About Me

Hi, yes it’s true, I am a ginna. And I do have the ‘matching collar and cuffs’, ‘Fanta pants’, an ‘Irn-Bru heid’, a ‘fire crotch’ – that’s a new one on me. To be honest, although I have been a ginna all my life, it was only from college onwards (about 1991) that the pish was ripped out of me regarding the red hair – you know who you are!! At school, it was because I was chubby. It’s not going well so far, is what you are probably thinking right now.

I think the worst comment someone made to me – being a ginna was, and I quote, “If I had ginger kids, I would drown them”. I kid you not. But this was coming from someone who, let’s face it, was no stranger to a fish supper.

In an episode of “South Park”, Eric Cartman said ‘This disease is called Ginger-vitis and it occurs because ginger kids have no souls’.

See?! We kinda get it pretty bad, even cartoon characters have it in for us. It’s not easy being a ginna. I wouldn’t say that I was an extreme ginna, like that guy from “The Full Monty”, that turned out to be gay (only in the film, as far as I know). Now that’s a real ginna, with the pale skin and curls to match. Poor bastard. Jeez, if I had a kid like that, I would drown him too.

Let’s see, what can I tell you about myself? Ok, the basics: born in Paisley (a Paisley buddy); moved to the New Town of Livingston when I was about one or two. Didn’t do too well at school. At Inveralmond Community High School, I gained one Higher – Art (christ, I hated Art Apreciation) and about six ‘O’ Grades – including Technical Drawing and Art (I take after my dad). At Queen Margaret College (now University), I studied Hospitality and Tourism Management for about 5 years – 2 years HND, 3 years BA Hons.

I’m in my cough*thirties*cough; I now living in Mebourne, Australia – to be joined soon by Vikki, my wife of nearly four years; I work as a web developer at a large share registrar company. Now, you are probably asking how I ended up doing web from catering. That is a good question. Definitely more money that’s for sure. It’s a shame it took me two catering management courses to work out that there’s no money in that industry. Really, I was interested in graphic design, I wanted to work in DTP (Desktop Publishing) and after a few years of temping and settling into an Admin job, a techie told me that ‘print was dead. Learn web’. And the rest is history.

I bought myself a Sam’s Learn it in 24 hours book on HTML, created a pretty basic website and started pimping myself to web agencies for voluntary work to get some experience – actually I helped (I use that word very loosely) on the screens on the HSBC ATM screens. I think I may have done the Greek versions. Finally in 2000, I got my first web position.

Not sure what else to write here as I’m sure you’ll get to know a bit more about me when you read the stories. But in the meantime:

Things I like include Will Ferrell flicks (“You have an absolutely breath-taking… heiney. I mean, that thing’s good. I wanna be friends with it. “); Paris (the city, not the media whore); listening to Hans Zimmer scores (re: Gladiator, The Da Vinci Code); Star Wars (original trilogy, not the ‘toy commercial’ prequels); Mexican food (god bless the quesadilla).

Things I dislike, pot-holes in roads; poncy wank-fest bars (Edinburgh is full of them, glad I’m away from all that); people on their phones whilst driving (can a phone call really be that important?); parents that swear in front of their kids; celery (disgusting).

Anyways, if you are still reading this then hopefully you are interested in what I have to say. Good. Thanks. There are a number of reasons why I update this blog and they are as follows: I am shite at keeping in touch with friends and family (although the latter will probably want to distance themselves from me after this…). So this is a good way for everyone I know to keep up to date with everything I do – that is, everything I ‘write’ about (or is that ‘blog’ about? I’m new to all this, I’m not up on all the lingo).

I think I moan a lot, and I have an opinion on things – just ask the wife. I have noticed this more and more as the days go by. Probably due to growing old. Old people moan a lot don’t they? So call this site a soap box, allowing me to air my views and opinions.

It’s not all moaning you’ll be happy to know. I like stuff that most people do: music, films, tv, eating, going out. So like any other blog site, I’ll write about all that stuff too.

So thanks for getting this far, I know it was a struggle. I’ll leave you with this little known fact, everyone carries the ginna gene. You may if you haven’t already done so, have a ginna child…