Local author Dan Gray breaks free of his historian’s shackles

August was a momentous month in our garden. After much deliberating and high-level conferencing, we finally pulled a carrot out of the ground. This was not just any carrot; it was a shrivelled, pathetic carrot resembling one of Jabba the Hutt’s thumbs. Having stared at it for a while, we then washed said carrot, barbecued it and applied some Reggae Reggae sauce, which took much of the foul taste away. Next to be uprooted was a courgette, the only survivor in its family after a savage ransacking by the kid next door’s Finding Nemo football. On the palate, this performed a little better than the carrot, and we only fed 80 to 85% of it to the neighbour’s dog. On reflection, gardening has failed to resemble popular documentary series The Good Life.

Pathetic carrots, slaloming zombies and next door’s dog ...

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The peril of parents
On three Saturdays through the same month, accompanied by a supreme Spanish guitarist I read stories from that book wot I wrote, Homage to Caledonia, as part of the Fringe. All three shows sold out, with many of the audience members only slightly related to me. This was generally a good experience until the final week when one lady went to sleep on the front row and the man next to her erupted in a coughing fit of sarcastic proportions. I’ll not be inviting my parents next year.

Fascist hairdresser
Talking of fringes, one of the pains of my existence is the haircut. Every few weeks I’ll go along to some bonce rug reduction unit or other and remember just how rubbish I am at banal conversation. This is not to say I deal only in the sparkling, far from it (I own five books about trains for a kick-off), but I really am poor at chitchat. Put me alongside the most prattling of taxi drivers and within minutes he’ll be whipping off his seatbelt at the traffic lights and running for the hills.

At the hairdresser’s, I’ll try to fit in by pretending to enjoy an old issue of Esquire magazine. Then, there’s the nervous acceptance of a cup of tea, trying to slurp it while describing that you want your hair styled the same way as last time despite never having been there before, followed by the alarming feeling that the barber is about to say something vaguely fascist. It always reminds me of an old schoolmaster I’ve just made up. When asked ‘how would you like your hair cut today, sir?’ he’d emphatically reply ‘in silence.’

Mobile Von Trapps
Picture the scene. In the beginning, there were only a few of them. Then in time they multiplied at the rate of screen-faced Von Trapps on a desert island. iPhones. i-bloody-Phones. Small ‘i,’ large ‘P,’ and ruining the very thing they were born to facilitate – conversation – for three years now.

Look up in any café and there you will see their pie-eyed users pushing away. In the street, hark at the way those users walk with one arm outstretched checking Facebook, slaloming into one another like zombies sponsored by Apple. They’ve got ‘Apps’ for telling you when the number 49 is due and Apps for ruining Likely Lads-style football score avoidance. They are information vats that delete the possibility of surprise and ruin the traditional pub quiz. Like Mrs Doyle and her teasmaid, I like the misery of knowing nothing and of using age-old timepiece and timetable technology to catch a bus. I’ll be sticking with my Alcatel, thanks, an anti-iPhone that chuckles and says ‘Are you taking the piss, mate?’ when you mistakenly press the redundant camera button.

My booky wooky
Just time for some self-promotion: in this year of austerity your humble editor wants more words in exchange for the cooking lager he pays me with. The new book, Stramash, is currently being set to page and should be with us in October. Each day of writing it bought a new favourite team, town or figure, leaving me deeply confused and suffering that rarest of things – a crush on Cowdenbeath. I’m rapidly amassing a set of heroes I’ll never meet: Vic Kasule, a legend of Albion Rovers once booked for singing a George Benson song at a referee; Hyam Dimmer, not an Ikea light fitting but a pre-war ball magician at Ayr United; Gutty McKenzie, a bloke in 1940s Alloa who used to earn money on the High Street by pretending his bike was a bucking bronco. It’s been a brilliant way of getting to know Scotland’s nether regions.

Info: Daniel Gray’s Stramash: Tackling Scotland’s Football Towns, will be published by Luath Press in October: www.stramashthebook.com