It snowed today

whilst I was christmas shopping in covent garden – wandered into neals yard and it started to snow – made me feel all christmassy – or whatever 🙂

also went to the national film theatre to see the wizard of oz today – kate and paul were very suprised that this was the first time I have ever seen it. Well it was and I tell you had I seen it as a child I would have had nightmares abot the munchkins I tell you – scary was not the word.

then off to david and andrews for a christmas party in sydenham which was lovely met lots of pauls friends [well he claims not to have known most of them] which was nice and I’m feeling happy and lovely.

gotta take his pressie back to the BT shop though so he can have a dect phone with an answer machine – I mean not content with patrick cox shoes

anyways feeling really festive now with my tree and the snow so I added some snow to the site too [only on IE and AOL I’m afraid not NS] so off to walk jack and then to bed to dream of nice things.

tomorrow is jacs party with mulled wine and minced pies and then monday – thursday at my folks in liverpool so less blogging than usual. so in case I don;t log on before then – if you celebrate it – MERRY CHRISTMAS – and if you don’t – have a good few days!

strange dreams

Sunday night I dreamt that jonathan & marky, scally & rick, spence & glen, nic & vianney with andrew, dave and myself in tow had gone to the supermarket to buy supplies for christmas as we were all spending it together at my parents house.

we were all arguing which spirits and champagne to buy and whether to fly to liverpool or get a train.

and then somehow we were already in liverpool and had ended up at a bowling alley playing in the dark with glowing bowling balls and lots of semi naked staff with there tops off with dodgy elevator muzac versions of christmas carols but with a distinctly almighty records kind of beat. the bar had a viewing gallery overlooking us and loads of my family were there watching us all play but they all had evening wear on and sipping champagne.
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en-scouse

okay I’ve had quite enough of this scouse bashing for one week. what with rob’s link to en-scouse and then Andrew sends me a mail today [he is coming to Liverpool with me at the weekend with sprogg] saying he has been teaching sprogg some of the scouse verbs he will need.

to nick

to scouse

to steal

to acquire

to shoplift

to ramraid

to joyride

to deck’em one

and then useful phrases like;

‘aiii! sof-lad!’

‘aaarite’

‘are iain’

‘like’

‘is that your car [sonny]’

‘crimbo’

he forgot to mention to pack his sportskit though – more footy gear than a sports and shorts night!

my brother and sister in

my brother and sister in law [ooh and my neice of course] are coming over from Singapore for the next 3 weeks to visit family and friends and get a bit of a holiday too I hope. So I shall be going home to Liverpool at the week end to see the folks. It is nearly a year since my last visit home and I suddenly felt very guilty this morning. When I think of how many friends I have over here who are all from other countries and cannot afford to go home and visit and yet here I am a mere 300 miles or so away and haven’t been home. Especially since my gran isn’t getting any younger.
Jack will have fun too – he can wreak havoc on the beach and hassle my mum’s cat for the week end !

oh my god! Having grown

oh my god! Having grown up in ‘a posh suburb of Liverpool‘ I must say I read with interest Meg’s most recent post about book buying habits of people from posh suburbs of Liverpool. I mean really – buying books to match the curtains. Reminds me of my Ex’s Sister a lot though. They had a set of shelves in the dining room with a set of the reders digest classics – you know the ones – all bound nicely in leather. I’m sure they where picked for aesthetics rather than titles and none of them looked to have been opened much less read. They did look nice though… kind of posh in an upper middle class sort of way.

about

A collection of things written for various reasons to answer questions people had about me whilst they visited the site. It is by no means definitive, I wrote it back in 2002 and I was 32 by that point so you know some things may have been missed out. I should also point out that I have now moved from Streatham to Balham which has been much better for my social life. I still work for the same company but I do less training and more operations stuff.

Some of my friends call me world or mundo depending on where they are from which is kind of wierd really when you think about it – there is this while group of people out there that have no idea what my real name is because all they call me is <scouse>world</scouse>.

I work for an internet service provider, training people in new technologies and proprietary software. In my spare time I like to play with things to see if I can break them or make them work in other ways. I get bored part way through things [low attention span which I am convinced is because I was born 47 days premature]. I go out a lot too so don’t always update stuff, but sometimes I do update and it’s all about being out so read into that what you will. 

History:
On February 9th, 1970 approximately 47 days too soon [due on March 27th boy did they get a shock] I arrived at Fazakerley Hospital in Liverpool. I was so premature that I weighed only 2.2lbs [the exact weight of a bag of sugar]. Back in those days we still used pounds and ounces – none of this kilo malarkey.
I lived in Bootle briefly until my parents moved me to Crosby – my elder brother had been getting into problems [typical scouser? you tell me… he tried to burn down Hugh Baird Technical College with his mate Jamie then aged 5] So by the age of 1 I was living in suburbia, I wasn’t the only one though, Cherie Booth QC lived there and Robert Runcie too. Everything ticked along fine until aged around 7 my parents [well actually my dad] moved us to Blundellsands.

Sensitive child that I am I was crying my eyes out thinking I was leaving all my memories in the old house – not realising that actually it wasn’t that far away – come on give me a break though I was only 7.
I went to Manor High School in Crosby where I made a large number of acquaintences and a few very close friends. Although I lived in the perfect house for parties, that never seemed to happen, well not until after I left school.
I stayed at Manor for sixth form – mainly because I was too lazy to look at going to college and spent most of my time busy with school plays and other social activities. No big suprise then when I failed all 4 of my ‘A’ Levels including General Studies which has to be said is possibly the most piss easy excuse for a subject known to man or child. I also blame BBC Micro and that damn space game [elite] and the strangely addictive Mr Eee for my lack of good grades.

So then onto Southport College for a second round of ‘A’ Levels – the first set of results being pretty useless for further education. Let’s face it here I was after all unlikely to get into gear and look for a job so the only possible choice was University or Polytechnic. I had come to the conclusion that it was extremely unlikely I would get a place at University [although my plan originally was to go to Stirling].

I managed to attain 3 reasonable grades in one year in subjects I had hitherto never taken and then was offered clearing. After pondering what to do next for about 3 seconds I took a place at Polytechnic of North London [yes it was that long ago and yes it is now a University!]
I moved to London and basically never went back. I’ve made lots of friends and lived lots of places and one of the nice things about this site is it helps me keep in touch with people and them in touch with me.

After University I moved home briefly – yes I know I just said that basically I never left London after I moved down – but I did try to live back up North it wasn’t like I didn’t try.
Well anyway I worked in a Quasar centre and made lots of new friends and had lots of parties for which I should belatedly thank my parents for having the coolest party throwing house in the world – except maybe for Tom and Nicole Cruises kids or maybe Bill Gates kids. Essentially it was a pretty nifty pad for parties and we used it for a few months in that phase of my life, which,I look back upon and wonder how I managed to remain STD free for so long.

The lure to move back to London was strong though and after meeting Danny La Rue and being offered a job running his bar I made a split second decision to move to Soho. Split second? Really there was no decision.
I lived in Soho for a while managing bars and then moved out of town. Life got kinda you know different again when I worked for Bass and managed a pub in Putney, again making lots of new friends [most of whom know me by the moniker world] before finally quitting pub work for a more sane existence.

Currently living in Streatham and getting used to the area. Working in Hammersmith and not getting used to the area.
So that’s me really not much more to add – well actually there is this has been 32 years in the making after all. So if you want to know more you know where I am. Oh and did I mention mines a Vodka and Cranberry?

Iain Croll
1970 – 2002