In part one of a four-part mini-series on Scotland, we'll explore some unusual Scottish traditions.
From the mythical haggis "creature" to the Highland Games, the deep-fried Mars bar to the mysterious taste of Irn-Bru's, and finish up with five intriguing facts about Scotland's national instrument the bagpipes.
[00:00:05] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:12] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:21] I'm Alastair Budge, and today it is the start of another mini-series, this time on the theme of Scotland.
[00:00:29] In part one, in this episode, we are going to have some fun talking about unusual Scottish traditions and facts.
[00:00:36] In part two, we are going to talk about the time that Donald Trump tried to build a golf course in the north of Scotland and, well, it didn’t quite go to plan.
[00:00:46] In part three, we are going to talk about the quest for Scottish independence, and ask ourselves whether Scotland will ever break free from the United Kingdom.
[00:00:55] And in part four, yes, lucky you, this is going to be our first four-part mini-series, we are going to look at one of the bloodiest events in Scottish history, the Glencoe massacre.
[00:01:07] OK then, let’s not waste a minute, and get talking about some unusual Scottish traditions.
[00:01:15] There was a famous survey done several years ago of American tourists considering making a trip to Scotland. The survey asked the reason for the trip, and a reported 23% said that they had come in the belief that they could hunt and catch something called a “haggis”.
[00:01:38] When asked to describe this haggis, one tourist said it was “a wild beast of the Highlands, no bigger than a grouse, which only came out at night”, while another said that it was “a creature that sometimes ventured into the cities and was similar to a fox.”
[00:01:59] You may know that haggis is a popular Scottish dish, it’s eaten during special occasions.
[00:02:06] The problem is…haggis isn’t an animal.
[00:02:10] It is a collection of sheep organs mixed together with oats and other spices. It might sound disgusting, but if you ask me it’s delicious.
[00:02:21] Now, this survey was created by an American tour company and a haggis producer, so perhaps we should take the results with a pinch of salt.
[00:02:32] But even today, if you go to Google and start typing “is haggis…”, the first option that pops up is “healthy”, and the second is “an animal”, so clearly there are plenty of people who still believe this quintessential Scottish dish is in fact a cute furry little animal.
[00:02:54] We will talk more about haggis in a moment, but the reason to start with this little story was to underline this strange mythology that Scotland and Scottish customs have in many people’s minds, especially in those of Americans.
[00:03:11] Scotland is a small country, only five and a half million people, but it has an outsized global impact. It has produced great inventors, scientists and philosophers.
[00:03:24] Scottish people are rightfully proud to call themselves Scottish, and the hundreds of millions of people with some kind of Scottish heritage, Scottish ancestors, often embrace it and feel a strong connection with this country that in many cases they will have never stepped foot on and know nobody from.
[00:03:47] One of those people with Scottish ancestry is, in fact, me.
[00:03:53] If you’ve been paying attention, you will know that my name is Alastair, which is a Scottish name. My grandfather was Scottish, I still have a lot of family in Scotland, and I partially grew up in Scotland, from when I was 7 until when I was 13.
[00:04:11] I might not sound Scottish to you, that’s what lots of moving around a lot and then living in England does to your accent, but I am more Scottish than several players on the Scottish rugby team, and I can actually play the bagpipes, so I am more Scottish than you might have realised.
[00:04:30] So, here we are, someone who is at least partially Scottish, talking to you about some unusual Scottish traditions.
[00:04:39] For our first one, we are going to return to the haggis.
[00:04:45] You might know that there are some days on which haggis is traditionally eaten. The most famous of these is Burns Night, which is a celebration of the life of the famous Scottish poet Robert Burns, and falls on January 25th every year.
[00:05:05] But what you might not know, and is certainly an unusual Scottish tradition, is what is done before the haggis is eaten.
[00:05:15] The haggis is prepared, of course, which really only means boiling it in water.
[00:05:21] It is brought to the table, ideally to the sound of bagpipes. I have piped in many a haggis, I should add.
[00:05:29] But before the haggis can be eaten, it is tradition to read a poem to celebrate the haggis. It was written by Robert Burns himself, and is called “Address to a Haggis”.
[00:05:44] It is written in Scots, so it is hard to understand, even for a native English speaker, but it starts like this:
[00:05:53] Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
[00:05:56] Great Chieftain o’ the Puddin-race!
[00:06:00] I imagine you might not have understood any of that.
[00:06:03] “ Fair fa” is a way of wishing someone well and “sonsie” means happy or cheerful. And then he is calling the haggis a “chieftain”, a great leader, of the race of puddings.
