March was a good month for Under The Counter. For once, the Cheltenham Festival proved to be financially rewarding. It was possibly the first time he’d won big since the late sixties, when the boys had longer hair than the girls and UTC had already lost most of his. And, he also got to celebrate two days dedicated to a couple of hot hold heroes.
In case you missed it, 18 March marked the first-ever National Black Pudding Day. Whether by accident or design, this was the day after St Patrick’s Day. Which was handy for the Auld Boy, whose bleary-eyed arrival in SLR Towers carrying two rolls on blood sausage would normally immediately arouse suspicions of a hangover. This year he got away with it.
UTC then had only a week to keep his excitement under check until National Square Sausage Day (25 March), a wheeze dreamed up by Ayrshire butcher, We hae meat. UTC is undecided whether this is a terrible name or a great name for a business. It is though, for a butcher, about as Ronseal as it gets.
Investigative journalist that he is, the Auld Boy was curious about the date. In his eyes, a roll on sausage is a good a hangover cure as a roll on black pudding, but he couldn’t imagine too many folk getting blind drunk on the 24th to celebrate World Tuberculosis Day.
The answer, however, comes from the field of mathematics – not airborne respiratory diseases – and it’s a simple one, even for Under The Counter.
The 25th was chosen because, as the product of five times five, it’s what’s eggheads describe as ‘a perfect square’. Which was what those long-haired hippies used to call UTC way back in the sixties.
