Christmas and New Year are but distant memories. The weather outside is frightful. Payday is several days away and Christmas has still to be paid for. So let The Edinburgh Reporter try to help banish those January blues by highlighting some tell-tale signs of being Scottish:
Scattered snow showers with outbreaks of sunshine and a cold northerly wind is good weather.
The only sausage you like is square.
You were forced to do Scottish country dancing every year at high school.
Aye = yes.
Aye right = not likely.
Auld yin = someone over 40.
Baltic = freezing.
You used to love destroying your teeth when you were young: Buchanan’s toffees, tablet, Irn-Bru bars, Cola cubes, etc.
You have an enormous feeling of dread whenever Scotland play a diddy team at football.
You happily engage in a conversation about the weather.
Even if you normally dislike The Proclaimers, Runrig, Caledonia, Deacon Blue, Big Country, etc. you still love it when you’re in a club abroad and they play something Scottish (you’ll probably even ask the DJ to play it).
You take a perverse pride in the fact Scotland has the highest number of alcohol and smoking-related deaths in Europe. At least we know how to party.
You used to watch Glen Michael’s Cartoon Cavalcade on a Sunday afternoon with his sidekick oil lamp called Paladin.
You used to criticise him in the 1980s, but now you still wish the football on the telly had Archie Macpherson as the commentator
You got Oor Wullie or The Broons annuals at Christmas. Or both. And still do.
You have come in from the pub half drunk and watched Weir’s Way on the telly at two in the morning, engrossed by a little guy with a bobbly hat walking around Scotland.
You can tell where another Scot is from by their accent e.g. Glaswegian: ‘Awright pal, gonnae gies a wee swatch o’ yur paper, cheers, magic pal’. Or Aberdeen – ‘Fit like the day, loon?’
You have participated in or witnessed people having a ‘square go’.
You have eaten lots and lots of random Scottish food like mince & tatties, haggis, Cullen skink, stovies, Tunnock’s Teacakes/Snowballs, Scott’s Porridge Oats, Macaroon bars, Baxters soup, Scotch pies, Scotch eggs, oatcakes, shortbread and Arbroath smokies.
You think nothing of waiting expectantly for your 1p change from the shopkeeper.
You know that whenever you see sawdust it reminds you of pools of vomit because that’s what the ‘jannies’ used to chuck it on it. ‘Gie it five minutes’
You lose all respect for a groom who doesn’t wear a kilt.
You don’t do shopping, you do the ‘messages’.
You’re sitting on the train/bus and a drunk man sits beside you, telling you a ‘joke’ and saying ‘I’m no annoying ye am a hen/pal?’
You: ‘Not at all, yer fine. Ah think this is my stop!’
A Scottish male can have a phone conversation using only ‘awright’, ‘aye’ and ‘naw’.
Your holiday abroad is ruined if you hear there is a heatwave in Scotland while you’re away.
You can properly pronounce McConnochie, Ecclefechan, Milngavie and Auchtermuchty.
You ask for deep fried battered pizza from the chippie – oh, and a bottle of diet Coke…
You’re used to four seasons in one day.
You can’t pass a chip/kebab shop without drooling when you’re drunk.
You can fall about drunk without spilling your drink.
You measure distance in minutes.
You can make a whole sentence just with swear words.
You know what haggis is made with – and still eat it.
Somebody you know used a football fixture list to plan their wedding day date.
You’ve been at a wedding and football scores are announced at the reception
You aren’t surprised to find curries, pizzas, kebabs, Irn Bru, fags and nappies in one shop.
Your seaside holiday home has Calor gas under it.
Welcome to another year, folks!
Author of The Team for Me - 50 Years of Following Hearts. Runs Mind Generating Success, a successful therapy practice in Edinburgh. Contact me if you want rid of any unwanted habits. Twitter @Mike1874
