Wiseman’s Back, and Broon the Parsnip

The Northern Ireland trip passed off peacefully. It was great. In fact it was dead-on, so it was. There have been some changes since my last proper visit (where a proper visit is defined as lasting more than 24 hours). The now relatively well-established peace (I describe it thus with some caution, as our Admin Supremo, volatile enough to spark a civil war in Switzerland, is actually holidaying VERY NEAR to the province at this very moment) has caused house prices to sky rocket. However, some things remain the same. You still get offered a choice of chips or rice with your Chinese takeaway.

I made my escape back to Scotland and drove straight to the Strathclyde Hilton, where an old friend was having a ceilidh to celebrate her recent marriage. Needless to say, with dancing to be had, much of the chatroom was present. Jen, on her way rather predictably to the bar with a couple of friends, where she was no doubt planning to convince someone to buy her a drink, was accosted by an older gentleman and his mates.

“It’s alright, ladies, I’m HERE,” he announced.

“YESSSS!” replied Jen, rather more audibly than she might have planned, while punching the air triumphantly. Whether the trace of sarcasm in this response was picked up or not was unclear, and she spent the rest of the night looking nervously over her shoulder.

Wiseman, out of circulation of late due to spending time with the missus, no longer has a missus to spend time with, and hence had to make do with our company instead. Having booked some rooms at the hotel and stayed overnight, I got up early and sneaked into the gym the next morning to watch the great man at work.

A picture speaks a thousand words, they say.

Tonight I made my yearly visit to my mum’s GB Display. The GB is an organisation for young girls that gives them something to do besides buying shoes and talking about Big Brother, namely playing games and learning about God, and their Display is the annual end of year show. I realise that openly admitting that I spent the evening watching young girls cavort about a hall might not do any good to either my credibility or my status with Disclosure Scotland, but I can only protest my innocent involvement as the musician. Don’t shoot me, I’m only the piano player. I might hope that Broon, who was also present, would back me up here, but realise that my acerbic character profiling might just come back and bite me on the bum. Oh well, such is the lot of us satirists.

Mum, who is captain of this particular company of girls, waited until halfway through the minister’s opening prayer before deciding to check if the radio mic was working. She switched it on and blew hard into it. It was working, what’s more it was turned up quite high. After the subsequent explosion she turned and smiled, apparently pleased that the whole hall now knew the PA was switched on.

We moved on to the first song, during which my music book made several attempts to pitch itself headlong onto the keys. My playing wasn’t that great, I’d be the first to admit, but I didn’t consider it so bad that the music book itself would seek to intervene and call an abrupt and atonal end to matters.

These evenings tend to include games with audience participation. Early on in the night we witnessed a game which involved one of the leaders “making soup” by waving her arms vigorously as a number of girls-pretending-to-be-vegetables ran round her at speed, before they shot off back to the corners whence they came.

“You got the idea?” she asked the audience, confidently. I chanced a look across to Broon, skulking in the back row on the opposite side of the hall. Broon clearly had as much idea what was going on as I did. Which was unfortunate, as shortly afterwards she was deemed to be a leek and was summoned onto the floor. It wasn’t long before she got confused and tried to pass herself off as a parsnip (no-one was fooled), and ended up back in her seat red-faced.

And that’s about it. Colin Eye informs me that the pesky IT people at his workplace have blocked his ability to make comments. Perhaps they have read your comments, Colin. One can only surmise how long you can remain in the Cabinet without being able to make comments… shame really, since you’ve just made it in. And it’s such a nice photo…

22 thoughts on “Wiseman’s Back, and Broon the Parsnip”

  1. it’s been a while, so it has.

    delighted to see you returned with the usual suspects intact. also delighted you went to the gym.

    however, your voyeuristic tendencies are showing themselves again… which leads me to wiso.

    wiso, wiso, wiso. let’s hope he doesn’t spend too long looking out of windows and gets back to the task in hand.

    drink beer, eat empire biscuits and irritate Q.

    peace

    W

  2. I thought Jen “looking nervously over her shoulder” was one of her new dance moves. Just goes to show. On the subject of new dance moves, it was interesting that, during the “disco” part of Saturday night’s festivities, the dance moves on display ran out after about 10 minutes. The band therefore had to be compelled to return to resume with decent ceilidh tunes to which one could actually dance. Once again, the superiority of the traditional over the new & shallow was comprehensively demonstrated. I now await the “whatever” comment from Jen 🙂

  3. Thanks for that Andrew. In my defence, I did become a winning leek (based on my understanding of the game). On the subject of winning games, when are you planning on filling everyone in on your moment of glory? Mum’s the word (or should that be Mummy…?)

