Hamish McShanks

Hamish McShanks Secret Diary – w/e 13^th March 2005

‘Nessun dorma!... Nessun dorma!..’, ‘La la la laaa la la la laaaaa’, ‘Do dooo de doo da da da daaaah’ I continued warbling as I scrubbed my back with gusto, or more accurately a luffa. ‘il nome mio nessun saprà!’, ‘la la la laaa’ The hot water poured over my body as I luxuriated in the warmth of my centrally heated bathroom, a huge grin across my face. It had taken a wee while but my central heating was finally fixed. I had gallons of piping hot water, toasty warm rooms and a song in my heart.

The radio was blaring out and I joined in with large amounts of volume, if not talent. ‘Dilegua, o notte! tramontate, stelle!’ I was building up to the big finale, ole Pava whassisname would have been proud. ‘Tramontate, stelle! All'alba vincerò!’ time to wind up the lungs for a belter of a finish ‘Vincerò! Vinceroohoooohfuuuuuu-‘

Engrossed in the music I was caught unawares as my left foot slipped forward. Naturally I’d gone to step back with my right foot to steady myself. This would have worked fantastically well had my shower been set up in the conventional fashion i.e. Shower head at the tap end of the bath, plenty space front and back.

Sadly my shower appears to have been installed by the chimp out of the PG tips adverts. Having of course been fitted in the middle of the bath. Thereby forcing the user to carry out his or her ablutions whilst facing across the narrowest part of the bath. Genius, I mean I don’t know about you but I always want to do the splits whilst showering.

So anyway, when I attempted to step back to steady myself my heel hit the side of the bath and only succeeded in knocking me further out of kilter. I did do a very quick and rather impressive moon walking routine as my feet desperately fought for grip. But to no avail. All bets were closed gravity was winning this one.

The whole episode probably took less than a second but it felt like about five minutes. I recollect going through a series of emotions. Initially there was mild concern, rapidly followed by enormous fear, hotly pursued by absolute panic and finally trumped by sheer terror. There was also a brief interlude of ‘bricking it’ but the less said about that the better.

Similarly I clearly remember scrabbling at the shower curtain. An obvious and very solid point of support you’ll agree. I can still feel the horror as I watched the curtain rings pinging off the rail one by one. All the while my feet were feverishly rotating in cartoon like fashion. It seemed to take an eternity and I vaguely remember whimpering ‘mummy’ as I watched my only possible salvation unravelling above me.

There was a brief ray of hope when I realised I was still holding on to the showerhead itself. But this was cruelly dashed as the metal cased hose connecting it to the wall disintegrated under the strain of a sixteen stone man. My millisecond of optimism was replaced with a guaranteed future of pain.

It’s still so vivid. The feelings of anguish as my soaking hands flapped around vainly searching for purchase. My heightening distress as I keeled backwards pulling handfuls of fabric towards me. ‘This will make a nice shroud’ I thought whilst plummeting backwards. ‘I’m sure JC himself would have liked one with pink jellyfish and yellow anenomeoooompppffff’ The garish piece of polyester billowing gently before settling on top of my saturated body.

I’d landed on my back. My feet were still in the bath and I had folded painfully at the knees. My calves were on fire from friction burns but my buttocks, neck and head had all suffered trauma and were clamouring for attention. It was at this point the curtain rail caught up with events and bounced off my baldy heid. I decided a ‘power nap’ was in order before carrying out any further damage assessment.

When I came round I was looking at the underside of the toilet, my head must have missed it by centimetres as I crashed to the floor ‘That could do with a clean’ I commented before gingerly checking that I could move my extremities.

I needn’t have worried my extremities were all sending me messages along the lines of ‘oooh ya baaas that wis sair’ my vertebrae seemed particularly annoyed. Although there they seemed to be in debate with other regions as to who got it worst ‘Sair? Sair! ye don’t know yer living pal, try being a buttock sunshine, we took the worst of it’, ‘Ha you’ve got the most padding fatso, try being a vertebrae, we’ve nae lard to protect us’, ‘Oh aye! Well if ye wernay so rigid and inflexible ye might have a few mair cells who would rally round and help ye yah stuck up baaaastard!’, ‘Stuck up, ah’ll gie ye stuck up ye blubbery bag of cellulite!’ …….

I ignored the bickering in my head and struggled up to survey the wreckage. The curtain rail had suffered a compound fracture and one half was jutting out from behind the toilet. The chromed shower had proved an ineffective safety rope and was lying in several sorry pieces. ‘That’s goosed then’ I sighed before tossing the head away and switching off the water. The parting of ways had created an impromptu Trevi fountain and it was soaking my stylish new jellyfish and anemone sarong.

The bathroom mirror had fallen off the wall but was surprisingly unbroken ‘Well that’s something at least’ I grumbled as I mopped the floor. I rehung the mirror and went to get changed. I had just dried off and was pulling on my jeans when I heard the crash. ‘What now for pities sake!’ I hobbled back through to find the bathroom mirror lying in a thousand pieces and it had helpfully broken the towel rail on its way down.

I snapped. I stared skywards and shook my fist ‘You baaaaastard’ I bellowed ‘What have I ever done to you? Mmmmm?’, ‘Spin on this you cantankerous old git’ I screamed extending my middle finger and waving it with righteous indignation ‘You’ve done your worst!’, ‘You cant do anything else to me today you fecker!’, ‘Ha ha Haaaaaaaa’

And then I went to the rugby.

Doei