Bells

1. We go the Station Bar after work with Adam and Helen. We spot a free table up the back and fight through the crowds. I really like this place and have had some good nights here, but you've got to be careful. For every journo or tv tech or policeman there's a mad banjo. For every one person having a good night after work on a Friday there's an old bloke who's been drinking himself daft since two.

2. The one next to us latches and I am picked off. I have a well practiced set of responses to this situation, which mainly involves smiling, nodding and repeating things like 'this is it', 'tis that' and agreeing with what ever train of nonsense they are rattling away on til I can edge away and go back to my own company.

3. Not so tonight, none of that works and this one rambles on and on. At one point he asks me what I'll do to glorify Scotland. Which, when you think about it is a tough question to answer. He can't understand the difference between where I work - a theatre company - and the BBC and starts demanding that I go in a taxi to the BBC to prove that they know how I am. I rummage through my bag of responses for old people, confused people, drunk people, people who think it's ok to interrupt strangers in pubs, angry people, Glasgow men over 60 and even taxi drivers. I come up with nothing. No wonder all those tables were free.

4. He leaves in disgust (he does!) and we carry one with what turns out to be a good laugh of a night and my faith in decent Glasgow pubs is slightly restored. As we leave we find two bottles of whiskey in a carrier bag under our table. No one can explain it. Must be the old gits from earlier. Cheers Mate.

5. Home through town on a Friday night. I spot this group of pastel clad golfers involved in a complicated drinking game stroke dance routine. Photo's a bit blurry, it;s that kind of night.