it. Part of me dreads to think when he is let loose on the amount of football and collector sites that he can surf but if he is going to be out of the game for a while, I think it would be good for him.

Again, thats all a while away but time tends to creep up rather quickly if you take your eye off the ball and we’ll need to keep him on the right path. Still, the introduction of even further technology has no doubt brought some peace to their domestic household but there has been a bit of an upheaval in mine.

Yes, I have taken in a lodger this week. Well, not a lodger cos I’m not charging any rent but one of my friends is taking the benefit of me being a city centre dweller with a spare room. I definitely get a bit lonely muttering around the flat myself, talking gibberish so its definitely good to have someone else but Im sure a week will be more than enough for the two of us. Mind you, with my articles and her studying, its not as if there is a lot of craic flying about but its definitely good to have someone around and as its one of my best mates, theres not a lot to moan about!

I was a stressed out git over the weekend, you’d think the Celtic strikers finding their shooting boots and the Rangers game being a washout for all the wet drips in Blue would have put me at ease would have calmed me out a bit but nah, had a lot on my mind and wasn’t best pleased with things. Probably the whole Halloween thing, Im not one for dressing up and most of the songs are rubbish – although the ones produced by Phil Spectre are obviously great!

Im sure there will have been a few Phil costumes at Halloween, sad way for such a great to ruin his legacy:

Anyways, we are now into November and whilst retailers are trying to hurtle us towards Christmas, November, for some, is Movember.

Basically, many guys are attempting to grow a moustache this month to raise awareness and maybe even money for prostate cancer. You know me, if theres a bandwagon, Im jumping on it but given the situation with my dad, I can hardly miss this one out:

My page should be:

Me on Movember

http://uk.movember.com/mospace/288242

However, the link to section appears a bit hit and miss but even if you go there and search “Andrew Reilly”, you will hopefully find me. I’m not one for chasing folk up for money, Im not fussed, its about raising awareness and well, Im going to make myself look a bit more silly. As the good women of Glasgow will tell you, Im not much to look so whats the difference a moustache can make?

With any luck, I’ll have a Terry Thomas moustache cultivated before the month is out.

DING-DONG!

However, at the time of the goldrush, its only natural to chase it with everything you have. Perhaps Rangers and David Murray should have listened to the advice of Carol Vorderman and other financial experts like actors playing the role of swimmers, harassed mothers and smug bastards and sorted out their money worries.

That idiot Vorderman eh, loans and Farmfoods adverts, she fairly milked the thick pound but hasn’t been seen in a while, probably drowning in a sea of Blue Nun and Tunnocks teacakes. Sure, Countdown may have lost viewers but with this, you can see why Carol is crying and spelling out words in her alphabetti spaghetti.

So, Rachel Riley, nice girl, crap spelling of her surname but back to the gold. Yes, companies buying gold from idiots for low prices has been one of the stories from 2009 as people ransack their grandmother’s jewellery box and mouth to get as much gold as they can. If its just gold lying around gathering dust, then yes, its money for nothing in these difficult times but people really cant believe these firms are offering them anywhere near the proper value for their cash.

So gold, at the moment, is the in thing, which is apt for my dad because is one of the in things in the battle to overcome cancer.

Gold…always believe in your soul!

Whilst the immediate news for my dad last week was very good, there is still a massive fight to go, with his tumour being described as huge by the doctors. The radiotherapy sessions are sounding pretty gruelling but the gold can play a huge part in getting the job done right.

The metal does, however, serve as a guide to tell doctors exactly where the cancer is located so that treatment can be focused directly onto cancerous tissue.

The treatment has to be very focussed so the gold will help ensure the consistency of the radiotherapy but that is not the only assistance the docs have at their disposal. The next thing they are going to do is tattoo my dad in order to ensure they get it right each time.

He has found this quite funny, its fair to say my dad has never been one for tattoos or body art in any such way, which is fair enough, for people of his generation there is definitely the idea of horror about letting someone who couldn’t even get into art school to draw all over their body!

Aaah ‘Tattoo’ by The Who! ‘The Who Sell Out’ is by far my favourite album of theirs and this track is just one of the reasons for that. Those that know me get the fact that I’m quite happy to get a hold of something that I think is funny but then hammer it into the ground and this track was one of those…..way back in Reading 97….jeezo, 12 years ago!

Its hard to think of more fun lines than “his tattoo was of a lady in the nude and my mother thought that was extremely rude….WELCOME TO MY LIFE TATTOO” and “a rooty-toot-toot, rooty-tooty-toot-toot, arooty-too-toot-tattoo-too” – great stuff.

However, all joking aside, five trips a week to the Beatson for a period of three months is going to be massively gruelling, even though I’ll be making sure to head over and check out the architecture of the place:

Beatson

A ten minute appointment? I’ve spent longer in a fast food restaurant…not five times a week though; even I would consider that to be too slothlike.

And there we have it, another week done, another mind crushingly, soul destroying, pointless week done, good to keep chalking them off. Stay tuned next week where the following questions will be answered:
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Yep, expect no answers from me but we’ll see how it pans out. Enjoy!