It may surprise you to hear that there is a Nicola Sturgeon Fanclub, but that is. I have been among them.
They gathered on Saturday in the King's Theater for Books & Banter, invoiced as 'a brilliant – and revealing – evening' of Literary Bavardage between the former Prime Minister and her novelist Chum Val McDermid.
It was all part of the Glasgow International Comedy Festival, although the journey of lawyer as a minister to prospective -giving is more tragic than me from my comedy.
Who are the Sturgeon Fanclub? They are predominantly feminine, decided of middle age and apparently very concerned about security.
My bag was searched twice to enter the door. Don't look at me. You would never fit in a camper pass there.
After some thematic empowerment pop – 'Sisters are for themselves' by Eurythmics – Steur and McDermid on stage to a deafening cheers that tsunamies of stalls all the way to the gods.
Sturgeon, in jeans and an informal top, the audience started working.
“Shout when you come from Glasgow.”
Raw roar.
Nicola Sturgeon and Val McDermid play it for laughs from the middle class at Glasgow Comedy Festival
“Shout when you're out of Fife.”
More modest roar.
“A translator will be in due course.”
She tipped her head in the direction of her partner and added: 'We run too late. Val got stuck at passport control on the M8. '
The crowd has sustained it, but not as much as McDermid's opening gambit. She turned to sturgeon and said: 'Very special day for you. You are free. '
My eardrums may never recover from the triumphant diagonally that broke out around me. Sturgeon, after mock-chastising McDermid for the venture of above-arranged subjects, admitted that in recent years had been 'interesting' and said that she would 'have passed it without good friends', and also thanked the many strangers who had sent her messages of support. Strange is the right word.
But this was meant to be about books, and it didn't take long to get an upcoming literary debut. “Several people thought I didn't write a novel last year because I was writing your memoirs,” McDermid pulled. Then, a beat: “They would be a lot funnier if I did.”
The queen of Tartan Noir promised that their conversation would “explore the love and laughter between the covers,” which would produce an exaggerated “oooooh” of the fan-girl audience.
Sturgeon tapped her for 'giving the daily mail its head'.
A geyser from Gushiness followed, while the couple the raised, about Sturgeon's desire to rewrite the character arch of Dci Karen Pirie until the first time McDermid and her wife took the prime minister of dinner. (The singing author of the mermaids served savory custard covered with mini vegetables, a corruption to compete with everything that her character Tony Hill once encountered.)
It is not difficult to see how the two are connected, given their shared respect for libraries. A juvenile McDermid has tightened her gift for literary invention by coming up with a serious illness for her mother who obliged the local librarian to give young fall access to adult crime fiction.
What did she read right now? For Sturgeon: Careless People, by Sarah Wynn-Williams, a critical Insider's report from Facebook. McDermid read the novels of Michael Dibdin, whose Aurelio Zen series takes place in the dark world of Italian politics.
“More interesting than Scottish politics,” Sturgeon joked.
“Marginal more corruption than in Scottish politics,” Ripost McDermid.
The humor was in the middle, in the way middle class humor is usually and Glasgow Middle Class Humor is always. If you enjoy podcasts where friendly but banal people agree on everything, you would have kept this.
Then, author Christopher Brookmyre. Discussed his first novel, very ugly in one morning, and the famous 'Jobby on the Mantlepiece' of the opening pages. He also thought he had written four novels before he got one in it: “There is a deep -rooted prejudice in publishing novels that are s ****.”
A cynic might noten that Brookmyre seemed to be missing for almost ten years for a satirical novel writer for almost ten years, an obvious and powerful target for his sharp pen. One with whom he now shared a stage.
Mind you, I doubt that the Fan Club of Nicola Sturgeon would have approved that.
