Calm Down Dear, It’s Just A Commercial

It seems like a long time since I last wrote anything substantial here. For a while now everything’s been small of snippets of irrelevance. Gone are the days of… epic snippets of irrelevance. Why is this? Who knows. It is true that many a great incident goes unrecorded…

Like the time Alex Frost and I were drunkenly making our way home when a large grinding noise came from behind us in the night and when we turned round we found ourselves in the process of witnessing a slow-motion bus crash.

I immediately realised the magnitude of the moment and did the correct thing- pointed and laughed through a mouthful of Hula Hoops. It is worth pointing out that the slow-motion nature of the vehicle’s destruction was not, I repeat not, an alcohol induced sensory anomaly. Rather it was the result of a woefully inexperienced bus driver making a horrendous error of judgement. And this error was twofold. In short- his bus clearly didn’t fit and nor was it intended to carry out the particular manoeuvre he had forced upon it. The latter, of course, being based upon Glasgow City Councils demarkation of bus routes. (A fact that was instantly clear to both Alex and myself. Oh, how we laughed incredulously ‘Whaaat? A 66 isn’t even supposed to go this way!’) And no doubt this itself was a result of the former. ie. The council being intelligent enough to draw up bus routes with at least a token acknowledgment of Newton’s laws of motion.

And so it was that we came to be watching a teenage bus driver destroy the vehicle of his livelihood. He had made a ridiculously tight turn (as noted, the wrong turn) and as a result, a large traffic island seized the opportunity to prove to the world that it was much more angular than it looked.

It was in fact gouging a very large hole in the side of the bus. And this was producing the grinding noise that had made Alex and I turn round. And we had turned round just in time to witness the hole turn into a long deep line. A furrow, if you will. This was because the hapless driver was doing what many people seem to do when suddenly confronted with they have bitten off more than they can chew. He was grinning in an inane and embarrassed fashion but carrying on anyway. Almost as if this would make it seem like he though it was okay (he clearly didn’t) and that would somehow actually make it okay. (It didn’t). It made for nothing more than a hilarious and absurd slow-speed crash.
Or like the time that there was a naked man in the hotel across from The Modern Institute.

I was in the office one day, talking to Toby when Claire looked up from her computer and slightly shrieked and sort of nodded and kind of said ‘Ohlookitsanakedman’. To which everyone replied ‘Wherewhere?’

I looked across at the hotel opposite, which is a big new, fancy, glassy hotel. And sure enough, there was one of the guests, sat in a chair by the window, master of all he surveyed, pretty much naked. And again I reacted as I usually do in these types of situation- I pointed and laughed.

It was obvious that the man must have known that if you sit in front of a large glass window with no clothes on that people might see you in your state of undress. It didn’t look at all like accidental nudity. It looked more like knowing, yuppie, power-nudity. So I started to wave.

This perturbed Toby slightly who was still laughing but wasn’t as keen on any sort of acknowledgment of the man’s powers of nakedness. So Toby was laughing and sort of going ‘Oh no, don’t wave, he must think nobody can see’. And I was waving and going ‘What? He’s naked. At the window. Hello naked yuppie’. It was all getting to much really. We were laughing at the naked man and the naked man was starting to talk to himself and fidget.

Thankfully the naked man brought the situation to close. He stood up. And to our (or at least my) relief he was in fact wearing briefs. He was also talking on his cellphone which explains the talking and may explain the fidgeting. Then he just strolled away from the window and that, as they say, was that. Business as usual in The ‘Stute.
I seem to be involved in a veritable cavalcade of unlikely events on a fairly regular basis. Not all of them a great deal of fun it has to be said.

This thought struck me last night when I was at my karate class. And it struck me at precisely the same time as a black belt’s foot. In the throat of all places. (The foot struck me in the throat. The thought struck me in the abstract zone of consciousness that thoughts inhabit). Although it has to be said that this objective, observational thought was quickly replaced by a more emergency style though. Which was itself destroyed by the immediate realisation that I couldn’t breathe.

Being kicked hard in the throat feels like what I imagine being enthusiastically choked must feel like. In fact, I’m sure anyone who has ever been choked would agree that their choking felt very much like having been kicked hard in the throat.

Not any kind of fun. And sore.

Sensei checked that I was okay and although I couldn’t speak and was only getting to grips with breathing again he interpreted this as a sign of general well-being.

So I spent today alternately squeaking and growling when I talked as if my voice had just broken, feeling like I was being stabbed every time I swallowed and with the sensation of having a medium sized pebble lodged in my airway.

So here I sit, chewing on liquorice cats I got in Amsterdam. (The type that an old landlady took such offense to). While the real cat, the Cat-Shape, diligently destroys the catnip I am attempting to grow in his honour.

The liquorice cats- cat shaped liquorice………………………….The actual cat- a cat called Cat-Shape.
Before I sign off, I should also mention that on Tuesday my hair knew the scissor for the first time in many a moon. Not only that, it found out for the first time my admiration of grey hair. So I got it dyed.

Leigh Ferguson, local hairdresser to the gliteratti did the honours. And a damn fine job she did too…
Tomorrow is the Transmission summer party. And it is at the local tennis and cricket club.

So I will go there and drink many many drinks for it is also my twenty-ninth birthday.

Goodnight.