A more light-hearted memory this time. It’s early morning in Naples during the summer of 2003. From the bedroom window of our hotel suite high up in the city, we have a clear view across the Bay of Naples to Mount Vesuvius. Dark clouds surround Vesuvius this morning, and an electric storm plays out in the sky above it. It’s like a scene from the Apocalypse. The hotel, the city, the whole of North Italy are without power. Unshowered, but washed the best we can, we eventually head down to the hotel’s restaurant for something to eat. The Head Waiter explains that the chefs are having to cook using candles. They could prepare omelettes for us, but it would take at least an hour, perhaps two. Otherwise, all they had to offer was cold salads. It WAS the Apocalypse!
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Blame Christmas time; it brings on the memories. It’s the early hours of New Year’s Day, 2003. I’m sitting at a table on the balcony of our room in a hotel in Athens. Alison is already sleeping in bed. I’m having a last wee drink and a smoke before I join her. We’ve had a good night of food and entertainment at one of the big hotels in the city centre. There were singers and ventriloquists and comedians; the fact that we couldn’t understand a word they said made no difference to our enjoyment. And the maître d' took a shine to us. Told us he loves listening on the radio to the Scottish football scores. A big fan of Forfar Athletic, apparently. Now I’m sitting in the mild night air, drinking, smoking, gazing up at the ancient magnificence of the floodlit and moonlit Acropolis, and contemplating life. The business is doing well. We have a home in Edinburgh’s New Town (a boyhood ambition of mine ever since that posh bitch in Barnton paid me for a day’s hard grafting in her garden with a tin of Sharp’s toffees that had been discarded by one of her sons). And we can afford to roam the world, experiencing magical moments like this one. I’m thinking life couldn’t be any better. But no-one can foretell the future, can they?
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