Tag Archives: Tash

Cliffhanger

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Morning Tash Appreciators,

This week brings to an end another season of TF. For the next two weeks, TF headquarters is scheduled to be closed for a summer holiday.

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End of season finales are tricky things. This time last year, which was the end of the first “proper” season of TF (i.e. when more than about a dozen people read it!), the aim was to finish on a positive note that would leave you all wanting more. For the second season, something more is required. Like all quality entertainment, it has to be believable; and for it to be believable, the end can’t always be a happy one.Looking back at last year, TF was talking about star-spangled super dreams of sky-scrapers and sparkling blue sea. It really was a super dream and a fantastic time. But that’s the thing about dreams,  sooner or later you have to wake up. This year, life certainly has been a wake-up call: even coming up with alliterative sentences requires more energy than I have to spare.

For some Appreciators (including this one) parts of 2013 have been majestic, but considerable chunks have been bloody awful. This year TF has seen its ensemble cast (us) go through trials and tribulations that we could not have seen coming. But unlike conventional entertainment, the people are genuine, and none of the drama has been set up purely for our enjoyment.So, as the curtain falls on season 2, we are left with something of a cliffhanger: will our heroes and heroines overcome, or will they stumble and fall?
Tash Friday 26:7:13 3
The beauty of season 3, and everything that follows, will be that the outcome is in our hands.If I was a betting man, I’d say that this narrative arc of ours has plenty of running-time left to allow for the story to take a turn for the better. Maybe not this year – maybe not even at the end of  next year – but, by the time all is done and the credits start to roll, I’d be amazed if things hadn’t worked out ok.So for the next couple of weeks, TF will rest, re-energise, recuperate (hey, maybe I do have the energy for alliteration!) and prepare itself to throw anything and everything at whatever life foolishly puts in it’s way. That’s where this week’s Tash comes in. When TF returns, it intends to channel some of the spirit of this man:
Tash Friday 26:7:13
That’s Jules Winnfield (aka Samuel L Jackson) in Pulp Fiction. He will be the inspiration for season 3 because, sometimes, you have to snap some necks if you want to cash those cheques (figuratively speaking, of course).
Have a great couple of weeks!
KEEP. GOING.

What’s next?

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Good morning Tash Appreciators,

It’s clear that, for the first time in years, summer is truly here. Let’s hope it’s sticks around for a while.

Summer can be the best time of the year. When the weather is good, people tend to get out more, see their friends and generally have a great time. There’s also the prospect of getting away from the drudgery of daily life to somewhere exotic; where the grass really is greener.

Speaking of places where the grass is greener, TF was ecstatic to receive a present all the way from Cambria, California (a few short miles from the spiritual home of Tash Friday) this week. It was a book containing tips to groom one’s Tash – smashing stuff and much appreciated!

My favourite so far.

My favourite so far.

Anyway, back to summer. It can also be a time when you take stock and you realise that half of the year has already rushed by. That chance to reflect can leave you either with a sense of satisfaction about how the year has gone so far or it can leave you thinking “what have I been doing for the last 7 months!?”

I’ve recently started watching the West Wing (I think this is the third time!) as a bit of a morale booster. For those who haven’t seen The West Wing, you need President Bartlet in your lives. Immediately:

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In the first episode, Bartlet gives some advice which I think is useful for the summer. His staff are caught up in their own squabbles and difficulties and they’ve taken their eyes off the bigger picture (righting wrongs, saving the world etc etc). Bartlet gathers them together and says:

“Breaks are good. It’s not a bad idea to take a break every now and then… But break’s over.”
He sends them on their way with a suitable anecdote, then turns to his secretary and asks purposefully “what’s next?”  This summer, we all need to take a break. We’ve all worked hard for the last seven months. But once we’ve had time to rest and think, we need to get cracking with what we really want to do. We need to work out what’s next.To the Tash. Two things which spring to mind when summer arrives are beaches and ice cream. A type of ice cream is Magnum. Magnum P.I is the name of a show in which Tom Selleck played the lead. In Magnum P.I, Tom Selleck was often at the beach; sometimes while making important phone calls. Therefore, logically, this week’s Tash could only be the great Tom Selleck:
Tash Friday 19:7:13 3
What? It makes perfect sense, honest…
Have a fantastic weekend folks – I’ll be taps aff by 5.01pm!Keep going!
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Grow the roses

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Good morning Tash Appreciators,

This week, I had the great pleasure of catching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on TV. Even though it was released in 1968, it has lost none of its appeal:

Tash Friday 12:7:13

The film fits in with just about everything which TF stands for (with the obvious exception of the state-sponsored abductor of children). It starts with a man who is faced with the cold reality of life: his inventions, although brilliant, aren’t paying the bills or allowing him to give his kids the things he wants them to have. He’s told that he needs to stop dreaming and do an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. In the end though, all of his dreams come true.