  4. Hmmm. Wot r u doing posting comments at pumpkin time Broon? Shouldn’t you be tucked up in bed like all good girls at that hour?? But I am intrigued by the mystery of Quinn’s moment of glory. Do tell…

  5. DC – We DID NOT run out of dancemoves! It was the number of people/BOYS! on the dancefloor that was lacking, not the quality of the dancemoves!!!!!

  6. I see Jen’s schizophrenia has continued to develop! Another personality and illusions of grandeur that her fits on a dancefloor somehow consitute as “dancemoves”.

    Yes everyone, be joyful: I am commenting!! Your help was appreciated kenny d but sadly the corporate giant I work for was not to be outfoxed. Thankfully I do have a computer at home that, although unbelievably slow, does allow me to post comments.

    I now feel under pressure to say something worthwhile?

    That is a great photo Andrew, really appreciate it. I shall have to get my revenge by thrashing you on the squash court again. I may even win some games. Given your reluctance to play again though this could be some way off.

    Two excellent posts, your increased productivity is to be commended, keep up the good work.

  7. Colin, I am disappointed that my wee hint didn’t do the trick 🙁 Oh well, I tried.

    by the way, if Jen is suffering from anything it would be Dissociative Identity Disorder(DID) formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder. Schizophrenia is completely unrelated and the symptoms are very different. I think the confusion arises from Schizophrenia being commonly know as ‘split personality’ but the split in Schizophrenia(which literally means “spilt mind”) is between thought and emotion, not between distinct personalities.

    I’m sure no one is really interested but I thought I’d take the opportunity to educate Andrew’s vast readership anyway.

  8. OK Jen, I see where you’re coming from. As with everything else, it’s the boys’ fault 🙂 Although I must say that it did look as if the dance move that was on display by the end was the “aimless sway” beloved of handbag circlers around the world.
    And Ken, thank you for the education. Always good to increase one’s level of knowledge.

  9. So many reasons to be joyful with this little entry, eye eye.

    Ah Wiseman. I almost spluttered out my mouthful of half-masticated apple when I saw that picture.

    Love it.

    Jen. Keep up the dancemoves – Mandy’s got a few fabulous ones she can share if you ever DO get to the stage of running out of moves.

  10. Diana – thanks for the affirmation!

    Andrew – please evict Colin

    DC – If the dance moves on display were dimishing in quality you should have inspired us – I cant believe you and aq let such a good opportunity to try out your new ‘dancemoves’ go by!

  11. well… come on then Broon – or should we ask Mrs Q to spill the beans?!

    PS Thanks for the informative comment Kenny D.

  12. maybe I’ve no right to ask, but who’s Mrs Q….?

    and I may have to take issue with “As with everything else, it’s the boys’ fault”. Perhaps a little understatement here, methinks.

    All in all, Q seems to have developed a great social networking discussion board – just need to get a trendy .com name and he’ll be laughing…

    keep up the excellent work (and remember us if you do make that third million).

  13. The Weir:

    I would imagine Mrs Q is surely Mrs. Quinn? otherwise known as ‘Mum’ on this blog. Unless Andrew has managed to find himself a wife in the past week or so?

  14. Diana, I think this is one best left to the imagination. A few words, however, to focus your thoughts: competition, Egypt, giant toilet roll, Andrew…
    A good time to be the one skulking in your seat 🙂

  15. Weir – not quite sure about your “perhaps a little understatement” remark. Are boys responsible for more than everything? This could take us to an even higher level of hitherto unimagined guilt. Obviously not instant guilt though.

    Andrew – I think you need to make a clarificatory statement so that those of us who are in the dark can be enlightened. Maybe we should have quizzed you last night once it got to 11 p.m.

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