Picture the scene. Jude (the long-suffering Mrs J) and I are on our first holiday abroad since lockdown was lifted. Ultra-cheap, last-minute Tui flights from Manchester to Cancun, an Air B&B rental the size of a postage stamp in an “interesting, up-and-coming sector of the city”, we’ve got 500 quid in Mexican Pesetas and Uber on both our mobies (officially, according to the Mexican government, all ride-hailing apps are banned in this part of the world. Hmmnnn…).
Mask-up, fingers crossed, let’s holiday the way our kids are doing it… post-Covid, 2022 style.
So, 5 days into this adventure and we hadn’t been mugged, poisoned, or stolen (largely due to lots of sign language, a “C” in O Level Spanish, and the fact that Mexicans love Scots – they’re football daft, we’re football daft… need I say more!!??). Anyway, we’re sitting in an open-air diner, in the middle of a street market at high noon, when a table-hopping, tourist-hustling Mariachi band strike up a tune that I definitely know… but can’t quite place.
To stop me la, la, la-ing along with our Mexican muso pals as I try, try, try to come up with the song title, Jude picks up her iPhone and is just about to double-tap Shazam when… “ping”, in comes a Google Alert. An alert that neither of us had set up, BTW! (eavesdropping iPhones are selling all your secrets to the Google gossip-bots)
Anyway, the “ping” was to let us know that “EK@75” – a film commission that Zap! had completed a fortnight earlier – had just been officially released by our client, South Lanarkshire Council.
It’s early July ’22, it’s 40+ degrees in the shade and we’re in a South American snack-shack reading Lorraine Kelly’s Daily Record review of a wee film we’d produced on the history of Scotland’s first New Town, East Kilbride… whilst waiting on a lunchtime order of frozen margaritas and mystery-meat tacos.
Mental! But brilliant! You couldn’t write that script, eh? And the film’s pretty good as well (click the “play” button above and have a wee swatch).
Oh yes, and the tune the band was playing? It was a Mariachied-up version of the Man United anthem, “Blue Moon”.
