November 2003
38
R. Linda:
I went on a rather amazing trip to Scotland in September. That was truly a lot of fun and I needed fun. I had written the former BBC reporter (you remember him from Portadown? I ran into him at Logan Airport when I took me cousin Sean there for his flight back to the old country. He was very nice, did remember me, etc., etc., etc., and we exchanged email addresses) about a business matter I thought he would be interested in. In the process, we established a good rapport. He invited me on a venture to Edinburgh if I could get the time off. I did, meeting him at Logan Airport he was accompanied by a young lad he was friends with from London.
The reporter was actually working, the other chap was a young lad whose father is a London editor for a publishing house over there. They have in common the lad's stepmom was once the reporter's wife. The lad was attending school in the States and going home to visit. The reporter was in Boston and since the divorce is amicable he and the ex-wife sans step-mummy are good friends, he offered to make sure the lad got back to London safely. Then he was going on to Scotland on business and offered to take me with him in order to introduce me to some people that I was doing an investigative report on, regarding the Royal Bank of Scotland and its trading practises.
Now that prelims are out of the way, I met the reporter who I shall call Jordie at the terminal. We were about to board when the younger of our group finally made his appearance. There he was a blond-haired lad, tall, slender, and wearing a kilt! Yes, Linda, full-blown royal Stewart kilt, sporran and all. Making his apologies, and getting shoulder to shoulder with us, we made it to the plane. I did notice the women ogling the lad's fine figure in his Scottish national dress. I was so glad he wasn't Greek, we know what the national dress of a Greek man looks like. A tutu with tights and funny hats.
The trip was uneventful but for the young lad who has the ferret nickname Weasil (with an i, not an e) as his nickname. Does he look like a weasel? No, not really. The name he got from being able to hack expertly into computers. He was one of those, without the glasses and nerdy appearance. You'd never suspect that such a fine-mannered lad would be a "hacker" of computers. But the one giveaway was his mode of speech. Oh, you've seen it online, the chatrooms are full of people who write like this: I aint goin an dats dat an iffy ya think yer better an me jus try ta outwit da weas." Uh-huh. Well, Linda, HE TALKS LIKE THAT as well as writes it. This is from an over-educated, smart-as-a-whip young man, from a wealthy London family. His FATHER is a book publisher for crying out loud and he talks like he's a Roxbury punk.
Anyway, when we got to London, the lad went to see his father and we left to get our train tickets on the Flying Scotsman to Edinburgh. We arrived at Victoria Station and spent an hour waiting for our train, and as we boarded, we heard, "HOLDIE DA TRAINEE," and flying at us was the young Weasil, backpack over his shoulder, kilt swinging provocatively in the breeze. I won't subject you to his speech but basically, he told us he wanted to go with us, he would visit his step-mum in Edinburgh. Well, okay.
We got to Edinburgh and Jordie had business on his own he had to attend to and I decided to sightsee. The Weasil was going to show me where the Witchery Restaurant was so I could meet up with Jordie later. Well, upon getting up to the place which is next to the castle, he spies the Whiskey house. Without a blink, he pulls me in for the whiskey tour. Now mind you it is still morning. I saw it and said we'd be sampling whiskey and seeing it was 11 a.m. I wasn't up for it. Well, he was and we did. I saw no breakfast and didn't care if I saw anything. I was blinded by drink. Me head was spinning and to top it off, after they ply you with smelling, tasting, and admiring, all the Scottish malts, they stick you on a ride (like Disney World's House of Horrors), where you get a holograph behind a bar that talks about whiskey past, and by the time you get off of it, you don't remember a thing of where you've been and what you've been doing. I got off thinking I was in Orlando, but the landscape didn't look quite right.
In this besotted condition, we both met up with a very sober and sarcastic Jordie for luncheon. And what did we do, ordered the strongest malt whiskey to accompany the haggis and lamb shanks we could find. Finally, after the hilarity between the Weasil and meself got too much and too loud, Jordie had had enough and left us to our own recourse, which since we were so near the castle, is where Weas and I headed. I can't tell you a bloody thing about the inside, just that it was dark! Me brain was sloshing about in 100-proof alcohol and memory, well there wasn't any.
The rest of me stay was equally a good time since I discovered that Weasil IS the original Good Time Charlie if ever there was an individual by that name -- HE IS IT! He's a rascal, a good-looking one, a bit Leonardo DiCaprio-like, so you know he had the lassies all a-twitter. Add to that Jordie's good looks and that they are head turners for the female population, which helped make it most desirable for me to be seen with them both.
