Today's Post is About Scotland

[netgirl_y2k]

And comes, once again, in the form of a list.

-I am Scottish; you probably already know this, as like many Scots I am compelled to mention the fact that I am Scottish once every three and a half minutes, lest anyone take me for English.

-I have a noticeable if not strong Scottish accent, which I am told is pleasing to the ear. This is the result of having a teacher for a mother, who spent many of my formative years rapping my knuckles with a spoon and saying things like, "the word's not aye, it's yes" and "don't say cannae, it's can't."

-I have lived in and around Glasgow my whole life, it's my home city and I have endless affection for it; so much so that when some friends suggested including it on their honeymoon tour of Scotland I immediately embarked on an enthusiastic sales pitch about the assorted delights of Edinburgh.

-A Glasgow Kiss is a headbutt. A Glasgow Shower is when you've been out drinking all night, haven't showered before work, and douse yourself in an entire bottle of cheap body spray; it's worth noting that this doesn't result in you smelling like anything other than a person who's been out drinking all night and hasn't showered, except now you trigger people's allergies if they stand too close to you.

-Nobody actually eats deep fried mars bars, they're just a trick we play on tourists; chip shop owners in Aberdeen have been known to burst into song at the sight of an approaching American for just this reason.

-Vegetarian haggis tastes better than regular haggis.

-Scotland has some of the most beautiful scenery in the world; I genuinely believe this, I've seen it, usually from the window of fast moving trains while I journey between two places equally grey and industrial and dreary.

-We have lots of fun slang words; of which my favourite is driech which means overcast, miserable, rainy, cold weather. Describes today perfectly, describes every bloody day perfectly.

-The umbrella is a pointless item here, as the rain conspires with the wind and the ground to come at you from every angle at once. The general Scottish constitution is one of a people whose ancestors accepted that they were just going to always be wet; and this is true even if you only got here last week.

-There will be an independence referendum next year. I am in favour of independence, many of my acquaintances are against it; I believe that what most people actually want is some kind of increased devolution, where Scotland will make most of our own decisions, but the UK government would still be there in Westminster for ease of blame should it all go tits up.

Comments

[cleo]

I didn't know you were Scottish! I want to visit Scotland sooooo bad!

[emei]

The combination of a tendency to copious drinking and rain from everywhere makes Scotland sound rather like home, here it rains horizontally, but where I grew up we say it rains from below. Still would like to go see it someday though.

[kmo]

i'm really curious as to what is in vegetarian haggis.

i've also always wanted to go to Scotland- especially Edinburgh and the Isle of Skye. if i get this grant to go to Rome this summer, i'm hoping to take a UK side trip. fingers and toes crossed.

if you were to come to the states with that accent, the girls would be all over you. i'm not saying it would be like that scene from Love Actually, but yeah, it would kind of be like that scene from Love Actually...

[umadoshi]

One day I really hope to go to Scotland. ^_^ My poor mother--she's German-American, and somehow I grew up to ignore that entirely and self-identify solely as Scottish-Canadian. (And I'm not even half Scottish, technically; I think my father's mother's family was English.) But I have a Scottish family name with stories attached to it, and I kept it when I got married for a variety of reasons, including the fact that while my husband's name is also Scottish, I don't know his family's stories and am so fond of mine. (Even though they appear to basically boil down to us being a bunch of scoundrals and sheep thieves. *g*)

The general Scottish constitution is one of a people whose ancestors accepted that they were just going to always be wet; and this is true even if you only got here last week.

This, however, is not at all true of me, so perhaps I should be looking to my mom for the source of my constitution? ^_-

[lilacsigil]

My dad and all of that side of the family is Scottish, so I keep thinking I should visit (and stay with distant relatives on the cheap!)

The general Scottish constitution is one of a people whose ancestors accepted that they were just going to always be wet; and this is true even if you only got here last week.

Sadly, this is not true of my immediate relatives (who all moved from Scotland to places like Zimbabwe, Malaysia and Australia) but it is true of me. I live in the wettest, coldest part of the Australian mainland and it's *still* not cold and wet enough.

[adafrog]

I did a school rotation in Glasgow and the Hebrides. It was very awesome. :)

[st_aurafina]

Everything I know about Scotland, I learned from Trainspotting, so I knew about the Glasgow kiss thing. Probably not all that helpful, in the long term scheme of things. But I so want to move somewhere that rainy and windy. I bet it hardly ever catches on fire there.

[cosmic_llin]

As a Welsh person I can identify with the first point, and the one about the umbrellas. ;)