I could go on for ages about the different messages which I think stem from the film. However, I will skip the lecture on how it illustrates the point that, no matter how downtrodden they are, young folk will always prevail. In my opinion, the most important message comes from a group of imprisoned inventors who have been tasked with building a car as good as Chitty: from the ashes of disaster grow the roses of success:

It’s a theme that runs through the whole film. For example, as the opening credits roll, the car which will later become Chitty  goes on fire and is destroyed. The leading man’s life is a bit of a disaster too. His wife (he’s wearing a wedding ring) is, for whatever reason, no longer part of the family and his home and career are a wreck. It’s only by sheer bloody-mindedness that he perseveres and succeeds. The inventors’ song tell us exactly why he carries on:

When it gets distressing it’s a blessing!
Onward and upward you must press!
Yes, Yes!
Till up from the ashes, up from the ashes, grow the roses of success.

This only occurred to me as I watching it, but literally 90% of the male cast has a Tash. It’s therefore hard to choose just one for this week’s TF. The spies and Baron Bomburst, for example, are particularly funny. However, Grandpa Potts wins it both because of this role in the “Grow The Roses” hymn but also because of the line:

“Never say “no” to adventures. Always say “yes”; otherwise you’ll lead a very dull life.”

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It just doesn’t get any better.

Have a fantastic weekend folks!

Keep going!

I ain’t got no worries

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Hey now Tash Appreciators

I was able to finally watch the decider of the NBA Finals this week. It was a close game and LeBron James of the Miami Heat was on top-form. In the end, The Heat were victorious.

I understand from those more knowledgeable than I, that James is one of the top basketball players of his generation. He can apparently sink jump shots even when he’s off-balance when his feet leave the ground. Some go as far as to say that he ‘balls (i.e. plays [basket]ball) so hard that people want to fine him. Lucky for him, first they have to find him.

James was the Most Valuable Player of the Finals:

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As good as he is, James doesn’t always have the support of basketball fans. There seem to be various reasons for this, ranging from the way he left his previous team to him getting too much praise from the media.

In an interview after the decider, when he had been crowned Most Valuable Player and also a league champion (a video of which is on the TF Facebook and twitter page #shamelessplug), James is asked about how he plays and what he thinks about people who boo him from the sidelines. He said this:

“Listen, for me, I can’t worry about what everybody say about me. I’m LeBron James, from Akron, Ohio. From the inner city. I’m not even supposed to be here. That’s enough.

Every night I walk into the locker room I see a No. 6 with ‘James’ on the back. I’m blessed. So what everybody say about me off the court don’t matter.

I ain’t got no worries!”

It’s the last part that I really enjoyed. You can see in his eyes that, at that moment, he really means it: he is totally comfortable with who he is and what he does. In my view, you don’t need to be a superstar basketball player to have that attitude and find that peace of mind. He’s just a man doing what he enjoys and, in his words, “that’s enough”.

Often we – and I’m talking really about younger folk, here – get hung up on what we stand for; what we are defined as; what we put on our Facebook/LinkedIn pages as our profession. I put it to you that if we just concentrated on putting our all into everything we do (regardless of what that is), we’d be free of worries too.

I know what you’re thinking – has LeBron rocked a Tash? Has he ever! A cracking effort, actually:

Tash Friday 5:7:13 2

Just to finish this week, there’s another man who knew the value of being satisfied with life, on the basis that he did things his way. I believe he said: “what is a man [or woman!]; what has he got? If not himself, then he has nought”:

Tash Friday 5:7:13 3

Both Frank and LeBron can’t be wrong: just work hard, do it your way and all will be well.

Have a fantastic weekend folks!

Keep going!

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Redemption squared

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Salut Tash Appreciators,

With the Tour de France starting in Corsica tomorrow, cycling is our starting and ending point this week:

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Courtesy of: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrk_andrsn/

Although that picture includes four world-class riders, it wasn’t taken in France, or anywhere with a particular culture of cycling. It was actually taken during the UK National Road Race last Sunday, which took place in Glasgow.

The front chap, in blue, is David Millar – Scotland’s top road cyclist. Some of you may have heard of him because of his “colourful” past as an ex-doper. He was caught, banned and almost jailed for his part in the doping culture of early 2000s. But since then, he has done more than anyone else in cycling to make/keep it clean. He always been proud of his Scottish background but Sunday seemed to have a special significance for him. You could tell that not only from his performance (which was superb) but also from the tweets he posted after the race:

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There are, as I see it, similarities between Millar and the city he was racing in: both have had a rough time and both looked like their best days were behind them. However, like Millar, Glasgow did itself proud on Sunday. The race itself was fantastic: it was well organised and well supported. But it also seems to have been good for other people too. For a start, it prompted the Council to fix the roads in the centre of town, which is a big deal for the drivers of Glasgow. Not only that, but the Council has carried on with the work and other roads are now being improved. It also got people excited about a sport which is growing in Scotland. I’ve heard stories of customers chatting about the race in shops, and if Instagram and Facebook are anything to go by, many folk who had no interest in cycling enjoyed it almost as much as the sad acts (like me) who watched it from beginning to end.

