John Gibson: Now poetry is figuring in the mix

LOVE and marriage go together like a horse and carriage, didn’t somebody used to sing that?

Just like jazz and pies go together for Tom Ponton’s annual “Jazz ‘n’ Pies Night” at the Oz Bar in Candlemaker Row on Wednesday.

Sponsored this year by Drambuie. Times are tough and Mr P, roving businessman with a pad in Florida, is stressing the evening’s strictly by invitation. The live jazz, it’s promised, will be hot, like the pies. One of the guests, erstwhile singer Bob Tait, has contributed a poem. Space permits only fragmentary lines in the column.

Marvellous pies with gravy that drips, I can see you all now licking your lips, calm down, calm down, I know you can’t wait, free drinks from five till seven and jazz till eight.

Me talking: Bob fancies himself as a poet laureate but come eight he’ll be in a helluva state.

Well drilled

The backlog of repairs, patching up, needed for our major roads will cost £760 million, with temperatures expected to dive to 18 degrees. The roads are ropey and we’re all paying for it.

Here in dear auld reekie the hard-hats are happily (it’s good wages after all) digging it all up and slapping it all back in the city centre. Happily ‘cos it’s double time or, shouldn’t be surprised, treble for Saturdays and Sundays.

Go at it, lads, the work should be easy because you’ve done it all before with your diggers and drills, picks and shovels. It’s a job for life. You should hear what the punters say when they pass by in the re-routed buses.

Talking of drills, I positively detest drills. Which is why I have this ongoing love-hate relationship with my dentist.