Tartan Red profile picture

Tartan Red

Never judge a book by its cover

About Me

A Welshman exiled in the hostile Highlands of Scotland coping with a disability and determined to cram as much as possible into life before a progressive, genetic disease of the nervous system condemns him to a life of incontinence in a care home eating Spam, boiled potatoes and cabbage.

A writer by trade I am currently Scottish correspondent for Groundtastic magazine , contribute to the Association of Football Statisticians and am in the process of writing my first book.

Tartan can also be found on facebook

My Interests

Wrexham FC, Football Grounds, Modern Art, American History, Classic Cinema, Photography, Travel Writing, Reading, Collect Enamel Football Badges

I'd like to meet:

Larry David, Jerry Seinfeld, Clint Eastwood, Michael Moore, Bill Bryson, Louis Theroux, Ricky Tomlinson, Alan Sugar, Douglas Coupland, Mark Kermode, Charlie Brooker, Jeff Stelling and John Lydon. Posthumanly I'd like to meet Martin Luther King, Charlie Chaplain, John Wayne, Alfred Hitchcock and Frank Sinatra.

Music:

Oasis, Radiohead, Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Cash, Green Day, Elvis Presley, The Zutons, Bob Dylan, Public Image Ltd, Super Furry Animals, Manic Street Preachers, Cerys Matthews, Stereophonics, Jem, Dido, The Bluetones, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Kinks, Ash, Blondie, Gomez, The Stone Roses, Ian Brown, The Charlatans, Happy Mondays, Kasabian, Travis, Coldplay, The Killers, Franz Ferdinand, Mika, Arctic Monkeys, Lily Allen, Gorrilaz, Jamiroquai, Supergrass, Blur, Pulp, Black Grape, Jet, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Kaiser Chiefs, Keane, Madonna, REM, Scissor Sisters, Sheryl Crow, Status Quo, Simon and Garfunkel, Thom Yorke, Tom Jones, Violent Femmes

Movies:

North By Northwest, Psycho, Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, Vertigo, Rope, Lifeboat, Notorious, Rebecca, Saboteur, City Lights, Modern Times, The Searchers, Duel, Dirty Harry, Unforgiven, The Outlaw Josey Wales, High Plains Drifter, Pale Rider, A Clockwork Orange, The Thin Blue Line, Halloween, The Producers, Annie Hall, Bowling for Columbine, Goodfellas, Taxi Driver, The Shawshank Redemption, Escape From Alcatraz, Some Like it Hot, Twin Town, Holiday Inn, Carry On Camping, Carry On Doctor, Carry On At Your Conveniance, Carry On Abroad, Carry On Up The Kyhber, Fargo, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Coming to America, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Absolute Power, Play Misty For Me, Shaft, Ocean's Eleven, The Full Monty, Die Hard, Die Hard 2, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Casablanca, Suddenly, True Grit, Red River, Shane, High Noon, The African Queen, American Psycho, Million Dollar Baby, Rosemary's Baby, The Talented Mr Ripley, Rocky 1-4, Rocky Balboa, Gregory's Girl, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Sicko, Easy Rider, No Country for Old Men, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Television:

Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Larry Sanders Show, The Office, Extras, Phoenix Nights, The Royle Family, The Simpsons, Rob Brydon's Anually Retentive, The Culture Show, Newsnight Review, Coronation Street, Emmerdale, EastEnders, Match of the Day, Gillette Soccer Saturday, Doctor Who, Lost, Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty, Las Vegas, Fawlty Towers, Father Ted, The Apprentice, Wife Swap, Location, Location, Location, Rob Brydon's Annually Retentive, The New Adventures of Old Christine, Fonejacker, The Championship, Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe, The Flight of the Conchords, Batman, Harry Hill's TV Burp, Gavin and Stacey

Books:

Down Under by Bill Bryson, Native Son by Richard Wright, On The Road by Jack Kerouac, Oh Joey Joey by Joey Jones, Microserfs by Douglas Coupland, Ricky by Ricky Tomlinson, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Downsize This by Michael Moore, Adventures in a TV Nation by Michael Moore and Kathleen Glynn, SeinLanguage by Jerry Seinfeld, My Point...and I Do Have One by Ellen DeGeneres, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser, King John by John Charles, Rude Kids by Chris Donald, Northern Soul by Ed Jones, Pointless by Jeff Connor, Frank Skinner by Frank Skinner, Bullet Points by Mark Watson

Heroes:

Martin Luther King, Arthur Scargill, Michael Moore, Alfred Hitchcock, Gary Bennett, Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Ricky Tomlinson

My Blog

'Friends' like this

At the time of writing I have made 191 'friends' on MySpace, one of whom is the comedian Richard Herring. I have always been a fan of Herring's work. For those of you who don't know who I'm talking ab...
Posted by Tartan Red on Sun, 27 May 2007 01:11:00 PST

Mystery song

On Wednesday evening at the Ironworks while we were waiting for the Buzzcocks to take the stage a set of punk songs were being played on a loop over the tannoy. I was familiar with all of them, except...
Posted by Tartan Red on Fri, 25 May 2007 03:36:00 PST

Harmony in my head

What a night! My ears are still bleeding while my heart is still racing from the excitement of watching the Buzzcocks live at the Ironworks, Inverness. It was the first time I had been to the Ir...
Posted by Tartan Red on Thu, 24 May 2007 06:48:00 PST

Access denied

My wife is a fan of Welsh rock band Stereophonics so she was overjoyed to hear that they were bringing their music to the Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre (AECC). When she recieved a pre-sale...
Posted by Tartan Red on Wed, 23 May 2007 06:00:00 PST

Chalk and cheese

Apparently men are from Mars while women hail from the planet Venus. Whatever the truth, there are centainly intrinsic differences between the sexes as I realised this afternoon. My wife and I have j...
Posted by Tartan Red on Mon, 21 May 2007 10:49:00 PST

MySpace musings

I've only been a member of MySpace for a few days but already I have added over 70 'friends'. It's pleasing because I was never popular at school and suddenly my email inbox is full of MySpace invites...
Posted by Tartan Red on Sun, 20 May 2007 08:53:00 PST

Friday Night with Envy and Frustration

Before clambering into bed last night I switched on my TV and stumbled across Friday Night With Jonathan Ross. Ross was in predictable form and began by introducing his homosexual house band - 4 Poof...
Posted by Tartan Red on Sat, 19 May 2007 05:51:00 PST

The road to nowhere

I am a frustrated writer without direction. Over the coming weeks/months/years I will compose my daily thoughts on my humble myspace page in the hope that my path to publication will eventually become...
Posted by Tartan Red on Fri, 18 May 2007 04:28:00 PST

Suffocation by stereotype

Just who exactly is this Tartan Red bloke? I am a 30-year-old Welshman with a passion for television sit coms, the films of Alfred Hitchcock and the paintings of Andy Warhol. I am well educated with ...
Posted by Tartan Red on Wed, 16 May 2007 02:15:00 PST