There are plenty of other things going on in the city at the moment too: the east end is more or less being re-developed for the Commonwealth Games; Strathclyde University is building what seems to be a new campus in the middle of town; and many of the huge tower blocks are being demolished to make way for more sociable social housing. If you look to the east of the country, the new forth crossing (have they picked a name for that yet?) is growing out of the depths at an impressive rate and on an impressive scale and if you look north Aberdeen seems to be booming.

We haven’t had a really positive message from TF for a few weeks now, primarily because there hasn’t seemed to be a lot to be positive about. However, that makes it all the sweeter when you look around and see things improving.

So, to the Tash. Unfortunately, Dave Millar appears to have never rocked a Tash. However, there’s a cyclist who will hopefully be on your screens for the next three weeks who does. I saw him riding in the Giro a few weeks ago and made a quick note of his name. Ladies and gents, this chap must be the happiest looking man ever to ride the Tour, Jose Perez:
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Have a fantastic weekend folks!
Keep going!
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We are still here

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Morning Tash Appreciators,

I must first apologise for this week’s TF hitting your inbox in the “old” format. Technology 1 – TF 0.  

I came across this photo this week:

It’s quite a famous one, called the Pale Blue Dot. It was taken from the Voyager 1 Spacecraft in 1990, when it was around 3.7 billion miles from home. Earth is – surprisingly enough – the pale blue dot about half way down the brown strip on the right of the photo. 

Carl Sagan was so moved by the photo that he wrote this:

“There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.” 

Within the entire universe, the chances of humans (a) coming along and (b) surviving, must have been minuscule. But we are still here. It would be a shame to waste that kind of luck by not taking full advantage of what we have around us. 

The difficulty we mere mortals have is that, as small as it is, we all sometimes feel the weight of the world on our shoulders. For most of us, this is a problem and can make things feel quite unpleasant. After all, we can’t all be as strong as this guy:

 

(that’s your Tash for this week by the way)

Thankfully, in my experience, if you have the weight of the world on your shoulders, the strain can be made manageable if you have at least one other person there to help you carry the burden. I think that’s the kind of thing that Sagan was getting at – we make the most of this Pale Blue Dot when we band together, and help each other through the harder times in life. 

I cant leave this week without saying a few words about James Gandolfini, who died this week. His portrayal of Tony Soprano was some of the most compelling television ever made. He constantly made the audience despise him and root for him all at once. For me, it was all in the eyes – they really were the window to Tony’s soul. It seems that the same could be said for Gandolfini himself:

I know I say this every week, but KEEP GOING!

TF goes “social”

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Morning Tash Appreciators,

Over the last few weeks, a couple of pals of mine have started using social networking as a tool to enhane their professional profile. Many businesses do this is a part of a cringe-worthy attempt to appeal to the “youth” but while these boys see a sound business reason to get involved they’re actually doing it because they want to be involved in conversations about things which interest them. Some of what they’ve been up to is pretty interesting. I only say “some” because I’m sick of hearing about all of the places where their blogs have been read (although the Guatemalan example was reasonably cool).

I’ve been conflicted about whether to get involved in my own way. Social networking in a professional capacity doesn’t hold much interest for me as I’ve got nothing credible to say.  Also, I don’t want to become one of those incredibly irritating, self-aggrandising type people who use facebook/twitter to post “selfies” (see below); pictures of what they had for dinner; and banal comments about there being snow/sun/rain. Example:

 

 
(this is why people don’t like Justin Beiber)

However, folk seem to occasionally get some encouragement or a laugh out of TF. So, in keeping with the spirit of Tash Appreciation, I’m going to have a bash. From next week (technology permitting) TF will have a greater online presence. Hopefully it’ll find it’s way to a few more Appreciators of the Tash.

To allay any fears about what this might involve, TF solemnly swears that the content will not fall into the same category as the garbage listed/pictured above. I’m hoping that maintaining a thin veil of anonymity will assist with that. In fact, there may not be any content. I may find that I never have anything interesting to say. However, let’s give it a go. 

So, after all that, to the Tashes.

 
I was doing a bit of research into what kind of presence the Tash already has online. It turns out, there’s tonnes out there. There are just a couple of examples I wanted to share. I daresay that among the readership of TF there are few single lads and ladies. If that’s the case, could I perhaps point you towards www.stachepassions.com? According to the website, it’s a “100% free social networking & online dating site specifically for singles with a passion for the Stache. Style is a difficult thing to pin down, but there is no doubt among Stache Passions members that there is nothing finer than a good stache.” An example of their advertising:
 

Finally, for this week, is the high water mark for Tash related websites: www.americanmustacheinstitute.org. Its got everything from a history of the American Tash to a campaign seeking tax equity for people of facial hair. There’s also a Tash Open golf tournament in September this year – you won’t want to miss that! After all…

Have a great weekend folks!

