Let me share with you a hard-won life lesson that I feel will benefit you all:

Never followed a naked man into a bar and expect it to end well.

Some of you may have received a text to this effect (I think I was still drunk as I also sent it to my mother who, understandably, rang me immediately with the following questions:

a) why was he naked? dunno. Got distracted by beer and forgot to ask, plus, not sure I would have recognised him with his clothes on.

b) where was Colin? working. But seemed to take it all in his stride when I told him – possibly as he was distracted by having to wrestle some duvet off me. Apparently he spent the night clinging to the thin strip of mattress that I wasn’t occupying, although this is all hearsay as I was passed out cold and remember nothing past the final shot of schnapps. 

c) have I spoken to my brother recently? totally off topic of nude males, but after I answered questions a) and b) she moved on to other things. Remember – she married my dad, I have a sib and this shit is genetic. )

I have received, in return, a number of concerned replies (including one from Jeff who noted that these things go better if you are the man, which is something to consider) so I would be remiss if I did not relay to you the events of the evening:

• Hattie was hanging about until I finished as her phone-charger went AWOL, her battery was down to one bar and I have a spare. We wandered down to Mancinis – as is our occasional wont – and had a couple of beers. Jen was closing up so we stood on the doorstep with her and had a smoke. Well, Jen and I were smoking – Hattie was squinting fiercely over my left shoulder.
• A man was running up and down Great Western Road.
• Naked.
• Except for his trainers.
• We watched him run into the Bier Halle and decided, as concerned citizens, that we should check that he wasn’t suffering from frostbite so we crossed the road and had another cigarette whilst staring in the windows.
• Naked man peers round the door, makes as if to speak, then shrugs and goes back inside giving the distinct impression that we are peculiar.
• Jen notices that the naked man has put his clothes back on so she goes home.
• Hattie and I decide that as we’ve hung about, noses pressed to the glass, it would be rude not to buy anything so we  go into the bar where she gets immediately involved in the pub quiz and reveals herself to be a 14-year-old-boy-with-boobs as she has an encylopedic knowledge of the Star Wars movies. Seriously, it was a Star Wars round, the team at the bar were at a loss and Ms Skywalker saved the day.
• I got bored and had another beer. And possibly a shot. And then another beer. Or a shot – I can’t remember. And then the quiz team bought us a drink for helping, and then no-one won the quiz so the compere put the cash prize behind the bar and bought the whole pub a shot and that’s where it gets a little fuzzy…

Hattie rang me in the morning – which was somewhat of a surprise as I knew she was very low on battery and I had absolutely no recollection of her coming to the house, picking up the charger, sniggering, and leaving me to pass out, only to discover as she shut the door behind her that she couldn’t find her keys.

Apparently she sat on my door stoop for 20 minutes, carefully emptying both her bags out, arranging her belongings in a neat circle around her as she hunted for the elusive little buggers, slightly concerned that she would still be there when Colin came home from work and would therefore have to beg a couch for the night whilst he gave her A Look and raised an eyebrow. (I feel her pain – I get The Look on a regular basis. Particularly when I beg for KFC).

So, in conclusion:

• My hangover was epic.
• Thank you to all those who responded to the sausage-roll SOS – I ate them all and they were mightily appreciated.
• If Jill is reading this I am obviously exaggerating the events of Sunday 15th November and I am in no way dragging your daughter into habits of debauchery and drunkeness. Well, no more than once a fortnight, any way.

UPDATE: Hattie found out why the guy was naked! He and a woman were having a dance-off (???!) and the compere said ” no-one wins until we have some clothes off” (?????%@^?) so she took off her cardi and when she turned around he was stark-bollock-naked and heading out the door.

A totally rational explanation!

And yes, mum, I heard from G today. He’s fine. Sends love. Ask him to get you four pairs of Converse trainers – that always works for me when I want a response…

In the spirit of Biblo* – given that it has been noted on many occasions that I don’t update on a regular basis – I would like to share with you a moment which made me glad to be a journalism major:

Last customer, last order in a bar which has just totally scrubbed and polished every surface, ledge and piece of equipment in the building and whose staff are champing at the bit to leave:

Barman: what can I get you?

Customer: a bellini, two rusty nails and a mojito please.

Barman: @*^%!

*paying attention to all criticism, be it constructive or just plain irritating, and acting upon such commentary in the calm and rational manner which all visitors have come to expect.**

** cue hysterical laughter 

I was asked to name two normal people the other day. People who I actually know who have been in the shop at least once. Easy, right?

Wrong.

I came up with one who we all agreed appears to be normal, but as we don’t know his name (and he works as a rep which tends to suggest barrow-boy tendencies of the knuckle-duster variety) we had to strike him off the list.

Then I drew a blank.

Tiff? Dubious obsession with Axl.

V? Can get a little…exact…about alphabetizing crime fiction.

Neil? Tech. Has a colour-coded approach to fleeces. Need I say more?

