Andy Todd’s Jukebox Durie presents…the Barcelona song!

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As the world watched Felix Baumgartner fall 24 miles from space last week I remembered a time when I too wanted to be an adventurer…

…All I wanted when I was 13 was a life with no homework; Celtic every night on the telly; and my very own dirty book. All my friends had one: a Playboy, a Penthouse, a crumpled copy of Asian Babes; but this was 1990, and I lived in the Free Church capital of Scotland. This was the heartland of the Gaelic Taliban. This was Stornoway and, in Stornoway, we only had the Good Book.

In Stornoway everything was banned. We were even banned from saying the word ‘pornography’ in case it made us think of naked boobies and S-E-X before marriage. We had to call it ‘lonely fiction’. So, it was not until I was 25 that I bought my very first smutty magazine. And not just one, I went wild, I bought ten. Ten! But, I wasn’t making up for lost time, I had a daring mission to complete.

Eight years ago I entered the Plymouth to Dakar Rally. This was a rally from Plymouth to Dakar (the rally was well named) in which I had to drive a car bought for less than £100.

I was raising money for Save the Children and, in the back of our 1982 American Town and Country Station Wagon we had pens and pencils; notepads; and first aid kits to hand out to the villages on our route. And, in the back, in a sealed case, we had filthy erotica: if we got into trouble, or were stopped by border guards, the rules of the rally were clear, we weren’t to use cash to escape – we were to use gash.

Border guards were lonely guards….

So, for the first time in my life I had to go into a shop and buy a girlie magazine.

I didn’t know what to do. I’m looking at all these different images: big jugs; bouncy butts; but all I can think is “What would Abdul like as a kinky backhander?” – ’cause it wasn’t like I was buying it for myself. It was a gift. I couldn’t give him any old dirty book. So, I asked for help. This was a big mistake.

Don’t get me wrong, I now know that asking for recommendations could come across as a little bit weird, but tell me this, what’s weird – me, asking for recommendations or the guy at the counter exclaiming in delight “I thought you’d never ask!”

I felt sick. But secretly delighted! I’m a snob and all I could think was: ‘cool, my pornography is bespoke!’ But, sadly for Abdul, he never saw his adult gifts. Although I was buying pornography like my life depended on it – because my life did actually depend on it – we crashed our station wagon near Paris and the car was wrecked.

Our rally was over, but, luckily, the French scrap merchant who examined the wreckage said he could find a home for our pens and pencils by taking the car to the local orphanage before he scrapped it. Our charitable endeavours would not go to waste. It was only when he was gone that we remembered that not all of our gifts were meant for children. But, I think the orphans were secretly happy when they discovered our secret stash. When you are 13 you are not looking for a pen or a pencil – all you really want is your very own dirty book.

I was reminded of this story when I watched Felix fall, and I thought, as I watched it, isn’t it brilliant to live in a world where one man can dare to dream an impossible dream and see it come true? In fact, it makes you wonder what would happen if 11 men dared to dream? What else might come true? Could we cure a deadly disease? Save the planet from environmental destruction? Finally, work out why showers go cold when someone make switches the tap on in the kitchen (why do they get first dibs on the hot water?!). All these things are possible, if we are bold enough to believe.

Saying that, if Celtic beat Barcelona at the Nou Camp tonight I will emulate Felix and jump out of a plane without a parachute to prove once and for all that Red Bull really doesn’t give you wings.

It’s A Song for Barcelona:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0ew2aSLfMY

Ahem… sorry… couldn’t resist that…

It’s the official song for Barcelona:

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About the Author
After too many years as season ticket holder at Parkhead, Andy Todd renounced the SPL three years ago to support Queens Park. One team is a rank bunch of amateurs who play in a state of the art stadium and the other is…(I think we can all see where this is going).

Andy has been performing comedy for 18 months but is currently ‘between gigs’ while he writes a book on Scottish property law to be published in Summer 2012. Its potential audience will be less than 300 but his mum will be very proud.

Follow Andy on Twitter: @toddandy

Check out Andy’s website: www.toddandy.com

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