State of the nation 2016

You know when you're stuck in a rut? - When the tidal wave of fame that self-publishing a new book brings fades into the general background radiation of the Yuletide holidays.

(Christmas book-launches only seem to make sense if you have an unlimited advertising budget... Or indeed any advertising budget at all. Because people tend to spend their money on StayPlations and Microsfot Eggsboxes for their jammy-faced, unappreciative kids who'll be parents themselves by the time they're 15 - And don't give a second-hand fig about you. Because books are boring and old-fashioned and someone who gives a book for Christmas is second only to the Aunt who smells of urine and buys you socks or pants every year from the Pound-shop in the crappy relative stakes.)

But I digress... I was talking to someone today about my book.  I kept correcting her by adding a sibilant 'Ss' every time she said 'your book' - I thought it was a clever way of implying the plural, what with me actually publishing at least four books and appearing in many, many more short story collections and being the editor of a handful of books for other people... But she just looked at me funny, I think that she thought I was pretending to be a snake... Or that I had a slow leak - Both of which were technically true, So her concern was real.

But the one thing she said during our conversation that struck a chord was "I've looked at your blog and it's not been updated for ages." She didn't go as far as to say, "And you're an old, fat, man who obviously can't keep up the pace where the 21st Century in general, and social media in particular is concerned," but you could tell she was thinking it.

(Actually she wasn't, she's really nice and she has danced with Mrs. Dandy of her own free will on many separate occasions - It's best not to ask!)

That spurred me on to actually write something, hastily forgetting that I'm currently working on my ghost story for this coming Friday - It's called 'Box' by the way, the next self-published book 'The Morehouse Decoration' and Vol 2 of the Windspider Saga (or Chronicles or something) called 'Child of Space' - But anyway, here we go, one hastily thrown together blog post... Erm... 

Oh! Tell you what, We've not had a 'State of the Nation' thing for a while have we?  For those of you who can't remember the last one, it's a few facts and figures about what's happened to the blog in the past month... All these facts and figures are accurate at time of going to press...

This month has seen another one of our Soviet Invasions - You know the drill, when we get thousands (and I mean actual thousands) of pageviews from Russia, Georgia and the Ukraine etc... They bumped our all-time pageviews up to 66,365 - Which isn't bad for someone who has an over-inflated view of himself and seldom, if ever, does anything pornographic to entice views - I haven't got the thighs for it any more you see. - That two-page spread that I did for that German gay-porn magazine seems like such a long time ago now.

Anywho - Here are the ten most popular post this month... In no particular order... Feel free to play Led Zeppelin's 'Whole Lotta Love' whilst you go through their titles - Feel free to keep it on whilst you're reading the posts too, but you'll need to have it on repeat and it turns into a bit of an ear-worm - Sorry about that

10 - 'Leg godt' as they say in Denmark - A deeply personal sojourn into my relationship with LEGO, detailing how it has effected my family. (And for long time fans, no, it's not the one with the mini-skirt, it's the other one)

09 - One small para-diddle for a man… - About the time I became one of the most starstruck people on the planet... And I didn't even talk to anyone who's actually that famous - Oh, and I talk about Marillion for a bit too.

08 - A shiny tuppence for everyone? - This was about popular ladies' hair-styles... But not the ones they have on their heads.

07 - Bikers can be fragile little flowers. - This is where I prove how nice a person I am by holding another man's penis for him with my own hands... Well, hand... Well, thumb and forefinger. And I looked away.

06 - Deconstruction Complete - Hey! The other LEGO post... Who'd have thunk that two posts about the same subject, written a year apart could be popular in the same month with Russians?

