FROM television to shortbread, the Scottish have invented some truly wonderful things. But here are five that should remain north of the border.
Kilts
If you’re a genuine Scot, then go ahead and wear your tartan with pride. However, if you’re a bloke who’s dad’s cousin’s great granny was born in Glasgow but moved to England when she was two days old, you do not count as Scottish and just want to stand out at a wedding in the hope a bridesmaid will shag you.
Wet Wet Wet
From Annie Lennox to Young Fathers to Teenage Fanclub, Scotland has produced a staggering amount of incredible musicians. So why is their most famous band the most annoying? Wet Wet Wet’s cover of Love Is All Around put such an indelible stain on the nations’s psyche in the 90s that you’re probably still humming it today. Having said that, Goodnight Girl is an absolute banger, and at least they never added bagpipes to their tracks in an effort to snag some more sales from sentimental Americans.
Macaroni pie
Scotland’s best know dish is haggis, but they also enjoy some other equally as weird culinary inventions, such as selling burnt-to-a-crisp bread rolls and calling them ‘well-fired’, pretending square sausage is normal, and thinking neeps – swede to non-Scottish people – is pleasant. Top of the list, though, is double-carb extravaganza macaroni pie, which is is pasta stuffed in pastry. Delicious, yes, but your waistline will be screwed.
Irn-Bru
It’s bright orange, confusingly tastes of 40 different things at once, and the recipe is a secret so it literally could be made from girders, as the famous advert suggested. Is it nice? Hard to say. But the Scottish consume it like it’s the very water of life, and it will probably flow straight from the taps come the day of independence.
Being friendly to strangers
The English are so averse to speaking to people they don’t know that someone could piss on their leg on the tube and they’d just pretend it wasn’t happening. The Scottish, on the other hand, will happily chat to a stranger, which makes anyone who lives south of Dumfries suspicious, and a bit jealous.
