Are you a footballer?
Playing catch-up here, but I did visit the Whisky Experience at the top of the Royal Mile recently. I’ve been before, but it has changed a bit and was a really enjoyable experience. Also tried the Bowmore 20 year old single malt in the bar later on which was a real treat! I also accepted another invite to a five course tasting menu and whisky at the Malt Whisky Society in Edinburgh, which I am now a member of. Our host for the evening opted to go around the table, allowing us to introduce ourselves to the rest of the group with a fun fact. This provided me with the opportunity to talk about my writing, which appeared to go down well. My fellow guests were all from a cyber and IT background so my novel The Kill Chain, a cybercrime thriller set in Edinburgh, was of interest.
During the meal I was in conversation with one of the guests, and apart from both of us having seen the Australian Pink Floyd – see blog posts 76 and 181 – we discovered we had also met the actor Robert Carlyle. She had met him while working in her father’s shop in Glasgow during filming. I believe the film mentioned was Stone of Destiny from 2008 and that the shop does appear in the film, if my recollection through the whisky is sound.
I was on a flight back from Cannes in France to Heathrow, London in April 1996, sat in an aisle seat. I had been attending the European leg of the Novell Brainshare Conference held in Nice. This gentleman appeared, and pointed to the window seat. I got up to let him pass and we settled in for the flight. The middle seat remained vacant. After take-off, a stewardess came over and passed a piece of paper to this passenger and asked if he would sign it. I tried to keep my focus on the book I was reading, but did think it odd. Then I felt a tap on my shoulder from the person across the aisle, asking me if I would pass a piece of paper over for an autograph. I did so, and on passing the paper back I tried to read the signature, but couldn’t make it out. This continued at intervals for a fair proportion of the flight. I turned to the passenger and said, ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t recognise you.’ He smiled and replied, ‘I’m naebody.’ I said, ‘You must be someone, who are you?’ ‘No, really, I’m naebody.’ To this day I can’t believe I then asked, ‘Are you a footballer?’ He laughed at that and shook his head. At that point, I decided it was best just to return to my book.
I only had a little under an hour to catch my connecting flight to Scotland, which I know sounds an impossible task at Heathrow airport. On way to the gate I stopped off at the gents toilets and on my way back out, who should be coming towards me but this passenger I thought was a footballer. He smiled and nodded to me as he passed. We both caught the same flight back to Scotland, though we were seated in different rows.
It wasn’t until I was back at work and speaking with a colleague (I’m going to name drop here, not because it’s relevant, it’s just that real life can be stranger than fiction, but her cousin is the former formula one driver David Coulthard who is now a highly respected commentator on the sport) and mentioned this and saying that he did look familiar, and I now had a notion he was in a TV drama set in Scotland, as a policeman. My colleague looked at me and said, ‘Hamish MacBeth.’ Then the penny dropped. ‘You met Robert Carlyle. Did you get his autograph?’ I shook my head, ‘No, I’m afraid not.’ Of course, Robert Carlyle starred in the film Trainspotting which had been released in the UK in February 1996, and it appears I was the only one at that time who hadn’t yet seen the film.
As an aside, the first novel I ever completed has this scene written into the plot. I was still learning to write at that time, and it didn’t really move the story on, but I did enjoy writing it out in a fictional setting. I have to say though, that on first approach to a publisher, I got a full manuscript request so I must have done something right. I was then requested to rewrite part of the novel, which I did, only to be rejected at the next reading. That novel was never queried again. I had to write another ten novels before The Kill Chain was picked up. This is not unusual, by any stretch.
I sometimes wonder if I will ever bump into Robert Carlyle again. If so, I will ask him if he recalls the day someone on a plane asked him if he was a footballer.
The Fiction Factory 