Walking

I did a couple of days walking the West Highland Way last week.
It was a charity event organised by The Stand to benefit “Barnardos”.
The weather was glorious, and the walk down the whole length of Loch Lomond from Inverarnan to Drymen was spectacularly beautiful.
Well that's all very well, but where were the funnies?
I'd say, the Inversnaid Hotel "lunch experience" deserves a mention.
It’s situated about half-way down the east side of the Loch and immediately brings to mind the building in “The Shining”.
3 of us arrived and made our way to the bar to order lunch.
I was told to remember that my order was “order number 1”.
I was a little surprised that a numbering system was being used, mainly due to the fact we were the only people who on the premises.
We sat outside and awaited our order.
About twenty minutes later a waitress appeared carried two dishes.
Is this for “number 1” I said helpfully.
“What?”
“I was told to remember that we were order number 1!”
“What?
“It’s our order number…number 1”
“You’re number 1? I don’t know what you mean…”
“The barman told me to remember our food order was number 1”
This went on for quite a while…
Eventually, it was firmly established that the food was for us…
However there were only 2 dishes…we were short of one plate of fish and chips…
“I’ll get another one” she said.
Twenty minutes later there was still no sign of my fish and chips.
I decided to go and find out what was happening.
I am an alpha male.
I saw the waitress in question chatting merrily to the receptionist.
“Hello. I just wandered when I was getting my fish and chips?”
“Oh! I’m sorry! I completely forgot! I’ll order it now! I’m sorry…”
I was too stunned to react angrily.
Now these things will happen occasionally in any restaurant.
Admittedly, it is unusual to happen in a restaurant when there is only one table being occupied by customers.
That takes a superior level of incompetence to carry off successfully.
It must be fairly manic in there when they’ve got two, or maybe even three, tables to deal with at a time.
After a couple of minutes reflection, I did feel like smashing the door to the kitchen with an axe, sticking my
head through the hole and shouting “Here’s Jimmy!”, but would that have speeded up the preparation of my fish and chips?
I don’t know…perhaps?
I also found it amusing that many of the people we passed coming in the opposite direction described the walk they’d just done
in terms comparable to a final push for the summit of K2.
Although it is fair to say though that there was the odd exposed 6ft drop, and once we had to use our hands to scramble over a
small boulder.
At this point my life did flash before me.
But overall it was a right old laugh, and I’d like to do the whole thing at some point, and have a dessert at the Inversnaid Hotel.

Yorkshire Tour

I had a one date Yorkshire Comedy Tour last week in Beverley.
The gig itself was great ; although not so great was the 6 hours it took me to drive there as I got caught up in
the Easter traffic. I’ve got a very low boredom threshold, and long journeys do my head in.
It would probably have helped if I’d brought some decent cds to listen to on the way down, rather than the collection
of garbage currently residing in my glove compartment, (I like the way we still quaintly refer to this storage area as the “glove compartment”
in spite of the fact that very few drivers (I suspect) are currently still in the habit of donning “driving gloves”.)
In addition, most of my cds get stuck on certain tracks, and when this happens in the midst of yet another traffic jam…well, it all gets a bit too much for me.
I listened to “The Best of Bananarama” twice.
Desperate.
The gig was a “Buzz Comedy” gig run by the legendary “Agraman”.
He’s a true maverick of the comedy business who delights in the pun.
Most comedy clubs start with a fanfare of loud music, followed by an enthusiastic compere whipping the crowd up into a frenzy, by asking members of the audience where they come from and what job they do.
Agraman is different.
He just appears on stage without any intro, and gradually batters the audience into submission with a long series of terrible puns, and
an innate charm. I really liked his approach, and so did the audience.
They’re obviously very familiar with his style and took it in their stride.
The last time I’d gigged in this neck of the wood was when I’d only done a handful of gigs, and had a spot in Scarborough.
At that stage in my career, I was quite freaked out to discover that there was an audience of 400 at the club.
I talked at 100mph throughout my set, and was told by many people after the gig that they had absolutely no idea what I was talking about as they ouldn’t understand I word I’d said,(they do definitely talk a bit slower in Yorkshire than they do in Scotland).
This time I deliberately slowed down the delivery, and it all went really well.
Rather than immediately embark on the epic journey home after the gig, I decided to get drunk and stay at a B&B in Beverley ; a very pretty town I thought.
It was at this point that I decided to give up smoking (again).
There was no “Marlboro Lights” to be had, so I ended up buying a pack of “Lambert & Butler” out of the machine (£6.20).
I smoked 2, but didn’t enjoy them at all, and ended up throwing the rest away.
£3.10 a fag…
Ridiculous, I thought…that’s it, I’ve had enough of this stupid habit…
It was the latest in a long line of “nicotine epiphany moments”.
Oh well, have now gone 11 days now without smoking with relative ease….(yawn!...I know…I know…)
On the bill with me were Liane Ross, Marc Lucero and Kevin Dewsbury, and extremely funny they all were too.
I noticed that Liane Ross was also dazzlingly attractive.
It’s fair to say that Marc and Kevin were also dazzlingly attractive ; albeit in a slightly less conventional interpretation of “dazzlingly attractive”.
At the end of the show everyone drove off into the night, but I stayed around to have a couple of pints.
Unfortunately, I got locked in a less-than-enthralling discussion with a Beverley-based, ex-pat Scotsman.
His main topic of conversation was the Glasgow Underground.
He maintained, at considerable length, that it was a far superior underground system to the London Underground because in Glasgow ALL of
the track is underground.
London “pathetically” has several stretches of it’s erroneously titled “underground system” which are ABOVE the ground.
We discussed this for a good (I use the term loosely) half-an-hour.
What made Glasgow even better was the fact that they even had to make the trains underground, as there was no other way to get them there.
Rather than starting to self-harm, I made my excuses and left…cleverly getting lost in Beverley (which is a tiny place ; I am an idiot), as I tried to find my B&B

