Well, it's been a grim start to 2007.
I was shocked to hear of the tragic deaths of Harry Horse and his wife Mandy on Shetland.
I first saw Harry when he fronted the 80s Edinburgh band "Swamptrash".
Their thang was highly danceable bluegrass, and they all affected to be brothers.
Much as I enjoyed their music, the element of the performance which impressed me the most was Harry's hilarious between-songs banter, delivered in a totally convincing american country boy drawl.
I loved the way he never, ever let his character slip during a performance.
I'm sure he could have been a great stand-up if he'd wanted to.
He played 5-a-side football with us for a while as well, and it's probably fair to say that as a footballer he was a prodigiously talented cartoonist.His cartoons through the years for Scotland on Sunday and the Sunday Herald were always striking and memorable works of art.
One of the last times I saw him was an evening when we had been roped in to go and see a mutual friend in a rather creaky amateur production of "The Sound of Music" in Edinburgh.
During the interval Harry pointed out to me that amateur performers often have a problem of not knowing what to do with their hands.
In this show, a few of the cast held their arms rigidly at their sides, some grasped their hands rigidly together, and some burst on stage with their arms flaying around like a deranged octopus.
He came up with funny classification names for each type (which I sadly can't remember)...
However, I do remember he made me cry with laughter...
It's that inappropriate classroom laughter syndrome, whereby trying to suppress it just makes everything 10 times funnier.
He didn't have a pretentious bone in his body and would always be a model of charm and affability whenever you bumped into him.
A few of us met up last night in a pub to reminisce...
I got rat-arsed and am suffering today...
I can't drink properly any more...
At least, I can start getting smug about not smoking...That's 2 weeks now, and I've taken the decision to bin the packet of fags on the mantelpiece...
I find stopping smoking pretty easy really...I have no cravings at all really to have one...
The problem is I find starting again for no apparent reason very easy as well...if that makes sense...
But anyway, why do people ALWAYS say whenever anything involves fire...that it is "like a scene from Dante's "Inferno"...
Have they ever seen Dante's "Inferno"?
I doubt it...
How would Dante feel about this?
You could also say it is "like a scene from "Towering Inferno"..."
or "like a scene from Dante's "Towering Inferno" ?
or maybe just "there was loads of fire and that everywhere"
I didn't mind too much being back at work...
It was actually quite a good laugh in terms of office banter...
I observed a man who would come and talk to people at their desks periodically.
What was interesting was that he stood very upright with his arms behind his back in a military style.
He would then speak to the person at their desk, but would look straight ahead all the time, never once making eye contact.
It reminded me of the way the Sergeant Major spoke to the concert party on parade in "It Ain't Half Hot Mum!"....
Is there a point to this anecdote?
No.
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