SOME people take up jogging. Some just go back on the booze. I decided the best way to get back to normal after the rigours of the run-up to that inconclusive and pointless election was to get another month’s supply of those wonderful pills that Mrs X swears keeps me at my peak of virility.
So I put my collar up and sneaked into Superdrug to see if they had got more in since I cleared them out.
It was the festive season. You have to do something to try to cheer up those women disappointed by what the wee fat fellow had put in their stockings.
As I rummaged to see if the pills were in their usual place, hidden craftily behind the extra-strength cod-liver oil, what did I overhear but a woman in the checkout queue being very grateful to a fellow who had his back to me. A gentleman and a scholar, he was, she declared.
A very generous one, too, for helping her out in her hour of need, she boomed in a voice that was audible along at the shelves of Omega 3 capsules, restorative herbal-based potions and lead-in-your-pencil supplements.
Who was this knight in shining uniform, I wondered to myself, as I grabbed another handful of packets to ensure that my irresistibility would not wilt before next Christmas.
It was obvious this was someone who had stepped in and rescued a damsel in distress. When he turned round, I realised it was none other than Ronnie Jappy, the merry mailman. Ah, of course. Who else?
The jolly Samaritan must have been behind the woman who had forgotten her purse. Ronald, like the true gentleman that he is, must have gallantly jumped in and paid for everything she had in her basket.
What a thoroughly nice chap. Salt of the earth, he is. Someone should nominate him for an award from the Queen. Would that make him a Royal Male?
Shaking his hand, I patted him on the back and ruffled his hair – well, what’s left of it. If there were more decent fellows like him, the entire world would be a better place, I said. People like Ronnie, I told him, were what made Britain great.
Knowing he, too, was ex-RAF, that was something guaranteed to give him a wee warm glow. Generous, big-hearted people like our Ronald cannot have enough wee warm glows.
The very least that the rest of us miserable tightwads should do is make sure of that because I know most of us would have stood in that queue with our hands in our pockets fingering our shekels.
So, I asked him eventually, how much of his own hard-earned had he actually given the forgetful shopper in the end? Was it £10, £20 or more? He went quiet. Must have been more. What a star this man truly is, I decided there and then.
However, it turned out that the woman had not actually forgotten her purse. But she had, indeed, been short and was just about to break into another £10 note when he overheard.
So the bold Ronnie gave her the amount she was short – 1p.
Just 1p? Why was she praising him so lavishly for handing over a measly penny? Because she was a very nice woman, obviously.
Where does that leave Ronnie, I hear you ask. Well, it is the thought that counts. I suppose that is true but, then again, he could not have given her less if he tried.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that Ronnie is not the kindest, most generous and downright decent fellow that has ever put a tax demand through my flap, it is just that he did not, on that particular occasion, get the chance to prove it.
Next time I see him in the Legion or the Carlton, I shall go out of my way to ensure he does.
Because I am like that, you see. If there is a wee dram on offer of an evening, usually I take the considered view that it would be rude to refuse.
So it was that I took the invitation the other week to sample a few drams as part of the process of the Hebridean Celtic Festival selecting its 15th anniversary whisky.
Not a simple task. It had been whittled down to three 15-year-old malts. So they were all just the age of the festival. Memory dims, but I think they were a Macallan, an Aberlour and a Glenkinchie.
Some of the great and the good in the islands were invited along to actually choose the dram, while we soaks, I mean experts, ruminated loudly about the elements leading up to the final decision. Sadly, the chosen dignitaries were all busy washing their hair, so we had to put up with the likes of Alasdair Gaelic Macleod and a few other poor souls who found such an invitation difficult to decline.
And Calum Runrig Macdonald. He was there as the band is headlining the July extravaganza that will be number 15. Sadly, Calum’s whisky-tasting abilities are nowhere near as well-developed as his musical talents.
For some unearthly reason, Calum and the panel of ne’er-do-wells with him decided that the nondescript Aberlour had hitherto and apparently cleverly hidden qualities, which no one else in the civilised world could fathom, which put it ahead of the superbly warming and comforting Macallan.
They were unsettlingly unanimous, which just goes to show how daft committee decisions can be. Comhairle nan Eilean Siar take note.
I don’t know what qualities they were looking for to choose Aberlour and describe it as having “a brave bouquet, a splattering impact on the upper tongue and unforgettable aftertaste”.
Because that is exactly like the paint stripper under my stairs.
Don’t look at me like that. It was late. I was thirsty. Mrs X was away. The tax rebate hadn’t come.
