As this edition appears I will be back in Edinburgh for my latest bout of electioneering. The last time I appeared there was a massive crowd of students boiling away in a bar, and an alarming group at the back waving banners saying things like ‘Bog off, Boris’ and ‘No to top-up fees’. I scrambled on to a stool and tried to make a speech, but the din of the two opposing factions was so huge that I couldn’t hear myself speak. After a while I gave up and said (I think), ‘And now I am going to have a beer!’ As I stepped down, some swine snuck up behind me and poured a big cold pint of bitter on my head. I was dimly aware of the culprit vanishing into the crowd in a black T-shirt and with a blond pigtail. People afterwards said that if it had been them, they would have punched his lights out, and so on; but I must admit that wasn’t my instinct. In my heart I must have secretly sympathised with his position: some Tory MP turning up and trying to be Lord Rector of the University. A pint of bitter was the least I deserved.
My morale was restored during a long stint of canvassing in the bars and nightclubs of Edinburgh, in which I was asked to sign the chests of girls with a magic marker. The high point was when a blonde called Jo put her face close to mine and said, ‘Everyone says you are a legend, but I haven’t got a clue who you are. Who are you?’ I am a novelist, I said, feeling pretty exalted after a gin and tonic, two pints of bitter, two tequila slammers or sunrises, a whisky and something called an ‘aftershock’.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in