Ö÷²¥´óÐã

Those kids who came looking for Halloween grub at my door tonight will think better of it next year. As you can see I decided to discard my day-to-day disguise and greet them as my real self. Some will need years of counselling.

What prompted me to enter into the spirit of things was an item on today's Highland Cafe. Apparently some people in Inverness are campaigning to stop the 'guisers from knocking on doors when they are not welcome. This is a pity because the children here really do seem to approach the whole festival in the traditional way. They come to the door with jokes and songs prepared and they (or their parents) do put a lot of effort into their costumes. Tonight, for example, I saw a skeleton army and a girl dressed up like a Sumo wrestler.

When we lived on the outskirts of Glasgow the teenagers would come to the door wearing hoodies and threatening to pelt your windows with eggs if you didn't hand over hard cash.
It wasn't a whole lot of fun.

At seven o'cIock tonight, I sent the Zedettes out on to the streets and said they would be locked out if they didn't come back with bags stuffed with chocolate, satsumas and monkey nuts.

They didn't disappoint. I jjust hope they're not expecting me to share any of that swag with them.

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• - What's this?

If I had wanted to risk death on the A9 I would have taken my own car to Glasgow. That's why I refused to get into a taxi when the 1741 from Queen Street trundled into Perth fifteen minutes late thus missing the connection to Inverness. They blamed a slow freight train on the line ahead.

I've written before about those hair-raising 80 mph taxi journeys that First ScotRail think is the best way to allow passengers to complete their journey. Tonight I simply wasn't feeling lucky so I marched out of the station and checked in at the hotel across the road. I phoned Mrs Z. and she supported my decision. She said something about me waking the dog if I came home late but I think she really meant to say that she was worried about my safety.

So here I am in Perth's answer to the Overlook Hotel - you know, that place Jack Nicholson went mad in in The Shining. I didn't hang around to chat with the ghosts. I dumped my bags and wandered out to explore downtown Perth and find a hostelry where I could quench my thirst on a pint of cider and eavesdrop on local gossip.

Perth, tonight, is cold and frosty and the streets are mostly deserted. The shop windows are full of Halloween masks. In St John's Place I wandered past empty restaurants and finally settled on a pub called The Ring O' Bells. There was only one other customer at the bar and he and the barman were glued to the big-screen TV where Arsenal were playing Spurs.

I bought my pint and perched on the next barstool like a regular in Cheers. I tried to blend in. I even made a few gasps and groans as I followed the action on the telly, but something about me must have made the barman suspicious. After a few quizzical glances he finally confronted me.

"Are you one of those mystery shoppers?" he asked.
"Pardon?"
"A mystery shopper...sent to spy on me...cause I dont want to be sacked."

He had a smile on his face but I could tell he wasn't really joking. I assured him that I wasn't a spy and ordered another cider. Two Polish girls appeared at the bar. One told the barman she was a student and was studying English at a local college.

"Do you support Celtic or Rangers?" she asked him.
"Neither," he said, "I hate them both."
"But Celtic have a Polish goalkeeper," she told him, as if that would suddenly make him recant his life-long hatred of the Old Firm.

When I had drained my glass and run out of football-related exclamations, I returned to the streets and found a late-night Tesco. Inside, the shelf-stackers out-numbered customers by about three to one, but there was no one on the tills and you had to use one of those annoying self-service things where you scan your own shopping. They never work for me and tonight was no exception. Apparently my packet of crisps was too light for the "grocery deposit area" and I had to keep asking the shelf-stackers for help.

And now I'm back in the spooky hotel, typing this on the coin-operated internet terminal in reception. Tomorrow I will add the photographs to illustate this little episode.

Unless the ghosts get me during the night, of course, just like they did to Jack in The Shining.
All work and no play makes Jeff a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jeff a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jeff a dull boy.

RedRum.

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• - What's this?

I'm finally home...only been away for 16 days but by golly the weather has taken a turn for the worse hasn't it? Tonight in Inverness the wind and rain is lashing against our windows and outside all the trees have turned brown and yellow. Some are almost naked.

