A large gathering

I was walking to university the other day when I passed through Royal Exchange Square and noticed a large group of people standing looking at a group of police officers.

My first thought was there had been a murder and this may be quite exciting to watch. My mind wandered through dozens of possibilities and I started to hope that a Lieutenant Columbo figure would turn up in a battered Peugeot convertible, sucking on a cigar, muttering to himself about tying up loose ends.

This obviously was not going to be the case, and as I looked a little closer I realised that the police were just standing around, waiting outside one of the shops next to some very expensive looking black cars.

There were now two possibilities – one, that a very rich person was out shopping and had hired a squad of policemen to guard his mega-expensive cars when he went about his business. It is the centre of Glasgow after all and you can never be too careful when it comes to car crime.

Or, more likely, that a famous person was visiting the city and the police were there to provide personal protection.

I turned to the guy stood next to me and asked him what was going on. He said that he had no idea. I then asked the two young ladies to his right and again, they had no answer. I then asked the old couple that were behind me and they told me that they had seen a large crowd and joined it to see what was happening – once again, they had no idea.

I started wondering just how large a crowd had to be before people join it without and reason. Obviously one is not enough, or else crowds would form every time someone stopped in the street, but it was an interesting phenomenon.

After asking about ten more people – none of whom could shed any light on the situation – I walked up to one of the policemen and asked him what was going on.

His reply was that it was a Royal visit and Princess Anne was in one of the shops.

I returned to my original position and told the guy, girls and everyone around what I had found out.

The guy’s response was – “Oh fuck that!” and he wandered away, annoyed that he had wasted five minutes on such a trivial matter.

After 30 seconds, the area where I had been previously standing was totally empty.

I guess Royal visits aren’t as special as they used to be. I certainly didn’t hang around for a glimpse of someone I couldn’t care less about.

The initial excitement about who was inside the shop was over and I wondered who would have been exciting enough to hang about to see.

My conclusion was – anyone but Princess Anne.

Fuck it; I’m sure most of the crowd would have stayed if I had told them that it had been one of the Proclaimers...

...though maybe not the idiot Socialist one - the other one...the clever one...