Here are a few of my favourites:

“‘No! No! A thousand times, no!’ poor Penelope squealed as her pixyish frame disappeared beneath the lust-engorged loins of Hector the hulk, mindful all the while that she still had 997 “no’s” to go.” (p.68)

“‘I always wanted to live in Helena, Montana,’ he said with a faraway look in his eye; ‘I’d open a little bistro and call it the ‘Handbasket’ and the whole world would go there!” (p.97)

and finally:

“Peabo, the cat, washed his fur in the warm sunlight that streamed through the window, thinking to himself as he licked his soiled paws, ‘Why, it’s not so bad having a baby in the house,’ and then coughed up a hair ball and bits of a rattle.” (p.35)

As “Still Game‘s” Tam Mullen‘s wife Frances might say, “What am I like?!”.

M.

M.

So I’m just now going through my pics from worlds week in Glasgow. And I come across the stupidest picture ever (not really): a picture of a meal I was about to choke down. I remember taking this pic, feeling slightly ridiculous and self-conscious, hoping no one would notice, and, clearly remembering, too, that amateur food pics on a digi-cam always look nauseating – no matter how fantastic the real thing. I do seem to recall someone at the table saying, “WTF are you doing?”

This is lunch in the Station Bar adjacent the National Piping Centre. Across from me is Colin MacLellan, beside him is Cameron Drummond (who had just played an excellent recital at the NPC), and across from him is his dad, Ian. Allan MacDonald is sitting on a pulled up chair to my left, having just dropped in for a sandwich only minutes before the food came.

The grub here is the special of the day, “Macaroni and Cheese”. It was delicious. Let’s have a look at Mikie’s vacay calories:

A. Salt and pepper: the real spices of life; in easy arm’s reach, and ready to ensure daily sodium levels are maintained. There’s no life without salt.
B. Pint of Tennant’s Extra Cold. Something light and effervescent to wash down the cheesey goodness. Not just that, the heart-healthy effects of beer make men 30-35% less likely to suffer heart attacks. Slainte mhath! [240 calories]
C. Macaroni and Cheese: comfort food deluxe and full of necessary “brain food” carbohydrates. [700+ calories]
D. Chips: OK. The tipping point for this lunch. At first glance a nasty add-on. Not atall: rich in vitamin C, Iron with hints of calcium and vitamin A. Get it in ye! [350 calories]
E. Salad: The delicious tomato jumps off the plate and offers a vital anti-oxidant – and lycopene. A great benefit, especially for men in my family. And the roughage. Think of the roughage.

Anyway, there you have my August 11, 2011, Station Bar lunch. Not a meal I’d generally come across in my neck of the woods, but that’s the point of travelling, isn’t it?

And, anyway, food is always the second course to the company. And this time it was first rate.

Buon appetito.

M.

Let’s take a pipe band’s traditional “number one” dress: ostrich feather bonnet, bi-coloured horse hair sporran, diced hose, white spats, a plaid that might double for a train at the right big royal wedding and, of course, a seven-yard wool kilt (multicoloured, of course). Could anything else scream, “look at me”, more?

The true number one dress would see pipers with officer-sponsored drone banners and ribbons over cords – but let’s stick to old-style civilian number ones. The bass drummer, too, and often tenor drummers, would see themselves festooned with leopard or bear skins, trophies or acknowledgements from overseas campaigns, if a military band.

With all do respect to this waning number one dress tradition [and full disclosure: I lived this for a while as a member of the Pipes & Drums of the 48th Highlanders of Canada] the old way saw pipers tarted up to the nines. But boy, is it ever an old tradition that impresses when in full flight. To this day the number one-dressed piper remains the general public’s stereotypical piper image. I can hear Alan MacDonald now talking the real Gaelic tradition but let’s leave it for a minute and say these Victorian English inventions, adaptions if you will, have found a place – like it or not.

Since the earliest months of this year I had it in my mind that the current incarnation of civilian pipe band “costume” – and that is what it is – wasn’t cutting it. The tartan of the kilt and colour of hose were really the only items where a band set itself apart. Sporrans all leathery and head gear all Glengarry boat-like. And the ridiculous trend for “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer” snowman waistcoats? It’s like we’re all wanting to be butlers or something. I think we’ll be laughing at old photos one day soon, like we do now when looking at big 1980s hair and super-skinny ties.

What about bag covers? Surely we can do better than monotone velveteen bag concealers? We’ve seen leopards and ostriches thrown into the mix of pipe band gear – horses of every colour, too – what’s wrong with sexing up the bag cover? Not so much – I suggest.