Hello! Hello! We are the silly boys!

Barry Ferguson and Allan McGregor had already annoyed me before “Fingergate” all kicked off last week.
I’d settled down to watch the Holland v Scotland match, with limited expectations..
As “Flower of Scotland” droned away, the camera panned down the line of Scottish players, in the traditional
fashion.
The majority were making some effort to sing along, but right at the end were Ferguson and McGregor, tight-lipped and both displaying
a deeply-negative body language.
With hindsight, this image was the opening scene of a peculiarly Scottish Shakespearian-esque tragedy.
These images are shown on the big screens in the ground, and are an opportunity to connect with the Scottish support , letting them know
that the team are fired up and ready to burst into action.
This was not the subliminal message imparted by Ferguson & McGregor.
They came across as a couple of surly, dim-witted neds being asked to play against their will.
Now, to be honest, I can’t stand “Flower of Scotland”.
For starters, tunes in “waltz time” just don’t work as anthems.
Furthermore, the lyrics are mawkish, browbeaten nonsense.
Yes, we did send Edward homeward to think again, but after thinking for a bit, he came back and whupped our asses.
And, of course I’m sure that the majority of the ancestors of the middle-class, investment bankers in the Tartan Army were in all probability fighting for the Government army at Culloden.
There are so many other things to celebrate positively about Scotland in song.
I think “Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep” by “Middle of the Road” would have more gravitas as an anthem than “Flower of Scotland”,
For example, there’s a wealth of Burns poetry positively celebrating Scotland and mankind (and womankind) in universally appreciated sentiment.
Get some people to come up with some new tunes for them, and let’s get it on.
TV Show to select the winning tune? “You’re Bard!” ?
As a text I really like “A Man’s A Man For A’ That”, but the melody is a bit rubbish, I think.
I hope “Flower of Scotland” gets the boot soon.
Listening to the supporters singing it like a “London’s Burning” round, on International sporting occasions, because they can’t get the timing right (2/4 always works better than ¾ for anthems, ok?), makes me feel like sawing my own head off.
However, in spite of all this, if I was representing my country, I would sing “Flower of Scotland” at the top of my voice, as if I was auditioning
for a Broadway musical.
It’s a no-brainer. Let the opposition know you mean business, THEN lose heavily…
It was annoying to read in the next day’s press that Holland “outclassed” Scotland.
That’s baloney…a distinctly average Dutch team were gifted some soft goals, by an insipid Scottish team led by a ned.
I have to say, I was slightly surprised by the ensuing 8 hour drinking binge.
I thought we’d moved on a bit from the crazed footballer drinking syndrome….but apparently not.
I suppose there still remains a cultural attitude in Scotland that if a bar is open it should be used, regardless of time,(check out the pre-holiday binge drinking going on at 6am at Scottish airports for an example of this phenomenum).
It’s basically the same attitude the over-70s have to toilets.
It’s the stupid factor which really stands out in this instance.
I love the fact that it doesn’t occur to them that remaining sitting in a bar after an all-night drinking sessions, as members of the public appear for lunch,
might not be such a great idea.
And of course after their hilarious “offensive gesture” japes at the Iceland game, they declared open season on themselves.
You’d think anyone in their situation, who regularly have to deal with the media, would realise that as soon as the press published photos of their puerile pranks, they’d have to get out there double-quick with big, big apologies and contrition to every media outlet available.
That’s what the great Max Clifford would have done.
But no, they did nothing, and they got hit with a particularly heavy punishment.
Rangers deserve credit for acting decisively, but you can’t ignore the fact that given Rangers’ disastrous financial position, they’d love to be shot of these two under-performing numpties and their huge (by Scottish standards) wages.
They are expendable, both for Scotland and Rangers.
Their idiotic behaviour unfortunately coincided with a groundswell of opinion that someone should finally take a stand against moronic, out-of-touch, overpaid footballer behaviour.
If I was them, I’d blame the “credit crunch”.
“We’re mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it any longer!….” as someone once said.

