Open House.

Following Steve's challenge for me to pay it forwards, to find someone halfway round the world and show them the best of Scottish culture and scenery, I have decided to open my door to anyone who feels like taking me up on the offer.

If you are halfway around the world and feel like spending some time in Scotland just drop me a line. You never know. It may just be fun. I know that on previous occasions that I've taken a tourist around and about Edinburgh on a whim I've had a great time. And so have they.

One such time was my brothers stag night. My friend Steff and I were tripping out our heads on acid and I had been knocking back double scotch and lemonade like there was no tomorrow, my brother and his friends were wrecked and my dad was complaining about the noise. I ended up befriending an American college girl. By throwing her boyfriend into a fountain.

The way it happened was this... Someone let loose with the idea of handcuffing Stuart to a lamppost, taking his clothes and then fucking off and leaving him, as is the usual tradition here in the UK.

I, in my acid dappled brain, thought it would be an even better hoot to throw him into the fountain of the Sheraton Hotel that was exactly opposite the pub we were residing in. So I spread the word around the group that it was time that Stuart went for a swim. The group, and some other people who had enquired what I was up to, decided to assist. I even had one of the doorman waiting in the middle of Lothian Road to stop traffic at the right time.

Stuart was duly grabbed and manhandled across to where the fountain sat waiting. He was stripped of his clothes even though he fought bravely. It was cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey but Stuart very bravely resigned himself to the idea of him going into the water, walked in and sat down.

I think some part of him realized that if he didn't go in he'd look like the party pooper to all his friends and to the crowd of drinkers from the pub that had accompanied us. And, to the crowd of late night drinkers who were gathering for the show of some poor bugger being thrown into a fountain.

One of the crowd of drinkers that had followed us across the road was laughing at my brother taking the plunge and as his girlfriend had been eyeing me up while we were in the pub I decided that he was also going for a plunge. I lunged at him and the pack descended. He was rapidly stripped by his friends and his girlfriend and I got a hold of his arm and heaved him into the cold water.

He smacked into the water and I heard him whimper as the shock of the cold. He jerked upright like a puppet with the strings suddenly tautened. "Looks like not everything is bigger in America." I said to his girlfriend and she laughed.

After everyone's interest in the spectacle waned, which is about a minute in the cold night of Lothian Road during the winter, we headed back over the road to the pub. Drinks were got and the cold was gotten out of our bones. Stuarts and the American college girls boyfriends especially.

The American guy was shivering and gasping and trying to get some heat while concerned people suggested a large whisky to take the chill off him. I took my chance and slid in beside the girl who had caught my eye. We chatted and I made my move. As I chatted her up she told me that she was with the guy who I had thrown into the water and was happy with him but would, in another time or place, have happily loved me for the duration of her stay. I cursed the timing of it all and resigned myself to being a friend to her and her friends while they were in town.

Over the next week I met up with her and her friends and we wandered around Edinburgh and had some good times. The time for her to leave Edinburgh came and I said goodbye to her with a breaking heart as I knew she was leaving. Never to return. Another random love in a lifetime of randomness.

So, If you are up for a visit to Edinburgh just get a flight, tell me what date you arrive and we'll have a ball.