05 - Today is the first day of the rest of your life - This is a blatant advert for my new book, Forever Girl - You should totally read it. (The Post and the book - There are links to Amazon and everything - It really is the shiznit - Plus I'm using the profits to put my daughter through tattoo school)

04 - Women are brilliant! Literally, the sweetest thing - This is a discussion about me finding out that it's not only me that doesn't fully understand the modern, fashionable definitions of gender and its fluidity. (But it's funny too - Don't get me wrong)

03 - A discussion of pornography, do not read - Oh, I didn't realise quite how often I talk about sex and sexuality, there'd certainly something Freudian in there.  But this post sort of covers the difference between naked men and naked women (yes, I know, innies and outies, but... ) and erotica and pornography

02 - Ah'm with ye Jacky-Boy - A post about lovely, lovely Scotland and how I like to pretend I'm Scottish to fox the tourists in Scotland... I also like to wear a kilt, but that's another post all together.

01 - Public Toilets are not as much fun as I first thought - There's an outward theme of deviancy isn't there? It's not intentional, these post are the ones that you guys found popular and interesting.  I've written hundreds, but theses are the ones you chose to read. This ones about me and some urine belonging to someone else... And it's on me... And I'm not proud.

So, there you are, the ten posts that you odd people found popular this month - Give them a read and see what you think. Tell your friends. You should buy some of my books too, they're cheap and you can definitely get them for Christmas- They make great presents!

Until next time kids - If I don't see you before, the Christmas Ghost story should be going up on Friday

Otherwise - Merry Christmas!

Mrs Dandy & Myself being festively debauched

Oh, By the way, it wasn't just Russia, we had hits from France, Germany, Spain, India, Kenya, Cyprus, Canada, Ireland, Kenya, Mexico as well as the UK and the US - So by reading this you're making yourself part of a planetary gestalt... Just think about that for a second - Have you got a warm glow yet?

I was a teenage Cable Monkey

Over the years, I've done lots of jobs. I've been a barman, a delivery driver, a doorman and a bailiff.  I've run nightclubs, helpdesks, and teams of IT engineers.  I've worked for airlines, pharmaceutical companies, councils and hairdressers.  But in all those different jobs, I'm never happier than when I'm lying on my back, with my head under a false floor, plugging cables into boxes with flashing lights on.

I am a hard-wired, dyed-in-the-wool cable-monkey, and proud of it. People I work with tend to find this out fairly early and I tend to get asked to do the 'difficult stuff', The conversation will often go something like this:

Them: Aw, damn!

Me: Whut?

Them: This new thing doesn't work?

Me: Whut?

Them: Well, I've got this iPhone (They show me the iPhone, because they think I've never seen one before) and I want to connect it to... Erm... This duck? (They hold up a duck, which looks much like any other duck, but has a slightly more confused and upset look on its face than usual) and I want them to talk to each other but I don't have the right cable.

Me: Is there a right cable?

Them: Well, Maplins said there wasn't, but there has to be, right? I mean, I can't be the only person who wants to connect a duck to an iPhone

So, I go away and make a cable up and everyone's happy (Except for the duck, obvs)

What I'm trying to say is that I'm pretty good at making things work, Mrs Dandy doesn't ask me if I've managed to fix something anymore, she just assumes that it's now fixed and asks what I've had to dismantle in the process.

So, onto today's story.  In 2005, I worked for a large, international, construction company.  It was halfway through my last week when my boss informed me that there was one, last, special job that I could do as sort of a 'leaving present'.  It was unusual and would involve a huge amount of travelling, but there was an overnight hotel stay at a hotel in Scotland and the company were known at the time for their free and easy attitude towards expenses claims.

It turned out that the CEO of the company had bought himself a castle in Scotland, complete with turrets and archways and a dungeon (probably) and he wanted his office wiring up so that he didn't have to commute to Solihull every day (Not that he did, of course, thet'd be mental) The only downside was that He, himself, wouldn't be there, it'd just be his wife... and she'd requested that I'd be there by 10:00am... and it was a four and a half hour drive, as long as I didn't stop at all, ever.

