TURN ON, TUNE IN, PARK UP

It’s a sorry tale of nesting earwigs, vandals and a belted earl with a hole in his head. Ten coastal car parks in East Lothian were budgeted, under the local council’s dodgy and hopeful maths, to bring in £300,000 a year but it’s now claimed that they made just £6000 in profit, because of the three preceding problems. Some of the parking meters have had to be replaced, because the little critters like to procreate in them and bring up their families – and this isn’t covered by any warranty – and they’re also a target for thieves who have been breaking into them and plundering the loot. I can also reveal that the council pays a third of the income of three parks at Longniddry Bents (not thought to be a disparaging reference to local gays) to the Earl of Wemyss, along with an annual £10,000 lease. Which brings me to old Etonian Francis David Charteris, the 12th Earl of Wemyss and March, a prominent supporter of Ukip (do they still exist? Ed) to whom he has donated more than £54,000. So is this where some of the car parking money subsequently ends up?

Francis (not even his pals call him Frank) is a colourful character. As is his second wife Amanda, the present Countess. She set up the Beckley Foundation on a portion of Francis’ vast estate in Oxford to study the effects of psychoactive drugs and three years ago successfully crowdfunded more than £50,000 for the first magnetic resonance image scanner of the brain experiencing LSD. Volunteers drop in to drop acid, such are the sacrifices people will make for science. In 1996 Amanda persuaded Francis to undergo a trepanning operation in Cairo, about which he later said, “It seemed very beneficial.” Francis may have a hole in his head, but it certainly isn’t in his wallet.

SWAT’S THIS ALL ABOUT?

I had never heard of swatting - not swotting, like Cuthbert in the Bash Street Kids - until last week. It has its origins in the subculture of the internet where trolls bully and harass people. A kind of update on the prank where a wreath, or a pizza delivery, is sent to someone you don’t like, not you personally of course. This new lark involves reporting an alleged bomb threat, probably involving a Muslim, or a hostage situation, so that a SWAT team turns up, breaks down the door, throws in stun grenades or pushes a bristle of automatic weapons in the unfortunate’s face. That had its limitations because the perpetrator couldn’t actually witness the terror and distress in the victim. But in the States, where else, the explosion of live streaming, with actual events witnessed in real time, has led to a concomitant surge in swatting. One of the prime victims is a 23-year-old in Los Angeles streamer called Paul Denino, aka Ice Poseidon, who broadcasts his life live, courtesy of a camera on a stick and a cellular transmitter in his backpack. His YouTube channel has 595,790 subscribers (or losers). Denino humiliates people, indulges in mindless, cringe-making japes and propositions women on the streets, often successfully. People, young people presumably, pay to watch this rolling output of fame that only Andy Warhol could have imagined and his raking in of up to $60,000 a month has clearly aroused jealousy and retribution. In one month he was swatted every day, including the calling in of a bomb threat about a Phoenix plane he had just boarded, closing several of the airport’s runways for hours. In December last year a man in Kansas was even shot dead by police in a swatting episode sparked by a feud in the online game Call of Duty. You can watch epic real-life swats on YouTube, it you’re of a twisted turn of mind.

A TROUBLING ENCOUNTER

It’s Thursday and off to the Sunday Herald Culture Awards, taking the back lane parallel to blocked-off Sauchiehall Street and the ravaged Art School building. Coming out eventually onto the main street and just down from the Beresford building there’s a body lying on the pavement. It’s a young man, probably in his thirties, alive just about, with the name Libby tattooed on his neck. He’s wearing black adidas top and bottoms, which are dusty and dirty. At 18.52 I call 999 for police and ambulance. A few minutes later Libby and a couple of other homeless people arrive, with the obligatory attachment, a scabby dog. Libby is, or was, the lad’s girlfriend. It emerges his name is Anthony. Fifteen minutes later Anthony is still out but begins to stir as he is prodded and prompted, the dog contributing by licking his face. Still no sign of the emergency services. He’s now mumbling that he won’t go to hospital. It’s pretty obvious he’s suffering from a drug overdose. Just before 19.15 he stumbles to his feet and stoats off and up Sauchiehall Street. It’s now 23 minutes since I called 999 and no sign of help, so I dial again and call them off. Then I walk away, angry at the so-called emergency services who didn’t turn up. Perhaps they knew him from the description I gave and weren’t bothered? Perhaps there was some grave emergency elsewhere, but I doubt it? I hope Anthony is okay and if anyone knows him then please look out for him.

MY WORLD’S A STAGE

As a result of the excursion I miss the pre-prandial drinks at the awards and everyone is seated for dinner when I get to the venue. I make a strong initial impression on the guests at my table by knocking over a glass of wine, but fortunately I am the only one whose trousers are soaked. There are three actors around me who are gracious about it, it’s the craft. Lindy Whiteford, who has been in A Touch of Frost, Shetland and many other notable TV drama, tells me that I should be an actor. Lovely person, terrible liar. Next to her is Ron Bain, another of Scotland’s finest thespians. He’s written a three-hander about newspapers which is set for a run at the Oran Mor in Glasgow’s West End from August 27. Get that in the diary. And, from the coming generation, Scott Reid, aka Methadone Mick from Still Game, but I don’t recognise him without the prominent wallies and dilated pupils. He’s up for the stage award for his performance at the National Theatre in London in The Curious Incident of The Dog In The Night-Time. I tell him I had one earlier in Sauchiehall Street. I’m surprised when he tells me he’s living up here. It’s no inhibition, he says, with all this new technology you can now audition remotely and in real time. I am tempted to tell him to watch out for SWAT teams, but think better of it.