No stranger to the P45 by Dan W.Griffin (reading diary .TXT) 📖

(see Book), Marvellous Malcolm was my nom de plume - so-to-speak - for the überdrivel that I shoved into my column in the Student Times. Since it often awarded me a thin veil of anonymity together with an opportunity to distance myself from the disjointed guff constituting my ‘work’ I decided to use it again. And so I did that, too. I set out to author a guide to the tiny Scottish town of St Andrews. Sorry about that...
Somewhat unimaginatively titled, Marvellous Malcolm’s A-Z of St Andrews was my first attempt to write a book since my guide to Birds of Doubtful Ornithological Plausibility. It was my first since my diary too, and since another about an alien named Dave. It wasn’t a serious attempt, by any stretch of the imagination, but I couldn’t play golf and I enjoyed sitting in cafés. In between shifts at Bert’s Bar (a job I’d gotten soon after my arrival), and residing for an indeterminate length of time in the golfing capital of the world, just what else was I going to do?
I decided to compile a guide not because there wasn’t one, because there was. I simply figured that since I’d caused something of a rumpus with my column for the paper I could perhaps do something similar with a guidebook, too. I considered that I could use my own brand of pseudo-humour to describe the town and its features and attractions, hopefully targeting an altogether different demographic than the ones already in existence, possibly offering an alternative to their generally pleasant, fair and accurate observations. Thus, I’d soon find a publisher dumb enough to pay me oodles of cash, which I could then squander on miscellaneous nonsense. I’d then dupe said publisher into subsidising a trip around the world and bang-out an even greater volume of überdrivel and claptrap. Offers of television shows would soon follow and before I knew it I’d have credibility and purpose and be able to meet girls who might even find me interesting. I’d launch a range of travel merchandise (such as a pac-a-mac trebling as a life-raft and mosquito net) and I’d explore the deepest jungles of Borneo and stay in the most exclusive hotels in Manhattan. I had to begin somewhere though, and that ‘somewhere’ was Scotland. It was either that or learn to play golf. I did ‘that’.
Many, many, many years ago I kept a diary in one of those Red & Black (or is it Black & Red?) books. I kept it for about eighteen months, much of which time I spent besotted with a girl in my class. Each day I’d write a few words about my heart missing a beat the moment I saw her and of how I could never find the courage to speak to her, let alone ask her out. I was a shameful human being back then. It could be argued that I still am.
I composed the most Vogon-like poems for her featuring bluebells and daisies and the like. And I wrote messages of love that were so pathetic that when I re-discovered the book sometime later it sent a shiver down my spine and I had to incinerate it forthwith. After my non-book of Birds of Doubtful Ornithological Plausibility it was my second attempt at writing a book. A day in the life of Urp was my third. It was an attempt at writing science-fiction, although it was perhaps as close to that particular genre as a sewage overflow pipe is to Perrier. Like I said earlier, it was a story about an alien named Dave.
Dave was from an alien civilisation that I named the Waiaiblegneephf. I arrived at the name following a brief reminiscence of the grot-hole otherwise known as Sunderland during which the phrase, ‘Waye-aye, Man’ popped into my head. Its inexplicable stupidity summed the whole alien-named-Dave thing up for me and so I then punched the keyboard (of my laptop) to add a few more letters. It was as good a way to arrive at a name as any other, I thought.
A typical Waiaiblegneephf, Dave had a half-dozen arms and eyes on stalks that would change colour according to his mood. He came into existence in a puff of rainbow smoke immediately following the death of his father, who died in a fight over a toaster. Soon exploring his planet and trying to figure out what each of his arms were actually for, he spent the first chapter learning both yogic flying and the words to each of the songs in Johnny Mathis’ back catalogue. And then he befriended a rock.
Chapter two featured a psychic dog named Stephen with an uncanny ability to predict the weather some six weeks ahead. After becoming separated from his owner in a French hypermarket and finding himself joining the European space programme, Stephen was accidentally fired into space and would ultimately save the Waiaiblegneephf from total annihilation by a lizard named Judith. It was all looking rather promising until Dave exploded on page six. There really wasn’t anywhere to go with it after that.
Anyway.
It was a shame that my inability to write a guidebook to St Andrews was equalled only by my inability to identify a career ahead of me that would eventually dump me somewhere in the field of a perceived normality. My writing was as awful as it was when I was pouring my heart out onto the pages of my Red & Black diary - an effort replicated by many a puppy relieving himself over a carpet having earlier gobbled down a large bag of prunes. Once more I showcased my mastery of writing good an’ that, my finished sentences as pleasant as a bunion, the overall work as charming as tax.
