I think it was the onion rings that did it.
Shortly after devouring a few of these splendid delicacies with my evening meal, I read of a huge batch of cocaine, apparently worth £33million, being seized in a truck full of the crunchy comestibles heading for the UK.
Could it be that my spaced-out sensations this week were down to some of that nasty stuff being secreted in a previous batch I’d unwittingly consumed?
Mrs F instantly put my mind at rest. Our onions were, she insisted, home grown in the Fyne Place plot and therefore free from any unauthorised adulteration.
She fervently denied mixing any Class A substances with the recipe, suggesting huffily that I was a big enough dope without her adding to the situation.
With that possibility removed, I could only attribute my growing feelings of dread, discomfort and downright dismay to one thing. Justin Bieber is heading to play Aberdeen.
No disrespect to the global music superstar but I’d rather crawl into a tin dustbin full of marbles and broken bottles then be rolled down Cairngorm inside it wearing only my boxer shorts than endure more than a few seconds of his music.
To be fair, it’s a superb coup for the city to attract really big names to its world-class P&J Live venue so well done to everyone involved and good luck to those who manage to get tickets.
It also means that I’m planning a trip to Muckle Flugga or Mull of Kintyre in February 2023, just to be suitably socially-distanced from the infernal racket of Beliebers in full flow.
That’s for the future but for now, the nights are fair drawing in and with effective darkness descending on Fyne Place in mid-afternoon, I retired to my favourite armchair this week and did something I never usually do. I switched on the television.
Daytime TV is high on my list of unwelcome experiences, a close second to a vicious hangover but just above being stuck in a lift with a coal miner, an offshore oil worker, a beef farmer and Greta Thunberg.
Apparently, the daytime viewing public has an insatiable appetite for quiz programmes. From cerebral Countdown to corny The Chase, I counted more than 17 different quizzes in the daytime TV listings alone, with more scheduled for evening consumption.
Many are becoming visually ridiculous and very far-removed from the simplicity of shows from times past. Most are just a melange of noise, audience reaction and flashing lights. A bit like a Justin Bieber concert, in fact. I can’t quite see the attraction.
Are we really a nation of folk so desperate to increase our general knowledge that we devour dictionaries with our dinner, or are we perhaps just waiting for the inevitable pratfall from a contestant comprehensively confounded by the cameras and on-screen pressure?
You can’t help but love the challenger who, when asked by Ben Shepherd on Tipping Point: “What day is Christmas Day traditionally celebrated in the UK,” memorably answered “Wednesday”.
There are many others, but my prize goes to the pathetic participant in Family Fortunes who was asked by Les Dennis to name a bird with a long neck and answered “Naomi Campbell”.
I hope folk are offered better fare over Christmas when much of the country slumps into post-turkey torpor and turns to the one-eyed monster.
I’m not a Christmas TV fan and hope that Santa’s sack is bulging with gifts such as traditional board games or construction kits, as well as modern-day electronic marvels. I loved my childhood Lego, for example. I’d certainly enjoy seeing the new Christmas tree at Legoland, Windsor, built from 400,000 bricks, but I don’t have to go that far. I just need to pop along to Banff Harbour where engineers are trying to shore up the historic East Pier with, basically, giant Lego bricks, before winter storms reduce it to rubble.
Good luck to them in their cold, difficult but essential task. I’m just glad I read about it in the paper before stumbling across it in real life. The surreal sight of men in diving suits playing with Lego in the harbour might have sent me suspiciously sniffing those onion rings again.
