mrry

Whenever I introduce myself to someone as being from Glasgow, I invariably get one of the following responses:

• “Oh but I can understand your accent.”
• “Oh but I thought Scottish people were meant to be thrifty and you’ve clearly just got a round in for everyone.”
• “Oh but I can’t help noticing you haven’t knifed me to death.”
• “Is it true about the kilts?”

In the face of such blatant stereotyping, I emit a beleaguered sigh, and launch into the prepared script that I have for just these occasions; I wonder why people cling on to these old-fashioned notions about Scottishness, surely cribbed from an episode of the Russ Abbot show. But then….

On Saturday, I was outside my house, pouring concrete for the foundations of a new wall. Such is the crucible of the front garden that many passers by stopped for a chat, some just to ogle. One of the former introduced himself as William, from Glasgow. In the space of a few short minutes, he:

• Was drunk to the point of staggering
• Raised the spectre of Scotland’s 1967 football victory over England
• Complained about the price of beer
• Started getting extremely worked up about the price of his fish supper
• Swore a lot

So, thanks to William, the drunk, aggressive, tight-arsed, anti-English Scotsman with a penchant for fried food. When presented with this evidence, it’s perfectly clear that the battle is lost. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think my head’s going to explode.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 18th, 2007 at 4:01 pm and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.