So then I thought, define normal. But I tried and all I came up with was the dictionary.com trifecta of:

1. conforming to the standard or the common type.

2. serving to establish a standard.

or,

3. Psychological:

a) approximately average in any psychological trait as intelligence, personality or emotional adjustment.

b) free from any mental disorder; sane

To which my response is:

1. According to who?

2. Does setting a standard of lunacy seldom seen outside of the more surreal Mash episodes count?

or:

3. 

a) Do we include the tech dudes in this calculation of the mean? They may possess stratospheric IQ’s but they also get ridiculously excited about UBUNTU Cola.*

b) Define sane in terms of the West End and its predeliction for patchouli scented candles in a power-cut. Go on, I DARE YOU.

So I’ve come to the conclusion that Biblo has it’s own sphere – a blue bubble within which the most random acts appear utterly mundane, like the old expression ‘normal for Norfolk’.

Except for Hattie. Nothing she does is normal. Which brings me to my point – can’t wait ’til she comes home. It’s totally normal without her.

* ask a geek to explain. I had to interrupt them in the midst of a debate about operating systems. I risked my life in the quest of knowledge – so should you.

Being a part owner of a book shop (RBS owns the rest. Don’t ask) I figured that it was about time that I textually researched weightloss and fitness. To this end I picked up Anita Naik’s The Lazy Girl’s Guide to a Fabulous Body.

I’m a speed reader, so I’m already on chapter 12.

Lounging in bed, Supernatural re-runs playing on the tv, dribbling chocolate sauce down my pj’s, I calculate that I should be bikini ready by tomorrow.

Yay!

Dear God, sometimes  I just love Glasgow!

Me and Hat were celebrating that she has handed in her dissertation (let’s face it – we’d celebrate the posting of a letter if Royal Mail could be trusted to bring fresh lime to the party rather than shove a card through the door stating that we weren’t in despite the fact that we were hanging out of the windows, waving sparklers and singing along to Miss Spears Greatest – hah! – hits whilst gesticulating in a come hither fashion, shouting “we’re in!”) so we went for a gin.

So we were in this bar/restaurant, and we overheard that a table reservation had been made for what seemed to be some sort of celebrity who needed, and I quote, “a discrete” seat. I got the impression that there was a bit of a song and a dance about it.

And then no-one seemed to know who the hell they were. Or even if it was the man or the woman who had such superstar status. The bar staff hadn’t a clue. The floor staff didn’t care and even though I pinched a tray and wandered round pretending to collect glasses l still couldn’t figure it out.

We were going to leave but thought that he/she would need a pee and would have to pass us on the way to the loo so we ordered another round, but despite our best efforts we still couldn’t guess (actually, we sort of lost interest when our drinks arrived) so I suppose I’ll have to wait until someone who was there has a day off and is spending it on the couch watching tv when they’ll suddenly realise that the actor/actress on the telly is the one who had extra parmesan that Friday night when Chef set fire to his apron again.

Meanwhile, Miss/Mr Famous will go home thinking “they all treated me as if I was just an ordinary customer”, oblivious to the fact that, to those belting around like lunatics trying to keep up with a Friday night trade, they were.

I sort of have the impression that in every other city there would be hoardes of screaming girlies, and paparazzi hovering behind the bins and lots of giggling requests for autographs whereas here it’s more likely to be “bloody hell, the weather’s awful – ooh, sorry, hen, did I tread on your foot?” or “you got any salt on your table? The waitress has disappeared”. In other words, a population more interested with getting on with their lives than goggling over the eating habits of a random celeb. Unless they’re bloody rude or jump the queue at the bar and then all bets are off. 

Like I said, sometimes I love Glasgow.

Although the last three days of pissing rain are making it more affection-under-the-duress-of-exceptionally-damp-feet than passionate adoration, so next week we’re going to celebrate Tuesday instead and hope that TomKat are in town.

Should be a blast…

It has been pointed out that I haven’t posted in over a month. As I have mentioned before, I see no point if nothing interesting has happened. For example, I consider it utterly mundane that Hattie, Katherine and a very bemused Aurelie took a road trip to Ikea. To the strains of Hattie’s Best of Rock CD (which is not to be confused with the Best of Country CD which saw her boyfriend threaten to throw her out of the car on more than one occasion. She has an…odd taste in driving music, to put it mildly) they left in the early afternoon and by 5pm I was expecting a call to tell me that they’d found a cliff and had driven off it holding hands, or they had found a karaoke bar and one of them was murdering ‘I Love Rock and Roll’ with a faux-virginial smirk.

See? Boring. Slightly more amusing was the sight of Katherine struggling through the door an hour later with a piece of furniture that was, in its flat-packed state, bigger than she is whilst Hattie sauntered along behind clutching a small bag of strawberry bootlaces. Aurelie ran for her life. Wise woman.