So the next day came, and I flung the bedroom curtains open to be met by snow.  I threw on my warmest clothes, shoved a similar set into my haversack and clamboured into my Audi (I had an A6 at the time, leather seats, climate control, the whole shebang... It were reet lush)

The trip was singularly unremarkable, except that the snow stopped at Carlisle, and so did I for a frankly overpriced breakfast at the services at Todhills.  I drove on through Gretna (Which isn't as picturesque as I'd though it would be) past Dumfries, the home-town of the irrepressible Scots Mick, to the sunny, seaside village of Rockcliffe.

This is Rockcliffe (photo is actual size,
no, really it is that tiny)

If you take a trip to Rockcliffe, you'll instantly know why the Scots are traditionally described as a rugged people.  The 'Beach' isn't made of sand, or even pebbles - It's made of jagged outcrops of granite that local visitors let their babies cut their teeth on. The entire village is closed throughout the summer months on the grounds that "Anyone who's want ta visit in th' warm weather is a Softy-Walter!"

Luckily, when I got there the sun was out and the sea was calm, by which I mean the water was battering against the seafront cottages, but it hadn't, as yet, put any of the windows through - Which I believe is an ancient Scottish friendship custom.

It took a while to find the castle, it was hidden up an unsignposted track, behind some huge pine trees.  Passing through the wrought-iron gates, I drove up the half-mile or so of gravel driveway and parked inbetween a greenhouse that could have produced a chorusline full of Audrey Two's from Little Shop of Horrors, and an attractive middle-aged lady dressed in the neuvau-agricultural style that you can buy piecemeal from Harvey Nicholls (You know, tight-jeans, rugby-shirt and wellies that cost more than my house) 

She waved at me and called, "Are you the man?"

I whispered under my breath that "Indeed I was the Gods-damned Man." Then smiled brightly, got my heavy toolbox out of the boot and crunched towards her over the artfully scattered, hand-polished marble chips.

"It's in here!" she said as she disappeared into the kitchen, which looked a bit like the one from Downton Abbey, except bigger... It had the bells on the walls and everything.  She ambled through a selection of oak-panelled corridors, asking about my trip and making the concerned noises when I told her about the early start and the over-priced breakfast.  Then she took me upstairs. (For the benefit of the professional tradesmen reading this, yes, I stayed the prescribed four steps behind her all the way up the stairs so that my face was level with her backside) "Here we are." She indicated a large room, completely empty but for a selection of cardboard boxes. "There should be everything you need, he'd like it over there I think."

"Sorry?" I replied, genuinely non-plussed, "I'm just here to connect his laptop and make it work."

"Oh, right you are. Is someone else coming up to build the furniture?" She looked between me, my burgeoning toolbox, the pile of boxes that now obviously contained the office furniture, and the Long-Haired Border Collie that had appeared out of nowhere and was busily sniffing my genitals. "That's Bruno, come off Bruno!" (His name probably wasn't Bruno, but it was something like that, I can't really remember, but you know the sort of thing) She smiled again, and said, "Well, if you just build the table, you can put it on there can't you?"

And because she was... Is handsome a word you're allowed to use for an attractive lady of a certain age? and I'm a sucker for a damsel in distress, and Bruno was getting even more insistant about his desire for my gentleman's area, I agreed.  She turned and went downstairs, with the dog following her closely, and I opened the G-Plan box that contained the desk.

After about an hour of scratching my head and inserting tab 'A' into slot 'F', there was a call from downstairs. "Excuse me, Mr Man? Could you give me a hand?"  I amazed myself by only getting lost three times on the way back down into the kitchen to be presented with the sight of Mrs. CEO surrounded by a sea of carrier bags. "The shopping's just been delivered... I don't suppose you'd give me a hand putting it away?" And I did, because: Knight in shining armour remember?  Then she made us a coffee and we sat at the hand-made kitchen table on hand-made kitchen chairs drinking it from hand-thrown pottery mugs watching the Red Deer frolic in the 'As far as the eye could see' garden.

