The English Project are trying to gather new words. They are looking for those words used by families or groups of people, those words that have a special meaning. So I have submitted the word "mcvicar", meaning disastrous and full of complications, as in a "mcvicar" of a journey.
The origins were when McVicar and I were supposed to be going to the Crossfire festival to work. Also going with us was McVicars girlfirend, and a female friend whose house we were supposed to be staying at. The female friend was only coming because she wanted a ride on McVicars bike, and was also the only one who knew the way.
We set off for a 2 hour journey. Mcvicar leading the way on his bike with the friend, me following him (I had no map) in my car with his girlfriend. How hard could it be? Those who know McVicar will now be cringing.
After only about half an hour we hit a traffic jam. It was solid. Nose to tail. solid. Not pleasant on a hot day. After a while Mcvicar backed the bike up and indicated for his girlfriend to wind the window down. She did, he shouted something, and then sped off, doing the usual biker thing of weaving between cars. I asked what he had said, only to be told she couldn't hear properly because he hadn't lifted his visor.
All I could do was continue on and hope that he was waiting at the end of the motorway. When we got there, no sign. Then I wondered if he had gone to Crossfire. I got there, found Zippie, asked if he had seen McVicar. No he hadn't. I then watched Zippies rather distraught face in my rear view mirror as we sped off to search further (distraught because we were supposed to be heading up a security team for him and the festival was starting).
A couple of hours later we were siting in the car outside the friends parents house. We had known the area she lived in, and we knew her surname, so some diligent searching of a telephone directory in a phone box (do you remember the red phone boxes which had the directories in them, very helpful) had helped us identify where she lived. We sat outside for an hour, but still no sign. We were now about 6 hours late and getting rather worried. Finally we decided we had to go, knock on the door, and ask if the parents had heard anything. We did so.
As you may expect, panic set in. Mother went white, father yelling at us etc (I think the yelling at us was particualrly unfair, it wasn't exactly our fault). He rang the police. No they hadn't heard anything about any accidents on the motorway but they would send someone around (in those days the police may have been a bit more helpful as well).
Policeman turned up. We started trying to explain. Knock at the door. Open door. There is McVicar and friend. Bike on the back of an AA lorry.
Now, you may be thinking that it is the 6 hour delay and the parents etc that make this a "mcvicar of a journey". But there is more. And this is where it goes from the sublime to the ridiculous and could ONLY be McVicar.
What he had shouted when he forgot to life his visor was that they would meet us at the first service station after the traffic jam. They had stopped there and waited. After an hour we hadn't arrived. He had a brainwave and decided he would try to contact me on the CB radio. He went to the lorry park, accosted a lorry driver and asked to use the CB. The lorry driver kindly said yes. McVicar climbed in to the cab and tried to raise me. Unfortunately my CB was turned off (I only used it when I was alone in the car, remember I had McVicars girlfriend in the car, who I had never met before, and was trying to make polite conversation, made slightly harder because I was actually rather interested in the friend so I was trying to get details without being too obvious).
After a while the lorry driver needed to head off. McVicar got out of the cab. Watched the lorry drive away. As the lorry joined the motorway suddenly realised that he had left the bike keys on the dash of the lorry. And that, my friends, was the "bingo" moment, the one that turned it from simply a bad day to "A mcvicar of a journey".
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