Willie Robertson, Oor Wullie for four hours.
Willie made himself known to me at Bangkok International Airport as we were just two of three people in the Emirates lounge. He said, Its just you and me now. I looked up from my spreadsheet and suggested we start a riot then. He felt a riot was not the answer.
After confirming that it would be fine for us to chat for a while, we got to talking about life, the universe and everything. We are of very similar ages and I gathered from very similar backgrounds: his Dundee upbringing v my West Yorkshire upbringing. The common bond, of course, was my Scottish mother.
I don't normally chat to fellow travellers because they invariably think I want to hear about their aeroplane and airport stories. Thanks, everyone; but you can keep them to yourself.
We spent about four hours together, chewing the cud, putting the world to rights, making pots of green tea and eating desserts. Willie had a couple of glasses of white wine.
He started by telling me that he does competency training in the Oil & Gas industry. I said, I've got a spreadsheet for that!! I have too!
Willie mentioned the book he wrote: On the Milk ... available on Amazon. I checked as we chatted. If I can find a way of getting the book to me I will buy it. It's Willie's story of adolescence in Dundee, involving a milk cart. I asked if he meant horse and cart and as he started to object by saying he was not so old, I said we had a horse and cart milkman well into the 1960s!
He came to reveal his authorship as I vented bile against backpacking gap year people with their dreadful clothes, bad manners and bad habits. I also said white people with dreadlocks looked stupid. He replied by pointing at his own barnet suggesting his dreadlocks weren't too bad. I said there's a difference between your slightly long hair and dreadlocks. Then he said he had grown his hair long in an attempt to look more like an author. Well, that's one way of telling me about his book.
Speaking of colour, later in the evening he told me that Baa Baa Black Sheep has become Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep. I said, you're joking ... Well, I will be baa baa black sheeping all over twitter for a while now. Who are these morons who think they've done something clever. Here's the truth: black sheep really exist, rainbow sheep don't. When I was growing up and raising my own children, baa baa black sheep NEVER conjured up images of racial turmoil. These people are sick.
I told Willie the story of the £80,000 Urinal v Non Urinal sign changes on the toilets in Manchester University. How these things ever get beyond zero is the most mysterious thing.
Then again, what about MARY and her little lamb with its fleece as WHITE as snow? I need a lie down now that I have thought of that. Somebody DO something.
After watching me make my pot of tea he asked if I ever had a drink so I said no and explained why: waking up too early with a thick head had lost its appeal!! Fair enough he said, as he took another swig of his WHITE wine. I then explained how some people try to force me into having a drink ... you can't celebrate with lemonade ... ok, if really want to buy me a beer, feel free ... but I won't drink it. That led to an evening of teasing over the champagne I was missing out on.
I started talking about Andrew Mitchell and William Hague. How they became an MP and then treat it as a vehicle for doing many other things rather than concentrating on representing their constituents. Willie said that whilst he didn't like this Mitchell chap, he had been treated shabbily. I said fair enough but it was clear that he had taken his bike to the wrong gate and had argued with the policemen about it. Normal people wouldn't have argued. Moreover, why did he resign so quickly? Still, he should worry.
At various stages Willie said he would change his shirt before boarding his plane. He never got round to it until a minute before i left for my flight. As I was packing up, he returned, sporting a more normal shirt than his tee shirt. Standards!
For some reason I mentioned the Newsnight programme I watched while I was in London two weeks ago. The one in which Jeremy Paxman was sent to interview Russell Brand. What we got was a rant: why are there poor people, we need to do something about poverty, there is illness in the world and that's wrong ... that's what I heard. I thought, who thought that getting someone with the views of a sixteen year old on Newsnight would be informative and useful in any way? I thought at one stage Brand was going to come out with that Monty Python classic: narcosyndicalist but he didn't. Then I imagined Brand going back to his multi million pound home and lifestyle and stopped worrying about that irksome man.
As we meandered through our views on life, Willie mentioned his time in Romania and how he ended up buying two friendly policemen there a tot of whisky each a two in the morning. Which sparked my own memory of the beautiful (untouched) girls of Bucharest and of the Ceaucescu monstrous building that I walked the circumference of but which I never considered stepping inside of. Along the same lines, when someone suggested in Georgia that we take a detour to go to Gori and sit on the bed that Stalin was born in, I said, drive on!
I was was impressed by the revelation that Willie has £2,000 in £2 coins in a sock under the bed.
A propos nothing I told Willie that I met a British couple one weekend at a resort on Lake Malawi. We chatted about this and that then one of them said, you know, we drove to Zomba and back the other day and we didn't see one WHITE face. Rather odd that, don't you think?!!! How do we let these people out?
So called reality TV got a mauling from Willie. Who are these 19 year olds, Willie wanted to know, who end up on our television screens whilst caterwauling that all they want to do is sing and if they don't win this competition, life is over for them. How about getting a life and working their way around the clubs and theatres like normal people? Of course, most of them warble rather than sing anyway! I added that Willie must never forget that erstwhile cooks on TV cookery competitions all tell us how PASSIONATE they are about food. Then just about all of them start murdering their ingredients and recipes. I really wouldn't want to eat what most of them throw together, would you?
Let me finish with this. Willie talked about his efforts to find someone in the Dundee government machinery who could help and advise him with his work ... like me, he works abroad so he exports his services. He got nowhere, no names of commercial attaches anywhere. I pointed out that William Hague has reformed passport renewal for the UK. If you find yourself abroad with the need to renew your passport, you will find that it will take six WEEKS. That's the death of my business for six weeks then. Stupid, stupid man, Mr Hague.
Well, there you are: the perturbations of two grumpy old men in an airport lounge in Bangkok. Entertaining!
Thank you Oor Willie, I would not have done any of that without you!!
DW
