Round the Corner
The pub, the Clutha Vaults, onto which a police helicopter fell out of the sky last night - is just round the corner from where I live in Glasgow.
In fact, the Clutha is something of a Glasgow institution being one of the few traditional pubs left in the city these days - where free live music is played regularly, often of the folk and blues variety.
I wasn't in the bar last night, thank goodness, but I was on the night Scotland's smoking ban was introduced - which I remember well because I was enjoying a last cigar to welcome the arrival of smoke free pubs in Glasgow.
Whereas my drinking companion, my old Nupe and Unison colleague, Bob Thomson, was complaining about the harm being down to the human rights of smokers, as he saw things at the time - which he voiced to a journalist from the Sunday Herald who was in the pub seeking the views of customers on this 'controversial' new policy.
Nowadays, of course, a smoking ban is an accepted part of the furniture in pubs and restaurants worldwide, not just in Glasgow - and I suspect few people, if any, would want to turn the clock back.
In fact it even led to the Clutha installing a beer garden, with nice tables, benches and umbrellas (for the Glasgow weather) - in a previously dilapidated space out the back, so in many ways the smoking ban was a 'win win's situation for everyone.
Nonetheless, it's almost unimaginable that you can be out for a quiet drink one night, only for a helicopter to fall out of the sky - and on to a building where people are out enjoying themselves.
Just goes to confirm that old saying that as far as life's concerned - you never can tell for sure what's just round the corner.
