Karen Koren: Night was a hit but I was a bit amiss

I WAS at the Tartan Clef awards in Glasgow last week, not only a great night out but supporting the wonderful Nordoff Robbins organisation, a fabulous charity using music as therapy for children.

A good laugh, I was reminded of the Edinburgh-Glasgow divide when I experienced dinner with a table full of west coast businessmen. At one point I dropped my serviette and they screamed at me, “Serviette!?! Who calls it a serviette? Napkin surely.”

Later, my glasses kept disappearing. The mystery was solved when they were photographed atop the Lobey Dosser – Bud Neill’s famous sculpture – which was being auctioned on the night.

We also played a version of Hit or Miss – 600-odd guests had to guess which records made No1 or No2 in the charts by raising either one hand or two. I was doing very well until I listened to someone at the next table and had to sit down, out of the game, but not before I playfully tried to wring his neck. Unfortunately, the MC of the night noticed and told the whole room that Karen Koren was taking it all very badly. Oops, caught again. Trust me to be caught, it was always me that got caught at school too.

The music was great, though. Kassidy were brilliant, sort of Crosby Stills and Nash-esque, and they are definitely going to be big.

Then The Rezillos, who are remarkably still going, took us back to the 1980s. The best band on the night for me were Big Country, obviously without Stuart Adamson, sadly. I thought they wouldn’t be as good as before but, hey, they really were.

Towards the end of a lovely evening, we were asked by a friend if we could give their friend a lift back to Edinburgh. I got the shock of my life to discover it was author Ian Rankin, who I proceeded to ask why he had stopped writing. He told me he hadn’t. How embarrassing. He’s a charming man and took the good-humoured – if somewhat tipsy – ramblings from the back of the car in very good spirit.