I was interviewed by STV journalist Cara Sulieman about my 12 Books in 12 Months project yesterday, and her report is here. Whilst looking at that, however, my eye was caught by the arguably far more interesting headline story on the Edinburgh and East page, namely "Pie thrown at Scotland's only Conservative MP."
The headline alone is brilliant. But how Scottish is the sentiment?! We don't fling rotting fruit and veg at our hate figures, oh no. We throw PIES. This one was probably bought at the end of a night out, deep fried in batter... discarded when the owner realised they weren't that drunk, and picked up in the morning as a hangover cure on the way to the protest.
Or perhaps not. To my utter delight, the article went on to say that this incident took place in ye olde university town of St Andrews. Ancient, organic, so-posh-nobody-local-can-afford-to-live-within-a-ten-mile-radius St Andrews! Home to some very Conservative people, certainly within the student population (who account for a third of residents). Presumably they were over at Fife Park* harassing poor people and were unable to come to Mr Mundell's aid on this occasion. Tellingly the piece continues, "It is not known who threw the pastry."
That's the St Andrews I lived in for four years. They don't throw pies, they throw pastries. OooOOooOOoo, hark at them.
Damn, I miss the cut and thrust of student debate. Although to my eternal regret, nobody threw baked goods at any MPs when I was there.
*Fife Park is one of the only two student halls of residence that falls somewhere near the line of affordable housing provided by The University of St Andrews. The walls are made of paper and it always smells of supernoodles. But it's OK, they're knocking it down and replacing it with the most expensive flats in creation, to encourage more princes to live there.
No comments:
Post a Comment