[MoMo]

Yes, one of the first Curry Restraunts in Glasgow was called The Taj Mahal. Opened in 1965 it offered some of the best Indian food in the UK. The Madrass curries were brilliant, the Vindaloos would blow your head off and the Pakora was to die for.

Glasgow still has the finest Indian food in the UK. It is famous for it! At christmas you can even get Christmas Pudding Pakora !

Ethnicly diverse PC MoMo



Wait......You mean this wasn't Scotland?

Ahhh... That was a great trip though, and the people there were so friendly.

[Black 6]

Hey Momo, as you seem to be the cultural attache` for Scotland, I'm curious to know if I might be considered an honorary Scot or Scot by proxy. I endured that curious Scottish right of passage known as the Robert Burns birthday observance as held by the local chapter of the Caledonia Club. Not being a Scot myself, I found myself surrounded by men in kilts, drinking various whiskeys in preparation for the reading o' the poetry (something about a "wee lil' moosie") and the killin' o' the haggis! After the haggis was "killed" we all consumed our portions of this "delicacy" - all washed down with more whiskey. As if this wasn't enough, this was the dancing over sharp swords, knives, and other available cutlery. Finally, when this hazing was over, everyone went home.

Let it not be said that the Scots don't know how to party. So have I paid my dues to rightfully obtain that for which all Scot men aspire - my own sporran? Ach!

“Aye, fight and you may die, run, and you'll live... at least for a while. And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willin' to trade ALL the days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they'll never take... OUR HAGGIS!" - the unrevised William Wallace quote.

[jim]

Never let it be said that MH 11 is not a diverse and cultered site. And as for you Starman, YOU LUCKY FELLOW!!

[MoMo]

Agh. Spring is in the air. Rangers are in the process of being beaten by the Spanish side Orsina in the Europen tournament.

Tims rejoice; Huns cry!

[SKUNKY]

Originally Posted by STARMAN 352ND

Now you guys have seen what my wife looks like.....
JP

Now wait just a damn minute here!...I thought you were married to Susannah Hoffs....

Are you a Mormon?

[MoMo]

Dear Black6,

If you survived a Burns Supper Night ( celebrated yearly on the birthday of the bard...but really a good excuse for a monumental piss-up! ) then you can be truly considered as an honourary Scot.

In doing so, you will be joining Shawn as one of the 40 million Scots decendants living in North America. This provides a picture of why our country is so empty: in the 18th and 19th Centuries, hundreds of thousands of Scots were pushed off the land by greedy landlords who calculated that raising sheep on the land provided better returns than allowing Scottish peasants to subsist upon it!

The consequence of this policy has been to partly populate North America, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa with a hardy and hard-working race of entrepeneurs who prospered far better in their adopted lands than they ever could have had they remained where they were brought up.

They took their Presbetarian beliefs with them and partly gave rise to the cult of celebrating the rise of Protestantism and inculcating the spirit of Capitalism. In other works they worked like hell, saved like mad, invested like fury and kept their own council. This is, perhaps, why they prospered. They did not see the need to establish distinct ghettos and inter-married happily.

One thing that they could not do was forget their homeland!

In bars and pubs the world over, you will find a drunken Scotsman on New Yera's Eve ( Hogmany ) crying quietly into his drink and inwardly wailing about not being ' at home ' on this one night of the year. For, like the wild salmon who run the gauntlet of a precarious nature to reach their birthplace to spawn, the Scotsman must cross his kinsfolk's threshold with a lump of coal and a dram of whisky after the clock has struck twelve. At that magical hour of twelve, when the New Year has started, all the memories of friends and families will assail the Scot who is far from home and his mind will wander to the lost beauties of his homeland.

Fiercely patriotic, the Scots love to have a stranger in their midst at such times of the year just to show the world that the Music Hall jokes about them being mean are patently untrue. They are thrifty by nature and upbringing. That's all.

