Forget Frasier V Ali.
Forget McEnroe V Borg
Forget Tom V Jerry
This was the big one
The Beasts from the East V The Best from the West
Keeping in our corners- Frank, Neil, Doug, Craig (In charge ha!) Me, Matt, Douglas
Knowledgeable Neil Broadfoot
Fruity Frank Muir
Deputy Doug.
Capt Caro (girlie swot)
Mad Matt Bendoris
Dazzling Douglas Skelton
We are very lucky in Glasgow to
have two great Waterstones shops – one of which is a converted cinema!
They are located in Sauchiehall Street
and Argyle Street. The managers of each are very keen to do the
one thing that Amazon can’t do; that personal touch. Or in our case – get authors
to verbally abuse each other or the audience. Or indeed anybody not there to defend themselves.
It was great fun, very funny. The audience were in hoots.
It was part of the Crime in the City series of events to celebrate crime fiction. The finale was this panel
event - 'the beasts from the east v the best from the west. Or as it was known even before kick off, the losers v the winners.
The natural charm, eloquence and threatening demeanor of the Glaswegian would always see us through.
We had 3 authors from the west (hurrah!)
– 3 from the east (boo!) and our very biased ‘chair’ – who gave me 30 points
simply for introducing myself because he is ‘scared of me’. Although Craig
lives in Stirling, (central) is a westie – you can tell that by his high IQ, his good looks, his charm and the fact I am keeping in with him as there is going to be a rematch and we want the ref on our side.
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Craig started off by giving us one fact about each author:
One wrote to the Scottish
Parliament to complain about there being no broadband in his house
One was once a lumberjack
One wrote the book because of a
promise to his granny
One wrote his entire book by
Blackberry
One was voted in the top twenty sexiest
crime writers
One has a Phd in nuclear physics
And so the well organised quiz
started and it was polite and lovely for all of ten minutes. Then it turned into a good old rammy.
Our team was somewhat impeded on the cultural front by the writer Matt Bendoris who wrote a self help book
for serial killers called Killing with Confidence. He is also a tabloid
journalist.
Is this Matt at his work?
(photo from the Sun)
So to sum up, Glasgow is the
industrial heartland full of honest heart working folk who tell you what they
think. Edinburgh sees itself as full of culture and it has a castle. And that's about it.
We are Billy
Connolly. Face like we found a fiver.
They are Miss Jean Brodie. Face like a bitter lemon
There is a saying that you get more fun at
a Glasgow stabbing than an Edinburgh wedding.
We are McIlvanney.
They are
Rankin.
Here we say ‘Do you want a cup of tea’? Over there they say, ‘You’ll
have already had your tea then?’
In Edinburgh sex is something the
coal comes in. Glaswegians (Weegies) eat chips with their fingers. Edinburgh
folk ( Burgers) eat with a daft wee forky thing.
Then Glasgow became The European
City of Culture and Irvine Welsh wrote Trainspotting. And things began to
change.
But it was always the Weegies V
The Burgers.
Here are the jokes..
Why do Edinburgers walk so
lopsided?
Because of the chip on their
shoulder.
An old drunk, Santa Claus, the
tooth fairy and an intelligent Glaswegian are walking down the street. They see
a fifty pound note. Who picks it up?
The drunk of course as the other
three are fictional. ( I only put that in to appear unbiased )
What do you call an burger with a
sense of humour. A tourist.
Here’s one for Everett to try his
accent....,
A Glaswegian lady goes to the dentist
and she wriggles about in his chair.
'Comfy?' he asks
'Glasgow,' she answered.
What do guys from Edinburgh use
as contraception?
Their personalities.
You only have to look at the coastlines
to see the difference. Sailing out of the west every kind of nook
and cranny, island and sea loch.
Edinburgh has this. One rock, that's yer lot
Then I realised, as I sat on the
panel that Doug is a Westie, Neil is from the central belt and Frank is a Weegie through and through – he just
writes about St Andrews.
So basically there were no real
Burgers brave enough to make the 35 mile trip. Probably scared we would force
feed them chips. Without forks.
So the west won 460-310.
We
retired respectfully as all Scots do, to the pub to catch the end of the World
Cup game. The honours on our own field of play already decided.
Frank leaving early for the pub to get his round in, proving he's a Glasgow boy
Caro 04 07 2014
Ps, Douglas was the broadband, Neil wrote the book for his granny, Matt wrote his on his Blackberry, Frank was a lumberjack and Doug has a PhD. So now you know....