I went back upstairs and slid back under the desk, tightening the odd screw and greasing the draw-sliders.  Then I cracked my head off the corner of a board as I felt a hand travel up my leg, inexorably towards my Magical Boy Garden of Delights.  Once the dancing stars had faded, I looked down to see Bruno's nose, rather than the hand I had first thought.  I shooed him away, and he looked crestfallen.  I waited, straining my ears trying to hear him trot down the stairs.  When I thought I was 'safe' I carried on with my work.

So, you can imagine my surprise when minutes later a hard rubber bone was dropped onto my scrotum from a great height and I received a similar bump on the other side of my forehead, giving me something of the air of Hellboy.  This time I actively chased Bruno from the room and locked the door behind him.

I finished the desk... Then put together a chair... Connected the broadband up and built the laptop... Built some shelves... Unwrapped the bin... Made up some curtains... embroidered the lampshade and finally made to leave sometime in the mid afternoon.  As I re-entered the kitchen she was stood putting her Barbour coat on.

"Oh, I was just about to ask how long you were going to be, I have to pop out for a few hours." She shook my hand and said thanks, I thanked her for the coffee and she asked if I was driving back to Birmingham.  I said no, and that I was staying locally and driving back in the morning.  When I mentioned the name of the hotel she said, "Are you sure? Because it's closed for the season." She shrugged and I followed her out of the house, jogged to the car and checked the booking form.  It was the right hotel, but there was a note at the bottom of the page that said "check-in from 19:30 onwards." It seemed that I had a couple of hours to kill, so I parked the car at the very closed hotel, walked through a deep, dark forest to find the nearest pub, had a few pints surrounded by very suspicious looking natives and convinced myself that I was firmly in the grip of a local am-dram society's remake of 'An American Werewolf in Scotland'.

When I returned (through the deep, dark forest) the hotel was open, but they had no food available, so I drank whisky until it was time for bed.

I woke up at around 10:00 the next morning.

The snow had followed me.

And due to the fact that the temperature was -45 deg. the car refused to start.

And I was marrooned.

And I died alone and unloved by anyone... Except Bruno.

Then SMick said that Chap was a bad word

All this Alba talk yesterday got me thinking... We've not had a 'Me and SMick' story for a while have we?

OK, it's about time that you heard the story of my first trip to Dumfries (It's a lovely place, you should go there, it's got a river running through it and everything).

-oOo-

It was a sunny Saturday afternoon in the autumn of 1990, leaves were turning golden, squirrels were thinking about hibernating, and SMick and I were playing pool in the pub (The Station Inn on Midland Road in Derby, for those who are interested. Dave, the Landlord could easily be mistaken for a cantankerous Terry Wogan, and he serves half-decent Bass from the jug), sinking a few cheeky Newcastle Brown Ales.

'Ah feel like going home,' Said SMick, gazing whistfully out of the window.

'Oh, OK, we'll finish these and get off shall we... Bit early though innit?'

'Aye.'

So, about half an hour later, when I realised we were going in completely the wrong direction, I said,

'Dude, I thought we were going home?'

SMick turned, looked at me and said, 'I am...'

The trip North up the M6 / M74 was fairly without incident, we passed Gretna Green, Hadrian's Wall, lots of heather clad mountainsides and finally arrived at, SMick's mate, Doogie's house in Dumfries just as the sun was going down.

To be honest, I can't remember if I'd met Doogie before or not at this stage, but seeing as our first real conversation was about how many times we'd each seen Michaela Strachan's knickers, he was soon firmly filed under 'kindred spirits'. We had a couple of beers and then decided that it was time I experienced a real Sco'ish pub.

So we went to a place called The Joker on the Whitesands, this is where I nearly got killed the first time that day. As we got to the door, SMick stopped and put his hand on my chest.

'One thing, 'fore we go in.' He said, with a serious look on his face, 'You know how you're fond of using the word Chap?'

