Scotland.............. - Posted on 2007-05-29 18:26:42
The_Reverend 1300cc Superstar
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Prospective visitors to that bit of the UK north of Hadrian's wall would be well advised to browse this site, it has many useful hints and tips.
The following has been shamelessly nicked from "http://scotlandthedamp.blogspot.com". Prospective visitors to that bit of the UK north of Hadrian's wall would be well advised to browse this site, it has many useful hints and tips.
WARNING: SOME FRUITY LANGUAGE FOLLOWS, IF YOU ARE EASILY OFFENDED STOP READING NOW.
Scottish weather - Lesson one.
The weather today? Damp. Well actually it's a little more than damp today I would say its verging more towards wet. I should explain the Scottish climate to those poor people among you who are not fortunate enough to live in this place we call Scotland.
The Scottish climate consists basically of two main things. The first of these is water. It is very important to have a good grasp of all things watery if you want to understand Scotland. I'll explain more of this later. The second important thing is Wind. Wind comes in two forms - personal wind otherwise known as farts and climactic wind. In these early posts we will restrict ourselves to considering the climactic kind. Usually in Scotland these two things - wind and water - are found together in combination but they can also happen independently. So as you may guess we can have a number of possible permutations;
1) Water on its own. This comes in a number of forms; Mist, fog, drizzle, shit rain (sorry excuse my spelling that should be sheet rain.)
2)Wind on its own. This also comes in a number of varieties; windy, gale, storm, and hurricane.
3) Windy water. This combination occurs when the water component is more important than the windy component. So the rain may be lashing down , or we may have driving rain. Windy water may also be used as description of the weather on Scottish beaches. (more on this later)
4) Watery wind. This combination occurs when the predominant factor is wind but with some water. This is frequently hard to distinguish from combination 3. Why? because one minute it will be pishing down then a minute later it may be driving rain then still later it may be fucking pouring down.
I should, for the sake of accuracy, point out that there is technically a fifth combination. This combination - no water, no wind - is I understand technically known as sunshine. We have heard rumours of such a climatic condition and indeed I have friends who claim to have experienced this however I am not inclined to believe them. Personally I believe that this is one of those theoretical constructs that sounds good on paper when the equations are worked out but which is never really encountered in real life. However if any reader has encountered this condition in Scotland we would be interested to hear from you.
Scottish Weather - Lesson two.
Well this is getting very technical so I hope you have all been studying hard because I will be asking questions later.
Ok so we have basically covered the major points of water and wind. There is a lot more to it but we'll come back to that at a future lesson.
Just now I want to introduce a third factor - temperature. Most of you will have heard that well known Scottish expression - Its bloody freezin. Actually this is the anglicised version. No true Scot would actually use the word bloody in this context. To do so they would risk being taken for a real Sassenach. The true Scot would say I'm fuckin freezin. However even this is not strictly true. there is an unwritten rule in Scotland that one must never - ever - admit to being affected by the temperature. It is acceptable of course to admit to being affected by water, so, for example "help I'm fuckin droonin" (excuse me sir but I appear to be drowning) is perfectly acceptable. Equally one can admit to having been affected by wind either of the personal or climactic kind. So for example statements of the form "Fuck me, d'ye smell that yin?" or " Oor dad wiz blown awa" will often be heard. So if you do hear someone say I'm fuckin freezin then you should suspect that their anscetors may not be wholly Scottish. It is interesting to compare Scottish usage in this respect with Geordie custom (people from Newcastle). In Newcastle it is customary for young ladies to wear less clothes at night the colder the weather gets and to do so without complaint.
To return to our third factor then. Temperature. This comes in three basic variants. Mildly cold, very cold and freezin. (remember never to admit personally to being freezin).
Each of the combinations that we discussed in Lesson One can be found in each of the three of these temerature variants. So for example we may have mildly cold windy water or freezin windy water.
As you can begin to see the variation in the Scottish climate is endless. More of this in the next lesson when I also hope to begin to look at aspects of Scottish culture.
