Bob's day out at Record Store Day at Underground Solu'shun, Edinburgh

My husband is passionate about his music in the same way that I'm passionate about the Liberal Democrats, Doctor Who and Formula One. Over the past few months, he's been transforming our conservatory into a music haven, complete with pulsing, flashing lights. He has the sort of equipment that I look at in total awe. It looks, to be honest, that it has more to do with flying the TARDIS than music, but he's loving it.

He has always had a massive record collection and the move to CDs and digital download has only served to increase his desire to accumulate yet more vinyl.

Yesterday was his equivalent of the Doctor Who Convention, or the Monaco Grand Prix - the fifth UK Record Store Day. He was actually queuing outside Underground Solu'shun in Cockburn Street at 8am. I've only ever been in the shop once, when Bob was really ill. I have not got the first clue about Bob's music. My taste, if you can call it that, rarely ventures outside the genres of camp and cheese. Anyway, I went in and asked the guy behind the counter to help me. He sent me away with a pile of records and Bob loved every single one of them.  Talk about knowing your customers.

Anyway, Bob had a lovely day, listening to the DJs in the afternoon, one of whom, Fudge Fingas,  had been in Russia not long ago and came home with quite a haul, including loads of pressies for us.There had even been a famous face in the shop - author Ian Rankin had popped in for a browse.

Here's a wee video he took which captures the atmosphere.



The serious point about this is that small, independent shops like Underground Solu'shun have to be encouraged. Otherwise, we'll all end up listening to sterile, samey downloads. It's the same thing as encouraging independent bookshops and breweries. We need the originality and diversity these places provide. Record Store Day  provides a way of showcasing what these shops have to offer.

And look at Anna's and my pressies:

I feared that the Voulez Vous would have been distorted out of all existence, but it was actually extremely good and true to its proper Abba roots.

Bob had a great day - but he also lives out the maxim that a record store is for life, not just for Record Store Day. He's in there every week.  So, readers, make it your challenge for the rest of this year to buy more stuff in small independent shops and help them to thrive.

My Bob and the "Granny Tax"

My dear husband is not a Granny. And he'd better not be a Grandad for a very long time to come, given that our daughter is not yet a teenager. He is of an age to be affected by the so called "Granny Tax" eventually.

Now, you might, if you wish, feel a bit of sympathy for poor Bob. It must feel sometimes like George Osborne has pulled his name out of a hat and decided just to chip away at his income.

First he decided that in the year Bob reaches 65, the State Pension age will go up to 66 .

Then Gideon took his Child Benefit away, or will, briefly, due to a brief pre retirement spell at higher rate tax, the first such time in his life.

And now, he's going to have to get by on the same personal tax allowance as everyone else. He won't get an extra tax allowance for being over 65. When the starting point for paying tax was as low as five or six thousand, that was fair enough - but is a differential necessary when the tax threshold is significantly higher?

The figure I heard bandied about on the so called "Granny Tax" (what a cynical name, and patronising in the extreme) was that people stood to lose £83 a year. That's around £1.60 a week. This year alone, Lib Dem Pensions Minister Steve Webb, by virtue of his Triple Lock, has raised the State Pension by the biggest cash amount ever, £5.30 a week. In addition, pensioners will be getting £140 a week in a couple of years' time, up from the current round about £100 per week in State Pension.It's worth saying, too, that people who only have the State Pension to live on don't pay tax anyway. Pensioners also get free bus travel and a Winter Fuel Allowance from age 60 that many of them, including us, don't actually need.

Bob certainly grumbled about having to wait an extra year for his Pension, but he sees it as a necessary evil. He's also not wildly chuffed about losing Child Benefit especially when people who earn significantly more than he does will still get it. And the business of the tax allowance has barely bothered him at all. You see, he's heard me go on incessantly for the last year about how the sick and disabled are losing their benefits. When there simply isn't any spare cash for the Government to play with, the hit he's being told he has to take does not seem unreasonable to him. He might grumble a little, but he knows it's better than the alternative. And, unlike most pensioners, he's seeing it in the context of having to put a child through university when he retires. Mind you, I think he's banking on his much younger wife writing a best seller by then...

This whole "Granny Tax" furore, is inflated hyperbole and that relatively innocuous measure needs to be seen in context with the other benefits that pensioners have gained from the Liberal Democrat influence in this Government.

Scotrail fail yet again

Our business focus is on you, the passenger. Our staff are trained to ensure you have a safe, comfortable and enjoyable journey, and you should find them helpful and courteous at all times.

If you have a problem at a station, please speak to a member of our staff, who will always be willing to help you. Our staff can be easily identified by their uniforms and name badges.

During times of severe service disruption, ScotRail will deploy Customer Action Teams to help station and ontrain staff provide the best possible information and customer service for our passengers.

During service disruption we aim to:

• Get you to your destination station.
• Or arrange alternative transport where possible.
• Or return you to a suitable station if you can’t continue your journey.
• Or make other arrangements, such as overnight accommodation, where appropriate.

This is what the Scotrail Passenger Charter says.

Aye, right.

Nobody's saying that they were dealt an easy hand after yesterday's storm, but, yet again, they have spectacularly failed to provide information to commuters stranded at rail stations.

When Bob went up to Livingston North this morning to try to get a train into Edinburgh, there was not a single announcement on the tannoy and the noticeboards appeared to be broken. He had to ring me to find out what was happening and what was on Journey Check online bore little resemblance to what happened in real life.  Trains that were supposed to appear did not and, much later, trains that were not supposed to appear did.