'Aye?' I said, wondering where this was going,

'Don't use it here, not a good word.'

'Ver' bad in fact,' Chipped in Doogie, 'S'a bit like calling someone a cu...'

'Aye, that's the one rule, don't call anyone Chap, goddit?', SMick released his hand and brushed some imaginary dust off my T-Shirt, I looked down, he flicked me in the face, 'Ah, seeing as yer so gullible, you can buy the first round!'

We went into the pub, which was as busy as any town-centre pub on a Saturday night, the bar was two deep, SMick and Doogie got us a table by sitting down next to some Students and leering at them until they vacated their seats and I stood at the bar for ten minutes busily not being served. I heard a shout from behind me.

'Rab!'

Which I ignored, because they were obviously trying to attract someone called Rab's attention.

'Rab! turn roond yah big bast!' I looked around and Doogie was making the come over here you big bast handsignal.

'What?' I shouted over the jukebox, 'Difficult to get served innit?'

'Aye, y'ell haveta shoot, in Sco'ish or they won' serve yah,'

'In Scottish?'

'Aye, if they find oot yer Unglish, yer deed! Yah shoot "Three paints o' eighty" and then wait for the beyor.'

So I did shoot, I mean shout, and we did get the beer, Doogie did the same, then SMick, then it was my round again. I looked at the clock and noticed it was 10:45,

'I'll get us a couple each as it's getting late, OK?' I suggested,

SMick and Doogie looked at each other, shrugged, and said 'Aye!' with broad grins.

Six pints later, when it was my round again, I noticed that it was only about an hour later and both SMick and Doogie had four pints each lined up in front of them.

'When's last orders?' I asked, congratulating myself for being able to string those few words together.

'Mostly when people stop drinking,' Replied SMick, 'You might want to slow down a bit.'

I excused myself and went to open the floodgates, as my bladder pressure was rapidly approaching a valve busting level. After I had drilled a hole in the urinal by pure pressure of urine alone, I re-entered the bar and saw a chap... Sorry, bloke... putting a pound-note into a 'Fruitey' (A fruit machine or one-armed bandit) - Now, this totally threw me for two reasons. One being that I'd not seen a pound note for ages, since England started using pound coins some years before, and the other that I had never seen anyone use a note in a gaming machine. I stood and stared, open mouthed like a gasping haddock, for a few moments before overhearing the guy playing on the machine talking to his girlfriend about a TV program they'd been watching about Polar Bears.

Now, I'm a great believer in other people's education, especially when drunk, so I decided that I would impart some knowledge to them, that I had recently read (Which I later found out was completely untrue).

'Did you know?' I expounded, sounding very, very, English indeed, 'That your actual Polar Bear, isn't a bear at all, but a kind of giant weasel?'

'Whut?' replied the large, and getting larger all the time, Scotsman.

'Polar Bear, looks like a bear, with the claws and the Arrgghh!, right? Actually a big weasel!' (I think I might have actually made whiskery movements with my finger against my face).

'Y'tekkin the pish?' The guy continued to grow, which I thought was physically impossible.

'No, really, I thought you might find it interesting!'

'D'ya think ahm Styoopit?' He was about eight feet tall now, and showing no signs of stopping growing.

'Well, I don't know if... URK!' Luckily, my exclamation wasn't from him tearing off my arms like a bad tempered Wookie, it was from SMick and Doogie grabbing my the shoulders and propelling me towards the door.

'Sorry! He's dronk!' Doogie yelled over his shoulder as they used my face to open the door.

'Are you actively trying to get yourself killed?' Asked Smick

'I didn't call him Chap, you said that that was the one rule!'

'OK, two rules, Don't call anyone Chap, don't try to educate anybody, right?'

'Fair enough... What're doing now.'

'We're going to go somewhere else and carry on drinking. You're going to sit quietly and give us money to buy drinks when it's your round.'

