" It was a fine idea at the time, now it's a brilliant mistake"Elvis Costello, 1986
Picture an ash carpark, a dark November 70's Edinburgh night, local youths huddled round for the great unveiling of a new weapon of unyeilding power.
It's inventor, a gangly youth with thick hair, removes from his pocket a small model of a naval cannon with pencil sharpening capabilities. Packed tightly inside the cannon are the contents of a packet of Standard 3-2-1-zeros ( the banger of choice) and a small fake pearl which was once part of a mother's earring.
Excitement hangs in the cold air like the smoke from so many tenament chimneys. "This will be barry" is the general concensus.
After a long series of checks the shottie keepers give the all clear. The fuse is lit and the weapon aimed.
What happened next is still inexplicable. There was the anticipated flash and bang, but the pearl's trajectory was not as it should have been. When the smoke abated the blackened face of the inventor was streaked with tears and 2 lines of green snot. On the left side of his nose was a bulge about the size of a plastic pearl. It was lodged up his nostril and not for coming out without adult assistance.
This my friends is the true story of the "Haston Cannnon"
2 comments:
I remember that red ash car park. I am quite sure that I was dragged through it and beaten up for laughing at someone who stuck his foot down a grey water drain. Didn't that Haston dude have something to do with plants when he got bigger?
Bobrob, you deserved that doin, I had just stepped out of a drain and you were laughting like one.
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