The London Gathering 8/9 September, 2007

[Hamish]

Having won two free tickets, valued at £35 each, I decided to attend this event after all. I wanted to go since I first got to hear about it but, at £35 admission, common sense was getting a firm grip on me and I had more or less made up my mind to let the opportunity pass. Now the situation was different - and, besides, Howie would be there with the '21st Century Kilts' stand AND he would be bringing kilt No.82 in my Kollection for me to pick up!

My good pal, Jim, willingly took up the second ticket so I drove to his home in Surrey and, from there, we took the train into London. The 'Gathering', advertised as being the first annual Contemporary Scottish Festival in London and focussing on Scottish food, fashion, music, literature and whisky, took place in the prestigeous Inner Temple Gardens, beside the River Thames. It was not a Highland Gathering as we know such events, but turned out to be a massively sponsored Public Relations event - the sort of thing that goes on in 'The City' where money is apparently not a problem for anyone, especially other people's money! There was much sampling of Scottish Gin (Hendricks) and Whisky (The Balvenie and Monkey Shoulder!!), superb Haggis, neeps and tatties for lunch, and a main stage featuring well-known Scottish artistes such as 'Clan Wallace' (who deafened everyone for miles around!), Sandi Thom, Goldie and Grant, and Eddi Reader. Scottish celebrities were wandering about the place too, and the Pipes and Drums of the London Scottish Regiment played. There was a TFCK Fashion Show at which I was singled out (no, I was in the audience NOT on the catwalk!) when the audience was told I had the largest Kilt Kollection in Europe, which is almost certainly not true but who is going to argue at such a time?!

It was a strange event. A LOT of money had been spent on it, but it was not at all well attended - Howie's wife told us that on Saturday, the atmosphere was like that at a village fete rather than a high-profile capital city event - such a shame. Hopefully, the organisers will have learned some serious lessons and that next year, it will be aimed at everyone not just the rich!

Anyway, if nothing else, I came away with my new kilt, in Weathered Red Gordon. It is gorgeous and photos will appear separately.

Here are just a few photos taken at The London Gathering:


A view of the famous London Eye with the clock tower of The Palace of Westminster (Big Ben at the Houses of Parliament to most people!).


A sight seldom seen - maybe only once in twenty years - two of the four clock faces showing different times! The famous clock and its chimes are currently undergoing maintenance.


Goldie and Grant, two beautiful tenor voices which were so heavily over-amplified it was almost painful.


A collection of rather odd, punk-like kilties who I believe were wearing 'Guilty Kilts' (www.guiltykilts.com) from London's trendy Carnaby Street. Well, they didn't do it for me, that's for sure!


Jim took this pic of me with Hardeep Singh Kohli (a TV presenter in Scotland who also occasionally appears nationwide) and Alastair Mackenzie (the Scottish actor who played Archie in 'Monarch of the Glen' for BBC TV).

Here's a close up of Alastair and me:


And that was about it! Oh, I forgot to mention that one of the models in The TFCK Fashion Show was another Scottish actor, Billy Boyd who has starred in several films including the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy.