He is a Guiri but he knows very well the festivals of Pamplona; he has been coming for nearly 23 years and every year, like if it was the first one, he comes willing to enjoy the festivals till the end. He is a member of a foreign peña with a very strange name, "The Txocos Gutter Club" and he has an internet site about the fiesta of Pamplona, along with a magazine with all kind of information about the Sanfermines.

- Where do you come from?

- I am from Aberdeen in Scotland, but I work in London.

- How long have you been coming to Pamplona?

- I first came in 1976 when I was 18 years old, and I have been coming every year since, I only missed four years when I got married and thought I could live without Pamplona. I was wrong, now I live with Pamplona and without my first wife.

- When did you come for the first tiem to the Sanfermin festivals and why did you decide to come to Pamplona?, did you hear or read something about this fiesta or you just decided to come?

- I had seen some early black and white TV about Pamplona in the early 70’s and I read about in the book by Mitchener "The Drifters" (Iberia) and I had read Hemingway’s Fiesta (The Sun Also Rises). I had decided early on that one of the things I wanted to do was run with the bulls once! I did not know at the time how addictive it was and that I would end up running with the bulls for many years. Over the last twenty years or so I have run over 50 times. I have not run for a few years, because: a) I have been partying a lot and b) the thrill wears off after about 12 years. However this year I am forty years old, I still play football…I have scored 24 goals this season (admittedly against some crap sides) so I think I should have another go at running this year.

- Some foreign magazines says that Pamplona is like a city with no law: a place where you can make all you want ...etc. What did you expect when you came for the first time?

- I knew virtually nothing about Pamplona when I first came, and in 1976 there was certainly law in Pamplona. It was still in the old days, before real democracy. I was having a quiet drink in the Mussell Bar by the old monument at about midnight on the night of the 5^th when the police rushed in and started clubbing people. Everyone ran out the other exit, my friend and I, another Scotsman, quickly finished our drinks before we too made a swift exit. We ran straight into the police firing rubber bullets at us. I was hit in the back as a ran up hill away from the police. This was back in Franco’s time!! So the idea of running with the bulls seemed quite sage in comparison. I would say that most of the advertisments really just mean that Pamplona is the best Party in the World. But it is true to say that there is a lot of uninformed rubbish published about Pamplona.

- What is being a guiri in Sanfermines?

- Well to me it is similar to being a Scotsman living in London, you are accepted as part of the communiy, but you do retain the fact that you are different. Everybody always is so friendly especially when I wear the kilt out in the streets at night. All the girls want to find our what I wear under the Kilt! Being in Pamplona for the Fiesta is heaven itself. I know quite a few of our group that have ended up marrying girls from Pamplona. The guiris are an important part of the fiesta, and it is the existance of these guiri peñas that have kept lots of the guiris returning year after year. Iwent one year to the Bilbao Fiesta and it was good but I was the only guiri there and I have never been back to it.

- What do you usually do during the festivals?

- Drink, party, chase women and talk bollocks! I enjoy having a laugh and every year we try some more gags, different tricks to help the party go off well. Our group "The Txocos Gutter Club" has a vodca party on the 8^th and we have a pelota party on the 10^th. The pelota party is a drunken softball pelota competition. We have a trophy and this will be the fifth time we have run the competition. Any of the guiris or anybody can put in a team of three, we meet up opposite Bar Txocos at about 6.30 p.m. on the 10^th July and then go to the old Pelota court at the back of Estafeta. I try and go and see the fireworks at least three or four times, it is an incredible feeling lying back watching them go off when you are out of your head! As to chasing women, I do a lot of running but catch very little, generally because it is too good a party to leave, just for a bit of "slap and tickle". I sometimes go to a Bullfight, I like eating in Casa Paco, where the boss Paco i a real good laugh the place is fun to visit. I like meeting up with old friends that I have not seen for a year and talking bollocks! I like playing with people, joking, telling stories and making everyone laugh.

- You are a member of a foreign peña with a very special name "Txocos Gustter Club", why did you choose this name and what do you do in Sanfermines?

