My little bit of the world part I

If you have been focussing so far you will now be familiar with the Irish accent. So today I would like to introduce you to the Scots. Did I mention that Nicky is half Scots? (although she never said which half) So with no more ado here is your first lesson in the Scots accent with the Big Yin aka Billy Connolly on the topical subject of Suicide bombers….



Now as you probably know it rains a lot in Scotland and when it’s not raining the place is alive with midges that eat you to death. And on the rare occasion that the midges have a day off they have back-up in the form of huge horse flies called cleggs with a bite like a nip from rusty pliers.

Because of this continuous assault from insects and the fact they rarely wear trousers (trews) the Scots have developed the habit of hopping up and down on the spot, which over the years has developed into a form of dancing. The theory being that you provide a moving target for the midges and cleggs thus making it more difficult for them to bite:



Not surprisingly because of the adverse conditions the Scots have all turned into great travellers. Here we will let The Big Yin tell you the story of two Scots guys visiting Rome.(for our Dutch readers we have added sub-titles)



To understand this clip you need to know that a ‘heavy’ is a kind of beer
they drink in Scotland. All other alcoholic beverage in Scotland is known collectively as the ‘electric soup‘.

Now many of you will know, especially if you have seen Braveheart starring that well-known Scotsman Mel Gibson, that the English have treated the poor Scots especially badly when they have wandered south to pillage and steal. One of the early English atrocities was to ban all musical instruments being imported into Scotland. Yep! No Fenders, Gibsons, Yamahas etc. So the Scots were forced to make their own musical instruments. The most famous of these of course is the bag-pipes. Now what is not widely known is how the bagpipes got their name. Now in Scotland any old woman is called a ‘bag.’ And many old bags wear big knee-length granny bloomers, often waterproof due to incontinence. What the ingenious Scots did was to take some granny bloomers, stitch up the waistband insert a flute into each of the legs and then wire up the legs so they are airtight. They then found that my blowing into one of the flutes they could blow up the bloomers and use the pressure to blow out through the other flute thus making music. Not many people know this but this is how the bagpipes got their name.

Finally to finish off here’s clip for Nicky. I hope you enjoy it Gorgeous.:



In the next episode we get to meet the Welsh.