With all the drinking we did in Edinburgh, I don't remember much about the place. We left for London after three days of drunken stupor (well Weasil and I at least, Jordie, not so much), to find we weren't as sober as we thought, because upon crossing the Tower Bridge, sitting in a glass box, was the magician David Blaine. I thought I was seeing things. I took pictures and the Weasil mooned him, which brought the police on us but Weas outran them with his pants down. His arse made the newspaper the next day it did. I did make like I didn't know him, and Jordie was somewhat mortified and had disappeared inside a Starbucks where I think he was wishing he had something stronger than coffee to drink.
The next thing was that Weasil wanted Jordie and me to take a tour of Nottingham. It is an evening of carousing (you were expecting something else?) in Sherwood Forest with Robin Hood and the Merry Men. Jordie wasn't wanting any part of the Merry Men, but Weasil was looking for a good time so he could tease us about it later, if for nothing else. However, the tour was filled (why?) and we decided to take ourselves to a place suggested by Jordie, that would supply the frivolity Weasil was looking for.
So off we go to Katherine's Docks to a medieval fun fest called King Henry's Feast. It was another rousing evening of getting drunk with King Henry and his entourage. The King would come to the middle of the room, raise his glass and shout, "Wassail!" and everyone was to drink their goblet. He did this ten times within five minutes at one clocking, and don't you know the wenches were right there with more pitchers of ale or wine to pour into our empty goblets. Talk about spinning eyeballs!
I ended up dancing with Katherine of Aragon, getting dressed in a long robe with an appropriate hat and being the butt of the King's jokes. It was all in good fun and Jordie did manage to get Weasil up in front of everyone for a sword fight. It was fun watching the lad and the Black Knight. The Knight made a great show of his clanging sword ringing it out of its scabbard and parrying at the air. Weasil was given a piece of plywood cutout to look like a sword and the look on his face was priceless. They swung at each other's heads, and Weasil did a decent parry of the Knight's advances. He was quick-tongued and quick-witted and the actors took a liking to him. Every time the surrounding Knights had some crazy comment, they'd add Weasil's name to it and my ribs were aching from laughing so much.
Speaking of Kings, I think it will be Burger King for me tonight.
Picture of David Blaine that day we came upon him hanging from a crane by the Tower Bridge.
R. Linda:
I went on a rather amazing trip to Scotland in September. That was truly a lot of fun and I needed fun. I had written the former BBC reporter (you remember him from Portadown? I ran into him at Logan Airport when I took me cousin Sean there for his flight back to the old country. He was very nice, did remember me, etc., etc., etc., and we exchanged email addresses) about a business matter I thought he would be interested in. In the process, we established a good rapport. He invited me on a venture to Edinburgh if I could get the time off. I did, meeting him at Logan Airport he was accompanied by a young lad he was friends with from London.
The reporter was actually working, the other chap was a young lad whose father is a London editor for a publishing house over there. They have in common the lad's stepmom was once the reporter's wife. The lad was attending school in the States and going home to visit. The reporter was in Boston and since the divorce is amicable he and the ex-wife sans step-mummy are good friends, he offered to make sure the lad got back to London safely. Then he was going on to Scotland on business and offered to take me with him in order to introduce me to some people that I was doing an investigative report on, regarding the Royal Bank of Scotland and its trading practises.
Now that prelims are out of the way, I met the reporter who I shall call Jordie at the terminal. We were about to board when the younger of our group finally made his appearance. There he was a blond-haired lad, tall, slender, and wearing a kilt! Yes, Linda, full-blown royal Stewart kilt, sporran and all. Making his apologies, and getting shoulder to shoulder with us, we made it to the plane. I did notice the women ogling the lad's fine figure in his Scottish national dress. I was so glad he wasn't Greek, we know what the national dress of a Greek man looks like. A tutu with tights and funny hats.
The trip was uneventful but for the young lad who has the ferret nickname Weasil (with an i, not an e) as his nickname. Does he look like a weasel? No, not really. The name he got from being able to hack expertly into computers. He was one of those, without the glasses and nerdy appearance. You'd never suspect that such a fine-mannered lad would be a "hacker" of computers. But the one giveaway was his mode of speech. Oh, you've seen it online, the chatrooms are full of people who write like this: I aint goin an dats dat an iffy ya think yer better an me jus try ta outwit da weas." Uh-huh. Well, Linda, HE TALKS LIKE THAT as well as writes it. This is from an over-educated, smart-as-a-whip young man, from a wealthy London family. His FATHER is a book publisher for crying out loud and he talks like he's a Roxbury punk.
