so when you look at me, you better look hard and look twice

So, Young Ben and I decided to go out "guising" last night (none of this American Trick-or Treat nonsense, in Scotland it's still "guising")

We decided to keep it simple and go out dressed as The Proclaimers (mainly because I could not fit in to my Robin costume and he definitely wanted to be Batman). The night went really well and although obviously being the brains and looks of the partnership, Ben did have trouble keeping the glasses on at times and his contribution to "500 Miles" was poor at best.

So he resorted to performing 4'33" by John Cage and he was excellent at this leaving me to be the man who was havering on his own.

It occurred to me on our travels, how times have changed on the Halloween front. Nowadays, you turn up on someone's doorstep wearing a costume and you are instantly given "goodies" without even entering the house. In days gone by (old guy reminiscence coming up), you were invited in and had to earn your rewards in front of an audience by singing a song or telling a joke or swallowing swords or the likes. It also appears that less effort goes into the costumes. Kids turn up in football strips or off-the-peg costumes bought from Asda.

With this in mind, when we returned home we partook in some traditional Scottish Halloween games. We began by "dooking" for apples, which is quite hard when you have no teeth, but I managed anyway. Ben did not so much "dook" as splash for apples but it appears he will be a very good swimmer. We also had a go at dropping the fork from a great height to try and spear the apples but when the fork landed in my foot we abandoned that game.

We then proceeded to the "treacle scones" game where you suspend these on a piece of string and then try to bite them (a game invented by soap powder manufacturers). I have to say this was messy but that outfit was getting too small for Ben anyway

All in all a great evening and I think Ben also quite enjoyed it

I leave you this week with the opening verses from Halloween by Scotland's finest, Rabbie himself

Upon that night, when fairies light
On Cassilis Downans dance,
Or owre the lays, in splendid blaze,
On sprightly coursers prance;
Or for Colean the route is ta'en,
Beneath the moon's pale beams;
There, up the cove, to stray and rove,
Among the rocks and streams
To sport that night.

Among the bonny winding banks,
Where Doon rins, wimplin' clear,
Where Bruce ance ruled the martial ranks,
And shook his Carrick spear,
Some merry, friendly, country-folks,
Together did convene,
To burn their nits, and pou their stocks,
And haud their Halloween
Fu' blithe that night

Roll on next year, I think I might go for Mr Potato Head then and Ben can be Buzz Lightyear


Editors note: In the interests of child safety and so that I do not receive any visits from Child Services or Claire's mum, please note that no grandchildren were harmed in the fabrication of the above article

when my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light

When I asked Claire and Sean if they needed anything in particular as a present for the new arrival, Claire said I could get them a baby monitor. I thought,really? My recollections of baby monitors from when my kids were born in the 80s were of walkie talkie type gadgets that only really worked if you were in the same room, which rather defeated the purpose of having them in the first place.

But it appears technology has moved on. I believe they even have telephonic apparatus now that does not need to be plugged in to a wall socket and can be taken outside or even in the car with you. I understand they call them carry-about-with-you phones. Seemingly all the kids have them these days.

Anyway I digress, using my extremely limited IT skills I logged on to the Mothercare site in pursuit of a baby monitor and was met with a wondrous array of options that I could not have imagined even in my wildest dreams (I do confess that my wildest dreams do not normally revolve around baby monitors)

I finally settled on the BT Baby Monitor 150 (Mrs D of Derbyshire gave it 5 stars and said it was worth every penny, so that was good enough for me). The Product Information contained the following:

Digital frequency with High Definition Sound...no idea what this means but it sounds impressive
Portable Parent Unit....it's always preferable to have a portable parent
Nightlight....obviously eco friendly
Room Temperature Display...so Mum can have room at exact degree required
Sound Activated Light Display...always reassuring for baby to awake to flashing lights
Volume Control...unfortunately this applies only to the monitor not the baby
Lullaby Player...now we're talking, never mind Twinkle Twinkle, apparently you can plug in your own selection of music to soothe the restless youngster. I have my Born To Run album ready for when I babysit. You are never too young to hear Thunder Road for the first time
Out of Range Indicator....with a 300m maximum range, what size of house do they think we live in?
Rechargeable Batteries on Parent Unit...I think everyone needs those
2-Way Talk-Back to Baby.....Excellent, this means I can keep telling young Ben "Grandpa is the best" whilst still watching the footie in the other room

There were even more elaborate monitors with screens involved but Mrs M from London said she thought the image was very poor and kept changing colour (perhaps she was babysitting a chameleon) so I decided against them. I also had an image of young Ben having X Factor on his screen and and voting to insure Cher remained in the competition. Not sure why he would be watching X Factor when there was football on another channel

Anyway, I need to go now and edit the lullaby tune...