Interlude - The great Wind Farm Conspiracy -1
Before we continue with our lessons on Scottish Weather I thought I would share with you some thoughts on what I call The Great Wind Farm Conspiracy.
This scandal has received little public exposure and I think it is time that the truth was more widely publicised. There has been much talk about Climate change and the need to reduce CO2 emissions and here in Great Britain and in Scotland one of the developments that the Government proposes to meet this challenge is the development of large numbers of wind "farms".
We have some of these wind turbines near us. Personally I don't mind the look of them. However all is not what it seems with these wind farms. "They" tell us that these wind farms use the wind to generate electricity but you should not believe this. There is a massive conspiracy going on and its time the truth came out.
The truth is that these wind farms don't use the wind - they generate wind!!!!
Haven't you noticed that the faster the turbine blades spin the windier it gets? This country seems to have got a lot windier since they started building these wind farms and we now know why. The government has secretly gone into the wind generation business. This is part of a massive conspiracy with the North American military/techno/industrial interests. Having stolen all the Iraqi oil they need to use it for something or we would be up to our necks in cheap oil. So what do they do with all that surplus oil? They need to burn it off. It is being secretly burnt of in the power stations and used to generate electricity which is then fed through to these massive wind farms were it drives these wind turbines. The wind turbines then generate wind which disperses harmlessly (so they think).
They must think we are stupid if they think we wont figure this scam!
Scottish Weather - lesson 3
In this lesson I want to say a little more about sunshine. You will not encounter this often in Scotland as explained in lesson one. Sunshine, technically speaking is supposed to be associated with the conditions warm and dry. Such conditions are not encountered in Scotland. However you may hear such phrases as "last year I saw the sun" or "the sun is shining behind that raincloud". This shows that Scots do in fact sometimes actually observe the sun directly or, more usually, indirectly. This almost never qualifies as actual sunshine however as it is never accompanied by the conditions warm and dry. When the sun is observed it is often in mid-winter in dry but freezin conditions shortly before blizzards. This is know technically to Scottish weather forecasters as "a nice day for a walk".
There are reports of sunshine in Scotland but these are usually made by friends when one has returned from holiday abroad. The conversation would go something like this;
"Did you have a nice holiday?"
"Yea, we were steamin all the time."
"What was the weather like?"
"Not bad, it was only mildly cold, a bit windy, and it only pished down about half the time. What was the weather like here in Scotland?"
"Oh it was sunshine for the whole two weeks but its back to normal now."
He has a good section on midges too.
Scotland.............. - Posted on 2007-05-29 18:44:36
the_ox 1300cc Superstar
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An Englishman and a Scotsman are driving head on, at night, on a twisty, dark road. Both are driving too fast for the conditions and collide on a sharp bend in the road. To the amazement of both, they are unscathed, though their cars are both destroyed. In celebration of their luck, both agree to put aside their dislike for the other from that moment on. At this point, the Scotsman goes to the boot and fetches a 12 year old bottle of sherry. He hands the bottle to the Englishman, whom exclaims " May the Scots and the English live together forever, in peace, and harmony". The Englishman then tips the bottle and gulps half of the bottle down. Still flabbergasted over the whole thing, he goes to hand the bottle to the Scotsman, whom replies: "No, thanks, I'll just wait till the Police get here".
Scotland.............. - Posted on 2007-05-29 18:45:42
the_ox 1300cc Superstar
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The average Englishman, in his home he calls his castle, puts on his national costume - A shabby Raincoat patented by Charles MacIntosh of Glasgow, Scotland.
He drives a car fitted with tyres invented by John Boyd Dunlop of Dreghorn, Scotland.
At the office he receives his mail with adhesive stamps which, although they bear the queen of England's head, were invented by John Chambers of Dundee, Scotland.
During the day he uses the telephone, Invented by Alexander Graham Bell of Edinburgh, Scotland.
At home in the evening he watches his daughter ride her bicycle, invented by Kilpatrick MacMillan, A Blacksmith from Dumfries, Scotland.
He watches the news on television which was invented by John Logie Baird of Helensburough, Scotland and hears an item about the U.S. Navy founded by John Paul Jones of Kirkbean, Scotland.