Have I missed anything important?

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• - What's this?

What with my slip-up by the pool and my poor navigation skills, my loving family have had much fun at my expense these past couple of weeks. Well, that´s what Dads are for, I suppose. The expense, I mean. Still, I´ve been trying to keep us within our holiday budget by limiting the number of visits to expensive restuarants and cheap burger bars. As far as I´m concerned Ebenzeezer Scooge had a bad Press.

"Just think how nice it would be, " I told the Zedettes, "if we were to have our evening meals on the balcony of our rented villa."

Having seduced them with this romatic notion I then nipped round to the wee supermarket to scoop up as many bargains as I could see. If you go in late then all the bakery stuff is half-price. Truth be told, I´ve become something of a regular in that wee shop...so much so that the checkout girl - Angela - even gave me a free hat. A lovely yellow affair, it is, with the brand name Netto emblazoned across the front.

This inspired much giggling from the Zedettes until I told them that I would be bringing the hat home with me and wearing it at the next school parents´night.

Ahhh...silence at last!

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• - What's this?

If the Ö÷²¥´óÐã´s Pudsey Bear challenged Disney´s Mickey Mouse to a fight, who would win? This is the sort of thing some of my colleagues argue about when they open their second bottle of Cabernet Sauvingnon. I kid you not. Yes, I know real people argue about football and politics, but these are media luvvies I´m talking about, so cut them some slack.

I mention this because I´ve been thinking about Pudsey, Mickey, Goofy and even Pinnochio while sunning myself here in Lanzarote (did I mention I still have another week´s leave?). First of all I was delighted to receive an e-mail from Gareth Hydes concerning Pudsey. Gareth is one of the big cheeses at Children in Need and diary readers may remember that I suggested an idea to him some months ago. It was inspired by an article in the Guardian which claimed that there are millions of pounds in loose change hiding down the back of people´s sofas and armchairs, in drawers and jars and in little plastic bags which people can´t be bothered to take to the bank. Well, this has inspired the Pennies for Pudsey campaign which starts today. Tune in to the One Show on Ö÷²¥´óÐã 1 tonight to find out more. Apparently Gareth has been working behind the scenes with the Royal Mint and three of the biggest banks that still exist. So get your pennies counted!

Then there´s Mickey, Goofy and the boy with the long nose. I was thinking about this mob because so many of the restaurants here in Puerto del Carmen seem to be named after these Disney characters. I´m not sure if Walt´s people approve or are even aware, but apparently Goofy likes rotissrrie chicken and at Pinnochio´s they serve beer and pizza.

As to which one of them would emerge victorious in a fist fight, well ask me again after I finish the next bottle.

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• - What's this?

I offer you some heartfelt advice if you are planning to hob nob with the rich and famous. First of all, you have to dress the part. In the photograph above you can see how easy it is to get that wrong. Wearing the t-shirt and baggy shorts you bought at Primark in Inverness is not going to impress anyone down at the marina.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, of course. If only I had considered these things before leading the Zed family into Puerto Calero last night. It is to Lanzarote what Gleneagles is to Scotland. The marina is lined with little bistros, wine bars and restaurants and behind that lies a precinct of designer boutiques. Its where you buy those shirts with the little green crocodile on them. The sort of shops where they have about half a dozen cashmere jumpers folded on white plinths like an art installation. Oh, and the obligatory bored shop assistant with a face straight off the cover of Vogue.

It´s not the place where you can pick up three pairs of white sports socks for a quid, or even a Euro. It was stupid of me to ask, really.

As I say, hindsight is a wonderful thing.

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• - What's this?

There were grey skies over the Highland Capital as Inverness Caley ran onto their home turf for this afternoon´s game with Celtic. In Glasgow, meanwhile, a burst of "biblical" sunshine was making life difficult for my colleagues at Pacific Quay (apparently the robotic blinds were malfunctioning). I know these things because I was following every twist and turn of the game on my BlackBerry as we sat on the beach in Lanzarote. I was reading aloud from the Ö÷²¥´óÐã Scotland live text service and Mrs Zed and the Zedettes agreed that I had missed my calling as a football commentator.

