The Case of the Missing Tail: Martin in Edinburgh

When the Mayor announced, with great dignity, that his bushy tail would be on the back as well, nobody in the video call was prepared for what would follow.

In English, it sounded innocent. Woodland. Squirrel. Possibly festive.

In German, however, Schwanz—tail—has… range.

And thus began Martin’s January mission to Edinburgh.

Operation: Angel Fish

The mission was top secret. Fruitloop had security clearance. The rest were briefed only after Martin had remembered to share his screen.

The journey began in snow—Kassel behind him, Edinburgh ahead. He drove his vintage Mercedes (“240 from 1843,” as someone helpfully described it), nervous but determined. This was no ordinary trip. Angel Fish—band of myth, one record from 1993, reunited to raise money for Gaza—were playing again. After decades.

For Martin, this was pilgrimage.

He ferried from Amsterdam to Newcastle (“still called Newcastle, not Oldcastle,” someone clarified). On board, he ordered a Guinness—Liffey Water, health drink, allegedly smelling faintly of unwashed feet depending on who was doing the sniffing.

He drove the scenic A-roads, not the motorways. “For the view,” he explained. Fruitloop voice approved: Scenery.

It rained upon arrival in Edinburgh.

“Then it must be Newcastle,” someone had joked earlier.

No. This was Scotland now. Grey sky, stone buildings, history pressing in from every angle.

The Hotel Without Windows

Martin found the cheapest room in Edinburgh.

Inside block. No windows. Fifty pounds.

Clean. Vacuumed. Private bathroom. No witnesses.

Breakfast not included.

Parking, however, cost more than the room.

“Another parking ticket?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Only a hundred pounds. Standard tarrif.”

Only.

Martin collected parking fines the way others collect vinyl. Decorative. Framed potential.

The Tail Incident

But the true crisis emerged not from parking nor from blisters caused by new shoes and forgotten band aids, but from wildlife.

“Sorry, Manfred,” the Mayor said mid-call, suddenly earnest. “I’ve lost my bushy tail. Janita said, “Like a lizard—they lose their tails too.”

There was a beat where everyone tried to remain grown-up.

Then Fruitloop—who had so far been reliably witty in a safe, workplace-approved way—tilted her head like someone opening a door she’d never opened before.

“As long as you only lose the one at the back,” she said thoughtfully, “it’s still… manageable.”

The Mayor, mid-sip of what had once been hot coffee, made a noise somewhere between a cough and an insulted kettle.

He spluttered. The coffee was cold, which made it worse: it didn’t burn, it just hung there, as if even the drink wanted to witness this moment properly.

Fruitloop’s smile didn’t widen. That was the alarming part. It stayed perfectly calm—almost innocent—like she’d simply remarked on the weather. And yet something in her tone suggested a new setting had been activated: humor, after dark, hitherto unknown to the Mayor.

Martin blinked into the camera with the expression of a man who had crossed snow, sea, and secondary roads only to be ambushed by vocabulary.

And then, with anthropological seriousness, Janita added:
“In traditional Scottish culture, men in kilts do not wear underpants.”

A silence fell—heavy, historical, Presbyterian.

“But then he might lose his tail,” she continued.

The Mayor stared at his mug like it had betrayed him personally. Fruitloop, meanwhile, looked completely satisfied—as if she’d simply placed a bookmark in the conversation and intended to return to that chapter later.

“It gets very cold there,” someone offered weakly.

“Standing on one leg,” another added, “holding everything together.”

And Martin—still trying to rescue dignity from the wreckage—nodded as if this had been a normal travel advisory all along.

This, it was agreed, would go into the annals of history.

Serious Things

But beneath the laughter, the trip meant more.

On the second day, hours before the concert, Martin stood outside the Liquid Room with other devotees—Garbage fans, Angel Fish loyalists, music historians in leather jackets.

And then it happened.

The singer herself walked out.

She handed out posters.

Martin, who had once met her husband in 2024, managed to say thank you. He shook the husband’s hand. He considered never washing again.

It was a quiet, private triumph.

Inside, the venue was small. Intimate. Not stadium lights and distant seats, but closeness. The kind where you feel the music through floorboards. The kind that reminds you why you fell in love with sound in the first place.

The concert was incredible.

For a man who had followed the band’s lineage—Goodbye Mr. McKenzie, Angel Fish, Garbage—this was history folding back on itself.

In a Scottish pub afterward, he met a German from Bremen. One was an Angel Fish specialist. The other a Garbage historian. Between them: beer, stories, and closing time at midnight.

You don’t meet Germans in Germany, Martin reflected.

You meet them in a Scottish pub.

Fish, Chips, and Memory

He ate a Scottish breakfast that could feed a village. Beans reappeared later with fish and chips. Waste not, want not.

He wandered the Royal Mile. Visited the castle. Watched a bagpiper in a kilt and, inevitably, wondered about structural stability in freezing wind.

He walked miles in new shoes until his foot staged a minor rebellion. No plasters. Boots pharmacy saved him.

He drank local beer, Italian beer (Brexit economics explained creatively), espresso from Café Nero, and once more, Guinness.

He stood outside Usher Hall where Garbage had played in 2024. He lingered in pubs heavy with memory. He took photographs—too many for an analog suitcase, he joked.

He felt, quietly, that he would return.

Maybe combine it with Halifax in June.

Maybe avoid a third parking ticket.

The Tail, Restored

By the end of the call, the teasing had softened.

“Next time,” someone suggested, “you should take us with you.”

Manfred would translate. Janita would provide cultural risk assessment. Martin would navigate secondary roads. And everyone would guard their tails carefully.

Because in Edinburgh, apparently, you can lose many things:

Parking money.
Foot skin.
Your dignity in a kilt.

But if you are lucky, you find something too.

A poster handed directly from the artist.
A conversation with a stranger who understands obscure band history.
A city that feels like old stone and salt air and music rising through winter.

And perhaps the most important lesson of all:

Always check which language you’re using before announcing you’ve lost your tail.