Time for a long dispatch, methinks.
To kick things off - Sebastian Horsley on prostitutes. I post it without comment, but this man had himself crucified for art. I heard him originally on Jeremy Vine's radio show on Wednesday (now, alas, gone from the web), and was laughing out loud as I wondered if he was playing the odious misogynist as performance art. If so, I don't think Vine was in on the joke....
Wednesday saw one of my more bizarre engagements, as I headed to the 5th Annual Club 21 Networking Dinner. Highlights included a lovely starter and dessert, though the less said about my attempts to pretend to enjoy the salmon fillet main course the better.
After a few hours of professional-grade smalltalk, I headed over to Curlers to hook up with the Level 4 assemblage - it was good to meet up with old friends again, including Lucas and Colleen, whom I'd not seen for months. It was then onto the QM for ridiculous dancing and suspicious looks from the guy on the door. Never trust a dapper man.
Suspicious behaviour of a whole other kind was the order of the day at Hampden yesterday. On a favour to my brother, I had gone down to try and procure three tickets to the Norway match in a fortnight. When I phoned up, I was politely informed that the ticket office would be open until 5 p.m., so I headed down there for quarter-to-five.
The car park outside the south stand was a surreal sight. Groups of people were milling around, but there wasn't any event on. I strode purposefully over to the main entrance, and thought I heard somebody speaking to me, but carried on, as it seemed unimportant. Then, two men accosted me, saying, "Excuse me, are you the Real Radio fugitive?"
It fell into place - there was one of those radio competitions going on, where one has to risk making an arse of oneself, in order to secure a token sum of money with which to brighten up one's mundane life. I chuckled, said "No," and carried on.
At the entrance, the security guard stopped me and asked, "Excuse me, sir. Do you have any business with Hampden?" Thinking it a bizarre question, and momentarily perplexed, I replied, "Durrrr. Tickets."
Satisfied, he pointed me at the door for the tickets, and I carried on. It was locked. "What gives?" I asked the officious twunt on security. "It's closed," he said. "But it's open 'til five," quoth your hero. "He must have closed early, then."
It's no wonder that our national football team is so awful, when these are the front-of-house staff that the SFA employ. He claimed to be unable to let me in the other way, "because of the Real Radio fugitive thing." I stormed off in a huff, and treated further "Excuse me, are -" overtures with less courtesy than I would show to a crack-fiend beggar that had just soiled itself.
Good news for Glasgwegian patriots today. It seems the dear green place has beaten Edinburgh to secure the Scottish 2014 Commonwealth Games bid. Score one for Glasgow!
Speaking of Edinburgh, I was over there on Tuesday night, and where should I have had dinner but Frankie & Benny's? You know the drill.
At which point, I shall draw things to a close. National Pop League is on tonight, so I'm heading to Woodside. But I will return.
Cheers,
Derek.
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