The beach, it has to be said, was one we discovered at the eastern tip of the island. We discovered it by accident, if truth be told, because we were heading for a completely different destination when we suddenly found ourselves driving along the side of a volcano and then down one of those steep scary roads you expect to see in an Alfred Hitchcock movie. It was breath-taking. Really. It must have been the altitude.

And it was all worth it, because we found the beach. There were no rows of sun loungers and no one trying to sell you ice cream every ten minutes. Just sunshine, golden sand and some wonderful waves crashing loudly on the shore. Oh... and a tiny car park equipped with a shower block.

Life doesn´t get much better than this...except that Caley got gubbed two-one, of course.

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I was once asked to explain how you could teach a hen to play the piano. I think this was in a first year psychology exam when I was studying for my degree. You had to demonstrate your knowledge of Behaviourism with reference to and Pavlov's dog. Hens naturally peck so could reward one with a grain of feed every time its beak hit the right note on a keyboard, then it would have to hit two notes for the grain, then three... and so on and so on. In the end the poor creature would have to perform an entire Chopin concerto before it got din-dins. This is why you don't see much live poultry performing at the Ö÷²¥´óÐã Proms. The Musican's Union wont allow it.

This all came back to me as the Zed family continued our Lanzarote holiday with a visit to . Yes, we were searching out the authentic local culture and so arrived at this theme park based on the American wild west. Very good it is too. Lots of scary snakes, lizards and even a couple of Siberian tigers.

Then there was the traditional sea lion show which was all the more impressive because the Australian compere was describing the action in three different languages simultaneously. The sea lions had been taught to mimic human behaviour with various uses of their flippers. Flapping flippers meant applause, a flipper under the chin was thoughtfulness and a flipper over the eyes suggested the sea lion was embarrassed about being in a theme park in the first place. Each act was rewarded with a little chunk of fish slipped from the trainer's palm.

In the end we also applauded, but got no fish, so we headed for the Rancho Cantina where I ordered a Texas Burger. This turned out to be like any other burger in a bun but with the addition of a fried egg. I was munching away happily until a man appeared in the middle of the dining area with an armful of parrots. He then demonstrated how the parrots could use various forms of miniature transport. One bird rode a little bike, another was on a tiny car and then, to cap it all, a third parrot skimmed across a counter on ice skates.

You can imagine how much bird seed that involved and yet, all the time, I had this nagging thought in my head. Why would parrots want to use any of these devices when they can fly?

If you ask me, that's a lot more impressive than playing the piano.

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• - What's this?

Once every three months I try to annoy my colleagues in Ö÷²¥´óÐã Scotland's audience research department. It's petty, I know, but I just can't help myself. You see, four times a year we get the official listening figures for Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio Scotland. These come from an organisation called Rajar and are sent in the form of a web-link which only becomes active at half past five on the day the information is released. Once it goes live you begin to download the various charts and tables and then you can see if the audience has grown or shrunk.

Where it gets petty is that I try to do all this faster than our official number-crunchers, Aileen Naismith and Stuart Martin. On Rajar night they are usually sitting at their desks four floors below mine at Pacific Quay. Of course, to make the game a little more interesting, I then have to make my way down to their office and saunter in with the headlines while they are still waiting for their downloads to complete. Of course when the figures are bad I don't so much saunter as shuffle. This time around I thought I would have to forfeit the game completely. I'm in Lanzarote, after all, and surely that puts me at a disadvantage.

Except I found this fantastic high speed wi-fi zone in the Biosfera shopping centre in Puerto del Carmen. At twenty past five on Wednesday afternoon I was sitting there, sipping an Americano and firing up my laptop. Fifteen minutes later I e-mailed Aileen and Stuart with the results.

Our audience had increased by more than a hundred thousand since the last quarter and, well, lots of other good stuff which you can .

"I'm away back to the beach," I told them.

Aileen's response was mature and professional. Her e-mailed reply simply read:

"Aaaaaarrrrgh!"

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• - What's this?