So, we went to a nightclub, whose name I can't remember, but I do remember it was up some stairs. And the bouncers were all huge, apart from one.

'NO TRAINERS!' Shouted one of the large bouncers from the top of the stairs.

'Whut?' Shouted Doogie,

'Him, wearing trainers, NO TRAINERS!'

I looked down and discovered that I was the 'Him'

'Don' s'ppose yah brought any boots with yah?' Asked Doogie,

'I didn't know we were coming, I didn't bring anything at all.'

We walked back to Doogie's house and he gave me a pair of his work-boots. Now, I am six feet tall, with size 10 feet, Doogie is, well, I mean, he's over five feet, definately, with size 8 feet, on a good day. So, it was safe to say that my toes were in the main bit of the boots, but the rest of my feet were sort of where the laces were. I was walking like a drunken velociraptor.

Then I ripped my trousers, I honestly can't remember how, but it was a decent rip, from right knee, to groin and back down to left knee. Luckily, I hadn't yet adopted the 'All commando, all the time' fashion statement that I currently live by. I wish I could remember how I'd done it, it would probably have made a good story.

We walked back to the club, and I waddled up the stairs, which was being guarded by the smaller of the bouncers, who smelled like a trainee to me.

'Yer nay comin' in here dressed like that!' He shouted

'Sorry?' I replied, genuinely confused.

'Yer jeans, yah cannae com in here like that!'

'Look, pal, (I have since learned that 'pal' is something you shouldn't say either, it's not as bad as 'chap', but still a no-no) your mate said no trainers, so I went home and changed into these boots, now you're saying that I can't come in because I've got ripped jeans?'

'Aye, it's indecent!'

'I've got pants on!' I showed him my Spiderman y-fronts, 'Look, pants!'

'Naw, go haem, get some new jeans, then come back.'

'Look Chap!', SMick and Doogie both took a step back at this point, 'I've just driven two hundred miles because he said (I waved in SMick and Doogie's general direction) this was a good place to go for a beer. So I'm going in!)

'Naw, yah not!' The bouncer proceeded to roll up his sleeves and started down the stairs.

At this moment, another, more experienced bouncer came out of the doors at the top of the stairs and shouted, 'Whit's all tha bloody noise, Ah ken hear you lot over tha music!'

The situation was explained to him, he turned to SMick and said, 'Is he gonna be any trouble?'

'Nope, we've only brought him 'cos he buys the beer.'

'Aye, right, yah can come in, he sits in a quiet corner, doesnae cause any trouble, OK?'

And so we did, and that would have been the end of this particular tale, had we not bumped into some other old friends of SMick's, from the local Motorcycle Club (possibly The Fugitives, but I'm not 100% sure) and things got messy... Very... Very... Messy...

Maybe an hour later, I noticed a very pretty young lady standing at the bar, occasionally looking at me, I watched her for a while and thought it was odd that she was on her own. I stood up and SMick looked at me quizzically. This was the second time that I nearly got killed.

'I'm going to talk to the girlie at the bar.'

'Aye, one sec...' He turned to one of the guys from the MCC and said a few words, there was laughter and he said, 'OK, fine, off you go!'

I went over, bought her a drink and got talking, she commented that she liked my trousers and my pants and my accent, I told her that I thought that was strange as most of the locals seemed to hate the English. At this moment, the young bouncer came into the room, looked at me, went very, very, red and started towards us. I looked at him and raised a single eyebrow, he paled, turned around and walked back out.

'Alright!' I thought to myself, 'Result!' And carried on chatting up the pretty lady.

A few drinks later, the same thing happened again, only he got a little closer before I raised my eyebrow and she noticed him too.

'Ah... Shite...' She said,

'Everything OK?' I asked,

'Aye, that's my boyfriend.'

'Oh... Cock!' I held up my hands and backed away, found my seat and sat down, I probably mouthed the words 'Sorry' a few times too.

