It presupposes an arrogance, a nonchalance, a complacency that is soon undone by circumstance, rendering the once haughty hubristic party to a state of painful and humbling reality. I speak with some authority of the humbling authority of hubris. I have a badly burnt and blistered left hand as evidence of that. It all happened at the Edinburgh Food Festival last week…

I had been asked to perform a cookery demonstration as part of the publicity for my book. I saw no apparent problem with standing in front of a room full of 257 members of the paying public and cooking a wee lunch for them. (This is where the hubris can be situated.) The fact that public cookery demonstrations require a number of disparate skills, many of which I do not possess, was a detail lost on me; chief amongst them being the skill to remember that the frying pan that was sat on the hob in front of me had just come out of an industrial-strength oven set at its highest heat.

There I was, trying my hardest to be entertaining and urbane whilst panicking deep inside about my shortfalls as a cook when it happened, that all too mighty fall from grace. Like a big eejit, lost in my own impassioned explanation of the importance of really good crackling on pork belly, emboldened as it is by a good rubbing of sea salt, bay leaves and a good-quality olive oil, I momentarily forgot about the heat-based status of the handle of the frying pan and grabbed it. I grabbed it hard.

The air was filled with the aroma of scorched flesh. My scorched flesh. I am aware that some readers will have endured childbirth, cardiovascular surgery or be Partick Thistle fans, therefore my pain will pale into insignificance in comparison, particularly given Thistle's midfield. Safe to say it bloody hurt.
Unfortunately I was only halfway through my slot and was compelled to go on. There's a phrase employing the words "show", "must" and "go on". It was only afterwards as I lay in shock in the green room that I wondered how my hand would have turned out if I had rubbed sea salt, bay leaves and a good-quality olive oil onto it prior to grabbing the pan.


TV broadcasters display their narrow minds

IT'S the Edinburgh cabbies I feel sorry for. The last weekend in August sees the British TV industry (basically all those folk who work in telly in London) descend upon Scotland's capital city to enjoy a "festival" of television.
It has become an institution in the TV industry calendar. I've been attending for the past few years, having assiduously avoided Edinburgh during the Festival. The TV Festival is a very well run, slick event and there are some fascinating topics and sessions.
There is also no shortage of anodyne, gaze-at-your-navel type sessions where the industry either congratulates itself for modest achievements or attempts to mock itself in an all too painfully non-deprecating manner. Then we all, for I am part of them, repair to The George, drink too much and dance like we used to dance when we were young. It's a truly beautiful thing.

This year, of all years, as questions are being asked about the future of broadcasting in Scotland, a Scotland governed by a Nationalist Government, the time would have been perfect for the metropolitan bias of the TV industry to be discussed and debated. Perhaps a session on the genuine devolution of TV commissioning to Edinburgh or Glasgow? The radical step of moving a channel controller's base to somewhere outside the M25. (This should be easier now that one can purchase croissants and lattes north of Watford). Or maybe even a genuine dialogue about a nascent Scottish Broadcasting Corporation.
So how many of the 50 or so sessions of a festival held in Scotland's capital city broached these thorny issues? None. Not one. Then the big broadcasting behemoths wonder why they are accused of being so Londoncentric?

My new Arsenal seat promises to be a pain in the behind

I WENT to my first home game on Wednesday. I've acquired a new season ticket in a new part of the ground and now I have an even better view of Arsenal as they attempt to play the beautiful game in a beautiful way.
There is something very beautiful also about the egalitarian nature of football matches. I don't choose who I sit next to or where I sit. I end up in a part of the ground where tickets are available, and at a club like Arsenal those are few and far between. So on Wednesday night I was excited to see where I would be, what the view might be like and the atmosphere around me.

It all seemed good as I got to my seat. The people either side were pleasant and chatty, without being too in my face. I counted myself lucky that I hadn't landed a seat in the row in front, since there was a rather opinionated and loud man sat just in front of my new seat.
At least, I thought it was my new seat. I was informed by a rather irate man that I was in his seat. I had misread the row number and found myself a row behind where I ought to be. My seat was next to the opinionated loud man.
It was a long match. It promises to be a long season.

Mystery music delivers all the answers

MICAH P Hinson. Like you, I had no idea who Micah P Hinson was. Nor indeed what the P stood for. That was until, after purchasing a bundle of CDs from my beloved record shop, I got home to realise I had been sold a rogue album, an album written and recorded by Micah P Hinson.
I looked at it curiously. I played it curiously. I was generally quite curious. As soon as the Hammond organ kicked in and the mournful vocals of Micah P Hinson kicked in I realised that I knew all I needed to know. I knew about love, I knew about life and I knew about longing. I knew about everything except what the P stands for.