Wee Midwinter Hangover (For Gerry Marillion)

The ever dependable weather conversation passes many an awkward minute at the bus stop, in the rail carriage and even amongst cronies well known to you. You smile at the risible soothsaying and quotidian rune casting of amateur forecasters; the same planks that offer betting tips that are still running at Chepstow racetrack. Before the smoking ban, you could punctuate it with a fag or two, curlicues of nicotine insinuating their arcane delights into barrooms and sitting rooms alike. The Caledonian Curse: nae confidence. Drink like a Byronic man on nights oot and then have breakfast time summit conferences about the night afore's doings. Pathetic. Paved and tarred the highways and byways, ushered in the age of the Idiot's Lantern, steam trains, Penicillin, odd Freemasonic Rites, Burnsian metaphors, dimming political influence, Calvinist guilt, the worst wine known to humanity, the fattest punters in Europe, low life expectancy for the unworking working class (as was), and all you can do is batter your head against some crushing expectations as you pickle your remaining few liver cells in the so-called Water of Life...Monday, Jimmy it's Monday...