Puerto Del Carmen is what Broughty Ferry will be when global warming really begins to kick in. Honestly, imagine that esplanade on the Tay estuary and then turn up the thermometer by thirty degrees or so. No difference.

Yesterday we decided we´d seen enough of this little corner of Lanzarote and so went to hire a car. Our needs were simple. We wanted a five door hatchback with air conditioning. I filled out a form, handed over a fifty euro deposit and was given the key to a Opel Corsa. We had driven about ten miles west when we realised the air conditioning was nothing more than a fan blowing hot air around the car. Then the handle came off the inside of the front passenger door and then a rapid clicking sound told us that one of the indicators wasn´t working. All was not lost, however, because the radio was working.

We found another English language station. Holiday FM sounded quite slick but subsequent investigation told us that it was being produced in London and was funded, it seemed, by loads of advertising from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. These ads seem to consist of dire warnings about the number of holiday-makers who have accidents while abroad.

They´re not wrong. Two days ago I slipped coming out of the swimming pool and landed with a crash on the big box with all the pool gubbins inside. I skinned my knee and hurt my wrist, but do I get any sympathy? No, of couse not. I ought to phone the Foreign Office so they can update their statistics.

But back to that car journey. It was too late to take the Corsa back. The hire shop is shut on Sunday afternoons, so we trundled on to the south west corner of the island and to Playa Blanca. This was slightly more upmarket and stylish than Puerto Del Carmen and the beach was crammed with bronzed Europeans queuing up for jet skis and to be pulled across the sky on a parachute attached to a speedboat. As you do.

I actually removed my t-shirt for the first time this year and blinded three hundred people as the sun glinted off my white torso. I was then forced, by public demand, to jump into the sea and actually swim about in this little bit of the Atlantic Ocean.

That was yesterday. Today we took the rent-a-wreck back to the hire company and exchanged it for a roadworthy Nissan Micra with real air-conditioning. But, would you believe it, it has no radio!

I´m not sure if I can cope.

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• - What's this?

There are plenty of Saltires flying here in Lanzarote, most of them adorning the cafes and bars which offer big-screen televisions and scheduled coverage of international football.
I half-expected to see those flags lowered to half-mast after the Norway game yesterday. Oh well, what does it matter really? Watching a disappointing performance from Scotland is just one of the many home-from-home comforts available to holidaymakers here. In fact, there are so many familiar sights that I´m starting to wonder why any of us go abroad at all.
Close your eyes, ignore the weather and just listen to the voices on the street. You could be in Paisley.

The shops are stocked with Irn Bru, malt whisky (in plastic bottles) and copies of the Daily Record. Non footy fans are confronted by pavement blackboards advertising the latest edition of the X-Factor. Oh, and everywhere you look there are giant menu cards describing the delights of a ´Full English Breakfast´

I love the way the British waitresses patrol the street outside their restautrants trying to entice people to come inside. There are probably about a hundred such eateries within five minutes walk of each other but I heard one waitress proclaim "this is the only place to eat!"

Now that´s a bold claim, if ever there was one.

This island used to cater for more Germans than British tourists, but, for some reason, the number of Germans has dwindled. Their legacy remains, however, with the widespread availability of schnitzel in local restaurants.

Of course you only have to look at the weather and the climate to realise why people come here. That´s where the big differences are. Lanzarote is a volcanic island and, if you look aware from the shore, you see that in the spectacular natural geology. It looks a bit like those NASA photographs of Mars. Well, imagine Mars when the holiday compànies get their hands on it.

I wonder if Martian shops will stock square sausage.

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• - What's this?

It sounded like chaos in the studio. The computers were crashing and the presenters were fumbling through a dusty - and limited - collection of CDs just to get some music on the air. Then came the power cuts which produced regular bursts of dead air. ´The daily ´Battle of the Sexes´ competition was cancelled and so too was the request show.

"Things are very busy behind the scenes," said Scotty, the drive-time host, who sounded just as panic-stricken as his namesake from the Star Ship Enterprise. He also sounded like he wanted someone to beam him as far away from the radio station as possible.

