Aug 12 2014

Listening to Bryan Adams in Ayr

ayr 2

The worst music in the world is to be found in Ayr. Maybe they haven’t paid their licence. Maybe the only music in Ayr is an old Now 47 double cassette tape. But the fact remains that the worst music in the world is to be found in Ayr.

 

Actually I do the World a disservice. Sorry, World. When I say World, I mean bad chart records from the UK that you had forgotten had actually existed.

 

I sit in an otherwise quite pleasant pub. There has been an effort to make it look old but the beams may not be real. We are told sternly to use the beermats. The wine comes in miniature bottles. We are in Scotland. ‘Everything I Do I Do It For You’ is playing and I am suddenly reminded of my horrid first kiss at a teen disco in Barnstaple.

ayr 3

There is a sudden fury of a gale outside. It is August. Rain smatters furiously at the windows. On Facebook, people are complaining it is too hot. They are not in Ayr.

There are moments of bombastic glory, an ancient yellowing neo-Baronial building toppling gently towards a barbers. The old, the new and the simply a bit broken sliding haphazardly along the same street.

My boyfriend who has driven a considerable way for this glumly declares it ‘Bolton.’

a 4

Songs from Now 47 plaintively bleat in the charity shops. I had forgotten about Chesney Hawkes.

In the ancient thatched Tam O’ Shanter inn, Robbie Burn’s pub of choice apparently, stalwarts of heavy day-time drinking lean against the timeless bar muttering incomprehensibly against a backdrop of Something Bad from the Eighties as bemused American tourists wonder if this is a living recreation. I yearn to tell them not to try a Macaroni Cheese Pie from anyone, anywhere but I am left silent and floundering due to a large vodka and mixer for £1.60. I definitely preferred it to the Red Hot Chilli Pipers CD and six  pound large vodka of olde Edinburgh hostelries, mind.

a 5

Next, a place recommended by Trip Advisor as being excellent for vegetarians. I ask for lentil soup. Then to a backdrop of Cher, I ask if I have just eaten bacon. I am informed it is probably beans. She goes to check. I have eaten bacon. Nice soup though and it is wiped from my bill. I suddenly have a huge desire to go on a mad bacon rampage through Ayr whilst listening to Sinitta.

a6

Another bar, an Alternative bar and I sadly realise that I look like a mum waiting to pick her kids up when they are finished on the pool table. I never thought I would be so glad to hear some Sisters of Mercy B-sides in my life. I think about having a Macaroni Cheese pie and am frightened by myself.

 

Last port of call, an accidental discovery of a cocktail bar on the way back to the car. The designated driver sighs heavily at this point. It seems to be populated by actual people from the eighties which is an exciting change but we leave when I start having Delerium Tremens about MC Hammer offering me a Bramble Gin.

I quite like Ayr.

ayr 1

a7