J Fergus Lamont, arts correspondent and author of Highland Fling – My Lost Weekend with Molly Weir at Boat of Garten
I was lucky enough to attend a ground-breaking performance at His Majesty’s Theatre. A live staging of the popular 1984 film Gremlins, billed as “Mogwai”. A highly innovative adaptation, containing neither dialogue nor story, it comprised 2 hours of 70 decibel guitar noise which perfectly evoked the horror of that bit when the mum puts a Gremlin in a blender.
It struck me then, as I staggered, deafened for the exit, blood trickling from my ears, that a coupe de theatre such as I had just witnessed should have had a similarly radical audience response rather than the rather demode repeated pressing together of two hands very quickly. Which, in any event, no one present could hear. And lo, my prayers were answered this week with the news that the University of Manchester Students Union have done away with the traditional, bourgoise method of applause and replaced it with the British Sign Language equivalent – Jazz Hands; a laudable attempt to avoid triggering anxiety and improve accessibility for those who find the thunderous din of an audience in raptures unbearable.
How appropriate, then, that on the very same day, I saw the television coverage of an art installation by the situationist art pranksters who call themselves “The Conservative Party”, featuring that terpsichorean colossus Theresa May with her latest piece of innovative choreography, melding as it did the twin 1970s cultural touchstones of Abba’s Dancing Queen and the spindly-limbed aliens from Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. It was clear that the only appropriate response to that performance was complete and utter silence.
I wept.
Struan Metcalfe, MP for Aberdeenshire North and surrounding nether regions.
I like beer. Do you like beer? I do. Hey, I have drunk to excess. Frequently. Haven’t you drunk to excess, frequently? I’m curious. I bet you have. And blacked out repeatedly. You naughty bunch of boozers.
Anyway, all good questions; questions appropriate to ask in a Senate hearing about being a judge, when you are meant to be the one answering the questions.
US Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh did his best this week but he looked like a chap who’d been caught spending far too long in the bathroom with a copy of the Kays Catalogue. He could have done with a few tips from someone who’s dodged more than his fair share of allegations of impropriety – The Struanator!
1. Stay cool – a face like corned beef and being permanently about to blub don’t scream “innocent man wrongly accused”. They scream “Call this chap a taxi – he might pick a fight with a pot plant!’
2. Continually sipping water is a total give-away. You’re either dehydrated after a night on the sauce or you’re like the man who drops his iPhone in the toilet – bricking it!
3. “Tongue in cheek” is just a saying. Don’t make a face like you’re sucking a gobstopper before you say something that’s not true. It’s the worst “tell” ever!
But here’s the thing. I feel for Brett Kavanaugh, I really do. Don’t you? What the bally hell happened to the presumption of “I am wealthy and entitled so I can do whatever I want”? Hopefully his obvious unfitness for the office won’t prevent him from taking up his God-given seat on the court.
The whole bally status quo is being turned on its head and that’s only something you want to see if Francis Rossi is showing you how to do a hand stand. It feels very much as if I, a rich, straight, white male, can no longer do exactly as I please, and that, of course, is the real tragedy in all of this.
Cava Kenny Cordiner, the football pundit who goes in hard early doors
Undeliverable! After the hah-hoo over their decision to host both semi-finals on the same day at the same ground, the beaks have only done an about-U-turn!
Mind you, the change has caused a bit of fiction in the Cordiner holdhouse. When the Dandies was kicking off at midday o’clock, I organised a lads’ weekend in Glasgow, since we couldn’t get the train down on the day. Nothing fancy, just me, Basher Greig, Dunter Duncan, 10 pints in the Horseshoe Bar, some exotical dancing at Diamond Dolls and a kebab.
When the kickoff got moved, Melody says to me, she says “So, you’ll be cancelling your weekend away now, Kenny?” But the lads has decided to stick to our buns. Melody is not pleased, and is walking around with a face like a filleting.
I was gutted to see that Dons defensive hard man Scott McKenna got a two-game ban for a perfectly fair challenge on that Celtic boy. What’s wrong with challenging a player what doesn’t have the ball with a flying waist-high karate kick? If that was a foul when I was playing, I’d have picked up a booking almost every game. Which I done.
But this week, I’ve got some sporting news of my own. My boy, Zander, is playing his first game for the school team this weekend, and I can’t wait to be there on the sidelights cheering him on, offering the benefit of my wisdom teeth and swearing at the teacher what has given up his Saturday to volunteer as ref.
