A journey through the laughing glass

Last night Julie and I went along to the Royal Latin School to listen to Andy McConnell of Antiques Roadshow fame. (He is their resident glassware specialist, we were told.) It was a fundraising evening for BACAB which supports the local Citizens Advice service. Neither Julie nor I are particularly into antiques and (dare I say this) do not tend to watch the BBC programme on Sunday evenings (unlike six million other people apparently). So we went expecting a couple of glasses of wine, a canapé or three, chat with some of the good people of the Town and (we thought) a fairly tedious presentation about antique glassware. How wrong I was!

Not only was the part of his presentation about glassware fascinating: who knew that old pieces of glass contained so much social history (which does interest me)!? But also, we were treated to a whistle stop tour through his earlier life where he explained how he worked with Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa no less, among many other household rock star names! And thorough all of his, Andy held his audience in the palm of his hand with a heady mixture of laugh out loud humour, poignant candour, some slightly risqué stories and a whole array of provocative opinions. We enjoyed ourselves hugely.

It was one of those occasions as Mayor that I have been blown away with something so unexpected and so delightful. Thank you to everyone who helped to organise and run yesterday evening - and of course - great thanks to Andy who entertained us so well. I might even have to start watching the Antiques Roadshow now!