Relatively armless

3 weeks ago, I spent an enjoyable Sunday afternoon thrashing about on a drumkit with some musical associates.
This was all fine and dandy, but by the next morning my right shoulder had seized up completely.
I probably should have immediately gone to see a physio, but kept thinking that it was just a minor strain and would soon clear up.
The pain was ok during the day, but at night it was impossible for me to find a comfortable position to sleep (in spite of being loaded up with industrial painkillers).
As a result, I hardly had any sleep for a week…
Lack of sleep is not a lot of fun.
It makes you grumpy (I know..un-BELIEVABLE), tired (obviously), unable to pay attention (even more than usual).
It’s not good.
You get very little sympathy either.
An incredibly short timescale elapses before your friends and aquaintances declare your moaning about the constant pain you’re experiencing to be deeply tedious.
I’ll now always be much,more sympathetic in future to tedious idiots who moan incessantly about their varied aches and pains.
I will, I will…
They are good, gentle people and I was wrong to dismiss them as twats.
Anyway, I was then off to France for a few day’s boarding.
There was sunshine, blue skies and lots of snow, (including one big powder day).
As usual my boarding was at its best over the first couple of days, then gradually began to deteriorate as the fatigue set in.
My unusual “no sleep for a week” fitness preparation didn’t really work out.
I had meant to get a lot fitter for this holiday, but sadly this wasn’t possible.
As ever, I loved it though, and it remains extremely invigorating to be hurtling down slopes in the Alps on a beautiful sunny day.
On my last day, the light went a bit flat, and I succumbed to a few heavy falls…all of them involving landing heavily on my right shoulder…ouch!
I then started experiencing a continual numbness in my fingers, indicating that I had trapped a nerve.
Such is the current strength in my right arm that a mug of tea wobbles about while I drink from it.
For the foreseeable future, I can’t sit beside elderly people in cafes in case my tea drinking technique is misconstrued as a cruel lampooning
of them.
The Chiropractor didn’t seem to help that much, so I made an appointment at a Physiotherapist.
This does seem to have improved things, but the session itself was 40 minutes of sheer torture, pushing me to the absolute limit of my pain tolerance.
Ah “deep tissue massage”, how I love thee so...
As I flew back into Edinburgh from France in a zombie trance-like state, I was cursing the knowledge that I immediately had to travel through to
Glasgow to do a gig, and also the thoughts of other gigs in Glasgow on the following days, made me feel even more weary.
However, the gigs at McPhabbs (“Ding Dong Comedy”) and Bacchus (“Four Play”) were cracking gigs for me.
I have found in the past that sometimes when you feel absolutely zonked and spaced out, it can often lead to really good gigs in the end.
I was also due to perform at Jim Hobbit’s show but had to get bumped as the show was running way over time and I had to head for the hills.
Oh, and I should get the plugging started and say that our show this Fringe is called “Silence of The Trams”, and it will be on at “The Stand 4” from August
7-30 at 6.05pm…
I’ll remind you all nearer the time.