Sunday 17th May 2009 – Sunday Brunch in Glasgow

As I turn into Glasgow Center, under the railroad tracks, virtually the first thing I see is the Montana Bar. In the shooting tragedy back in January, the inquest on which is on Tuesday, an early source of information for reporters was a barmaid there. I have a note of her name. Since it is Sunday lunchtime, and very hot, that will have to be an early visit.

Almost the next thing I see is a sign with a large piper on it, declaring 'Campbell's Lodge', the very place I had decided, from internet searches, was the place to stay, at least for the first night. Almost without any further thinking, I find myself washed and dressed and sitting in the shade of the Montana Bar, with a beer and the Twins playing the Yankees. The Twins are doing very well. (The Yankees are the ManU of Baseball: they have just built a new stadium next door to the old one, attempting to make it, in a baseball sense, an exact copy of the old one.) It's 2-2 at the top of the eighth, the bases are loaded: could this be the big upset? Well, no; but it went to the tenth, and was settled by a single homer from the Yankees.

But why, I hear you cry, am I talking about Baseball on TV when I'm actually in a bar in Glasgow? Well, apart from there being a Twins emblem behind the bar, that's one way to strike up conversation in a bar. Soon the baseball fans are exchanging pleasantries, and soon they are asking after my accent, and soon the story is out: "gee, Glasgow Scotland?" The barmaid is more interested in me than the baseball (She may well be more interested in anything than the baseball). We exchange pleasantries. I ask if she is the barmaid from the shooting stories, but she is not.

I admire her beautiful cash register, a definite antique. She said it had to be replaced in the 1960's, because someone shot its predecessor to pieces. She rushes off and comes back with a piece of the old register, to show me the bullet hole. "Why were they shooting at the cash register?" I asked.

"Oh", she said, "they weren't shooting at the cash register, they were shooting at my mother".

It is not often I am lost for words, but I was, I was lost for words. How do you ask someone why their mother was being shot at in a bar?

Of which, I hope, more next week.