tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64599139391839069932009-11-16T01:02:32.610+03:00<a href="http://dave-mcclure.blogspot.com">Dave McClure - Poems</a> | <a href="http://dave-mcclure.blogspot.com/2008/02/index-by-title.html">Index by Title</a> | <a href="http://dave-mcclure.blogspot.com/2008/02/index-by-first-line.html">by First Line</a>Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13679454407989191705noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6459913939183906993.post-42849852930761714542009-07-08T20:07:00.003+03:002009-07-08T20:16:31.526+03:00

Something resembling a plan is emerging. The second extension of my contract at Jazeera ends on July 31. I'm booked to fly to Dubai and spend the first week of August there, sorting out visa and accommodation bits and pieces. Then back to Qatar, to spend a few weeks planning for next year and for IBC, and all the logistics of extricating myself from rent & utilities contracts and generally

Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13679454407989191705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6459913939183906993.post-54195219670653281932009-06-14T14:09:00.001+03:002009-06-14T14:09:21.431+03:00

Yesterday was about as hot as it gets here. The radio had warned that temperatures were going to hit 46C and the general consensus was that 46 was a conservative estimate. My after-lunch walk around the perimeter of Muntazah Park, a total distance of no more than a mile, must have cost me a litre of dehydration over and above the high beetroot hue. The odd thing is, I like it.

Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13679454407989191705noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6459913939183906993.post-36212041027761063802009-06-01T16:50:00.001+03:002009-06-01T16:54:24.330+03:00

 Only in England would someone take the trouble to make a slate message board like the above. It's mounted outside a small second hand shop on Malvern's Bellevue Terrace and seemed, today at least, more or less to sum up the difference between Malvern and Doha. There should be no need to enlarge on that.

Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13679454407989191705noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6459913939183906993.post-78416041376218720362009-05-23T06:52:00.002+03:002009-05-23T07:08:53.263+03:00

Today, at 1145, I fly out of Doha. At 1230, I land in Bahrain (pronounced as the answer to the question: Handel, what is the falling wet stuff called?) Then, at 1330 I leave Bahrain only to arrive back in Doha at 1415. In Bahrain, I will not leave the aircraft. This performance, ostensibly to generate a new entry visa in Qatar, is really all about generating a little extra revenue for Qatar

Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13679454407989191705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6459913939183906993.post-35120454378391100172009-01-29T13:32:00.002+03:002009-01-29T13:40:58.865+03:00

So here it is - the final episode in Dad's Flopears series:One day Flopears was feeling very fed-up. He had nothing to do and all his wee brothers and sisters were playing without him, and anyway, he couldn't be bothered with all their noise. "I know what I will do" he said to himself "I'll go away and have an adventure all by myself". So off he went, hopitty-hop hopitty-hop, away up the hill

Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13679454407989191705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6459913939183906993.post-53039145851722690082009-01-29T08:22:00.004+03:002009-01-29T13:47:29.591+03:00

If you've tried going to c-change.co.uk you'll have ended up redirected to here (dave-mcclure-blog.blogspot.com) I have migrated c-change from UK2 to Blogger. Two main reasons: Webspace on UK2 was getting expensive, while Blogger is free, and on Blogger I get the whole feature set (layouts, gadgets, etc) and far faster publishing, while only a cut-down version is available on a hosted blog.Now,

Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13679454407989191705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6459913939183906993.post-8525140491985935782009-01-28T11:25:00.003+03:002009-01-28T11:31:02.659+03:00

Welcome to the third episode in Dad's riveting Flopears series. This is the only one that I can definitely remember him telling me. One morning Flopears had just finished his breakfast and as usual he was still very hungry, so off he went hoppity-hop away up the hill to see if he could find something ekse to eat because, all his Mummy had to give him was one wee cabbage leaf and that wasn't very

Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13679454407989191705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6459913939183906993.post-71766764075751144842009-01-22T11:56:00.003+03:002009-01-22T12:19:30.235+03:00

This is the second of Dad's Flopears stories. For the sake of readability, I'm typing this and the others in lower case, but keeping Dad's colour scheme and italics.Flopears and the FoxOnce upon a time there was a wee bunny-rabbit called Flopears who lived in a burrow in the ground with his Mummy and his Daddy and his four brothers and his five sisters.But Flopears was always hungry, he could

Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13679454407989191705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6459913939183906993.post-79330991627738061182009-01-21T16:38:00.002+03:002009-01-21T17:22:42.456+03:00

Dad had a fund of Flopears stories, first rehearsed with Derrick, then Douglas and me, then in turn to all the next generation. He finally typed some of them out (on his Amiga computer in the living room) and gave them to Malcolm, with this hand-written covering note:Dear MalcolmI meant to correct & edit these stories but I haven't had much time recently. Someday maybe I'll do it.LoveGrandpa

Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13679454407989191705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6459913939183906993.post-85139888485445766472008-09-09T14:39:00.003+03:002009-05-22T10:09:37.841+03:00

Just because I've run out of windows in Ayr surely doesn't mean I've run out of inspiration? After a lay-off of a few weeks from the last post in the house series, I thought I'd better start something new. So, here goes: again courtesy of Google Earth, this is my small corner of Doha. My flat is on the first floor, to the front of the building, facing the street. Across the road, the lads play

Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13679454407989191705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6459913939183906993.post-72878654950722141162008-06-20T13:50:00.002+03:002009-05-22T10:06:19.317+03:00

It's hard, looking at this window, to think back to the fifties, because of the much stronger recent memory of Mum's last few days, bedridden here, before her final trip to hospital. When I took the picture, Mum only had a week or two more to live. By this time, the room had become Mum's room of course, but in happier times it was always Mum & Dad's room.Except for Sundays, Dad was always first

Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13679454407989191705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6459913939183906993.post-1550901599035314902008-06-05T13:59:00.006+03:002009-05-22T10:05:00.072+03:00

The Back Room was my first bedroom, and the bed was a cot with dark wooden safety rails and casters. Betty said, "Do you want a hurl?" I'd no idea what a hurl was and thought I was going to get something to eat, but she just pushed the cot across the floor to clean underneath it. That may or may not have been the same day I asked her if she cleaned every house in Ayr, which made her laugh. For

Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13679454407989191705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6459913939183906993.post-70782984328282128952008-05-17T09:18:00.006+03:002009-05-22T10:00:43.840+03:00

Mum and Dad originally upheld the old Scottish tradition of not using their best room, but keeping it nice for visitors. The Sitting Room was certainly the best room in the house, big, with two fine windows, a piano, and a grand mahogany mantlepiece. The chairs were comfier too.Gradually, they relaxed this regime and by the mid-sixties the sitting room had taken over from the living room as the

Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13679454407989191705noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6459913939183906993.post-47771008410868280292008-05-16T13:04:00.004+03:002009-05-22T09:59:34.056+03:00

The Living Room was where we lived. Often, in the Winter, it was the only warm room in the house. The fire had a back boiler to heat water for the bathroom. There was also a damper that was good to sing about, "Oh you push the damper in and you pull the damper out and the smoke goes up the chimney just the same", but I never had a clue what it was for.The window shelf in the picture came later,

Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13679454407989191705noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6459913939183906993.post-19294966724725854752008-04-27T18:08:00.004+03:002009-05-22T09:58:21.040+03:00

Dad didn't keep a tidy workshop. Every once in a while, he'd decide to impose some order on the chaos, and move things around. But it was a lost cause - there was just too much stuff.But what stuff it was: footballs, rugby balls (of course), cricket balls, softballs, baseballs, basketballs, bowling balls, roller skates, ice skates, rugby boots, running spikes, fishing rods, fishing knives, waders

Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13679454407989191705noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6459913939183906993.post-63706221345064896702008-04-24T17:55:00.006+03:002009-05-22T09:57:07.394+03:00

I'm sitting on Dad's shoulders. There's nobody else in the house and we've just listened to "Sailing up the Clyde" on the wind-up gramophone in the sitting room. We're now walking up and down the corridor, Dad giving his own rendering of the Will Fyfe classic in his idiosyncratic light baritone, and pausing after 'bide' to explain what it means.Mum and Dad had a relationship with Scots that was

Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13679454407989191705noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6459913939183906993.post-34460094399700802852008-04-20T15:49:00.005+03:002009-05-22T09:55:28.021+03:00