Meanwhile I sat in my villa, sipping a chilled white wine and sighing with relief because the nightmare coming through the speakers had absolutely nothing to do with me. Spare a thought, though, for the crew of U.K. Away FM, the English-lanaguage station that broadcasts here on Lanzarote.

Yes, that´s where the Zed family have finally pitched up. A three hour flight from Gatwick was followed by a one hour wait for our bags to appear on the luggage carousel. Clearly the baggage-handling system here involves one 93 year old man who fetches one suitcase at a time from the hold of the 757s.

No matter, we´re here now. Temperature on the beach today was 25 degrees. But things sounded a lot hotter in that radio studio.

Sip, sip...not my problem. Not this time.

P.S. If you want to see how slick things are in a Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio Scotland studio, have a look at this..

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• - What's this?

First stop for the Z. family is the Holiday Inn at Gatwick Airport. Direct flights from Inverness are few and far between so a London sleepover is necessary. The snowman perched on the roof of the hotel certainly puts us in the mood for our much delayed summer holiday. Of course the Zedettes are thrilled by the novelty of sleeping sardine-like in a single bedroom. I, on the other hand, have seen enough hotel rooms this year to last me a lifetime. I pace the floor liked a trapped animal. Finally I escape to the bar citing the need for wifi access.

We've created a little league table of friendliness and good service for the various people we encounter on our travels. Here's how it's shaping up so far

Inverness taxi driver 5/10. Neutral, not chatty.

FlyBe check in staff 2/10 (wouldn't crack a smile)

Flybe cabin crew 10/10 (lots of cheery chat to the kids about their holiday plans),

Gatwick airport taxi driver (1/10) rude, wouldn't help with suitcases, obviously angry that he had such a short fare, drove off before we had buckled our seat-belts. Face like fizz.

Holiday Inn restaurant waitress (8/10) lovely, friendly, but loses point for bringing the wrong food.

To be continued...incuding our final destination revealed!

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• - What's this?

I was up well before dawn this morning and hurtling down the A9 as fast as you can when you're stuck behind a timber lorry for most of the way. I was on my way to Alva Academy to help launch our new SoundTown project. What with the today's rail strike I figured the roads would be busier than usual, but I made such good time that I actually pulled into the Little Chef car park for a twenty minute kip. I still got to the school in plenty of time, unlike the crew from Pacific Quay who told me they got lost because their SatNav device went into a huff.

Anyway the launch went well. The school sits in a stunning location at the foot of the Ochils and the pupils and staff seem really keen on the partnership with us over the next year. It's all about allowing the local community to get as much as they can from the diverse departments within our organisation.

Some things are easy to achive. Today I asked one bright young lad if he would record the material for the latest videoblog. "Just point the camera at my head," I told him, "and I'll witter at you for a couple of minutes."

And, well, that's what happened...

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"So," said a friend, the other day, "It's been more than two years since you relocated to Inverness...you'll qualify for that extra ten grand now."

I looked at him blankly and then he told me how the Ö÷²¥´óÐã had given me ten thousand pounds to move to Inverness and then another ten because I'd stayed more than two years. The implication being that I was now free to take the money and run.

Except that they didn't and I'm not. It turns out he was confusing matters with the much publicised deal offered to the staff of Scottish Natural Heritage as part of the relocation from Edinburgh to Inverness.

Not that I'm complaining. I was quite happy to move north, despite the funny looks I got (and still get) from my colleagues. Under Inland Revenue rules I was able to claim back the cost of moving house...lawyers, removal van and weeks of fruitless advertising in the property section of a well-known newspaper. Selling my old home was the worst part of it all. Eventually the Ö÷²¥´óÐã got fed up waiting for me to offload my humble abode and called in the surveyors. They then took an average of three valuations and offered me that on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. A week later they then re-sold my house for five grand more than they'd paid me for it. I then bought a new house for ten grand more than I could afford. That's why I've never run a small business and why I keep avoiding those calls from the credit card company.