Anyway, when we got to London, the lad went to see his father and we left to get our train tickets on the Flying Scotsman to Edinburgh. We arrived at Victoria Station and spent an hour waiting for our train, and as we boarded, we heard, "HOLDIE DA TRAINEE," and flying at us was the young Weasil, backpack over his shoulder, kilt swinging provocatively in the breeze. I won't subject you to his speech but basically, he told us he wanted to go with us, he would visit his step-mum in Edinburgh. Well, okay.
We got to Edinburgh and Jordie had business on his own he had to attend to and I decided to sightsee. The Weasil was going to show me where the Witchery Restaurant was so I could meet up with Jordie later. Well, upon getting up to the place which is next to the castle, he spies the Whiskey house. Without a blink, he pulls me in for the whiskey tour. Now mind you it is still morning. I saw it and said we'd be sampling whiskey and seeing it was 11 a.m. I wasn't up for it. Well, he was and we did. I saw no breakfast and didn't care if I saw anything. I was blinded by drink. Me head was spinning and to top it off, after they ply you with smelling, tasting, and admiring, all the Scottish malts, they stick you on a ride (like Disney World's House of Horrors), where you get a holograph behind a bar that talks about whiskey past, and by the time you get off of it, you don't remember a thing of where you've been and what you've been doing. I got off thinking I was in Orlando, but the landscape didn't look quite right.
In this besotted condition, we both met up with a very sober and sarcastic Jordie for luncheon. And what did we do, ordered the strongest malt whiskey to accompany the haggis and lamb shanks we could find. Finally, after the hilarity between the Weasil and meself got too much and too loud, Jordie had had enough and left us to our own recourse, which since we were so near the castle, is where Weas and I headed. I can't tell you a bloody thing about the inside, just that it was dark! Me brain was sloshing about in 100-proof alcohol and memory, well there wasn't any.
The rest of me stay was equally a good time since I discovered that Weasil IS the original Good Time Charlie if ever there was an individual by that name -- HE IS IT! He's a rascal, a good-looking one, a bit Leonardo DiCaprio-like, so you know he had the lassies all a-twitter. Add to that Jordie's good looks and that they are head turners for the female population, which helped make it most desirable for me to be seen with them both.
With all the drinking we did in Edinburgh, I don't remember much about the place. We left for London after three days of drunken stupor (well Weasil and I at least, Jordie, not so much), to find we weren't as sober as we thought, because upon crossing the Tower Bridge, sitting in a glass box, was the magician David Blaine. I thought I was seeing things. I took pictures and the Weasil mooned him, which brought the police on us but Weas outran them with his pants down. His arse made the newspaper the next day it did. I did make like I didn't know him, and Jordie was somewhat mortified and had disappeared inside a Starbucks where I think he was wishing he had something stronger than coffee to drink.
The next thing was that Weasil wanted Jordie and me to take a tour of Nottingham. It is an evening of carousing (you were expecting something else?) in Sherwood Forest with Robin Hood and the Merry Men. Jordie wasn't wanting any part of the Merry Men, but Weasil was looking for a good time so he could tease us about it later, if for nothing else. However, the tour was filled (why?) and we decided to take ourselves to a place suggested by Jordie, that would supply the frivolity Weasil was looking for.
So off we go to Katherine's Docks to a medieval fun fest called King Henry's Feast. It was another rousing evening of getting drunk with King Henry and his entourage. The King would come to the middle of the room, raise his glass and shout, "Wassail!" and everyone was to drink their goblet. He did this ten times within five minutes at one clocking, and don't you know the wenches were right there with more pitchers of ale or wine to pour into our empty goblets. Talk about spinning eyeballs!
I ended up dancing with Katherine of Aragon, getting dressed in a long robe with an appropriate hat and being the butt of the King's jokes. It was all in good fun and Jordie did manage to get Weasil up in front of everyone for a sword fight. It was fun watching the lad and the Black Knight. The Knight made a great show of his clanging sword ringing it out of its scabbard and parrying at the air. Weasil was given a piece of plywood cutout to look like a sword and the look on his face was priceless. They swung at each other's heads, and Weasil did a decent parry of the Knight's advances. He was quick-tongued and quick-witted and the actors took a liking to him. Every time the surrounding Knights had some crazy comment, they'd add Weasil's name to it and my ribs were aching from laughing so much.
Speaking of Kings, I think it will be Burger King for me tonight.
Picture of David Blaine that day we came upon him hanging from a crane by the Tower Bridge.
Copyright © 2003 All rights reserved
No comments:
Post a Comment