Glaswegians in London

Jack was a Jekyll and Hyde drunk. Sober, he was as good-humoured and well-mannered an individual as you would wish to meet. Drunk, he was a nightmare and a real nuisance. Whisky energised him, it wouldn’t send him to sleep until every available drop had been drunk and he’d insulted and upset everyone present. He’d want to stay up all night in your room until he’d sung along to every one of your records.

”I know what he wants you for..!” he’d wail in an unearthly celtic scream.

“It’s your brand new leopard-skin pillbox hat..!” he’d howl triumphantly, leaping from his chair.

He got us thrown out of a showing of ‘The Song Remains the Same’ in record time. He had stood up as the opening chords rang out, exalted and badly drunk, shouting “Been a long time since I rock and rolled...” The people around us were shitting themselves in fright.

That was the night he garnered the dentist’s tunic.

Jack and I had gone on a bender for which we paid dear (Davy was none too chuffed not to be included, and ordered Theresa not to cook any more meals for us).

It was payday for Jack and I had cajoled him, without over-much difficulty, to go carousing up west. Sensible folk don’t do such things. Jack had missed work because of this and had managed to spend a whole weeks wages in two days but we were reckless not sensible, so such behaviour was acceptable. Drink and recreation held precedence over everything else.

Scots, you may have noticed, seem to think they can behave as badly as they like when abroad. Why this should be the case I’ve no idea, maybe they want to confirm as many stereotypes as possible while they have the chance.

Jack and I bundled around the Soho area in an example of drunken ribaldry, managing to get thrown out of a cinema and Pizza Express, and ending up wading in the pool outside Centre Point and being cautioned by the police who, bizarrely, suspected us of being Irish terrorists. Why they thought our behaviour could be construed as inimitable to IRA bombers is something I’ll never know. Unless the chosen disguise of your hardened republican is to wade drunkenly in a pool in central London singing ‘Maggie May’ while dressed in a dentists tunic, but I doubt this is the case. This is further puzzling due to the fact that neither of us is actually Irish.

Ah! The dentist’s tunic..!

We’d met a drunken Canadian dentist in a pub on Oxford Street (as you do...). He had taken a shine to Jack who had regaled him for some considerable time and at some considerable volume with a selection of Neil Young songs (to Jacks mind that would be how Canadians liked to be greeted). The Canadian had been shopping for a new, crisp-white tunic appropriate to his profession, and had this with him in a shopping bag. Jack wanted to try it on and the friendly dentist was only too pleased to let him. The night wore on, and Jack liked his new attire so much he forgot to give it back.

Try waking up the morning after the night before, trying to remember why you’re wearing a dentist’s tunic. It’ll boggle your mind.