- The peña came about through the joining together of three groups, Peña Flores, a group I founded that used to drink in Casa Flores in the 70’s and early 80’s and the Dutchies and an assorted band of drunks which accommpanied Tim Pinks to the Fiesta. These groups all merged into one big group that used to meet in the gutter opposite Bar Txoco in the Plaza del Castillo. It was the Spanish people that started calling us the gutter people and because we all talked about a name for many years and never decide anything. The name stuck! I have mentioned the pelota competition and the vodka party, but the other strange thing that the group does is to go each others weddings all over the world. Last year I had a great week in New York with a group of 30 people from all over the world (including Pamplona) when we went to a wedding, it was an Aberdeen lad and an American girl. It was the next best thing to Pamplona at Fiesta time.

- There are a lot of guiris like you who come every year for the festivals. They are crazy about them and it seems that if they could not come back again they would fall ill. Why do you think the festivals are so popular abroud?

- Pamplona is the beste Fiesta in the world. It makes New Year in Scotland seem like a tupperware party. People do get addicted to Pamplona at the Fiesta time. I had a girlfriend who said it was Pamplona or her, I phoned her from the airport to say goodbye! One of our friends "Glasgow Steve" has to try very hard to get to Pamplona as his girlfriend hides his passport! But he still makes it. Every year is different people and do new things. I still find new things even after 20 years.

- In all the years you have been coming to Pamplona, have you noticed big differences in the atmosphere, the attitude of the people?

- There are a few things that I have noticed. The runs are more crowded. The commerce is more switched on. When I first came to Pamplona there was only one type of T-shirt that you could buy. The people are even more friendly. The atmosphere is still great. The girls are getting younger…or perhaps it is just that I am getting older!

-What do you like most and what less?

- I like the run. Without doubt that is what makes the Fiesta. It is also the laughs that I enjoy.

What do I least like, the fucking stairs in the apartments that I rent there is always at least 967 floors and we are always on the top floor and there is no lift. You arrive home at 5 in the morning so drunk that you can not walk and you have 67777453 stairs to climb!

That and the smell of piss first thing in the morning about 11.00 a.m. as they are washing down the streets.

- Can you tell us some strange, funny experiences you have had during the festivals?

- Well most of them I have written about in my Fanzine "No Bullshit" which is on sale at Kukuxumusu shop this year. There is one story that I have yet to tell. It was back in 1982 that I came to Pamplona with an Irish guy Tony who worked with me at a Casino in London. I assume looking back that he was probably suffering from stress before he came to Pamplona. Every day he would get up early with the rest of the guys and we would drive into Pamplona from the campsite to run with the bulls. Tony did not run so he did not get that adrenilin boost. But he kept up with us drinking lots with little sleep. Over the course of the Fiestya, I did not notice but Tony started to go

slightly insane. There is a fine line in Pamplona and unfortunately Tony slipped over that line. Ther were a number of incidencts which will make amusing reading in the next issue of the No Bullshit

Fanzine, but would take uyp too much space here. But it then came to the situation that Tony was locked up in the San Fransisco Lunitic Asylum in Pamplona and I had to phone his wife and tel her to fly out.

"Hello Liz, Tony is a bit ill!"

" Has he broken a leg or something?"

"No he has not hurt himself but he is a bit ill."

"So why are you phoneing me?"

"Well I thought you could fly over."

"Why"

"Ah because Tony has gone insane!"

This was not the easiest of conversations and the trouble getting Tony out of the Asylum and back to the UK was also very amusing. I also had to get his car back to the UK, I did not drive at the time and his car had been towed away by the city police. I did not even know the make or the number nor have any documents relating to the car. Still I managed to find another Irish drunk who could drive and we got the car back by explaining it was a big fucking blue car! We paid the fine and got the car home. This is a short version of the whole tale but if anyone wants to buy me drinks and sit down in the gutter opposite Bar Txocos around midnight any night of the fiesta I will tell them it all in detail!

Another interesting tale was when I went to the Fiesta one year when I was inbetween wifes. I meet a rather accommodating Aussie girl and we started haveing a bit of a session a couple of hours after the Chupenatza. We were both very drunk at it was in the afternoon, we started making love on the slope of the hill that leads away from the Bullring. In the middle of our passion we started to roll down the hill and landed on the pavement with our trousers ropund our ankles. So what could we do.... we just crossed the road and continued the action on the grassy slope on the other side of the road. I was young and fit in those days.

- What would you say to a foreigner who is coming for the first time to the festivals?