Ok, I’m not planning to have tour t-shirts made up just yet, but I thought you might like to know the dates and places where you can come and see me, heckle and chuck rotten fruit.   First up will be Waterstones in Inverness where Jo De Sylva has kindly agreed to host a question and answer session.  I’m told there might be wine. That’s at 6pm on the 21st February.  On the 16th March I’ll be at the Lochwinnoch Arts Festival being quizzed by Professor Rowena Murray. The McKillop Hall is the venue for that, at half past ten in the morning.

Beyond that there as plans afoot for a big event at the University of the Highlands and Islands and at venues in Edinburgh, Perth and Easterhouse.  I’ll keep you updated but I’m warning you now, no moshing or slamdancing will be permitted.

Meanwhile, as it’s the end of the month, a bit of fun. Just over a week ago I was invited on to Grant Stott’s show on BBC Radio Scotland. That meant going into the BBC’s Inverness studio – the offices there were my base for the last twelve years, so naturally I was expecting a warm welcome.

As the video shows, it didn’t quite turn out that way.

A police radio in my jacket lapel and a fake wallet in my trouser pocket. These were my secret weapons for all those times I would find myself in Glasgow City Centre in the early hours of the morning, walking back to my office or a hotel room near Pacific Quay. It was a half hour stroll (a twenty-minute dash if you had the frighteners) through that twilight zone west of Central Station and under the Kingston Bridge. Comedian and radio star, Des Clarke, also lived out that way and seemed most impressed with my fake wallet idea.
“It has to have some money in it,” I told him, “at least a fiver. And some defunct credit cards or saving coupons for long-gone supermarket chains like Fine Fare or Safeway. You hand this to the mugger instead of your real wallet and he lets you go with a smile.”        Des, it has to be said, had a better idea.
“Or just jump in a taxi and don’t walk in dodgy places after dark.”
Meanwhile, my friend Nicola Creen (confidence guru and former model) was more intrigued with the fake police radio in my lapel.
“So, when the muggers approach,“ I told her, “You thumb the lapel towards your mouth and shout ‘Tango Five Niner. Move In! Move In!’, like you’re part of an undercover sting operation.”
Nicola also suggested the taxi alternative.
In any event, I never did have to deploy either of these tactics, but as revealed by Bev  in today’s Evening Times, I did have to think on my feet when I was approached by a ‘lady of the night’ after emerging from that late-night KFC place on Argyle Street. Convinced that her proposition was the precursor to me being beaten to a pulp in a nearby alley, I rejected her offer with my usual politeness.
“Any other night,” I told her, apologetically, “but I’ve just bought this chicken and I have ten mates waiting for it. They’re in a van around the corner.”
What made this story believable (in my mind anyway) was that I had bought enough chicken for ten people. Less credible was the idea of me having ten mates.
But at least I didn’t have to part with my fake wallet or call in fictional reinforcements.

The launch party was going well. Enough people had turned up to make the Sloan’s ballroom look busy and there was the happy chatter of old friends reuniting or strangers making new connections.  Lyn and Laura from Lunicorn Press (my publishers) had arrived earlier in the day to make sure that the wine and orange juice had been sorted and that there was a big enough table for the Waterstone’s people to stack copies of my book for people to buy and for me to sign. I turned up just after five having driven from Inverness with a detour to Uddingston to pick up two dozen boxes of chocolate teacakes, kindly donated by Tunnock’s. I didn’t eat a single one in the drive into Glasgow. Honest!

Comedian and radio presenter, Julia Sutherland, our host for the evening, arrived despite battling a slight lurgy and then other guests started to trickle in: My son, my daughter, my niece Amanda, Innes Smith and Colin Edwards (creators of the Franz Kafka Big Band), Rob Waller (Radio Clyde News), Karen Bartke (Officer Karen from the TV show Scots Squad)  Drew McAdam (mentalist and mindreader), Austin Lafferty (lawyer, artist and all-round good guy) comedy producer Gus Beattie, James McGuire from Capital Radio and so many former colleagues from my days at the BBC – Lisa Summers, Linsday Hil – and from my life before the Beeb.  It was great to see, Claire MacLean (former Clyde colleague) and Kath Caskie, from our student magazine days … and to put faces to names when meeting Sunday Post writer Janet Boyle and book blogger Mary Picken.  So many others too, but I’ll have to name and shame them in future posts.

Julia hosted the night in splendid style, quizzing me about the origin of the book, the reaction of my old bosses, my thoughts on the future of radio and on the soon-to-be launched BBC Scotland TV channel.  She then invited me to read a short extract from my book and I had chosen a section from the Brainwaves chapter, detailing my ill-fated attempt to come up with a quiz format to rival Who Wants to be a Millionaire?  People laughed in the right places, which was a relief.

In the question and answer session, Kath Caskie asked the most difficult question about the difference between the written word and the spoken word.  I waffled . Richard Melvin, meanwhile, set me up with a question about my decision to ban Santa’s a Scotsman, (a festive favourite of Ken Bruce on Radio 2) allowing me to feign outrage for a moment before revealing the true story of our joint attempt to drum up publicity for his Christmas single.

After that, the Waterstone’s men cleared a space on their table for me to sign books and I have to admit that this was the point of the evening when I felt most foolish.  Signing books for friends and colleagues like I was a real author or something!  I managed to come up with a personal and pithy comment for about half of the time and only once did I manage to get someone’s name wrong and have to grab a fresh book from the pile to start again.

Those Waterstone’s boys don’t miss a trick, though. They insisted I pay for the book I had ruined. Still, it was only £8.99.  A bargain, I tell you, a bargain.

Once again I’m being selective in my choice of quotes from a review, but this one from Tom Morton in The Scottish Review is mostly positive … and I’m trying not to be more flattered by his assessment of my drinking prowess, because that would be just too stereotypically Scottish. Besides, that’s all in the past now. Hic.

Here’s the full article …

http://www.scottishreview.net/TomMorton462a.html

“Coos Bay could easily be the setting for the location of a John Carpenter movie or those opening chapters of a Stephen King novel, where the viewer/reader is waiting to find out if, this time, it’s the sheriff, the dog or the cat that’s been possessed by a demon. Clean, quiet and with inhabitants so spookily friendly that you can’t square it with the town’s oddly tragic claims to fame: numerous shipwrecks and ‘Oregon’s only recorded lynching’.”

–The Red Light Zone, Chapter 5.

“The Princess asked one of those innocuous questions about the location of this new Sense centre and whether it would be convenient for the children and families who hoped to use it. This, to our relief, prompted an explosion of conversation about the transport links in this part of Glasgow – Govan – and a small debate about which bus routes best served the area.  I could see the Princess absorb this information with a concentrated frown, but there was no sign of her taking notes for future reference.”

-The Red Light Zone