He has now been reminded too much of Scotland and in desperation picks up the Bible, only to find that the first man mentioned in the good book is a Scot - King James VI - who authorised it's translation.
No where can an Englishman turn to escape the ingenuity of the Scots, he could take to drink but the Scots make the finest in the world, he could take a rifle and end it all but the breech-loading rifle was invented by Captain Patrick Ferguson of Pitfours, Scotland.
If he escaped death, he could find himself on an operating table, being injected with Penicillin, discovered by Alexander Flemming of Darvel, Scotland, and given an anaesthetic, discovered by Sir James Young Simpson of Bathgate, Scotland.
Out of the anaesthetic he would find no comfort in learning that he was as safe as the Bank Of England which was founded by William Patterson of Dumfries, Scotland.
Scotland.............. - Posted on 2007-05-29 19:02:55
r1froog 1300cc Superstar
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so many scots, can i get admin rights? :)
Scotland.............. - Posted on 2007-05-29 22:07:30
Ducatibird 1300cc Superstar
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well i for one now adore scotland, i have now been 3 times in my life, the first on a bike and yes it pissed it down so much we hired a car,2nd time was nice weather and just last week it was bloody gorgoeus.
the proper scotland is the highlands and me for one would move there tomorrow, you can go abroad for sunny weather but when you got roads like that wowwwwwwwwwwwww
Scotland.............. - Posted on 2007-05-30 09:37:14
gfisher 1300cc Superstar
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I had some of my English colleagues up here a couple of weeks ago. they couldn,t believe the scenery and when the dolphins started playing around the boat they were well made up. we take so much for granted.
Scotland.............. - Posted on 2007-05-30 09:43:04
Roeby 1300cc Superstar
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dolphins!!!!????????? now u never said that b4............... MARK!!! pack your bags were moving!!!!!
Scotland.............. - Posted on 2007-05-30 09:53:27
darcey 1300cc Superstar
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It is a truly lovely place . Used to go there with family and later with the re enactors . Never dissapointed me..truly romantic, rugged and still a bit wild .
Scotland.............. - Posted on 2007-05-30 09:56:22
Roeby 1300cc Superstar
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i'm ashamed to say i have never been further north than the lake district. I have only been to wales once and that was only a few years ago. I have never been to ireland either. If i think about going away anywhere i'm afraid i always think about heading for the sun and those places (just like england) don't really scream sunshine to u! lol
Scotland.............. - Posted on 2007-05-30 11:42:28
Bigsmoky 250cc Rider
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Scotland.............. - Posted on 2007-05-30 11:48:33
gfisher 1300cc Superstar
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I have mentioned bucky in previous posts, but we dont need to give away all our liquid secrets at once
Scotland.............. - Posted on 2007-05-30 15:14:19
Scod 400cc Rider
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aswell as the tyre we also invented the other greatest thing in the world "TARMAC"
so please keep the tyres on the tarmac and have fun peeps
Scotland.............. - Posted on 2007-05-30 15:15:45
Scod 400cc Rider
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p.s. we are trying to get Hadrian's wall rebuilt so we can have all our great roads to ourself
Scotland.............. - Posted on 2007-05-30 18:26:40
the_ox 1300cc Superstar
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***Passes a few spare bricks***
Works both ways ya know :P
Scotland.............. - Posted on 2007-05-30 18:31:43
the_ox 1300cc Superstar
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Ahh found it
erm cheap scottish tonic wine called buckfast:D bucky
Thunderbird its called in America!
hehehehe
rank stuff
Scotland.............. - Posted on 2007-05-30 18:37:51
Scod 400cc Rider
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Quote-Ahh found it
erm cheap scottish tonic wine called buckfast:D bucky
Thunderbird its called in America!
hehehehe
rank stuff
Agreed & whisky & ironbrew BUT if yi want ti get legless fast try all 3 together lol
Scotland.............. - Posted on 2007-05-29 18:26:42
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Scotland.............. - Posted on 2007-05-29 18:44:36
