After the inundation incident, I jumped back on my bike and cycled up to the west end to meet up with Ruth. She and I were visiting the dark side of the Forth that night for Bryan’s Mum’s 60th birthday party, and so we headed in her car for the Kincardine Bridge. The traffic was by now, of course, laughably light.

We picked up Jeff & Devon in Kirkcaldy and stopped for petrol on the way to the hinterland. I took the opportunity (pay attention to this bit) to stick on a hastily selected, unironed shirt and disguised it under a V-neck jumper. We hit the party and then bar in short order, saying hello to the people we knew as they passed our little clump of outsiders.

Jessie arrived, was greeted with a heart-stopping group exclamation of “Surprise!”, and the DJ took over the proceedings. “We’re gonnae have a wee game here,” he said. I smiled indulgently. Ah, these small towns. Jessie had to choose four women and four men to come onto the dance floor and take a seat in front of the audience. Jeff was picked as the third guy, and suddenly it occurred to me to be afraid. The warm embrace of my three pints fell away.

“Please don’t let it be me,” I prayed.

It was me.

We sat down on a row of chairs. The DJ worked his way along, playing the game show host with each contestant. “What’s your name?”

“Jeff,” said Jeff, with nary a hint of superiority.

“Arenae you posh! What do you do then?”

“I’m an archaeologist.”

The audience found this tremendously amusing.

He reached me: “And now we have a Will Young lookalike.” This backhanded compliment was scant consolation for my predicament. The game began. “Everyone has to get a pound coin from someone in the audience,” he said. “Go!”

I charged over to Ruth in spite of myself. “Give me a pound coin!” I bellowed at her. She rifled through her purse, flung one at me and I hurled myself back to my chair.

“Alright then—” said the DJ, counting the money “—the winner tonight will get nine pounds.”

“Ooooh,” said the audience.

“Next task is to get someone’s left shoe.”

Despite retrieving two shoes (it seems I have two left feet in just about every measurable way), my chair was taken away before I got back and I returned to the sidelines with a relieved sigh. Pint safely in hand, my composure seeped back in. I’d done my party piece, so to speak. I was safe.

I noticed that the DJ was talking again. “…get a man’s shirt. I repeat, a man’s shirt.”

What?

Jeff appeared in front of me. “Give me your shirt!”

I disagreed vehemently, so Ruth and Devon helped him to pull it bodily off me, along with my jumper.

Now my humiliation was complete, and the only reason that revealing my pallid Gollum torso to this lot of hooting Fifers wasn’t any worse was that six other guys had also been subjected to the same treatment. A few agonising seconds passed, the audience laughing themselves almost to death all the while, as Jeff peeled the shirt out from the jumper and flung it back to me. I pulled it back over my head, regained my pint a second time and muttered a string of obscenities. But thank God, this time I really was safe.

“Now, who’s shirt is this?” asked the DJ, brandishing one in the air. Bryan’s brother James hobbled forward on a crutch, having recently sprained his ankle. “Ah,” said the DJ. “We’ll have to make some allowances for you then. You’re going to do a striptease for us, James, and then so are all the other lucky gents whose shirts I have.”

Oh dear.

As I looked on with abject horror, James gamely lumbered around the chair provided to a soundtrack of Tom Jones until a bolt of pain shot across his face and he waved his free hand in defeat. Two more pasty victims gyrated their way through 30 seconds of living hell before I was beckoned up. “So, are you looking forward to this?” asked the host gleefully and holding up his microphone for my reply.

“Actually, I can’t imagine anything worse,” I told the audience for the record.

The music started. A get-out-of-jail-free plan formed in my mind, and I slowly, teasingly as possible, removed my shoes and socks. The socks got a bit of a twirl around my head and I threw them in the general direction of the audience. I ran out of reasonable things to take off (my hankie might have kept them busy for a few seconds more, had I thought of it then) and pleadingly waved my surrender at the DJ.

The music stopped. I walked off the stage and died in a corner.