Hamish McShanks

Hamish McShanks Secret Diary w/e 20^th November 2005

‘The wingers making a break down the line he’s sidestepped the flanker, thrown an outrageous dummy that’s suckered the Argentinean centre, now he’s only got the fullback to beat and … oh that’s a ferocious tackle … oh he’s speared him into the ground, that’s very dangerous and controversial what do you think David?‘ Not much point in asking when you’ve already answered the question yourself you’d think, but as it happened I didn’t hear the rest of the commentary anyway as I had already leapt out of my seat and was waving an indignant finger at the big screen.

‘That’s outrageous!’ I bellowed. ‘For pities sake he could have killed him’, ‘settle down Ham’, ‘settle down? Settle down?’, ‘your making a scene’, ‘Did you see that he could have broken his neck’, ‘it’s only a game’, ‘that man could have been paralysed and you say it’s only a game-’, ‘he’s up now’. A full and speedy recovery did take some of the wind out of my sails ‘aye well it’s just as well, he’s lucky to be on the park that’s all I can say’ I trailed off mumbling into my pint. ‘Finished now?’

Not wanting to look like a whining Alistair Campbell after ‘that’ spear tackle I restricted my retort to a half hour explanation as to the dangerous nature of spear tackles and the surrounding grey areas in the rulebook. My summing up was quite elegant if I do say so myself ‘Finally the laws do clearly state that if you lift a player from the ground you are responsible for ensuring he returns safely! …. Tans? …. Tansy?’, ‘She went for a slash fifteen minutes ago’ A pint of Guinness appeared before me ‘has he finished yet?’, ‘I think so but it’s difficult to tell when your not listening’. I conveyed my dissatisfaction with the pair of them through the medium of mime.

The rest of the match past without incident or indeed excitement. Another Scotland defeat snatched from the jaws of victory. Time for another pint. My guests seemed to have had their fill of rugby and ranting. Kirsty had enjoyed the close ups of sweaty south sea islander types in the previous All Blacks, Ireland game but had missed some of the finer points of international rugby union. Admittedly the finer points are often in short supply when watching Scotland but the opposition run some fine lines.

Eight hours drinking also seems to be my limit these days so we caught a taxi home and ordered in a take away meal. I say ‘meal’ which might be stretching things a little. We ordered two ‘munchy boxes’ one vegetarian and one carnivore. For the chefs out there a munchy box is basically a 12” pizza box filled with a layer of chips, on top of which you scatter chicken pakora, mushrooms (fried in batter obviously) onion rings, vegetable pakora and fried chicken goujons. The crowning glory is a covering of donner meat! Mmmm. Two tubs of full fat coleslaw, some salad for a laugh and a couple of tins of fizzy pop. All for £4.99.

A single munchy box contains enough calories to feed a small African nation, a useful fact for all kids under ten to know so you can ‘trump’ your dads well worn phrase ‘there are starving kids in Africa who would kill for that *insert vegetable name here’ when you’ve left something green on the side of your plate and dessert privileges are being withdrawn. Simply retort ‘well why don’t you buy them a munchy box dad .. you miserable old bastard’ (might be prudent to leave out the last part though, dads can be touchy sometimes)

According to the menu a munchy box only actually ‘serves 2’ but it doesn’t mention units so perhaps they mean ‘nations’. However after my calorific rant I have to confess we did manage to guzzle the lot. And just so ye know the vegetarian option was as above (minus the donner & chicken obviously) but with even more vegetable pakora, battered mushrooms and a topping of cheese. Mmmm just stick a knife in my heart and cut out the middleman!

Replete with deep fried products I bade goodnight to my guests and retired to bed. Well more correctly they retired to bed and I retired to my camping mats and sleeping bag on the living room floor. This wasn’t a problem, I like camping so was happy to bivvy down in the living room. It was where to put my enormous distended stomach that was the problem. I elected to kip on the lazee boy recliner with a tartan travel rug draped over my bulging waistline. I could see my reflection in the fish tank and it wasn’t a pretty sight ‘just need to piss myself in the middle of the night and I can collect my pension’ I thought as I drifted off to sleep.

‘Morning Ham want me to get your zimmer frame out of can you get to the kettle without it?’, ‘mmmfssggt’, ‘don’t fret, you sort out yer incontinence pants and I’ll put the Tea on’, ‘oh har de har har’, ‘cmon get your skates on were off to the pet shop to get you some fish as a present for putting us up’. This brought me to life; I recently bought a bigger aquarium and was anxious to add some stock.

Ten minutes later we were at the pet shop. There were hundreds of fish to chose from and I was running from tank to tank pressing my nose against the glass ‘oh oh oh these are really cool’ I shouted for the umpteenth time ‘oh oh oh no these are really cool’ Tansy rolled her eyes ‘I’m going out for a tab, give me a shout when he’s picked something’, ‘right you are’. In the end I plumped for three ‘Harlequins’ very striking fish with large triangular black tails. The girl bagged them up and we headed home.

Tans and Kirsty went to put the kettle on and I set the bag down on the coffee table, the girl hadn’t taped it very well and it wouldn’t sit upright so I placed it on the lazee boy recliner while I took the hood off the tank ‘right Ham that’s the kettle o-‘ The next second was in slow motion. I turned to see Tansy about to sit on the bag of fish ‘Noooooo’ I screamed as she started to bend her legs ‘whaooompppff’. It was a peach of a tackle I lifted her clean off the floor and dumped her nose first into the Axminster. A split second later I scooped the fish up in one hand as the lazee boy recliner toppled on top of her …. then it went very quiet

‘Thanks for coming so quickly’ I said as they wheeled the stretcher out of the front door ‘how long will the neck brace be on for?’, ‘we don’t know sir we will have to x-ray the patient first’, ‘I see I see’. Tansy had been given a sizable pain killing injection but this didn’t stop her screaming ‘It was a fucking spear tackle you bastard’ as they shut the ambulance doors.

‘Thanks for coming, it was luvlee to see you’ My waves were met with another tirade of abuse and the neighbours were starting to stare so I closed the door. ‘Right then my wee fishes, who wants a piece of pakora?’

Doei