SMick, Doogie, and all the other lads were crying with laughter, literally crying.

'It's not funny!' I said, 'I could have gotten the crap beaten out of me then, you should have told me!'

'That's exactly why it was funny, plus the fact that when you thought that you were being all James Bond, all these guys stood up behind you and raised their eyebrows and wagged their fingers at her boyfriend too.'

A good start to a great weekend, which ended up with me loosing my job, and nearly getting killed a couple more times. But I'll save that story for another day I think.

Ah'm with ye Jacky-Boy

I like Scotland me, it's a grand place, actually, I might go as far as to say that I love Scotland.

I've had many happy times there, the people are, for the most part, friendly, the food's different but not so different that you're not sure what you're eating, and if you get far enough away from the obviously touristy shortbread trail, up into the crinkly bits then it's truly amazing.

For myself and Mrs Dandy's Honeymoon, we went to a little place called Largiemore, near Otter Ferry on the banks of Loch Fyne - Very crinkley around there, almost corrugated you might say. We took the scenic route there 'o'er the tap' as it seems the locals call it, as in.

'Yah say ye came o'er tha tap?'

'Aye, seemed like the quickest way from Dunoon.'

'Quickest? Aye... Boot also the must dangerous, nea-yin goes o'er the tap if then dinnae have-tae'

It seemed that that was our 'in' with the locals, every time we went to the local pub, The Oystercatcher, the landlord would say to someone 'Hay, (Insert frightfully stereotypical Scottish name), they's the yin ah whuz tellin' y'aboot! Came o'er tha tap!'

Then there'd be backslapping and big grins all round, much clinking of glasses, and many, many opportunities to pretend we liked haggis.

But the funniest thing was, I got to practice my Scottish accent on the other tourists (Yes I realise that I said that where we were was off the tourist track, but some accidentally found their way there, it's not like there were coach parties or anything). Being on the West coast, about forty miles from Glasgow, you can (kinda) get away with thinking 'Now, how would Billy Connolly say that?' and then softening it a bit - I got a few tips from the locals, along the lines of'

'Nawwww... It's Awe Ayyyeeee', a chap looking exactly like John Laurie would say.

'Oh Eye?' I'd reply, sounding (I thought) exactly the same.

'Nawwww, nawww, naw... ye'd ownly say it lake thaat if'n ye didnea buleeve whut someyins sayin. Yea'd say, Oh Eye? an' raise an eyebrew.'

'OK, so, when would you say Awe Ayyyeeee?' (round of applause)

'Whun ye whuz tryin' to convince peepl' ye whuz Scots.'

I passed my exam in pretend Scottish one afternoon sat outside the pub. Mrs Dandy was talking to the wife of a family that had just arrived in the carpark, whose husband was labouriously emptying out the back of their car to try and find a football for the kids to play with on the beach. Now, Mrs Dandy, for those who haven't met her, was born in a Derbyshire village called Belper, but her Father thought that she would do better in life if she adopted a 'posh' accent, so her accent is an aggregation of Belper, Derby and received pronunciation and it's sometimes quite difficult to tell where she's from (Up until the point where alcohol takes over her vocal cords, them you can hear her accent quite clearly as she belts out the Metallica tunes).

'Have you been here before?' Asked Mrs Dandy,

'No, but we come to Scotland a lot, we love it up here. Is this your husband?'

'Aw-rayt,' I said, looking up from my book and touching the brim of my devastatingly stylish hat.

'Oh!' she exclaimed, 'Are you local?'

'Not... Exactly... ' Replied Mrs Dandy, 'We're from down the road a bit.'

'I love the Scottish accent, I wish my husband was Scottish!'

'Yeah, me too,' Whispered Mrs Dandy under her breath.

I don't think Mrs Dandy would have any problem with me disappearing overnight and being replaced by Chibs from Sons of Anarchy (or maybe Opie with Chibs' voice)