<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Bishop Shock at Inverallan Games\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sandy Brodie pushed open the door of the Inverallan Barber\u2019s. Lachie Brown was in the chair, with Jim MacBeth, the barber, in attendance and Willie Bain next in line for a haircut.<\/p>\n \u2018Aye boys, helluva storm oot there.\u2019 There was a ragged, muttered chorus of \u2018Aye Sandy\u2019 from all present.<\/p>\n \u2018Shouldna\u2019 be too long, Sandy, if ye just tak\u2019 a seat. How\u2019s business up at the hotel? Many guests?\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Aye, aye. A family o\u2019 six folk frae Holland came in today. An\u2019 the lady bishop decided to stay anither week.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018And wit\u2019s the lady bishop doin\u2019 wi\u2019 herself? Willie here wis saying that she wis goin\u2019 in for The Peat Throwing Contest.\u2019<\/p>\n (Lachie Brown: \u2018Peat throwin\u2019 \u2013 load o\u2019 bloody nonsense\u2019).<\/p>\n \u2018Aye, that\u2019s richt. They held it this morning, afore the rain started. An\u2019 she competed in the ladies section.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018An\u2019 how did she get on, the bishop lady? She wouldna\u2019 be any match for Lady Gayle from the Big Hoose: she\u2019s won it every year since it started.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Well now, she was makin\u2019 an awfy hash o\u2019 it, at first. One peat hit Andy, the gardener, on the back o\u2019 his heid. He wasna\u2019 pleased.\u2019<\/p>\n Willie: \u2018Nothin\u2019 pleases Andy Morrison. If Nicola Sturgeon ran off tae Las Vegas wi\u2019 Donald Trump, he wouldna\u2019 crack a smile. So did she improve, the bishop lady?\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Didn\u2019t she just? I reckon she wis getting some tips off Donnie MacKinnon at the half-time break. Because she really began to rack up some style points from the judges after the break.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018She wis turnin\u2019 a tight spade?\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Aye, aye, a very tight spade. You could tell Lady Gayle wasna\u2019 best pleased. So Donnie won the men\u2019s section. And the bishop won the ladies\u2019.\u2019<\/p>\n (pause).<\/p>\n Willie and Jim together: \u2018You mean\u2026?\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Aye, that\u2019s richt: Her Grace at first just ghastly, turned a tighter spade than Gayle\u2026<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n Willie and Jim gently hummed the Procol Harum organ break.<\/p>\n (Lachie Brown: \u2018Load o\u2019 bloody nonsense\u2019)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Michael Bloor<\/strong> is a retired sociologist living in Dunblane, Scotland, who has recently discovered the exhilarations of short fiction, with pieces published in Ink Sweat & Tears, Breve New Stories, Fictive Dream, Platform for Prose, the Flash Fiction Press, Flash Fiction Magazine, Scribble, Occulum, the Fiction Pool <\/em>and the Copperfield Review.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Bishop Shock at Inverallan Games\u00a0 Sandy Brodie pushed open the door of the Inverallan Barber\u2019s. Lachie Brown was in the chair, with Jim MacBeth, the barber, in attendance and Willie Bain next in line for a haircut. \u2018Aye boys, helluva storm oot there.\u2019 There was a ragged, muttered chorus of \u2018Aye Sandy\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15728"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15729,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15728\/revisions\/15729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}