After an hour and a half on a cold platform, Bob gave up and came home. One train had been and gone but, even though there was room for more people in the carriages, they couldn't get on because of passengers blocking the doors and refusing to let them embark. It was ridiculous and that should have been managed better by the train staff.

The piece de resistance of the traditional Scotrail Farce of Fail is yet to come, though. Bob went up hoping to catch the delayed 9:49 train. He and other passengers were following its progress on their Smartphone app when, suddenly, a coach appeared in the car park on the other side of the station. The driver came over and said that there were no trains running all day and people were supposed to get the bus. Those who were tracking the 9:49 decided to stay, but 80% of the passengers waiting climbed the stairs and walked all the way to the other side. Just as they got there, the train they were waiting for pulled in so they all started running back. The Scotrail Grand Old Duke of York style of passenger management is still going strong this year, sadly.

Some passengers were left stranded and didn't manage to get either the train or the bus due to this incompetence.

Bob is now at his work, a journey that would normally take 21 minutes, after 3 hours of trying. Better information and management, not the most difficult things in the world to get right, would have made this a lot easier. The depressing thing is that Scotrail fail every single time. They never seem to learn anything and they don't seem to care.

Sixty years ago today................

Well, it doesn't seem like a whole load happened on Thursday 28th June 1951. Not on the face of it anyway.

In the US, a highly dubious show, Amos 'n' Andy, which drew protests from the NAACP aired for the first time on  TV.

In the UK, a baby called Sarah Ward, who would adopt the stage name Lalla and  play Romana in Doctor Who and marry Tom Baker, was born. Here she is with some daleks and Noel Edmonds. Which is scarier?



In the House of Commons, an MP for Sheffield Hallam, Roland Jennings, who fought as a Conservative-Liberal, took the Minister to task on ID cards. There's a certain irony, of course, because Nick Clegg, the Deputy PM, now represents Hallam and one of the things he said at the time was that he would go to prison rather than carry an ID card. Interestingly, Jennings was once the MP for Sedgefield, later represented by the one the Elephant calls Lord Blairimort himself.

But this was one of the most significant days of my life. Even though I didn't make my entrance into the world for another 16 years. Because, in a nursing home which is now a holiday park near St Andrews, a very cute baby boy was born.

You see, this sweet baby became a lovely man. 24 years ago today he decided to go for a birthday walk in the mountains around Braemar with some colleagues. They all went back to work the next day, but he was on holiday so he stayed at Braemar Youth Hostel. He'd only planned a night, but ended up staying a week and a half and leaving with a lot more than he bargained for.  If you want to know more, read  The Lure of Lentil Gunge - or how the Bob was won.

He has been an absolutely brilliant husband for all of these years - and anyone who takes on a Liberal Democrat activist takes on the party as well - and plays second fiddle to it on many occasions. I am a fairly crap wife, to be honest, certainly missing the domestic, home-making gene, but it seems to work......

I may have bought him coffee called Grumpy Mule this morning as a joke, but in reality he is lovely and he makes my life happy and full of laughter. Well, most of the time. He's making full use of this special birthday to  tease Anna and I to the max this morning. I've already been threatened with a gag - and I just have to let him away with it (the joke, not the actual gag, of course).

He's using his birthday to finally embrace the 21st century. We're off to get him a new mobile phone and then go out for lunch.

Later, it's Wagamama for dinner and then Anna's primary school graduation. And there may be some more presents too...............

So, with a little help from my friend Elspeth - can you recognise the font from every glossy Lib Dem leaflet you've ever had in your life............

And although he does look very long and very suffering in this, it was taken on the last night of our holidays last year and he was actually quite relaxed.

Happy Valentine's Day

I spent some time earlier this morning, under the patient and skilful direction of my beautiful and talented daughter, Anna, making a Valentine's card for my lovely and long-suffering husband Bob. I have not felt well enough to brave the shops so I was panicking slightly, given that my craft skills are probably somewhere as good as the average 3 year old's.

I was quite pleased with the final result - I managed to draw a bear which you could actually recognise. I remember once at a Lib Dem training session drawing a pig and being told that my effort looked like a hot water bottle with legs.

Anyway, Bob did seem to like my my amateurish effort and I don't think he was just being polite. He had hidden my card next to the tea caddy (I am my Granny's girl, after all) and he gave me a lovely bunch of lilies.

I hope he actually realises how much I appreciate him - he is the kindest and most gentle man I have ever met and I am grateful every day for that moment of wisdom that made me grab on to him and refuse to let go all those years ago:-)

LibDig This!

A Valentine's Appreciation

Okay, I won't make this too slushy, I promise, but I do feel that I should publicly express my appreciation for my husband Bob. Even more so given the exotic and delicious chocolates he brought home for me yesterday.

I was a teenager when I met him nearly 20 years ago and he was a divorced man nearly twice my age. He has put up with all sorts over the years, not least playing second fiddle to the Liberal Democrats. All my friends (I was told in no uncertain terms last week that it wasn't, as I'd thought, just my non political friends) feel sorry for him because he spends so much time supporting our family. If he were a woman, he probably wouldn't attract quite so much sympathy, but he does probably deserve it for surviving two decades with me. He once said that one of the things he liked most about being with me was that he didn't know quite what I was going to do next:-)

The best thing about him is that he's a wonderful dad - he's trusted my parenting instincts, he has such a strong relationship with our daughter and she absolutely and utterly adores him.

His support has brought out the best in me and I know that my life would not have been as good without him.

So, thanks for everything...........