Saturday 7 July 2012

Whae's like us?

Stand to attention! I'm a McAllister. Not many generations back my forebears lived in Dumfries, and before that, in Glasgow. This is a good time to claim Scottish ancestry. All over leafy Surrey, tennis fans are climbing up the family tree hoping to find a fisherman from Nairn or an Edinburgh merchant. Do you know how much we owe to the Scots? This little cold country gave us Alexander Fleming, R L Stevenson, George McDonald, Andrew Carnegie, Livingstone, Logie Baird, Helena Kennedy, Carlyle, Robert Burns, John Rennie Mackintosh, Eric Liddell, David Tennant, Susan Boyle, raincoats, tarmac, telephones and television, whisky, Dundee Cake, Black Bun, porridge, flummery, a monarch or two and treasure houses full of folklore and muic. AND ANDY MURRAY Hooray, hooray, at last, for the first time in 74 years, a British man is in the Wimbledon final, and it's a Scot what done it. Andy Murray, the Great Scot from Dunblane. I tried to blog this to you last night but the computer was playing up (needs a talking to from a Scots Granny). I was so happy, I was dancing round the house cheering. If had a Scots flag I would have hung it from the window. How do you explain the Scots word, 'laldy'? Give it wallop, or welly, give it your all and something over. Andy is giving it laldy. At least a pint of my blood must be Scots. If I'm ever allowed to give blood again, they're not getting that bit. There is a Scots toast which says, 'Here's to us! Who's like us? Not many, and they're all dead.' or, 'Here's tae us! Whae's like us? Gey few, and they're all deid.' And here's to Andy. Respect!

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