NOW that I am a trainee helicopter pilot, I have to make sure I get the language right. After all, I am the captain of a Sierra 107 and need to get myself a call sign so that I can be identified properly.
It is all so confusing and most people don’t understand the lingo. A certain young woman from Tong got talking in the Carlton Bar in Stornoway to one of these visiting pilots on a Nato exercise. Fed up he wasn’t buying a drink, she was told he had to keep a clear head as he was flying next day.
Just before he went off to the toilet, she asked what his plane was. He said: “It’s an F-15 Eagle, call sign Yankee Whiskey Foxtrot. Now pardon me, ma’am.”
The barmaid was baffled and asked what he said. Quick as a flash, our lassie retorted: “It’s obvious. He is American and he’s changed his mind. We’ll have two large drams and then we’re going dancing.” Poor girl. She got one out of the three right.
Meanwhile, we are still on holiday. While Mrs X was boosting the turnover of places like Schuh and Dorothy Perkins, I nipped into Sauchiehall Street’s only shop worth visiting – yes, the gadget shop. They had this wee remote-controlled helicopter buzzing around. I want, I want, I want. I was like a wee spoiled brat in a toy shop. Er, no like about it.
Mr Smooth Talking Salesman said its flying techniques were exactly the same as piloting a real one. Waow. How much, how much, how much?
Back in the flat, I got it up OK. Then down and then straight into a vase which smashed into a million bits. Mrs X pledged forgiveness only if I took her out.
Eating on the mainland is a problem due to my fondness for marag dubh. They’re everywhere. We would wander down Scotland’s precincts examining menus in the windows.
Rabbit with Stornoway black pudding, quail’s egg and Cox’s apple, or perhaps pork fillet on Stornoway black pudding with balsamic and raspberry sauce or, maybe, seared Black Pearl scallops with Stornoway black pudding served over creamy mashed potatoes and a smoked cheese sauce.
Thank you, Cuan Mor in Oban for that one.
Tramping round that infernal triangle of Sauchiehall, Argyle and Braehead shops had worked up such a hunger that I could have scoffed a scabby horse with jam in its armpits.
So we determined to try something else this time. Finally, we found one with no marag on the menu, so in we piled.
Strange. People seemed to be huddled round cookers. Ah, so. This was dining, Japanese-style. The grub is cooked there in front of you on a griddle. They call that Teppanyaki.
Not having gone completely Japanese, in the culinary sense, before – sushi from the supermarket doesn’t count – I wondered about their reputation of being like Germans and Free Churchers with no sense of humour. Not so. These chefs were also magicians, acrobats and stand-up comics.
Our personal griddler was a cheerful, lanky, knife juggler from down Tokyo way. He turned up the gas so much that when he put on the oil for my salmon with noodles and little green things a column of flame shot right up to the ceiling.
Peering under what was left of my eyebrows, a Munro of sliced potato was being fried up amid loud calls of “Onaka suiteru?” I assumed he was offering another Asahi Japanese bevvy. Nope. My nod resulted in a squadron of spud slices being flipped at me.
Picking the Kerr’s Pink out of my hair and nostrils, I learned this is a traditional icebreaker in Hokkaido. I was to catch them in my gob for the general amusement of various Belgians, French and Australians who were all just mightily relieved he had not picked them.
I did OK. Amazing just how wide you can gape when the pride of your nation depends on it.
Then there was another frenetic display of juggling. Keeping half a dozen eggs in the air seemed too dodgy even for Tokyo Joe, I decided. They were obviously just plastic eggs. In the finale, though, they were all split through by a spinning knife as they plummeted just before they plopped into a bowl. Shows how little I know.
After a fantastic feast, I went walkabout in the restaurant. It was fascinating talking to the staff and seeing their collection of old Japanese herbal medicines and asking them how often Mary Sandeman comes in.
Really? Does she still call herself Aneka and sing softly how she misses her Japanese boy? Fascinating, but I’m sworn to secrecy.
Mrs X got worried that I was hitting the old Japanese hooch and asked where I was. The ever-helpful Joe taught her the correct way to say that she was looking for me.
So I was summoned by Mrs X lovingly bellowing out: “Iain, wo sagashite imasu.”
What a coincidence. That’s not a million miles from what she calls me every day, anyway.
We are now heading back to Stornoway on the ferry. The art of helicopter flying is coming on.
I have mastered the slow climb and the hover, but I still have work to do on the emergency landing. It has now cost one chandelier, two vases and the consequences of an unplanned dive bombing of Mrs X.
She had emerged from the shower in a bath towel when, inexplicably, I lost control of the whirlybird and my trouble and strife suffered a collision amidships. The shampoo, the lady razor and, I must report, the towel went flying as the kamikaze attack from, gosh, six feet up, slammed into its well-sprung target.
It took yet another excursion to St Enoch’s to put that one right.
The only problem is she has now realised the fun I’m having. She keeps hinting that she would like a shot.
No way. This chopper is mine and no one else is getting their hands on it.
