Secret pint

So, there I was, on Saturday night, in Edinburgh, taking advantage of Scotland's fantastically relaxed drinking laws in The World's End pub on The Royal Mile, having been treated to tales of torture and the supernatural on a late-night ghost walk, talking to a friend about how well Ian Rankin recreates that darker side of the city in his fiction, and about the fondness of Inspector Rebus (and his creator) for Glaswegian noiseniks Mogwai - when I realised that the stumpy hairy-faced gentleman sat at the neighbouring table indulging in a few pints and conversing animatedly about the Yeah Yeah Yeahs was none other than Mogwai's Stuart Braithwaite himself. Now, don't get me wrong - I love Mogwai, they've opened all kinds of doors for me. But when they decided to allow Levi's to use 'Summer' in an ad, it left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth, despite the fact that they said the money would help them to put out records on their own label. And when I noticed that Stuart was wearing a pair of pristine Levi's - well, it might sound very harsh, but all I could think of was Judas jangling his thirty pieces of silver in his pockets...

Your heroes always let you down.

Needless to say, I'll still be buying their new album (Happy Music For Happy People) though.