Hamish McShanks

Hamish McShanks Secret Diary w/e 16^th Oct 2005

‘Like a bat out of hell I’ll be gone when the morning something something’, ‘when the day is la la aaa DADAADDAAA DAA DAAA’, ‘bottom of a pit in the glazing sun doo dee doo’ It’s bad enough singing along tunelessly to the radio when your driving but when you don’t actually have a radio in your car it’s desperately grim. There’s no hiding the fact you can’t hold a note for toffee. There’s no masking of the irksome drone by simply turning up the volume, oh no, singing ‘sans radio’ is indeed an eye opener (and ear closer).

Thankfully I was on my own in the car and therefore not inflicting my x-factor on any innocents. Now just as an aside, I know some people will do anything to get on telly, but dear god how bad were some of those people? And they had the temerity to get upset when informed that they were in fact talent less and didn’t even have a face for radio. The weeping and wailing was particularly tiresome ‘I..i.i.ve bb.e.een waiting m..mmy whole life for this’ usually stuttered through floods of tears. Really? Well perhaps while you were waiting you should have taken the time to learn a musical instrument, gone to stage school, taken dance lessons. Or more importantly taken a cotton bud cleaned out your ears and realised you cant fuuuuucking sing!

I’m sorry but that needed to be said.

I remember being told once that I could sing. I protested vigorously, assuring the gentleman in question that I could not hold a note. He was quite adamant about the strength of my singing voice, suggesting I should even think about doing it for money (I can only hope he was still talking about my vocal talents). Anyway at this point I felt compelled to point out that ‘knowing the lyrics’ is not in fact the same as ‘being able to sing’. ‘Naaaw naaw man yooor a fffckingreat..siinger …’ he had slurred whilst slipping under the table.

The memories of my drunken revelling were more than enough to curtail the singing. Besides it was time to concentrate as I was approaching the outskirts of Airdrie. My destination was a sports centre on the other side of town but I wasn’t quite sure of the way. The last time I’d been in Airdrie was when I was about 9 years old and to be fair I hadn’t really being paying attention to the road. As I recall my focus had been on relieving my twin brother of his ‘Texan’ bar. At no point did I take note of any distinguishing landmarks or the general layout of the town as I grappled for confectionary. A fact I was now regretting.

‘After 100 yards you have reached your destination’ I mumbled whilst scanning the rows and rows of industrial units ‘wish I’d bought that fecking GPS now’. The AA route map was propped against the dashboard unfortunately none of the roads I passed were mentioned on the piece of paper ‘Marvellous, just bloody marvellous’. Things went from bad to worse when I got snarled up in a one-way system. I ended up going through the McDonalds Drive-In four times! Ok so that was merely due to my gluttony and not in any way because I was lost but it’s easier to think on a full distended bloated stomach as they say.

I was regretting the fourth Big Mac as I finally waddled into the sports centre half an hour late. ‘Alright Ham how’s it going’, ‘Aye not bad boys, not bad, what’s the script today then?’ We were playing in a cup match and I’d been asked to come along as ‘cover’ in case there were any injuries. You can’t play volleyball with less than six players; you have to forfeit the game. I hadn’t played volleyball since May and was now heavily laden with a couple of pounds of fatty processed food. I was hoping my contribution would be a mostly vocal one from the bench.

‘Aye wur doon to six including yoursel Ham so yer getting a whole match’ The colour drained from my face ‘Oh great’, ‘c’mon ye better get changed the warm up starts in five minutes’. Groaning I trudged through to the dressing rooms. Thankfully my shorts have an elasticated waist and were just able to accommodate my supersize me. I was in serious trouble and some considerable discomfort when I tried to bend and tie my shoelaces. A swift rethink led to me tying each trainer loosely then placing them on the ground where I was able to force my feet inside.

Once in the hall I dumped my bag amongst the plethora on the sidelines. At least there was only one the same colour so it would be easy enough to locate later on. ‘C’mon Ham gerra shift on’, ‘Aye coming’ I grumbled trundling across the hall and joining the warm up. Now you may think that volleyball isn’t that energetic, but there are a lot of fast movements and repeated jumping. Some of the footballers out there may say ‘it’s a girls game’. To them I would simply say ‘aye but nobody wears hairnets ye big primadona puffs’.

After about five minutes of standing jumps my Big Macs were getting restless. Five more minutes of spiking and they were positively champing to be free. There were another 10 minutes before the game was due to start. I decided a ‘tactical chunder’ was probably a good idea. I went to search for some water in my bag, ye need a wee sup water after a good heave. Unfortunately the ‘head between the legs’ position I had adopted as I rummaged in the pile was encouraging a fast food escape. I realised with mounting horror that there was going to be nothing ‘tactical’ about this. It was coming ready or not.

With seconds to spare I spotted my holdall, ripping open the zip I grabbed the plastic bag I kept my trainers in ‘Ooooaarrghhh uuuuh uuuh oaarggghhh auurg’, ‘Oh sweet mother spttt ptttff’ Thankfully there was extrreamly loud thrash metal music blaring out from a boombox in the corner of the hall and my anguished retching was drowned out. I quickly tied up the bag and zipped up my holdall. I couldn’t believe it, I’d managed to catch the lot and nobody had even noticed. Better still I was feeling great.

We lost the game 3:1 with some fairly controversial hometown refereeing decisions. We were all pretty despondent as we returned to the dressing rooms. I waited till the boys were all showering before attempting to dispose of the evidence. I opened my holdall and pulled out the plastic bag. It was empty. ‘What the fu-‘ I feverishly raked around my holdall searching for what must be a second bag or a holdall full of vomit. Just then I heard an anguished scream from the adjoining ‘home’ changing room. ‘Aaaw for fuuucksake which one of you skanky bastarts spewed in ma sandwiches!’

Every cloud ……

Doei