Guide To Scotland

Some Scottish Words

Tips

You may have some trouble spending money from Scottish cash points south of the border. Do not fear however as banks south of the border are happy to take your 'funny' money and change it to 'proper' money. Or if you want some fun ask a bank for a pound note and try spending it in England/Wales - great fun!

The Haggis

A haggis is a small animal about a foot long which is native to Scotland. Because the habitat of the haggis in exclusively mountainous, and because it is always found on the sides of Scottish mountains, it has evolved a rather strange gait. The poor thing has two legs longer than the others. This allows them to run round the hill tops at great speed, fast enough to escape from any predator. However from time to time they need to run the other way and when this happens they fall off the hill owing to the differing length of their legs.

Having fallen off the side of the hill the haggii are collected and sold, having got your haggis home it is placed in boiling water and served with neeps and tatties.

Many other countries have tried to establish breeding colonies of haggis but to no avail, it appears there is just something about the Scottish air and water.

Wha's like us? Damn few and their all dead!

The Average Englishman in the home he calls his castle slips into his national costume - a shabby raincoat patented by chemist Charles MacIntosh from Glasgow, Scotland.

On his way to work he strides along the English lane, surfaced with asphalt invented by John Macadam of Ayr, Scotland

He drives an English car fitted with tyres invented by John Boyd Dunlop of Dreghorn, Scotland.

At the office he receives the mail bearing adhesive stamps invented by John Chalmers of Dundee, Scotland.

During the day he uses the telephone invented by Alexander Graham Bell, born in Edinburgh, Scotland.

At home in the evening his daughter pedals her bicycle invented by Kirkpatrick Macmillan, blacksmith of Dumfries Scotland

He watches the news on TV, an invention of John Logie Baird of Helensburgh, Scotland and hears an item about the US Navy, founded by John Paul Jones of Kirkbean, Scotland.

He has by now been reminded too much of Scotland and in desperation he picks up the Bible, only to find that the first man mentioned in the good book is a Scot - King James VI - who authorised its translation.

Nowhere can an Englishman turn to escape the ingenuity of the Scots. He could take to drink, but the Scots make the best in the world. He could take a rifle and end it all, but the breech-loading rifle was invented by Captain Patrick Ferguson of Pitfours, Scotland.

If he escaped death he could find himself on an operating table injected with penicillin, discovered by Alexander Fleming of Darvel, Scotland and given an anaesthetic, discovered by Sir James Young Simpson of Bathgate, Scotland.

Out of the anaesthetic he would find no comfort in learning that he was as safe as the Bank of England, founded by William Paterson of Dumfries, Scotland.

Perhaps his only remaining hope would be to get a transfusion of guid Scottish blood which would entitle him to ask
"Wha's like us"