Apologies for my absence from these "pages". There are many reasons for this but, in order of importance, the main ones are as follows. 1. I have been in a dwam for two months, caused by my sense of bafflement at the Scottish election result. 2. My computer, which is really an adding machine with a portable television Sellotaped to the side, has been suffering from foot-and-mouth disease,and has been held in isolation in the table tennis room at the Community Centre while "experts" assessed whether it was safe to release it back into the community (only doing so when I persuaded them that the explicit downloads which soiled my hard drive were, in fact, pop-ups which popped up without any encouragement, or understanding, from me.) 3. I have been in extensive rehearsals for an adaptation of my as-yet unpublished autobiography, And Not For The Better.
On all three of these matters, I can now report some progress. 1. My dwam has not weakened, but I now have a better understanding of the nation's politics. Roughly speaking, the electorate has no idea what it is doing, but in elections to the Scottish parliament, it is relaxed about the outcome, because it makes only a symbolic difference, and in the matter of symbols, the Scottish National Party is stronger than the Scottish Labour Party, which was, and is, unsure whether it is New or Old Labour, Scottish or British, or whether it aspires to represent the labouring classes, who are mostly Polish, and not registered to vote.
2. I have a new computer. I have no idea how it works, but I have written to my dentist asking for reassurance that it is not to blame for my teeth turning blue.
3. Due to an administrative error caused by a misuse of "Google" on my new computer, I accidentally booked my show into the 1966 Festival Fringe. This inadvertent distortion of the space-time continuum was accompanied by an outbreak of motion sickness, from which I have only just recovered.
However, having returned reluctantly to 2007, I will now be applying my forensic appreciation of the dramatic arts to this year's festival. Unless I stay in and watch Bargain Hunt, which is distinctly possible.
6 comments:
You have been missed! Don't do it again.
Welcome back Mr Elder, one was beginning to fear you had trapped an arm in the sideboard with only the lid of a soor ploom tin to use as a makeshift amputation device.
I had feared you had gone down the next inevitable rung of life's slippery ladder, i.e. from elder to expired.
I am relieved to see that this was not the case, and that your absence was only due, as usual, to your chronic bewilderment with all things mechanical, and your increasing inability to come to terms with living in Scotland the 21st century, although I'm somewhat surprised the 21st century has actually dawned in Peebles, that bonnie wee toon....
As an expatriate Scot and former raggedy-arsed Peebles urchin, I rely on you, Kirk Elder, to occasionally give me a wee clue as to the true beat
of Scotland's heart, cholesterol-laden though it may be. In your absence I've had to fall back on reading "The Scotsman" for the last couple of months. Please don't put me through that again.
You briefly touched on Foot & Mouth. Since coming to "power" (inverted commas denote brand name - the position does not guarantee real power) Gordon Brown has had to deal with 2 major incidents of biblical flooding, 2 terrorist attempts (admittedly half-arsed), and now Foot & Mouth. Can we assume that Tony Blair talks to God after all?
P.S. As mentioned in other comments above, you have been sorely missed.
I am honoured, and somewhat chastened by all of these warm comments. I should disappear more often.
Welcome back. You're one of my principal sources for gauging the pulse of life north of the border.
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