Keep going.

What’s his name?

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Good morning Tash Appreciators,

Earlier this week, I had to do google image searches for manly/macho men (don’t ask, but I swear it was legit). 

What struck me about the results of these searches was that although there were one or two familiar faces (Tom Selleck being one, obviously), there were also a whole slew of Tash toting men who weren’t named. They were simply filed under the name “manly man”.

A few examples:

Who are these men? I may simply be ignorant and these chaps are in fact as well known as Tom Selleck, but I doubt it. It’s strange that their names have been lost/forgotten but the fact that they’re proper blokes lives on. 

In classic portrayals of “real” men, such as classic westerns, the hero of the piece is often not named. He just appears, fights off a gang of lesser men and rides off into the sunset. The best example is perhaps Once Upon A Time In The West where Charles Bronson (another classic Tash) is simply listed as “Harmonica”:

 

A more recent example would be Ryan Gosling in “Drive”, where he’s simply “Driver”:

 

There’s something about these characters that appeals to men (and women?). They lack any ego whatsoever, to the extent that they have no name, but they do have a conscience and a depth of character which goes beyond simply what they are known as. 

In an age when every person has to self-publicise themselves and what they do – and when every movement must be documented on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or some other social networking website – it’s reassuring to know that, even on google, a real man can be just be a bloke, without having to provide his life story. If people like his work, great. If they don’t, then that’s fine too. 

I suppose it harks back to simpler times, but sometimes simple would be better. 

Have a great weekend folks.

Keep going!

Salami Tactics

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Good morning Tash Appreciators,

I apologise in advance for this weeks relatively short TF. Unfortunately, firing out this nonsense every week does not pay enough to allow the giving up of the day job or the employing of someone to cook and clean (if I’m honest, it doesn’t pay anything). Actually, the reason for my lack of time this week is that I need to wash and iron a Tash t-shirt for a dress-down-day at work tomorrow. 

I should also apologise to those of you who complained about the lack of a TF last week. The rule is that if I’m not in work, TF gets skipped too. I was in fact out and about in what felt like conditions like these:

 

Thanks to Mission Cycling; everyone’s got to have a dream. 

This week’s TF is just a brief update to alert you to the creeping influence of the Tash around the world. It’s been very apparent this week.  

In the west end of Glasgow, a (very nice) cycling-themed cafe is using the fact that their staff sport Tashes as part of their advertising campaigns:

 

If big Johnny David’s reaction is anything to go by, it’s having the desired effect. 

Our US correspondent has also dispatched a report pointing out that the sexiest man alive (at least according to People Magazine in 2006); and the nicest man on the planet (see Forest Gump, Apollo 13, The Green Mile etc) have been spotted rocking Tashes this week. They are, of course, George Clooney and Tom Hanks:

 

#swoon 

Anyway, my t-shirt is almost dry. Now comes the hard part: ironing. I will need to concentrate so I shall sign off by wishing you all yet another fantastic weekend!

Keep going.

The best small country in the world

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Morning Tash Appreciators,

First on this week’s short agenda is a big “THANK YOU!” to those who sponsored the Etape Caledonia riders last weekend. On the ride itself, records (and bikes) were smashed to pieces and a thoroughly enjoyable – but painful – few hours was spent by all while clattering round the country roads of rural Perthshire. 
Next, I have some bad news and some good news.
In the bad news, it appears that Nigel Farage (the poster boy of closet racists across the country) once attempted to pull off a Tash:

The good news is two-fold: Firstly, Mr Farage has realised that he can’t quite manage to pull off the Tash and has resorted to look which, in TF’s view, is much more fitting for a man of his stature:

The second piece of good news is that Mr Farage visited Edinburgh this week and was given a welcome which must make the Scottish Tash Appreciators amongst us exceptionally proud. According to The Guardian, he was forced to leave a pub on the Royal Mile to chants of, amongst other things, “Nigel, you’re a bawbag, Nigel you’re a bawbag, na, na, na, hey!” It looked like this:
 
 

Sometimes, and quite often when it comes to politics, this wee country of ours just gets it absolutely, positively, spot on. Haste ye back, Mr Farage, we dare you.
 
Nigel Farage cannot be this week’s Tash so here’s something more appropriate: a man standing outside Hampden, rocking a Tash, while wearing Irn Bru sunglasses and a saltire shirt:
 

Have a great weekend folks.
 
Keep going!
p.s. This week’s TF is in no way to be construed as being related to the independence debate.