Scotland and Nightclub Woe

Hmmmmm…only January 15th and already a post that will make me seem like every one of my 29 years, 114 days but there we are… Anyway, this past weekend I enjoyed an excellent trip to Edinburgh; good food, good company and a brilliant wine-fuelled train journey on the Friday evening. I am a huge fan of long train journeys, and the addition of as much alcohol as you can drink, only enhances the experience. You had to pity the poor woman who boarded the train at Doncaster, only to discover her seat was at the epicentre of our impromptu party. To her credit, she dealt with it well, and enjoyed Adam’s chav jokes, which were far more funny than they had any right to be.

On Saturday we had breakfast, did the bus tour and then wandered about the castle grounds and art gallery. Edinburgh is a wonderful city, and it’s a testament to its beauty that I was able to so easily overlook both its freezing temperature and hilly demeanour. By mid-afternoon my unquantifiable wine intake of the night before had overtaken me, and I returned for a nap before the evening. I don’t know what it is about having a hotel room that induces such a desire in me to nap. Liz and I went to Brussels in July, and by 3pm on the Saturday, I was more than ready for bed. It’s almost as if I develop a mild form of narcolepsy when there is an empty hotel bed nearby – as I almost never nap on a standard weekend. Of course, I also have a fine sense of getting value for money, and presumably feel that a ‘nights paid for : sleeps’ ratio of 1:1 is just not good enough (for the record it was 3:5 on this trip).

After my nap and a great Italian meal, we found our way to a nightclub. Nightclubs and I have never had a good relationship. As a youth, they were never the happy hunting ground for me that they were for other guys, my one slight advantage over other men – being able to talk to women - nullified by the loud, invariably poor, music. You have to pay to get in, you have to dress as if you are going to work (why the fuck would I want to wear smart shoes at the weekend?!), and the drinks are subject to a mark-up that even a football agent would be ashamed of. These days, as a married man, nightclubs offer me precisely nothing that I cannot get better, cheaper and quieter elsewhere. That said, assuming the music is of a good standard, it can be fun to shuffle and shimmy inelegantly across the dance floor under the pretence that you are ‘dancing’, however my attempts at this resemble something akin to Mark in Peep Show when he goes to the hippy dance exercise thing (only slightly less attractive).

However, the worst aspect of all is the people you encounter in nightclubs. Nowhere on earth is there greater proof of evolution, or indeed a lack of it in certain bloodlines (I should point out at this point, this is not limited to Scots people – everything I say can be applied to almost any English nightclub – I just happened to be in Scotland). Almost every basic animal instinct is on display in a nightclub, and none were more prominent in Edinburgh than territoriality. Until about half one, I’d actually been enjoying my nightclub experience; the music was good, we were positioned on the dance floor under the air con, and I had a redbull and vodka in me. Around this time, people started to appear from all directions as if (and lets not mince our words here) some enormous zoo had released its inmates for the night. Space become more finite and one prize cock planted himself where we were stood, decided not to move and rebuffed any attempts on our part to reclaim our land with a fierce elbow jab. Attempting to leave the dance floor – well there is a fun enterprise. I’ve yet to encounter a situation where people resent making way for you to pass to such a huge extent, as if simply moving slightly to one side will kill the flow of their dance moves. In some cases they don’t move at all, and (I just love this) actually resist your attempts to pass them. Now, I am a reasonably intelligent, respectable middle class type, but faced with this kind of opposition even I began to imagine the possibilities open to me, were I to have a glass bottle or a pair of brass knuckles to hand. Sadly I didn’t and had to plough through this mass of ill feeling, and short temper as best as possible to the relative safety of the bar. Here having failed to get served, Liz and I decided to leave; though as a group we did so in high spirits – having lasted until 2am, some achievement for us old folk.

On Sunday we finished off our tourism and had a delightful curry (there was a nap too) before returning on the train yesterday. All in all an excellent trip, and fully recommended if you have not been to Edinburgh.

TRIP HIGH: Mark’s nightclub staircase stumble, having told us to behave ourselves

TRIP LOW: Sarah Green eliminated from Dancing on Ice first. A damn shame.