TRADITIONAL SCOTTISH PUB ENTERTAINMENT -- You know, I thought I'd seen just about everything. Well, colour my eyes well and truly opened. My Sunday morning customers have invented a brand new pub sport. Forget pool, darts, cards and dominoes, because pubs the world over will soon be swept by this new phenomenon.

        It began as a bet between a man and his girlfriend. He bet her that she couldn't hold a 10p coin between her tightly clenched buttocks, walk 10 yards, and drop it into a pint glass by un-clenching.

        It certainly must have caught everyone's attention, because within seconds of her attempting to perform this extraordinary feat, there was a crowd around the scene. Men and women being what they are, naturally, they divided themselves into two opposing supports, the women cheering their
sister's every step, and the men rooting for her to fail.

       The woman dropped the coin straight into the glass, and a rivalry was instantly born. "That's easy!" "That's nothing!" "I could do THAT", came the male cries. Cue the mass female response. "Oh no, you couldn't!"

        Within minutes of the initial bets being made, sides were being chosen, judges were being appointed, and all manner of rules were being passed concerning distance, clenching, squatting and scoring. And so the challenge was underway. A grudge match to end all grudge matches. With every 'chink' of coin meeting glass, a huge cheer, with every dull thud of coin meeting dancefloor wood, a groan.

        I watched and listened intently as the 'match' progressed. Call me a student of human nature, if you will. Just like Randal in 'Clerks', I like to expand my horizons.

        "He's always finishing too soon!", exclaimed one woman as her husband dropped his coin somewhat short of the mark. Men all around cringed as every woman added some remark about THEIR man. Good taste prevents me from re-printing some of the comments made by the men, regarding the equipment of their female counterparts for this 'sport', but let us just say that a number of men were worried that their partners may somehow lose their coins "up there"...

        For anyone interested, the ladies' won by a considerable margin, which does give some credence to a theory that I have about women. But that's another story.

        The part I need your help with, gentle reader, is coming up with a name for this new pastime. My initial thought is "Ass-Coin Golf", but I know there has to be something more fitting than that. If you can coin (pardon the pun) a phrase to describe this, mail it to me at scott.b6@ukonline.co.uk, and I'll list the best entries next time.

        Now, if you'll pardon me, I'm off to wash my hands. Handling small change can sometimes be a messy job.  

CHEESE, ANYONE? -- These club bands are a breed apart. They're really quite astonishing. Imagine how far it's possible to go from the cutting edge.  That's where they exist, somewhere between cheesy Vegas cabaret and  middle-of-the-road easy listening pap.

        "Haaaaands.... touching hands.... reaching out.... touching me.... touching yoooooooo..... Sweeeeeeet Caroline... gooooood times neh-veh felt so gooooooood!"

        These men are cheesemongers. Overlords and purveyors of cheese, if you will. Flabby, drunk middle-aged men with bad haircuts playing cheesy cabaret versions of songs that were no good to begin with. Where do these people come from? Is there a special exam you have to take at a music
college somewhere before they let you loose on the club circuit? I can almost picture the scene, a classroom full of fat middle-aged men, squeezing into those seats with the desks attached to them that you used to find in schools (remember those ones with the horrible wooden seats that made your
behind sweat in the summer?) Meanwhile, a man with a black robe and a mortar board on his head stands in front of a blackboard with a pointer, tapping out the words on the blackboard as the class repeat, machine-like, "Hev-hery-thing hah dooo, hah doo-wit faw-haw yooo". Astonishing.

        No!!! Not 'Loch Lomond'. Not again. I don't think I could take the pain of it. They do tend to milk this one when they play it. They all do. I guarantee it. Every bad band which has ever played the Scottish club circuit WILL play 'Loch Lomond' near the end of their set. It is the unwritten law
of the circuit. Etched in tablets of stone. Is, was, and shall always be. The punters must be upstanding and make for the dance floor, where they shall form a huge circle, hold hands, sing, punch the air, and occasionally chant as one, an anti-English remark. Men with thistles tattooed on their hands, REAL patriots, bond with men, united in their hate for the English.

        Scotland is a strange place, and the people even stranger.
 

Previous Installments