Rab McNeil

BY the time you have this column read to you, I will have been back in the big city for one of your Earth days. Booked myself into a cheap hotel, as Covid meant I couldn’t stay with friends. Covid? That’s the worst excuse yet.

The week beforehand has mostly been spent on email with a bunch of mates trying to organise a way of seeing our footer team on the telly as they play in the cup today. At the start, none of us was sure what the current Covid restrictions actually are.

You can get a drink in a restaurant, right? Nope. No matter. They’ll be showing the game, at least in the partisan places that we know? Nope. We can get a pint outside where someone might have a screen or have put one up at the windae? Nope. Can’t find such a place.

We can stoat aboot the streets, watching it on one of our number’s mobile? Well, theoretically. But the game is on a channel that requires a subscription which is notoriously difficult to cancel.

It’s an absolute scandal how football has been denied us like this by these commercial channels, particularly during a pandemic where we need access to an alternative world of rules and beauty.

One of our number out in the sticks does have the channel, but he’s hardly going to want to come into town and watch it on a teeny portable telephone with three mates standing on a street corner when he can watch it on a big screen in the hoose.

What a palaver. None of us is sure who can be in who’s hoose but, at the least, it doesn’t look like you can entertain a gang armed with cairry-oots. At the time of writing, we’ve given up on the chance of getting together for the match. Our telly, like our tea, is oot, and we’re now trying to organise a post-match coffee somewhere later in the week.

Still, I’m looking forward to my stay. There is a mission behind it. I left a pile of belongings and other junk in a mate’s garage for a couple of weeks. Alas, that was five years ago and, as they now have plans for the garage, I’m going to have to remove it, cramming as much as I can into my wee saloon car and bringing it all home to sit on the floor somewhere.

During my stay, I shall, of course, visit Marks and Spencer, assuming it’s open. Recently, I have decided to overhaul my pants, as some of them remember The Beatles and still stand to attention when the National Anthem comes on.

On the vexed question of Ys, boxers or briefs, I remain undecided, perhaps going for a variety. The one condition is that they make me look slim and sexy, so I will consult the staff at the counter, and other shoppers, before making my choice.

Presumably, they will let me wear them around town for a few days before making a final decision.

I shall also be buying a fish supper several

times. Haven’t had one for over a year. The Samaritans are sick of hearing from me about it. My mate says there’s a braw chippie near where I’m staying (in Leith, natch), and I guarantee you that they will have enjoyed or suffered my custom by the time you are digesting this column with your morning doughnut and sherry.

Other than that, I am really looking forward to the peace and quiet of the city. I shall visit two of my favourite public gardens (Inveresk Lodge and Lauriston Castle). I’m having to let down millions of folk that I won’t be able to see, as I just won’t have time, what with having to work most of the week, as usual.

But it’s going to be a blast in a mask, with a change being as good as a wotsname an’ all.

Egg on my face

CALL me curmudgeonly, but I think it unlikely that I will be smashing ostrich eggs onto my coupon any time soon.

This is the latest anti-ageing potion to hit the market though, to be fair, it comes already mashed into a cream and will sell for just £180 a pot when released later this month. I’d probably choose it over snail slime, right enough.

I always liked the CS Lewis book title Till We Have Faces, being his retelling of the myth of Psyche and Cupid (“How can [the gods] meet us face to face till we have faces?”). I think it refers to wearing masks which I guess, in a sense, folk dousing themselves in beauty products do.

I’m not agin such practices. If it makes things better aesthetically, why not?

But I’ve often thought that, at least when it comes to mine, faces are a pain in the butt. I have, I must say, enjoyed wearing a mask during the Time of Covid.

Not only have those provided warmth to my ice-cold proboscis in winter, but they have disguised my unappealing countenance, leading to people accepting me more in public and not pelting me with soft fruits.