"Twinkle, twinkle little star

Grandpa is the best by far"

...yes, that will do.

Happy monitoring!

if you love somebody enough, then you go where your heart needs to go

I was sad to read recently about the death of soul legend Solomon Burke. I only really became familiar with his work when he was mentioned in one of my favourite books High Fidelity by Nick Hornby and one of his songs "Everybody Needs Somebody To Love" was famously used in The Blues Brothers.
He was 70 years old and apparently he left behind 90 grandchildren. I thought to myself, and now I'm telling you, now that's just being greedy. If he saw each one in turn, one day at a time, he would only have seen each one four times a year and if he very capably sang each one a three minute lullaby every evening it would have taken him four and a half hours.

Both of my grandfathers died in the 1960s when I was fairly young, so my recollections of them are very sketchy at best. My grandmothers, however, both lived until the 1980s and my gran on my mum's side was the second finest woman I ever had the pleasure to meet. She was an absolute gem who continually showed a mental dexterity and a wicked sense of humour which belied her years. I often took friends up to meet her and she would welcome and entertain them as if they were her own grandchildren. Fortunately she passed all her good points on to my mum, who, sadly, also died in the 1980s when my own sons were very young

I believe when you have a child, your relationship with your parents almost immediately changes. The penny drops and there is a realisation that perhaps everything they said and did over the years was not always wrong after all. There is an understanding about responsibility and priorities in life.

My dad revelled in his role as a grandfather. I can remember games of "three-and-in" involving three generations with my dad, his sons and his grandchildren (I nearly said grandsons there, but Janine, the only granddaughter in a dynasty of boys at that time, would always be involved as well). My dad would "sclaff"one in from about a yard out with the words "pick that one out goalie" as he backed further and further away from goal until his effort became a thirty yard thunderbolt which we all heard about many times afterwards.

When my sons were young our family often spent summers down in Rothesay and my two eldest boys became obsessed with the ferry and the vehicles coming on and off. When they saw a ferry approaching they would run down to the pier and count each car off and judge if all the cars waiting would make it on to the ferry.
My dad made both of them a wooden ferry (to scale, not actual size) but with a ramp which could be lowered and raised and they would line their toy cars up all round the skirting board, drive them on to the ferry and transport them across the living room to a place where the sun always shone (that certainly wasn't Rothesay).

At my dad's funeral 3 years ago I related my favourite recollection of him at Rothesay, when, well into his 70s, he hid up a tree in the Skipper Woods, and ambushed my wife and I and the boys as we wandered unsuspectingly through the woods. He had been up there for some time and had already ambushed two old ladies walking their dogs. Now that's what I call a grandpa. I really need to start brushing up on my tree climbing skills.

Seasons come and go, but I will never change and I am on my way

Anyone who knows me will be aware that I have an unfortunate obsession with pop music and can chart the events of my life by songs that were popular at any given particular time.

With this in mind my new favourite song has just become "Written in the Stars" by Tinie Tempah (featuring Eric Turner) as this was number 1 in the charts on the day young Ben was born. Let me admit that I am no connoisseur of Mr Tempah's music but it could have been worse. I have a friend, who, for my 50th birthday, made me a compilation set of every song that had ever been number 1 on my birthday (you are thinking "that's a lot of songs" but you should have seen the set he did for Methuselah's 950th....even Cher and Tina Turner were still having hits when "Methie" was a boy).
Anyway, I digress, The Gods Of Music did not shine kindly on me, their devoted follower. In my Birthday Compilation Set I have such classics as Barbados (75), You're The One That I Want (78), Lady In Red (86), Turtle Power (90) and just to rub salt in the already gaping wounds, number 1 on my 50th was Thunderbirds by Busted. I have to go way back for any redeeming tunes such as Help(65), San Francisco(67) and School's Out(72). As Confucius once said, You can choose your friends but you cannot choose your Birthday Number 1s (unless you are very rich and buy enough copies to make a song you like number 1 on your birthday)

On the day I was married there were 2 number 1s.........When You're In Love With A Beautiful Woman by Doctor Hook (which is exactly the kind of song you are looking for on that particular day) and One Day At A Time by Lena Martell (let's just leave that one there)

My eldest son Denis has Super Trouper by Abba as his day 1 song and at least it does mention Glasgow in the lyrics. My youngest Dean has The Final Countdown by Europe. It could have been much worse. When you are born 2 weeks before Christmas you are likely to inherit some very bad festive tunes or even worse Cliff Richard. I guess, these days, you are almost certain to have an X Factor Winner.

