Hamish McShanks

Hamish McShanks Secret Diary –w/e 5^th June 2005

‘Right Mr Shanks if you just follow me I’ll show you to your room’ I picked up my bags and followed her down the corridor. The hotel was bigger than I had imagined. The website describing it as a ‘Quaint former coaching inn with spectacular views of the Perthshire countryside’ Sounded nice and cosy, just what my bruvva had requested for his stag weekend.

In fact his exact words were ‘Somewhere where I can park my arse and get rubbered without having to traipse all over the shop tae hunners of different pubs’ His only other criteria being a pool table. I’d searched for literally minutes before coming across the advert for this particular hotel. It looked ideal and all for twenty-five quid a night what a bargain!

After walking for fifteen minutes down a series of longer and narrower corridors I was beginning to suspect we were not in the premium section of the hotel. When we finally stopped at a battered fire exit door and she fished out a rusty old key the alarm bells really started ringing. I was already bricking it at the thought of my brothers’ reaction to the trans-Perthshire trek to his room when my fears were further aroused by the state of the door.

There were a large number of dents and bulges protruding on the inside of the door. My sour faced host seemed oblivious to this as she flicked on her head torch and wrestled with the padlock. My eyes kept returning to the badly damaged door as my imagination ran wild. If it was this bad on the inside what was it like on the other side or more to the point what was on the other fecking side!

‘Don’t be silly’ I said to myself ‘There’s probably a perfectly simple explanation’ I continued as my mind dredged up images of large carnivorous creatures ‘Probably a bin fell against it’, ‘Oh aye that’s right a bin fell against the door half a dozen times!’ chimed in my brain sarcastically ‘Might have’ I mumbled ‘It’s a fecking big slavering animal sonny boy use yer eyes!’ Certainly it didn’t take a crime scene investigator or Ray Mears to conclude that bins don’t leave lots of parallel scratch marks ‘Well it coul-‘, ‘It’s a smegging bear ye dumpling were all going to die nooooooooooo’

Disgusted with my brains lack of moral fibre I focused on how I was going to explain the accommodation to the boys as Mrs Bates struggled with the lock. After a few more minutes of fiddling and a final hefty push with her shoulder the door burst open. ‘Right you are Mr Shanks your party are in the flat roofed accommodation’ I peered out into the damp gloom. We seemed to be in a sort of atrium formed by the backs of all the scabbiest parts of the hotel. The flat roofed accommodation looked suspiciously like a large portacabin and by the smell of things it had been wedged in somewhere between the kitchen skips and the generator shed ‘Right, er thanks’ I replied weakly as she thrust the keys in my hand.

‘Breakfast is served between eight thirty and nine, no noise after ten at night and mind and always shut this door’ The emphasis she put on the word ‘always’ was a tad worrying ‘Why?’ I enquired ‘oh no reason just tidiness that’s all..’ she replied whilst furtively scanning the floor before hurrying off. Despite being quite a sunny evening only thin shafts of light penetrated the gloom.

I gazed skywards as the weak daylight struggled it’s way between the towering chimney of brickwork above me ‘Spectacular views my a*se’ I grumbled. I dumped our bags in the room and headed off to find my brother who had conveniently planted himself in the bar the moment we’d arrived (for which I was now grateful)

Half an hour later I stumbled into the public bar ‘Alright bruv’ I wheezed ‘Aye not bad what’s the room like?’, ‘Aye I’ll have a pint please’ he gave me an odd look and ordered a Guinness ‘So is the room ok?’, ‘have you eaten yet? I’m ravenous’ I could feel his eyes boring into me as I grabbed the menu and tried to avoid his gaze, ‘what’s the soup of the day do you know?’, ‘something you want to tell me about the room is there?’ he enquired whilst examining his fingernails then fixing me with a steely gaze ‘I think I’ll go for the steak pie and the-‘ The menu was whisked out of my hands

‘The room, tell me about it, all about it’ I shuffled awkwardly at the bar, tapping my finger nervously on the wooden surface ‘uum now I can explai-‘ Just then one of the stag party arrived in the room ‘Christ almighty the rooms are miles away!’ he exclaimed. My brother, already suspicious, had anticipated my ‘flight or flight’ response and had grabbed my tapping finger, he was now bending it back at a particularly painful angle

‘So the rooms are in Dundee then are they?’, ‘gnnfmm I canoowwfuu’, ‘what’s that? Sorry?’, ‘gnnfmuummy..’, ‘Your going to treat me to a new room?’, ‘Gnnff but I’m skint. oowwww yesyesyestheroomsonmeaaaargghh’, ‘excellent’ he let go of my finger and I slumped below the bar. He was greeting the new arrival as I massaged some life back into my swollen finger, I also took the opportunity to pair it with a less damaged companion and give him the vee’s behind his back.

The arrival of some more stags seemed to mellow him as the evening progressed and god bless him he even stopped slapping me every time I passed. It was indeed a symbol of forgiveness and in light of this act of contrition I stopped gobbing in his pints and wiping his pork scratchings on the pub dogs arse. A blow for the dog which seemed to be quite enjoying it and an all round lowering of their nutritional quality.

The evening degenerated into the drunken ‘yooormabestpaal’ nonsense that all stags do. Arrival of the ‘suicide tequilas’ signified loss of all remaining sanity. Simply snort a line of salt with the aid of a rolled up ten pound note, down the tequila in a one’er and then squeeze the lemon into your eye! What could be more sensible?

Breakfast was a rather sorry affair with only a fifty percent attendance. The stalwarts who did make it were struggling to read the menu with their one functioning eye and dripping snotter blurring the text even further. My brother was in an even worse state seeming to be off all pork products entirely.

Luckily the service was so woefully poor that we were all going to be desiccated corpses by the time the sullen teenager masquerading as a waitress put away her petted lip away and took our order.

The hotel was a great advert for Scotland. Haste ye awa!

Doei