Back in the 50s, nobody ever saw out of the pantry window, partly because it was small and high, but mostly because it was behind the perforated zinc fly-screen that gave bug-free ventillation to the old slate meat-shelf below. When Dad took the slate shelf away, it went up to the attic for a while, for no good reason, then, for no better reason, into the garden to lean for evermore against the

Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13679454407989191705noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6459913939183906993.post-14780148787476488612008-04-20T12:38:00.005+03:002009-05-22T09:54:08.245+03:00

The kitchen wasn't big enough to swing a cat in. There was always one available, but Fitzy Puss McClure was quite a serious chap and not really the swingable type. Outside, and not welcome in the garden, were Theblackcat and Thegreycat. Mum kept a stoneware jar of ham-skins (bacon rinds) on the kitchen dresser and, for a dangled sample, Fitzy could be induced to dance on his hind legs. This, and

Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13679454407989191705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6459913939183906993.post-76187307965513155962008-04-17T14:54:00.005+03:002009-05-22T09:52:59.972+03:00

There were seven stairs down from the hall to the Wee Landing and twelve more down from the wee landing to the glass door. This is the wee landing window as seen from the second top step of the flight of seven. (We might as well be accurate here). It was a big window, but not as big as the one halfway down the main flight. Both stair windows were uncurtained but were of rippled glass, reducing

Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13679454407989191705noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6459913939183906993.post-28090784501888269702008-04-16T13:02:00.003+03:002009-05-22T09:51:30.246+03:00

Two down, ten to go (that's how many windows I photographed) and I've decided to get the spare room over and done with. Looking at all twelve pictures, it's the only one that gives me no pleasant feelings. It's strange how, so many years later, I've suddenly happened on something that I must always have felt, but didn't really know till now: I never liked the spare room at all.The dressing table

Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13679454407989191705noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6459913939183906993.post-38251573895039032892008-04-15T14:55:00.004+03:002009-05-22T09:50:31.499+03:00

Dad's black Anglia, HAG 390, had a choke and a starter, two cream coloured pull-knobs in the middle of the dashboard. A little below were two smaller cream coloured knobs. These could only be the wee choke and the wee starter, because that's what they looked like. Some would argue that they were the heater controls, but it's appearance that matters. It was the same in the house. Along the

Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13679454407989191705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6459913939183906993.post-79935810306386068182008-04-14T16:14:00.006+03:002009-05-22T09:49:27.839+03:00

The big bunker window looked straight across the yard at its counterpart in MissMcMinn's house. There were actually two MissMcMinns. Their names were NiceMissMcMinn and TheOtherMissMcMinn. NiceMissMcMinn had a dog called Frisky that looked huge when it barked over the wall at us but assumed normal terrier proportions when on a lead in the street. I still don't understand how it did that.

Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13679454407989191705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6459913939183906993.post-14489296516174199642008-04-14T10:14:00.004+03:002009-05-22T09:46:58.960+03:00

- that John bought. It was built in 1894. John, my grandfather, must have been built a little earlier, but family history was never my forte. By the time I arrived on the scene, all four grandparents had coiled their mortal slips, the house had been flatted and the downstairs (we never called it the ground floor) sold to Mrs Gordon who ran it as a B&B guest house.Mrs Gordon merits a paragraph.

Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13679454407989191705noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6459913939183906993.post-48510559318438679562008-04-12T13:41:00.002+03:002009-01-28T15:50:54.842+03:00

I've just been billed by UK2.net for £72 for the web-space this site occupies. And that's just for one year. I remember when UK2.net was cheap! As the total size of the site is a few MB (poems are small!) it hardly seems sensible to keep tenure of a couple of empty and costly GB. Maybe that should be the mission for the year - to evict Agnes, kicking and screaming no doubt, and tell her to sign

Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13679454407989191705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6459913939183906993.post-17547217470438404952008-04-11T13:20:00.002+03:002009-01-28T15:50:54.842+03:00

The new site has turned out very much as I'd hoped. It is very much easier to manage. There's also the advantage that I can add to it or edit it from any online pc. As it's a blog, there's no need for ftp. However, it does leave the question - what to do with this site? I don't want to take it down because quite a few people link to it. And I don't really want to keep it as a mere portal to the

Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13679454407989191705noreply@blogger.com0