The new father Sean has House of Fun by Madness as his Day 1 song, which has always been appropriate and hopefully will continue to be so. I have discovered that on the day new mum Claire was born Rick Astley was at number 1 with Never Gonna Give You Up (Ah, those wonderful 80s, what a special time for music)

I have already completed young Ben's first mix-tape (are they still called mix tapes when they are on disc?) and anyone lucky enough to have received one of my compilations over the years will know there are certain givens in my mixes. They have to include at least one song each by Springsteen, Dylan and Stevie Wonder. This has caused some problems over the years. It's not easy to fit Like A Rolling Stone into a "Soul" mix. There is also a fair chance there will be some extremely contrived links if there is a specific theme to the mix. There should be 15 songs in the mix. We should all be famous for 15.

Anyway here is the first "New Grandson Ben" mix (I need to give the title some thought before the next one)

1. Written In The Stars...............Tinie Tempah
2. Ben................................Michael Jackson
3. You Are The Sunshine Of My Life....Stevie Wonder
4. Stand By Me........................Ben E King
5. House Of Fun.......................Madness
6. Never Gonna Give You Up............Rick Astley
7. Baby You're A Rich Man.............The Beatles
8. Tiny Dancer........................Ben Folds
9. Diamonds On The Inside.............Ben Harper
10.Lullaby............................Shawn Mullins
11.Oh, Very Young.....................Cat Stevens
12.Claire.............................Gilbert O'Sullivan
13.Forever Young......................Bob Dylan
14.Beautiful Boy......................John Lennon
15.If I Should Fall Behind............Bruce Springsteen

Enjoy! You will all be listening to it soon

if you ever look behind, and don't like what you find

At 11.27 yesterday morning I was a 56 year old, unemployed, overweight, divorced, Ayr United supporting father of 3 grown up sons, living on my own.

At 11.28 yesterday morning I became a grandfather for the first time.

ISN'T LIFE WONDERFUL!

An 8lb 8oz baby boy arrived to my son Sean and his lovely partner Claire.

I have tried to explain to my son that this little bundle of wonder has now become (and forever will be) the most important person in his life. He may have further children who will become equally important but no-one and nothing in this world will ever be more important.

The baby is to be called Ben, not short for Benjamin or Benedict or Benito, just Ben. I like it. In our family, we don't much go in for protracted first names, my sons are Denis (who is called Den), Sean and Dean so having an e and an n in there seems to be keeping up tradition, and not overusing the alphabet. I had thrown Dexter into the baby naming hat but that one fell on stoney ground (no n in it, too long and something about a serial killer not being a great role model)

I looked up other less famous Ben's to see what he has to live up to, so here is my Top 10 Famous Ben's List

1. Ben...................my grandson

2. Ben Affleck.....star of such great movies as Good Will Hunting and...eh, that's about it

3. Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry's....makes ice cream so will probably be my grandson's favourite Ben

4. Ben Nevis.......Tall, rugged, Scottish......what's not to like

5. Ben Roethlisberger.....Pittsburgh Steelers QB with 2 Superbowl wins, currently suspended for off field actions

6. Ben Stiller.....star of such hilarious movies as There's Something About Mary and.......I'll come back to you on this

7. Big Ben....famous London landmark...and yes I know Big Ben actually refers to the bell of the clock

8. Uncle Ben......his rice is very quick and efficient

9. Ben Johnson.....took drugs, ran fast, won medal, failed drugs test, lost medal

10. Ben Elton.....really starting to struggle a bit on the famous Ben front now (I have not included Mr Franklin or Mr Netanyahu as I consider them as Benjamins)

This has been day 1 of my ramblings on my new grandson. Hopefully there will be many more to follow