Scots love to party ( like the Irish ) and find all sorts of excuses for letting down their hair. They spread the cult of celebrating the New Year wherever they went. They also spread the cult of Halloween ( corrupted from ' all hallow's eve ). To add a further winter celebration, they added Burns Night. This is celebrated with a mock ' Address to the Haggis ' and many toasts to the same. Further toasts are furnished to Robert Burns. More toasts follow as each poem in read in mock heroic style. Favourites are ' Holy Willie's Prayer' which pokes fun at the pious. ' To a Mouse' which celebrates the courage of even the humblest of beasts. Then the favourite, ' Tam O' Shanter', which tells the curious tale of one Thomas ( Tam ) who spent most nights ' bousin' at the nappie' ( drinking ) and ' gettin' fou and unco happy' ( getting drunk and cheerful ) with his pal, Soutar Jonnie ( the cobbler John ).

Tam leaves the pub ( full of buxom wenches ) and mounts his faithful horse Meg ( ' a better never lifted leg ' ) and winds his drunken way home.

At home his wife is waiting! : ' nursing her wrath to keep it warm! '; ' Oh Tam, Oh Tam, Thy'll get thy fairin', in hell they'll roast thee like a herrin' ( Tam, you'll get what you deserve. You'll be roasted alive in Hell for this night's drinking! )

Tam, in his drunken state, comes upon a Satanic Black Mass being held in the ruins of a church. The local Coven of Witches are welcoming a beautiful new witch into the Coven.

They dance. Tam is transfixed. The beautiful witch has only a short dress on and her legs are flying. He shouts out: ' Weel done, Cutty Sark! ' ( Great Dancing, you in the short shirt! ), and ' in an instant all was dark!'

The witches chase Tam. ' Out the Hellish legion sallied' and poor Tam is nearly caught but is saved by Meg, who loses her tail, because the horse just passes the keystone of the bridge as the beautiful witch reaches for Meg's tail.

This poem celebrates everything which is good in Scottish life; but that which can also be mocked. Friends, drink, the wife at home, superstition, good company, music and dancing and, of course, the reluctatnt hero.

'Tam O' Shanter' is about 40 verses long, and each one takes on a dramatic nuance. It's great fun to listen to, in a drunken haze, with the lights down and a roaring fire casting flickering shadows on the walls while logs pop and crackle. Pure Magic!

I love reciting it!

So, Black6, by the powers invested in me by ancient right, you are hearby become an honourary Scot, and as such, you may wear the kilt, swear like a trooper, and get roaring drunk whenever Scotland wins or loses in the World Cup!

[jim]

Well that about sums up the Scots Mo. A relative of mine was stationed at Greenock (married to a local Scots lassy) and has told me all about Hogmany Sadly he cannot remember anything much about his experiences. One year he did recall hoards of strange people bursting into his house (first footing) and drinking all his whisky and then leaving to go on to the next house taking him with them. (Normally the amnesia was total). However the following morning, after the following morning he awoke to find that he was sitting on the top deck of a bus parked in the bus station in the next town 15 miles away having no memory of what had gone before although he was sure he started out the day before with his wife and sister in law in tow.

[SKUNKY]

My Grandmum was from Scotland (she even spoke Scottish)......Maybe MoMo and I are related just like jim and I are....

[jim]

Originally Posted by SKUNKY

My Grandmum was from Scotland (she even spoke Scottish)......Maybe MoMo and I are related just like jim and I are....

Gawd almighty !!! Not more family.

[Black 6]

Originally Posted by MoMo

So, Black6, by the powers invested in me by ancient right, you are hearby become an honourary Scot, and as such, you may wear the kilt, swear like a trooper, and get roaring drunk whenever Scotland wins or loses in the World Cup!

Weeel now MoMo, thank ye for the honor yew have bestowed on me. Ah'm glad to kno the hangover that I had nex'day wuz werth it!** Crivens! A tip o' the ol' Tam to ya!



(Pidgin Scottish - just to get into the spirit of things)