Entertained and pained....

I dropped Anne off in town where she was meeting up with Lynn for a few drinks and to, no doubt, set the world to rights. Then I made my way back to the local private school where the MBFives play their football, indoors and out.

What an error of judgement to have applied to play football with the guys for a second night in a row!

This time it was outdoors.

I had convinced myself that, following my performances over the last two appearances in the Wednesday night indoor game, I was ready to return to the outdoors fray.

But I’d forgotten how much I don’t enjoy the outdoors game. It’s too “bitty”, the pitch is too big, the ball is just too heavy and hard (especially with my ongoing toe problem).

To add to all this, after last night’s game I was experiencing considerable amounts of pain in both my legs in the thigh and knee areas.

As you might imagine, my performance can only be described as pathetic. Much of it spent in goal, occasional forays upfront and hopeless attempts at chasing back. My team quickly went 5-0 down but, in a spirited comeback, managed to claw our way to 5-4 only to end up losing by something like 11-6 (no-one ever keeps the scores properly in these games, goals being lost or added almost everytime someone shouts out their opinion on the up to date tally).

Our team’s finishing was particularly dire and our awareness of team-mates in clear goal scoring positions as we thundered another hopeless shot wide, seemed utterly non-existent.

To add to the misery, no one seemed to have any idea of the time and so we rumbled on for an hour and twenty minutes…

I headed back home for a shower and a quick change and then drove back uptown to the Arcade Bar in Cockburn Street (where I played a few gigs in late 2003, including the famous ”25 Years in 63 Minutes” set. How I ever imagined anyone would be interested in hearing songs I wrote in the early eighties, played badly with just one acoustic guitar, I’ll never know).

Anyway, tonight at the Arcade, there was a comedy evening, at which my good old chum Mr Jim Park was doing a short set.

It was a small but appreciative audience with a few tourists/migrant workers amongst us and we soon warmed to the host who had some good stories to tell related to his job on the complaints desk at the BBC in Glasgow.

Jim was first on and, although seeming a bit nervous, put in a good show and his slot was over before we even noticed – I’d have liked to have seem him do a bit longer as the other comics were getting ten or fifteen minutes, but I suppose he’s still on the bottom rung of the comedy ladder.

I especially enjoyed Jim’s piece on his stint as a “carer” in an old folks’ home where he organised a building wide game of snakes and ladders using Stena Stairlifts as ladders and refuse chutes as snakes. After a couple of fatalities he was sacked….

I picked Anne and Lynn up around midnight and we headed home – I was entertained but sore…