I fear I may have misled GANTOB’s social media followers on Tuesday evening. Though on Scotland Street that night, I was not attempting to link my daily blog with Alexander McCall Smith’s daily serial of the same name. McCall Smith is another elderly gentleman, but seven years my junior.
When going through GANTOB’s materials last weekend I noticed a number of metaphorical knots in the handkerchief. One was the commitment to leave a copy of GANTOB’s book “in a little free library close to a place with a connection to a member of The KLF” (the TLA that GANTOB has asked me to keep to a minimum, to aid her recovery). I asked GANTOB for a clue – what kind of connection, and Drummond or Cauty? All she said was that it was time to go back to the beginning. Which I did.
The very first GANTOB book drop was on the starting day of this year’s Edinburgh Fringe (4 August 2023). She had posted earlier that evening from central Edinburgh.
Almost three hours later (see X date stamps) she posted about the first book drop, on Scotland Street. This was GANTOB pamphlet one (The Kompetition), which we have already encountered (without naming it) in an earlier blog post. This copy was on yellow paper/ card and was inserted inside a Bill Drummond book called $20,000. I believe that is the sum that Messers Drummond and Cauty set alight on the Inner Hebrides, as a piece of attention seeking behaviour. Perhaps you can illuminate me.
Invoking Occam’s razor, on my morning constitutional I followed the most direct route that GANTOB might have taken, along James Craig Walk, across York Place, down Dublin Street, and then I saw it: Drummond Place. Not Bill but George Drummond. Greenock Mason, rather than half of the Clydeside rappers. That would have to do.
So, on Tuesday night I fulfilled GANTOB’s commitment, placing a copy of her book into the LFL, with inserts including completed Little Grapefruit bookmark, taking a book in return. By yesterday evening the GANTOB book was gone, as yet undeclared on social media.
GANTOB tells me that the book she took in return for $20,000 inspired some of the fictional embellishments she made to the life of her late father-in-law Curt Finks (not real name). Perhaps she will reveal more when she has recovered enough to reclaim the helm of her project.
THE BENEFAKTOR
Thursday 28 September 2023
GANTOB blog 