The Rotisserie and Other Stories

The untouched tower rotisserie's been sat in my hallway for something like 7 months. It was a present from my brother for my 60th, the sort of thing that tickles him; a fantastic present that's just a bit inconvenient and probably beyond the interest and ability of the recipient. I can just about bung a chicken in the oven with an onion up its behind, please don't ask me to advance any further into the modern era; even smoothie-maker blades freak me out.

Added to which, R, who actually cooks and therefore rules the kitchen, is thoroughly agin it, because while the room itself is large, the unit is too big to fit between worksurface and overhead cupboards, except in inconvenient parts of the room. Don't ask me, I stay out of the kitchen as much as possible; but it has occurred to me that as our culinary space expands, so do we; the time will come when we need a house with an entire floor dedicated to cooking and eating. In that time, the bro's gift might come in very handy, until then it might just rot, untouched in its pristine packaging and woefully under-appreciated. Hence the scheme.

There are a few warm hubs around here, and one is in the middle of town. It's a cafe at the back of the gaming centre, where various nights a week people come and play board games, D&D or whatever... and of course, people can come in for free food if they need it. So I popped in to ask if they would like the rotisserie. The lady gawped.

'Let me show you something,' she said, and opened the big freezer. It was stuffed full of chickens in blue carrier bags. 'We got these as a donation,' she said, 'and of course I make meals out of everything I can get, but as you see, yes, it would be very handy!'

So her husband came around last night, beaming broadly, and away it went to its new home. Bro may well be mad if he hears. But if I tell him that it's feeding loads of gamers plus vulnerable people, he may smile a bit. He's a gamer himself after all.

And this might be a heart warming story, if I felt that vicarious sense of satisfaction often attributed to donors, but I don't know if I did it for any better reason than clearing some space in a way that would honour my brother's gift.

If I wasn't sure about people's good yesterday, I had a sudden crushing meeting with their bad. Walking back through the little nature reserve, I saw some painted graffiti on the ground, the usual obscene signs followed by something new.

'F**k Imogrants,' came the scrawl, and then something about Latvians.

And then a swastika.

This is about as unScottish as it gets. Culturally the country is extremely European and very open. If you are going to come across any real bigotry there might be some rare nonsense about hating the English, and a history of sectarian tension between Catholics and Protestants, fading fast. But this? No, no. I have never seen anything like it here. However, it reminded me of a strange occurence at the end of November, where a local pub put on their FB page a denial that they had held some kind of Nazi event. In a burst of narrative linking, I can postulate that a rival venue might start such a rumour to take the place out of commission, cos musicians and punters alike want no truck with this nonsense. And I can see that if this word was doing the rounds, it might stimulate addled brats already so inclined. But where would the inclination come from? One of my education involved friends says that Tiktok is playing its part, not just with this kind of nastiness but the rise of incel culture and other lamentable crap, in tough times when money grows scarce and thought grows scarcer.

I got on to the police and the council straight away. The police came around this morning, I showed it to them (the good news is this pelting rain had already washed away a fair amount of it) they've taken a statement and away they went to the council, who have responded with uncustomary vigour, perhaps cos I left them with both a phone message and an email, but more likely down to the police appearing on their doorstep. They say it will be cleaned away today.

And here I am, pondering that moment someone picks up a can and decides they have to express not just cruelty, but an emblem of ultimate power-hungry loserdom. Maybe what they really need is that place of warmth, games, friends,hot food even if they can't pay for it, smiles even if they don't know anyone.

Or maybe people are just no damn good. I remember Berendt's book Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil and got more from the imagery than the story. My suspicion is that the scales may tip by immeasurably small increments throughout our day; midnight's when you're far enough from all the cute stuff to notice how awry the machinery is, and how the fulcrum is as suspect as whatever is in the bowls.