V SCOTLAND
4e TIIE GREAT
iIWWW SOON/«3‘1,
PHOTOSI JOHN MACtN/Jfl/«N, NAN/INN
SCOTLAND SMILES BETTER
if you put the Disneyworld ride It's a Small World next to the can-can kicking French and the windmill-hugging Dutch, how would the Scots be represented? A bunch of red-haired, tartan loving, haggis munching, kilt-wearing grumps? Scots stereotypes may not paint us in the best light, but then again, there’s aye worse. We consider the good, the bad and the ugly
Cheapskate: Penny-pinching. tight-arsed misers. They say when a Scot ~ . drops a coin. they bend down to pick it up so quick. it hits them on the back of the napper. But what about the US of A's Hefty Green. the world's biggest miser according to the Guinness Book of Records? Scroogy Hetty. who died in New York in 1916. owned one set of underwear. spent an entire evening searching for a two cent stamp she had lost. and refused to pay her son's medical bills. which meant his leg had to be amputated and he hobbled about with a cork prosthesis. Furthermore. what could be read as miserty could be read as sawy. given our circumstances. According to a survey by the GMB trade union late last year. salaries in Scotland are sitting at a not so pretty £3000 behind the average British wage and are more than $18,000 less than pay packets in London.
Lardy boys
'Get in ma belly!’ Mike Myers’s flatulent. moobs- sporting. baby-munching creation Fat Bastard did nothing for our nation's street cred. Yet. the fattest man in the world is not from Scotland. but Mexico. Manuel Uribe, 43. wants the Guinness Book of Records to rename him the ‘world's biggest slimmer' after he shed a colossal 570 pounds from his former weight of 94 stone before marrying his long-time sweetheart last year.
Sour-faced mlserabllsts Blame Gordon Brown, if you will. but faced with accusations of being a surly. humourless bunch. we prefer to remain deadpan and point the finger back at famous gloom-mongers including Jane Austen. who once said. 'I do not want people to be very agreeable. as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.’ or WC Fields. who once made the cheery boast. ‘I am free of all prejudices. I hate everyone equally.‘ According to recent studies at Edinburgh University. inherited genes control up to half of the personality traits that keep us happy. 80 there you go. we can only work with what we’re given. And. to any doubters. a Comic Relief study showed Glasgow was near the top of cities in a “smiles per hour census'. so it can't be all bad.
Falluros at sport
Okay. we admit it: rugby and football have never been our forte on the world stage but who cares? We bow at the alter of the mighty Chris Hoy. Andy Murray and Mark Beaumont.
22 THE LIST 22 Jan-5 Feb 2009
Quite a mouthiu
To some, the language of Robert Burns is impenetrable. Not so. says actor Tam Dean Burn. as he provides a contemporary commentary of the Bard's. ‘Nine Inch Will Please a Lady'
- he Burnsian hand l am in. with .\lalcolm '4.” Ross and m) brother Russel. 'l'lie Bum— r}. . ('locks. has a \ersion of '.\'ine lncli'. a q " witty ditty in celebration of quantity. We usually . ,. . .. . .‘ " it locate it in our mash~up of the poetry of llurns wt. ' r (44..., . i ' ‘ 1““1 '11:!) Pop which kicks off with A Tale 0' '~-‘ ° " “‘13", . 1.... 1.7... a. 9' L I Tw a l)ugs'. portraying the dugs in question as I .. _' .. - ? Rabble and Iggy. ()ur name comes from the last . ._ , ‘ ‘ .. \erse of ‘Tw a |)ugs' lBtirlis' first published it: .. . . ., J . ,, i ‘ poentl and is an atlld Scots word for beetles. So 3' (lunch \. 7t... . , . The litlllt-(‘ltlv‘lsstll‘e lltL‘ Sv‘tltllslt beetles. \ «3‘ In a... .‘r 2. ' . 1/ ‘Nllle lltclt \Vlll l’lease .-\ l.iltl.\‘ is undoubtedly I ~ - C , .. I one of Burns‘ dirtiest songs. It is featured in The - .~ F ’ . . .llt'rrjv .llust's (”tiller/unlit. llurn's collection of g . " bawdy songs; some of which he wrote and some I '. , I ' . existing songs which llL‘ tttltletl lyrics to. The . -. . .1 r , latter seems the case with ‘.\'ine Incli~ as the first 3/“ line hears the same name as the tune it is set to '(‘ome rede me. l)ame'. It is also suggested in
v ' v-iu. r 1" ‘r w The ('urimigult' Bums that he heard a bawdy I ' i ' ’r r . song on his travels and composed it from that. as line seven indicates ‘I heard a sang in Annandale. . .‘
The song sets up a conversation w ith a ‘carlin'. an elderly woman. instructing Us on ‘tlie length o' graith’ required to satisfy a lady. all the while scratching her own eager lady hits “The carlin elew her wanton tail. her wanton tail sac ready. . .‘ She then describes the si/e desired to pleasure rural damsels such as herself:
‘But fora koontrie cunt like mine.
In sooth. we‘re nae sae gentle;
We‘ll tak twa thumh-hread to the nine.
And that's a sonsy pintle. . .‘
Aye. she is looking for another two inches as the cherry on top of the nine?
The earlin finishes hy reminiscing about two of her previous partners in ‘lioughmagandie‘ (Burns’ general term for sexl; (‘harlie. who came equipped with ‘tway roarin handfu's and a daud' and Tam. l have to admit. I was chuffed to discover that with my namesake. it was quality not quantity which delivered satisfaction.
‘lt's no the length that makes me loup.
But it’s the double drivin. . .'
This song may appear to reinforce the stereotype of Burns as a philanderer boasting of his sexual prowess but it shows much more his love of bawdy songs. As l’t‘ofessor l)e Lattcey Ferguson writes in The ('uriungurt' Burns. ”Burns frankly admitted his fondness for this type of humour. which is deeply rooted in the Scottish folk tradition. . . good. clean. barnyard dirt: there is nothing perverse or psychopathic about them.‘
What may actually be more shocking is the assertion in Patrick Scott Hogg‘s brilliant and illuminating new biography. The Patriot Bard that Bums remained a virgin into his early 20s.
On Sun 25 Jan The Bum-Clocks will host a Burns Busk below his statue in George Square, Glasgow at noon and perform at Manifesto Politikal Kabaret at the Tron 6- 10pm and Optimo at the Sub Club,
Above; AC, Fond K65. Glasgow at midnight. A weekly podcast of Below: The Bum-Clocks Burns’ complete works by Tam Dean Burn can be found at www.burn5250.com