Despite this acceptance I set out to develop a compilation of descriptive pieces. I failed and instead spewed my thoughts and observations into a computer, hoping that somewhere within a program might actually make some sense out of it that I could then take the credit for. Soon realising that things don’t tend to work that way I continued to spend my time off (from working at Bert’s Bar) in as many of the other bars and cafés that I could find and recording ‘things what I found of interest an’ that, innit, like.’ As it happened, the town didn’t have a great many of them.
There were a few museums mostly dedicated to punting little white balls across a field, but at that time the majority of ‘things of interest’ were the cafés and bars. Sure, there was the university: far more prevalent in popular culture today on account of the graduation of our future King and Queen and the subsequent surge in demand for revoltingly tacky crockery. And there’s a ruin of an old thirteenth century castle there, too. And the botanical gardens. And a harbour in which I almost drowned at 3am one morning as a consequence of being rather drunk. There’s also a Cold War nuclear bunker that I’ve only just found out about, and a museum that has something to do with the university.
Not a vast amount actually happens in the minute Scottish coastal town of St Andrews. This was confirmed to me when I conducted a rather poorly-thought-out and executed interview of the town’s Chief Inspector (of police). Years previously there had been a ‘moider’, and a month earlier someone had had a set of golf clubs stolen from the boot of their car. But that was about it. I’m sure it’s different now but back then there wasn’t even much trouble during The Open golf tournament, or during the other event of significance: the St Andrews’ Lammas Fair.
The Lammas Fair is a five-day event taking place in early August. It is said to be one of Scotland’s oldest medieval markets, although by whom I’m not quite sure. I was employed at Bert’s Bar when the fair was held and I remember finishing work late one evening and walking home through the empty streets. Arriving for work the following morning I couldn’t help but notice that the place had suddenly transformed into a theme park, the theme of which not being immediately apparent.
Overnight the main streets - all two of them - had become packed with stalls and rides, many reminding me of Carter’s Steam Fair where years before I’d laundered cash from my uncle’s narcotics operation. If you’d visited the town on the previous day you’d have seen a simple snapshot of everyday St Andrews’ life, and yet within hours it had become a bustling market of music and laughter, of amusement rides, of stalls selling anything from kitchen knives to bags of pig-n-mix, to leather goods and baskets and a great many hotdogs. Today, the image lurking within the porridge-like gloop of my recollection is of the movie, Transformers: Optimus Prime and Megatron rolling into town overnight and with a clash, clatter and bang morphing into Ferris wheels and a Waltzer... later drooling over teenage girls as they all thumb through thick wads of twenty-pound notes and sounding identical in their yell for riders to ‘Scream for speed...’ or something like that.
Anyway...
Given my failure to be remotely informative (see Book) you’ll probably have already figured out that I’ve not dared to unearth my final draft of Marvellous Malcolm’s A-Z of St Andrews (to refer to) lest I spend the remainder of this week rocking back and forth against a wall. However, I do remember with the clarity of curdled milk, Bert’s Bar, and I remember the existence of a cafe-cum-restaurant-cum-bar-cum-pub, a place with an interior resembling the aftermath of an argument between a couple of skips and a charity shop. I don’t recall its name but I do remember walking in through the entrance and being greeted by an old red telephone box. A bicycle hung from the wall as did a boat. There were posters and what seemed a million vehicle licence plates and neon signs and various items of clothing in glass boxes. There was a great deal of awful china and coloured glass and bang in the middle of the place, for reasons that escaped me even then, someone had nailed a chair to the ceiling. It sold a lot of cheeseburgers and things with chips.
There were many other pubs, bars and cafés that I experienced on my travels within the town but few are more than a nano-grain of an image in the sludge-like gloop of my vaudevillian pursuit. A little like Bath, much of St Andrews’ architecture was beautiful and awe-inspiring and provided many opportunities for visitors to capture photographs of friends and loved ones looking awkward as they stood uncomfortably against the backdrop of something quaint. One such place was Murray Mitchell’s dead pig shop.
I continue to be at a loss as to why, but Murray Mitchell was far more than just a butcher or a purveyor of meat and game. His shop had become something of an unofficial attraction whose window inexplicably brought tourists from miles around. Many arrived simply to stand in front of it looking rather uncomfortable being photographed against the backdrop of the carcass of a dead pig. Still, he probably sold quite a lot of haggis as a result of that.
Anyway.
As I wound-up my life in St Andrews so too did I cease writing Marvellous Malcolm’s A-Z of the place. Never-again, I hoped,