We had to drive through the horrific New Year storms to get to Edinburgh to perform at Jongleurs.
New Years Eve is a strange thing in Scotland, we are World Famous for being ‘great’ at it…but in all honesty, we are just people who have parties in each others homes and can be very choosy about who attends these gatherings.
Despite this people come from all over the world to enjoy our Hogmanay celebrations…cities host ‘street parties’ to accommodate this tourist event. When I was young and my family had huge Hogmanay parties…people who ended up in the street were there because no one wanted them in their house!
Lets look at this in perspective- Scotland is FREEZING in December, the last place anyone wants to go is the fucking street! The rain becomes horizontal, the wind would blow your kidneys out and the temperature is the stuff that killed explorers.
Yet, street parties are advertised in Scotland and tickets are sold and people come from ALL OVER THE WORLD to stand beside a drunken Englishman in a squinty Kilt who will probably throw up on them as soon as the New Years bells chime!
The real Scottish Hogmanay-ers are tucked up in their warm homes with a fire roaring in the grate, warm food is being served and welcomed guests are sipping the really good malt whisky that is kept for such occasions, family that they despise are standing in the street singing “Auld Lang Syne” to three Japanese people holding an umbrella.
Does no one else know this shit?
So anyway there we were, husband and I trying to force the car to reach 60 miles an hour in driving hurricane winds with sea lashing of rain battering us dangerously near other cars that were trying to cheat nature and stay on the M8 towards Edinburgh.
I was fucking terrified.
Husband suggested we switch on the radio to distract me, but I refused in case we crashed and I died to the sound of ‘Girls Aloud’ singing their shite.
I was so scared, we finally made it into Edinburgh, we parked the car and I had to pull on a huge snowboarding coat to stop the howling wind and rain lashing me to death as we ran to the venue.
The gig was sold out, about 400 people were packed into the biggest comedy venue in Edinburgh, I was the MC. The comics went on and I was having a great night, we heard that the street party outside at the famous Princes Street and Castle was cancelled due to high winds and normal Scottish December weather.
Just as the last comic walked on stage the lights went up, the mic stopped and a fire alarm announcement came on…..the crowd went crazy, the comic came off and in my job as MC I ran on to let them know what was going on (I may die in fire sometime)
I knew the mic wouldn’t work, so I shouted really loudly over the chairs being pulled back and people starting to leave “Everyone sit down, there is NO fire, its just a false alarm, now the street party has been cancelled and we are NOT going to cancel this night!”
The whole place went quiet, people sat back down and I ran about the stage shouting “Ok, let’s have a game of inappropriate questions!” I knew the mic and lights would work in five minutes as the management told me so from the side of the stage. We just had to wait for the false fire alarm to reset.
The crowd laughed, we even played a game of ‘pretend bingo’ and a sing a long of Donald Where’s your Trousers! Finally the lights clicked down and the mic came back on, we got the final comic back on to rapturous applause and the night finished perfectly. I was exhausted and knew we had to drive back through the gales to get home to Glasgow.
Husband stood at the side of the stage when I came off he said “Well that was great Godley, you worked for your cash tonight, I never knew you knew the words to Donald Where’s your Trousers!”
I didn’t I made the words up…I can improvise…thank fuck.
The journey home was worse than the one going, and due to all the set backs, we were late getting home…and on the M8 coming into Glasgow we clicked on the radio and heard Big Ben in London chime in the New Year. We wished each other a happy New Year and kept on trying to drive through the hurricane…it was romantic and deadly at the same time. That’s my life all over!
Husband and I finally got home and finally got to bed, Ashley had called to tell me that her Dee Jay job went great and after she finished her Hogmanay job (we Godley Girls work our asses off) she was going to a party (see…NO street standing for the connected).
I was lying in bed all warm and always slightly worried as Ashley was out late (when do I get over that she is 20 years old?).
Ay around 4am the door opened and I heard Ashley come into the hall. I jumped up to see if she was ok and made it through the storm…she was stood there in a fancy dress but wearing trainers, in her two hands were two spiky looking high heels, her handbag was on the floor and she moaned “Mum please help me out of this dress I am going to be sick”
Ashley is like me, two drinks and we vomit like bulimics….I quickly pulled her dress of and tried to drag up her masses of hair as she threw her head over the toilet pan. I noticed she was still clutching her high heels shoes.
“Honey, why are you holding your shoes?” I enquired as she made those vomitty noises.
“A man shouted at my pal in the street, so I clubbed him with my heel” she told me as of I needed to know that. Still she clutched her shoes like a security blanket and kept being sick.
“You hit a man with a shoe?” I asked with incredulity.
“Yes, he was fat and French and wearing a kilt, he called my pal fat, so I clubbed him” she spoke angrily. Her right eye had black makeup dragged down to her cheek, like a dirty black tear had fallen from her eyes.
“Are you ok? Do I need to do anything?” I started to worry.
“No, he fell, but we got a cab and left him in the street, he shouldn’t have slagged my pal off” she said and threw herself into bed. I sat for a while and watched her in case she was sick and choked, which is a huge obsession of mine….vomiting and choking is my favourite fear. So I waited until I heard her breathe steadily before I crawled back to my own bed.
Ashley got back up the next morning, still clutching a high heel in each fist; she had slept like that all night!
Street parties were cancelled, people died in the storm, the wind blew trees down, the rain flooded roads and tourists sat in a thousand hotels and B&B’s wondering why they bothered and somewhere in Glasgow a French man in a kilt woke up with a stiletto mark on his scalp and made a New Year Resolution never to call a Scottish Girl fat.
Welcome to 2007
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