So. I had a zebra patterned cover made. I had four made, in fact. They look smashing [by the way, do you know smashing, like “galore” is, in fact, a Gaelic word?]. Zebra patterned bag covers are surely a tame affectation, especially when compared to eighteen inches of ostrich feathers on the bean and a few handfuls of horse hair below the belt. Er, you know what I mean.

I’m on a mission to convert the band to zebra. I don’t anticipate success. But I suggest to you all: go crazy on the bag covers, express yourself, be true to your type-A ostrich-wearing, leopard-toting forbears and set yourself free!

Whatever. Papa’s got a brand new bag.

M.

Anyway, the piping and pipe band world is full of secrets; most all of them little unsaid, unspoken bits and bobs that sort of make the whole twisty piping world turn round. Of course they’re unsaid, I know – they’re secrets – but many of these secrets come to be known by those of us who hang around the game long enough. Here’s one I learned very recently only after the holder of the secret was in what I suspect was a weak, heat-addled, beer-infused moment.

I’m going to share this secret with you today.

Maybe I’ve been out-to-lunch and oblivious to the ordnariness of what I’m about to tell you, a well-kent obviousity – more common knowledge than secret. Whatever. Here’s what I’ve recently learned:

On hot sweaty days in the summer – or anytime, I guess – many (many) people evidently wear a garment commonly called “spanx” under their kilt. This spandex delight apparently prevents chafing and painful TCHR (thigh-centric heat rash).

Anyway, I thought this pretty funny; funny in that lower-case ‘f’ way. But funny. Maybe because its not a kilty-piping issue I wrestle with.

Whatever. If chafing is getting in the way of your marching and phrasing and, um, pipe major-ing, on you go and get yourself outfitted with a funky pair of spanx.

Stay cool.

M.

I always thought those old cheesy Japanese movies from the 1950s might benefit from a little kick, a little something to give them a boost. I’m not talking Seven Samurai or Rashômon here, I’m talking about movies like those from the Godzilla and Mothra franchises (did they call ever call old movie serials “franchises”?).

Anyway, I thought how great it would be for one to snag a pipe band soundtrack, music to go along with the badly dubbed English.

There must be something about the Japanese language that offers much less concision than English. It must take way more words to say in Japanese what might be said in English. Lips always seem to move long after – a second or two – the English dubs are heard.

Here’s a little something to pass a few minutes of your time. The soundtrack is the Toronto Police Pipe Band from their “Live at the el Mocambo: Raw and Off the Floor” recording from last year. You can download tracks here.

楽しむ

M.

Pure quality.

Better, I guess, than “plays like a bagpipe, sounds like a flute”.

M.

From time-to-time, in the last year, I’ve heard the hint of a piper from the other side of the course [I'm super lucky, I think, my house backs on a golf course - though I don't golf]. Anyway, over the summer I’ve occasionally pulled weeds to the far-off strains of ‘Barren Rocks of Aden’ and other assorted tunes of glory – a very good thing, I say. Anyway, I’ve also heard chanter strafing. It’s the only phrase I can think to describe it.

C.S. is not pretty. I’ve done my share of it, no doubt. But man-oh-man, when you hear it repeatedly, well, it’s absolutely repellent. Not a good bagpipe marketing ploy. In C.S. it’s like a piper’s hands are squeezing out every drop of bottled up and mostly-insane nervous energy. Not melodic. Not rhythmic. Not pretty.

I wonder today why we do it (and we all do it). I’ve heard inexperienced players do it, I’ve heard gold medallists and world champion pipe majors do it, and, as I said, I’ve done it. It’s a bagpipe thing. Why?

I can only think that we chanter-strafe because we marvel that our fingers move at all. We need to know, before we play a tune, that there are in fact nine notes on the chanter. We strafe in a sort of celebration that the notes are roughly in the right place, from a pitch perspective. We strafe our chanters because we can.

C.S. may not sound great but our reasons for doing it seem sort of reasonable. Just sayin’.

M.

M.

No matter how much water you drink after there’s always teensy, tiny little nut bits at the back of the throat firmly in place and ready to ignite a coughing fit mid-tune.

Nuts. Like a well-played strathspey, the eating of nuts needs to be well-timed.

You heard it here first.

M.

PS. Bonus tip number 2 of the day: Keep a tasty bag of nuts in the sporran on games day for sharing with fellow competitors.