Bloody Scotland

So there was I chatting to Ian Rankin over lunch with the volcanic rock and outline of Edinburgh Castle as my backdrop waiting for someone to pinch me. A pencil in the ribs. Something.

The occasion was the annual dinner for the Scottish chapter of the Crime Writers’ Association. The numbers were down because of the appalling weather, but those in attendance –among others - also included Alex Gray, Lin Anderson, Gordon Brown, Aline Templeton and Caroline Dunsford.

What was Mr Rankin saying to me? Lips. Sealed. What happens in Edinburgh, stays in Edinburgh and all that. Well, actually we talked football (soccer) and drinking mens’ clubs. The latter have been a bit of a tradition in Edinburgh over the centuries and are basically an excuse – like we need one – for men to get together, chat about the issues of the day and get as drunk as lords. Did you know they used to provide wine glasses with no base – so you couldn’t put your glass down until it was empty.

Apparently, back in the day – even in Robert Burns’ day actually, they used to employ servants to sit under the tables. Their job was to wait until their lord and master passed out, fell of their chair and landed on the floor and then to unloosen their cravat to make sure they could breathe and didn’t drown in their own vomit. 

They provided a precursor to the recovery position, if you will.

The chat among the Crime Writers was mainly about plans for the first ever festival of Scottish Crime Writing. The event will be called Bloody Scotland and will happen in September 2012. This celebration is in the early stages of planning and I’ll keep you posted. The weekend promises to be something special, so if you are a fan of Scottish crime fiction and you are looking for an excuse to visit our green and handsome shores you now have one.

Saturday was work xmas party time. This was held in a local conference centre where around 3,000 people from a variety of employers/ employment turned up to take part in the revelry.

It takes a pretty slick operation to feed that many people a three course meal and then offer them musical entertainment. Don’t you think the quality of the food always suffers in these type of evenings? You want gourmet? Go to a restaurant. You want food that will soak up the party juice, then you won’t be disappointed. You just have to accept that the meat will be as dry as an old slipper and the vegetables will have the texture of a swamp.

It always amuses me at these events to see how much effort the women go to with their party frocks, hair styling and ...all that other stuff and then compare that to the (majority of) men who settle for a shower, quite possibly a shave and just about to manage to run an iron over their favourite jeans.

For the record, I was wearing a new suit, shirt and tie. An ensemble which only lasted for the time it took to walk through the door, check my coat in at the cloakroom and take a seat with my friends and colleagues.  Swear to god, I thought I’d walked into a sauna. The heat was incredible. The organisers might say that they need to put the heat up so that the women are comfortable in their backless, shoulder-less, short dresses. The cynic might suggest that the increased heat would drive people to the bars and the watered-down booze. The realist would argue that, as a crowd, we didn’t need that added inducement.

To be fair there was a fair amount of cloth missing from the female population. And those I did miss, my friend (let’s call her M.D.) was perched at my side to point out the high and low lights with such pronouncements as “Would you look at the nick o’ her!” or ‘Nice set of jugs on the girl at 3 o’clock. And at nine o’clock.” Or the fatal judgement;  “Mutton. Dressed. As. Lamb.”

What’s wrong with a nice bit of mutton, I say. And maybe I’m going out on a limb with this opinion – I like to live dangerously, it’s how I roll – but listening to these comments made me realise that women don’t dress to impress men. We just like to kid ourselves that you do. No the truth is that women dress to impress each other. Or at the very least to silent any possible bitchy comments.

Tell me I’m wrong.

But then, the devil on my shoulder asks, what about the yards of cleavage on display? Surely that’s not for other women?

It is?

Oops, I did it again...

If you were ever under any doubt about how hypocritical the Brits are, just look up any of the press coverage of Gordon Brown’s faux pas this week. If you just crawled out from under your mattress (and we could forgive you during electioneering time) and missed this, he was recorded having a wee chat with an old lady and afterwards, thinking his microphone was switched off – naughty, naughty broadcasters we can see how your minds were working here – he complained about being set up with such an interview saying that the old lady was a bigot.

The press went into meltdown. Gordon Brown was a mess, he should be locked up, he was the worst thing to hit politics since a certain Austrian midget grew a moustache and hypnotised a nation.

C’mon people...let he/she who is without gravel cast the first stone. Sorta.

Yes it was a mistake. And yes, he should know better, but has ANYONE, ANYWHERE in the planet, in the course of their daily lives not done something similar? That polite face we show to people we would much rather not be close enough to spray with our spittle is what lubricates society. Otherwise we’d constantly be at each other’s throats.

On the other side of the pond, Joe Biden is garnering a reputation for making the odd gaffe.

Witness:

"Stand up, Chuck, let 'em see ya." –-Joe Biden, to Missouri state Sen. Chuck Graham, who is in a wheelchair, Columbia, Missouri, Sept. 12, 2008

"This is a big fucking deal!" --Joe Biden, caught on an open mic congratulating President Barack Obama during the health care signing ceremony, Washington, D.C., March 23, 2010

I myself have been guilty of it on many occasions, and on many occasions even within earshot of the person concerned. And *he blushes* often directly to them – it’s a wonder I can even speak at times what with my foot being so firmly wedged in my mouth.

One time, more than a few years ago I was at the movies with my then-wife waiting for the film to begin, when one of my friends and his brother walked past on the way to their seats. The lights were still blazing so we couldn’t not see each other.

Some backstory is required here. Said friend had just been jilted by his fiancée, a week before the wedding. This particular night, on which fate contrived to bring us all together, was supposed to be the stag. So instead of a night down the town, pickling my kidneys and humiliating the groom by stripping him and wheeling him down the high street in a cage...I was at the cinema with my good lady.

“Hey,” my friend said when he saw us, his face as long as a weekend stuck in a lift with David Cameron.

Me and the missus just stared at him. We hadn’t seen him since his intended broke his heart. There was an awkward silence that stretched out for the length of time it could have taken for the movie’s opening credits to roll past. The planets yawned and stretched. Several species of insect died out in the Amazon. I grew a five o-clock shadow. The extended version of Bohemian Rhapsody played through the cinema loudspeakers.

Eventually, thinking that somebody HAD to say something and that someone HAD to be me, I nodded towards the giant screen and with an expression that mingled sympathy, humour , gormlessness and a touch of heartburn said...

“This beats going out on a stag night, eh?”

My wife elbowed me in the ribs, the brothers walked past after shooting me the “what an asshole” look, my entire head blushed as brightly as a belisha beacon and then... only then did the fecking lights dim.

So Gordie, (and Joe) you have my sympathy.

(In the interests of having some form of dialogue with you lovely people, why don’t you fess up and tell me of a time when you put your foot in it, here in the privacy of this wee blog? You first EW. You MUST have loads of stories to tell.)