An Experience with Arnold Schwarzenegger

Arnold Schwarzenegger held me close to his impossibly impenetrable chest.

"We should dance, Arnie," I whispered, "Dance the Tango like that bit in True Lies with that chick from Wayne's World."

"Jaaa," Arnie said back, his tongue in my ear, "But der is waan prhoblehm. Joor name eez not on zee lihst."

"What?"

"The name Fred Fletch doesn't seem to be on the press list."

Rage bonering out from my reverie, I knew it couldn't be right. I was absolutely on the press list and had the electronic confirmation to prove it.

"Try Vulva Thump."

I fucking love Arnold Schwarzenegger. I loved him in Terminator and 90% of my childhood development was based on the life lessons of Predator. He was a man who defined an entire generation by convincing us that masculinity and white knuckle action could be personified in 113 kgs of glistening, monosyllabic gorilla shoulders. An alluring and captivating symbol of determination, vision and self-discipline; a breathless Adonis who screamed like Tarzan describing a urinary tract infection. A man who single-mindedly set his sights on becoming the greatest Hollywood actor in the world. And, if you're unfussy about the term actor, he absolutely achieved it. What's more, he did so while being built like a life-sized parade float and delivering lines with all the intonation of Google Translate having a stroke.

And tonight he was in Edinburgh.

A Terminator-themed event

Mrs Fletch and I had been planning this evening for months. She wore a scandalously revealing black dress, I had purchased a tuxedo. But the foyer was filling with the kind of refined and glamorous Schwarzenegger fans who hadn't earlier set fire to their right sleeve while lighting a cigarette at the bus stop.

Bagpipes began to play at the red carpet entrance and everyone's attention was drawn to the possibility that the man himself might be arriving. Fuck the press tickets, it turns out you can get pretty much go anywhere at an intimate dinner with the star of Red Heat by just walking like you fucking belong there. Sure, everyone else had fruity little wristbands and lanyards, but we had six beers inside us.

Occasionally we ran into problems. Overly observant staff or security would stop to ask us crazy stuff like: "Why are you behind our VIP bar?", adding "Please get out of the cleaner's cupboard," but as many a phoney Fringe reviewer has found, drunkenly shouting 'I am The Skinny' at such gatekeepers is the non-Jedi equivalent of 'These aren't the droids you're looking for.'

Once in that VIP suite we began soaking in the atmosphere almost as hard as we soaked in the complimentary champagne. A jazz band played swing numbers in the corner while ladies in elegant ball gowns hung delicately on the arms of men in dinner jackets that cost more than the price of the entry ticket.

This was promised to be a Terminator-themed night, and so we were surrounded with props, costumes and guns from these movies, as well as Britain's foremost Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonator. Maybe it was just the champagne talking, but 230lbs of socially awkward Cyborg latex blindly screaming catchphrases at women in ballgowns was worth every single exquisite and awful moment. I don't care what anyone says, it was this guy who was the highlight of the night.

After being warned not to unzip the flies on all the Schwarzenegger replicas in the show room, we returned in time to see some dumbass pay £10,000 for a picture of Arnie fashioned from scripts to unmade sequels to Jingle All The Way, torn up by the actual Arnie. Still, it was hardly a surprise when people had paid up to £1,500 for tonight. All for the chance to eat dinner in the same room as a man who punched out a camel in Conan the Barbarian.

As we circulated the lounge, many here were obviously the kind of rich socialites who'd spent more on their last Waitrose delivery than on tonight's roast chicken and Schwarzenegger. But, as we found, there were others who were simply hardcore Arnie aficionados. These latter types gave more of a shit for an hour with the star of Kindergarten Cop than they did for luxuries like food and heat.

(Continues below)

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More from Fred Fletch:

 Review: Predator Guy outside Starbucks

 Fred leads horny cyber-spacemen into a honeytrap

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If you ignore the private jet, the money from this evening would go to sick kids. Now, the last time I checked my good thing/bad thing list, this was absolutely a good thing. With this in mind, my attention was drawn to a crowd by some paintings. Helping myself to more champagne I pushed to the front of what actually turned out to be the unveiling of a unique piece of art to be auctioned tonight for charity. A man wearing a number of silk scarves explained the rare delights of this masterpiece, while I felt myself under the gaze of a particularly terrifying bodyguard who apparently had been specifically trained to watch anyone holding six glasses of champagne who wasn't a bona fide waiter.

The artwork, by the way, was a composition of Arnie himself in his infamous Terminator pose and seemed to be made completely out of nails: "It's made of over 9,000 nails," the silky scarves confirmed to the cooing audience.

"So is my Ikea shelving unit," I managed to shout before being marched from the group.

Since this set-back made it unlikely we'd blag ourselves into the exclusive dinner, I returned to the bar and took an entire tray of vol-au-vents. I felt a bit of class traitor in these surroundings to admit it, but the goat's cheese and sundried tomato pastries were divine. I told the waiter so, but he didn't seem to give a shit.

Meanwhile, Mrs Fletch had narrowly escaped a fan describing that bit in Commando where Arnie kills a dude with a buzzsaw blade and rejoined me at the balcony, where we could observe the red carpet outside the centre being laid out for Arnie's arrival.

"This feels so Hollywood," said the woman next to us, as the bagpiper blasted out four seconds of Flower of Scotland before giving it all up as a bad job.

"Are you both big Arnie fans?"

"Oh yes," I said while indicating my wife. "I won't put my dong in anything that can't quote The Running Man."

Meeting Arnold Schwarzenegger

Quietly weaving our way through the darkness of the hall we found the perfect point of concealment behind a scale model of Predator. The moment had finally come: Schwarzenegger was here.

Or at least Jenni Falconer was. The TV and Heart radio presenter (and designer of her own sportswear) gamely hosted the night with all the electric enthusiasm of an episode of Dora The Explorer.

Obviously aware the volume of head trauma in the audience had reached crescendo, Falconer attempted to ease the pace with a ten minute video of Schwarzenegger talking about himself. It was a good job we liked clips of his movies, because they were all there.

Overdubbed by a strangely rotating Arnie head, shots of Terminator, Predator, Total Recall and Last Stand flashed past our eyes. Sure, you know his movies, you know his political career, but the disembodied head advised to 'prepare yourself to learn things about me you never knew'.

Immediately my mind raced with possibilities: has he ever strangled a horse? What did they do with the baby after they made the movie Junior? Is his home covered in a near immovable layer of powdered housemaid pelvises?

Nope. A tired Schwarzenegger will sit down to tell us about his rise from Mr Universe to Hollywood legend. He'll talk about his childhood and his political drive. He'll talk about his accent and his desire to achieve his dreams... all interspliced by loudly shouted lines from his movies.

For those who'd paid for a ticket, it was a grand-and-a-half for some roast chicken and the secret knowledge that Schwarzenegger is shit at golf.

But here's the thing. Everyone in that room lapped it up. Every word, every catchphrase... It was all greeted by cheers of genuine adoration. Arnie put his heart and soul into his everythings, and his everythings (housemaid or otherwise) have touched us all. And to be close to that symbol of your love – even if he's just sleepily explaining he won't wear a kilt – is magical. And, for what it's worth, even a dick like me can't knock that.

One thing that did surprise me though: when asked to list his films in order of personal preference, he listed Twins well above Total Recall. It seems Mr Schwarzenegger has never watched his own damn movies.