I mention all this because, as a Ö÷²¥´óÐã employee, my financial wheeling and dealing is open to public scrutiny and has recently been the subject of a Freedom of Information request. Now, given that I blab about most things on this blog, you might have hoped I could be silenced under a Too Much Information request. Luckily for me, no such thing exists in current legislation.

The most common assumption is that I have a massive expense account and am able to wine and dine my way around the country, guzzling champagne and caviar and laughing merrily at the thought of struggling licence payers. Gosh, I'm even making myself angry with that image. The truth is I've claimed for about three lunches in the past year. Three too many, I know, I know. Most times I buy people drink out of my own pocket. It's the way I was brought up. Not that it matters; they still think I'm going to charge it to the Beeb.,

Then there's my rail and air fares and overnight accommodation. Frankly those train journeys on ScotRail are as luxurious as a trip on the Orient Express and should be stamped out. Not to mention those times I miss my connection at Perth and kill two or three hours gorging myself on pies and beans from the station café.

But here's the worst of it. I have a drawer at home full of receipts for things I just never got around to claiming for. Cameras, taxi fares, pies, beans. I have to swear you to secrecy on this.

Let's hope Mrs Z. doesn't put in an FOI request or I'm toast.

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• - What's this?

Tomorrow morning I'll be scudding down the A9 for the launch of our new SoundTown project. This year we'll be working with the pupils and parents at Alva Academy in Clackmananshire. That whole area is just steeped in Scottish history and we're hoping that will work to our advantage as part of Ö÷²¥´óÐã Scotland's big Scotland's History campaign.

My plan is to get there early enough so that I can record a special video blog from the area, but we'll see. Meantime, I've unearthed some unseen footage from out first SoundTown at Dalmellington. Our finale event from that year was a 5K fun run through the village. More than 250 people took part and that number included a bus-load of Ö÷²¥´óÐã staff who were transported from Glasgow with the promise of medals and free bananas.

The big problem that day was the weather. It rained on and off throughout the morning and afternoon and I remember struggling to keep the water off the lens of the camera. I think that's why I eventually consigned the tape to a box in the attic.

I've now managed to salvage enough shots to tell the story of that day. Look out for Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio Scotland presenters with a variety of moist hair-styles. You'll see Bryan Burnett, Fred MacAulay, Bill Whiteford, Gary Robertson and Tom Morton.

It was fours years ago, but none of them has aged a bit!

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• - What's this?

A couple of nights ago I found myself in Glasgow's famous Horseshoe Bar. I was watching two karaoke singers give a wonderfully offbeat rendition of Summer Nights, the song from Grease. To be honest, I probably wouldn't have been paying that much attention had the duo not been two of our newest Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio Scotland presenters. Amanda Millen and Jim Gellatly will hit the airwaves at eight o'clock tomorrow night with The Music Bed.

How can I describe it? Well, put it this way, Amanda and Jim have very different tastes in music and you're likely to hear a lot of arguing. There will also be bits of comedy, some live sessions and a weekly guide to the gigs and events you should be too ashamed to say you've missed.

The Music Bed (and oh how we agonised over that title) is produced by the team from Dabster Productions, namely Richard Melvin, Anna Jones and Scott Shaw. They kindly invited me to join them for the beer, bonding and brainstorming session that ended in the Horseshoe bar thirty minutes before chucking out time.

They take the karaoke very seriously in there and Richard had to pull a few strings to get Amanda and Jim a place on the stage. Luckily the man with the microphone was a big fan of Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio Scotland (mainly Tam Cowan) and he spent the last part of the night promoting The Music Bed and telling the pub crowd not to miss it.

One more drink and I might have given him a show too.

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• - What's this?

There are some disturbing scenes of animal cruelty in the latest video blog. There are also some astonishing confessions from sports presenter Annie McGuire and comedian Arnold Brown. All that plus a glimpse behind the scenes of our new Friday night programme The Music Bed.

Oh...and some archive footage from the Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio Scotland Listners'Christmas Lunch in 2003, in which Jim Traynor is challenged to swap roles with Robbie Shepherd.

Click on the screen above for five minutes of fun-filled footage...or the screen below for Annie McGuire's rival videblog!

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• - What's this?