I had a fantastic night at the Royal Oak in Edinburgh a few years back. They had a sort of singaround going on - well, more of an 'everyone join in with the house singer' type of affair.

I was chatting to the organiser in a break who asked me if I played anything. I said, bit of guitar, bit of fiddle. He said I should join in. I said well I'd love to but of course I don't have an instrument, relieved not to have to publicly air my second-rate fiddle-playing in Scotland, where there are obviously a lot of top-notch fiddlers.

Whereupon he reached behind the bar and handed me the 'house fiddle', telling me I wasn't getting out of it that easily. I ended up playing it all night and got back to my hotel around 4am.