Queue Richard
A day of back-to-back meetings in Glasgow ends with the usual rush to catch the Inverness train from Queen Street. That's where I met Richard Cadey, the roving reporter on the MacAulay & Co programme who was lumbering through the crowds wth two huge steel cases full of equipment.
"I'm catching the train to Fort William, " he explained, "for a story about a Santa's grotto."
I suggested that the programme producers might be having a laugh at his expense by dreaming up all sorts of bizarre assignments just to see if he would actually complete them. Richard thought this was very likely.
Indeed, a few weeks ago, they had sent him into a bakery shop in the west end of Glasgow to test the concept of queue-jumping. Listening to instructions from Fred MacAualy on a mobile phone, Richard ignored the customers waiting in line and went straight to the counter to buy various pies and pastries. Each time the shop assistant thought Richard had completed his order, Fred, safe in the studio, would be on the phone demanding another item...then another...then another.
Richard told me he lost his nerve when three burly builders in the queue began gving him menacing looks. But that wasn't even the worst of it.
"Those pies, "Richard explained, "Fred still owes me the money for them."
