How to do the LAMM (without meaning to)
“No, Martin.” A short phrase, which many have tried to use, but one which Martin does not take lying down, and no doubt various Scottish landowners and the long suffering Debbie will agree. You either get marked down for a firmer probing at a later date, or you get the full treatment on the spot – the big Tony Blair smile, the same question re-asked with a subtle tweak to make another refusal seem like the death knell for a thousand Romanian orphans, and the feeling that you couldn’t possibly have meant to turn him down.
“No Martin, I am not doing the LAMM”. It felt easy and when you’re carrying an injury it’s got to be the right thing to do. But you still are on the mailing list, all this hill-porn continues to be delivered to your computer on an almost daily basis, he’ll take an entry on the day, spaces still available, beautiful part of the Highlands, only 5 minutes’ drive from Inverness, and a small voice begins to suggest that maybe you could get away with it, perhaps the Achilles will take it, no harm in just asking someone…
But you get a knock back, sense returns, after all the event is only ten days away, and any sane person will already have entered or will long since have decided not to enter because they are in fact sane. “Martin, rearrange these words to make a sentence – No Martin, I am doing the LAMM not. Geddit?”
And then on the Thursday night when you’re definitely not doing it you get the call from Martin, “Just had an email from lastminute.com, can’t believe it, someone who wants to do the event and wonders if anyone’s looking for a partner, are you interested?” And of course you are because you know that the weather’s going to be great and it’s going to be at Glenfinnan which is also great, but the whole idea is still completely nuts because the only sort of person who’s going to be just deciding to do the event at this point without even having a partner lined up is going to be some sort of psychotic Johnny no mates not able to find their way out of a paper bag. But no, it’s worse than that, it’s Brendan bloody Bolland, you’ve just been matched by Martin with someone as delaminated and utterly disorganised as yourself. So you ring Brendan at 11pm, it’s all sorted out…and wasn’t it a FANTASTIC gig?
Alec Keith
|
