Hamish McShanks

Hello Folks

Ham lives (just) The touch tournament is finally over and thankfully it was a roaring success so I guess it was worth all the weeks of stress. That means the return of Ham Shanks diary! Woo Hoo or Boo hoo (depending on your point of view)

This weeks effort is not about the tourney but there will be a 'Tourney special' diary coming soon(ish) - Honest

Hope ye enjoy this installment folks and we should be back to the old keech service as of now

Kind Regards

Ham

Ham Shanks Secret Diary w/e 17^th June 2007

Gadgets; how did we ever manage before they arrived? Satellite navigation is an absolute boon, gone are the days when you had to plan your route in advance, pouring over maps to ascertain the easiest route through an unfamiliar city. Scribbling down cribbed ‘pace notes’ to help you navigate through the labyrinth of side streets and invariably falling foul of an unmarked one way street. No longer do you need to pull over and have a shouting match with your other half after you’ve failed to follow their clear direction and are now berating them for not ‘telling you in time’.

Many a relationship and fat lip have been saved by the miracle of satnav and I think we need to thank the designers of the system for that. Ok so the Global Positioning System was originally developed by the American military to aid in the targeting of weapons systems and greatly increase their lethality, but I think we need to balance the huge number of military and civilian deaths that system has helped wipe out against the large number of marriages that have been saved and the resulting pressure that relieved from the divorce courts. C’mon they get a pretty bad press most of the time, so lets have a big hand for Uncle Sam and his death ray targeting device.

Unfortunately like Unca Sams military intelligence your GPS device is only as good as the information that it overlays. It can tell you what your position is on planet Earth to within a few metres, which lets face it is pretty impressive. However if your TomTom map is out of date, or the intelligence arm of your government agency doesn’t know it’s backside from its elbow then you have a big problem.

Luckily in our case we didn’t ‘accidentally’ bomb the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, however we did get a tad lost whilst trying to find our hotel. We should have been more alert to the possibility at the start of our journey. When you can’t actually locate the street you want on your satnav gadget that would tend to suggest the probability of reaching your destination is not that good. As it turns out, choosing a street name that was ‘quite close’ to the one we wanted was not a winning plan either.

I’ll admit we weren’t using the most up to date version of TomTom but in our defence the destination was a Georgian Terraced street in the West end of Glasgow. It’s been there for about 150 years so it isn’t exactly a ‘new build’; you would think the mapping department for might have noticed it first time round. Sadly they must have been on a tea break when they swung past Hughenden Terrace or perhaps the accounts department insisted that as part of a new cost cutting initiative work should be subcontracted out to ‘locals’ wherever possible........

‘Ho Dobber whut are ye deein?’, ‘Am drawing a fuuuuckin map man!’, ‘Whut? Yer pishing aw over the paper ye numpty’, ‘Ah’ve no got a pen ye bampot can ye no see that?’ pan right to third young man examining his empty buckfast bottle ‘Oooooh man wur oot of buckie’, ‘tae fuck wi this map shit man, let’s get some jellies’, ‘ho there Shuggie that’s a dancer of a plan wee man’, ‘who you calling wee ye lanky streak of pish?’ A three way fight now ensues as the crucial directions to Hughenden Terrace blow gently down the street.

As a result of the companies penny pinching approach to subcontracting we are now lost. Devout worshippers of the gadget now prisoners of its failings; and we don’t have a backup plan. Tears and tantrums prove of little use. Just as I’m about to start on a second bout of blubbing my mobile phone rings, it was one of the other wedding guests. ‘Hello?’, ‘Hey Ham we're waiting for you at the Hotel where the hell are you? We’ve only got half an hour till kick off’ after explaining our predicament through sobbing breaths I received directions for the last half mile and we are on our way.

Having located the mythical Hughenden terrace our next challenge was to find a parking space. Despite the compact nature of our vehicle it was proving problematic. Shouts of ‘stop there’s one over there!’ were cut short every time as we encountered driveways, double yellow lines or plain optical illusions. A gap that looked plenty wide enough from ten metres away would on closer inspection prove barely broad enough for a slice of toast. The hotel was disappearing into the distance in the rear-view mirror as we crawled along the roadside wasting precious minutes. Stress levels were rising; I hate being late.

Abandoning the car with a pencil drawn ‘Drugs Dealer on Call’ sign in the windscreen we legged it back to the hotel. A further hoof in the happy sack was finding out our room was up at the very top of the four storey building. The doddery old proprietor insisted on showing us to our room. We ascended the stairs with glacial speed. Mrs Hubbard stopping every three steps to pause for breath and inform us she wasn’t as young as she used to be. ‘Neither am I since we started this journey’ I mumbled whilst glancing anxiously at my watch. After what seemed like an eternity we arrived, thanking her profusely we tossed our belongings onto the bed and sprinted back downstairs. There was no sign of the Turners; their mobile was going straight to answer phone ‘Feck they must have left without us, c’mon lets go go GO!’

‘We are wearing heels, we can’t run anywhere!’ protested the girls. There was no time to order a taxi; we were going to have to improvise, I nodded at Brian ‘Right, we’ll carry ye; get on our backs!’ After a few minor protestations the girls saddled up for the race to the church and we were off. Not the most graceful of arrivals, galloping up to the front door with your girlfriend on your back. I don’t think she really needed to use ‘the whip’ either. An umbrella is for protection from the rain, it’s not for thrashing your ‘steed’ as it struggles up the last steep hill. Although we did beat Brian and Claire on a photo finish so it was worth the pain.

Out of breath, but on time, we staggered into the church. Ushered into an empty row, I glanced around at the assembled guests. There was no sign of Mr & Mrs Turner. ‘That’s strange’ I thought as the organist struck the first notes of ‘Highland Cathedral’ the intro for the bride. We stood up and turned to face the front door just as an out of breath and red faced couple came rushing in past the minister ‘sorry sorry sorry’

The disapproving stares they received from the rest of the congregation were nothing compared to the withering Paddington stare I was receiving from Mrs Turner as she scuttled into the row behind us. It’s amazing how difficult it is to concentrate and sing a hymn when somebody is whispering ‘youarefuuuuckingdeadshanks’ in your ear all the way through. In the house of God too, tut tut ………

Doei