(NB: don’t let either Hattie or Katherine eat anything with E-numbers. They become unbearably excitable. Which could explain the garbled tale of taking the long route home so that they could listen to Journey, following a rousing rendition of Poison on the M8. Sad I missed it. Not.)

Other non-events this month have been our staff outing to Ketchup on Ashton Lane where Jonny devoured a Colossus Burger and was still hungry, and Katherine had a Knickerbocker Glory that was taller than she was. Hattie, on the other hand, was so laden with book-filled backpacks that she resembled a gnoll from Labyrinth and had to go backwards out of the taxi for fear of jamming in the doorway. Getting the damn thing off her and wedged under the table was also an eye-opening exercise in frustration. Bloody good job the restaurant is licensed. And that our waiter had a sense of humour.

ALSO: Sometime last week, when exceptionally hungover, Katherine decided to carve some pumpkins. The rest of us thought that giving her a sharp knife and standing well back was a fabulous idea – now we have Count Dracula and Gene Simmons adorning the front window and I have the sneaking suspicion that should she put her mind to it, Little Miss K could be running the country within a matter of weeks…

Actually, come to think of it, the highlight of the month has been Colin’s foray into the world of gastronomic perfection in the form of black pudding stuffed chicken breasts topped with bacon and whisky-cream sauce. Which should have made headlines immediately after consumption.

So: nothing of any interest to import apart from Colin’s increasing mastery in the kitchen.

Further news as events warrant…

(Recipe available upon request, for a small fee.)

We have no water. Again. There is plenty pouring from the skies so I suppose, if I wanted to, I could stand outside with a bucket and eventually get enough to fill a glass.

Or maybe I’ll be in Offshore getting a much needed latte. Presumably I would bump into the rest of the block who are also water-less due to a leaking pipe somewhere under the floorboards on the 2nd (3rd?) landing.

So far I have remained open and, upon informing everyone that we have no water, have been fielding the following questions:

Can I just get tea, then?

(no water)

Don’t you have a kettle?

(no water)

I just need to use the toilet!

(NO WATER!!)

So I’ve closed.

I’ll be in Enjoy, mainlining caffeine.

See you tomorrow at 8.30am.

Avec le H2O

I have a terrible memory for birthdays; yours, mine, my mother’s – I’ve forgotten them all over the years. So in order to try and counteract this terrible failing I’ve taken to writing them in the shop diary and then putting them on the weekly calendar behind the bar.

This time I noted the birthday, wrote it on the calendar and noticed on the day, thinking smugly to myself -

“I must phone and wish him a happy birthday – perhaps he fancies a gin at the weekend, on me, of course, to make up for the fact that I remembered his birthday but forgot to buy the prezzie.”

Then I forgot to ring.

MAYBESOBER! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! (for last week, ahem)

GIN’S ON ME!!

Hello?

 At the risk of attracting a whole load of abuse regarding home-wrecking skanks etc. etc. I must say I’ve always quite liked Sienna Miller. She’s thoroughly (if unintentionally) entertaining in interviews, spouting all sorts of contradictory crap depending on which market she’s aiming at this week, and I sometimes like her dresses. The few films I’ve seen her in have been quite good and she dumped that prat Law.

But something’s been bothering me for a while now and it’s finally time to let it go: if you are someone who earns their living portraying characters far removed from yourself and if that is how you justify your exorbitant paycheck and, shall we say, artistic interpretation of acceptable behaviour, surely it wouldn’t be too much to ask for you to ACT, DAMN IT! PRETEND YOU DON’T GIVE A SHIT AND HOLD YOUR MANEATING CHIN HIGH!

?????????????

Thought not.

I had an incredibly energetic dream last night that Glasgow was beset with twisters; scores of them, appearing from the sky and barreling towards us. We had to drag Raj out of the shop, Stuart drove past in his car and wouldn’t stop and there we were – Biblo-less, trying to anticipate the direction the next death spiral would take.

I knew I’d pay for watching Desperate Housewives’ Season 4.

And then, exhausted (obviously – I was running all over the place) I slept through the alarm. Thank God for Katherine, the newest addition to all that is Biblo perfection; calm, collected (if not a little hungover) she held the fort until my fat arse made it down the road.

What worries me is when Hattie gets back – just before she left she attempted to Revolutionize the staff but as Jonny wasn’t listening (big surprise) it was an uprising of one. I suppressed this show of  discontent – but only because I had the chequebook and payday was pending. I’m concerned that the subjugation of my minions will not be so easy next time. Oh, yes – for now Katherine is efficient and professional and respectful of my authority, but what happens when the Hatster returns? Will there be girlish giggling by Sci-Fi/Fantasy? Or sharpened stakes in a pit under the front doormat, just waiting for me to unsuspectingly wipe my feet?

I shall have to start to strapping Dan Browns to my shoes and treading carefully; the anticipation of a destructive force of nature now seems comparatively easy…