So how was 2023 for you? For me it has been anything but pleasant. On the last day of 2022, I was smitten with Covid which meant plans to see in the New Year had to be abandoned. To date, that little red line persists in appearing. So much for all those vaccinations. Things are not helped by the side effect nobody told me about – conjunctivitis. Itchy eyes on top of everything else is like piling Pelion upon Ossa. Nor has it helped that all this has happened when the news has been consistently depressing and television even worse.
I did watch the dramatised
Stonehouse series and sat there thinking I was watching a world completely different from the one I was living in then. The documentary that followed put it in far better perspective. I did watch him when he was a minister as covering statements, debates and speeches in the Commons was the job of a parliamentary correspondent but nothing I saw struck a chord.
I don't remember Labour backbenchers getting to their feet, waving order papers and cheering him, and while he was an impressive enough performer, the Wilson Government was full of far bigger fish. The trouble is that dramatists change things for dramatic purposes but those who watch often take what they see for the truth, when it is often anything but the truth.
Stonehouse does appear to have had contacts he should not have had with the Czech spy masters although whether he ever gave them anything worth knowing is another matter. What I do remember, however, is that at one point back then Czech Embassy parties were events to which lobby correspondents got invited and how good they were was certainly the talk of the steamie.
One leading Scottish lobby man had to be rescued from a bush in which he had fallen asleep shortly after leaving. I don't think they were recruiting journalists as spies but lots of interesting gossip about politicians would have been passed on to host attaches over the canapés and drinks.
It is a strange feeling to have been not a participant in someone's story but to have been there on the sidelines looking on unremarked by those who end up researching, and in some cases for dramatic purposes, inventing. One has nothing to add to their researches other than it wasn't really like that.
Bill Russell
Well, that is the winter holiday over for most if not all of us, with the majority now securely back at work. The decorations are down, discarded fir trees litter the streets of our cities, towns and villages awaiting pick up, the date for which no-one ever seems to know. Having reached double figures for the days of the month, many sincere resolutions, if made at all, are already being tested to the limit. I expect that any promises made around a person's economic activity may be more likely to have a longer mileage before being broken, especially as we hear the utility bills falling through the letterbox. As my wee granny Kate used to say, it's back til auld claes an parritch.
January is a strange one, it is a long month pay-wise for many of us, as our employers bring pay dates forward to mid-December. The net result being that the next payday is around six weeks away, a sobering prospect. On that theme, as a start to the New Year, many people give up alcohol for the first month and, increasingly, others eschew meat and animal products over the same length of time, coined in the dreadful portmanteau: Veganuary. Just don't eat meat folks. There's no need for the stupid name: it is not funny and it is not clever.
Christmas and New Year time are a bit of a blur, not because I was out partying, more because it is such a lazy time of indulgence and keeping irregular hours. Also for me, the celebratory element of New Year has become a bit anti-climatic and boring. Could just be my age but the days between Christmas and New Year always feel like a bit of a void and you can have Hogmanay for me.
I did have the pleasure of witnessing Altered Images during their sound check on the day before though. I was strolling along the street with a friend, post-lunch, and we were attracted by what sounded like a familiar 80s tune coming from Princes Street Gardens. As we crossed the road, the volume was getting that bit louder and more recognisable. The band were tuning up and adjusting their instruments for a good wee bit before the front woman swept on stage and began to belt out the familiar words of
I Could Be Happy.
Clare Grogan was on top form and as usual exhibiting her natural exuberance, dancing around the stage as she always has. She might be diminutive but her voice and demeanour took up the entirety of the stage and surrounds as she belted out one of the band's better known songs to the sizable crowd which had gathered on Princes Street overlooking the Ross Bandstand. This was no tepid version, it was just a mike and speaker test, but the effort put into the song by Clare was much appreciated, with whoops and hollers aplenty as it came to an end. Much the seasoned performer, her response was to thank the crowd of well-wishers at the same time segueing into an ABBA number.
Like many a young man in the early 1980s, I was captivated by Clare's performance in the wonderful
Gregory's Girl. With her bob cut and that wee beret, she made many a heart flutter, though she only had eyes for John Gordon Sinclair in the role of the ungainly Gregory. Gregory was oblivious to Clare's character Susan, being instead infatuated by the school team star striker, all the while hoping she might see him as a keeper. Written and directed by the wonderful Bill Forsyth, with Dee Hepburn's Dorothy taking Gregory's positon as the school team striker and a temporary place in his affections. It also starred my dad's favourite, Chic Murray, as the carelessly indifferent headmaster. Timeless classic.
Frank Eardley
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