It was unfortunate, but that was how it was. It happened to be in one of Edinburgh's smartest venues, after a talk. The wine was flowing. The people I was with were enjoying it and the waitresses were topping up glasses in between handing round solid Scottish canapes, which consisted mainly of cold miniature beefburgers on a bit of shredded lettuce, laid on giant teaspoons.
'It's nae a burger,' said the waitress frowning. 'It's Boeuf Tartar in a Szechuan Sauce'. It was an improvement from the catering of the past I had experienced, which consisted of bits of cold haggis on giant teaspoons. This bit of information I studidly and pompously passed on to the waitress, knowing full well that it would be a mistake as whenever I had said something so crass in the past, a misfortune had always befallen me.
And so it came to pass.
As I went to sit down to talk to a group of people who were sitting in an alcove, the two chairs separated and I fell backwards onto the wooden floor and my glass of wine landed upside down on my stomach. The contents spread across my clothes like an oil slick, just as the smirking waitress walked past.
'Typical. He's blootered,' she said. 'That'll learn him!'
I had seen it earlier in the day. The brazen outspoken-ness of an elderly pedestrian towards an arrogant cyclist, his pompous remark and the pleasing accident which happened next.
'Get your bikes off the pavement, now,' said the old lady firmly. 'It's for pedestrians. The road is for cyclists.' Normally I would have felt sympathy for the cyclist as many of Edinburgh's streets are being dug up and where he was gave him little option but to go onto the pavement. but it was the aggressive way in which he weaved in and out of the pedestrians, and the aggressive way in which he squared up to the old lady.
'Road?' he growled.'What road? You stupid old faggot.' Then he turned and sped off, failing to notice the wire barrier in front of him and ending up spreadeagled on the concrete slabs.
'That'll learn you,' said the lady with a certain amount of smugness, 'ye wee scunner,' and she stepped over him and walked into a shop.
So I had advanced warning of my own predicament. That's what happens when you try to be intellectually superior in a so called humourous way. Never be rude to a stewardess and never be rude to a waitress, was valuable advice I was given years ago, as they can always get their own back by something as simple as spilling a cup of coffee in your lap ... or a glass of wine as was in my case. I know that it was a self-inflicted humiliation but the waitress deservedly seemed to get the same satisfaction as if she had poured it over me herself.
'That'll learn ya'.
No. I think I need more lessons.
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