[00:06:16] So to translate it into normal English, it would be something like:
[00:06:21] Hello, honest and happy haggis,
[00:06:24] You wonderful leader of all puddings.
[00:06:27] Anyway, I won’t go through the entire poem, it’s quite long and complicated, but about a third of the way through the poem the person reading it needs to ceremoniously stab the haggis with a knife, cutting it open and spilling all the contents of the pudding.
[00:06:47] It is a lot of fun, and if you ever find yourself in Scotland on Burns Night and see an animated person reading a poem out loud and holding a large knife, do not worry, this is what is going on.
[00:07:02] Now, for our second unusual tradition, we are going to talk about something called The Highland Games, and you will be pleased to hear that haggises feature here as well.
[00:07:14] The Highlands, as you may know, are the northern half of Scotland. If you have seen pictures of wonderful mountains and forests, you are probably imagining the Highlands.
[00:07:26] And during the summer months, all throughout the Highlands, different towns and villages put on “Highland Games”, which are a sort of day of sporting activities and competitions, as well as music and celebrations.
[00:07:41] Some of the events will be familiar to you: there are normally running races and weight lifting, but some of the activities will probably be less familiar.
[00:07:53] There is something called “tossing the caber”, which involves picking up a large telegraph pole, a huge pole of wood, typically 5 to 6 metres tall, and throwing it so that it lands on one end and then flips over on the other.
[00:08:11] There is the hammer throw, which involves someone trying to launch a heavy ball attached to a rope as far as they can.
[00:08:20] It's quite scary and impressive to watch, as the person needs to spin around and around and then let go of the rope just at the right time so that it doesn’t fly into the crowd and smash into some unsuspecting spectator.
[00:08:35] And then there is also something called “hurling the haggis”. To hurl is another word for to throw, it means to throw with great force or effort.
[00:08:47] And haggis hurling is exactly that, it requires someone to throw a haggis as far as they possibly can.
[00:08:56] But, there are some nuances, some rules to be aware of.
[00:09:02] A real cooked haggis must be used, and the haggis cannot break. If it splits in mid air or when it lands, the throw is disqualified.
[00:09:14] And this happens quite a lot. After all, a haggis is only held together with a thin lining, so there is real skill in throwing it a long distance but so that the landing is relatively gentle.
[00:09:31] And if you are wondering what the world record for haggis hurling is, it is 66 metres, which is quite impressive if you ask me.
[00:09:40] Now, we are going to move away from haggis-based traditions, but we are going to keep on the subject of food.
[00:09:49] As you may know, if you are looking to visit somewhere that prides itself on healthy, nutritious food - fresh vegetables and fruit - then Scotland probably isn’t your best bet.
[00:10:03] Our first unusual Scottish tradition is one that you might have heard of, and that is something called a “deep fried Mars bar”. You probably know what a Mars bar is, it’s a chocolate bar filled with nougat and caramel.
[00:10:19] And you probably know what to “deep fry” means - it means to submerge something in hot oil. It’s what you do with chips, or fried chicken, or the fish in “fish and chips”.
[00:10:32] And a deep fried Mars bar is exactly what you probably think it is. The Mars bar is chilled, put in a fridge, before being covered in batter and then deep fried.
[00:10:45] If you like fried food and you like Mars bars, it will be delicious, but it should come with a health warning. Each one contains a reported 1,200 calories, almost half the daily recommended allowance for a man, so it is a treat best enjoyed infrequently unless you also enjoy visiting the hospital.
[00:11:09] Now, moving on, you probably know that Scotland is the home of whisky, but you might not know a less famous and less alcoholic Scottish drink.
[00:11:20] It’s called Irn-Bru, and you can recognise it by its bright orange colour.
[00:11:27] And if you are thinking, hmm, delicious, a kind of orange-tasting soda, nope, it doesn’t taste like oranges at all.
[00:11:37] I actually quite like it, and I used to drink it a lot as a child, but it has such a strange taste that it took me quite a while to figure out how to describe it to you.
[00:11:49] I looked through various forums to see how other people described it, and one of the most popular comments was that it tastes “kinda like rust and battery acid and it's magic.”
[00:12:02] It tastes a little bit like bubblegum, a little bit of lemon, but looks highly radioactive and tastes like nothing else I’ve tasted anywhere outside Scotland.
[00:12:14] And in Scotland, it is exceptionally popular. It is the best-selling drink in the entire country, outselling Coke and Pepsi.
[00:12:23] And its recipe, according to folklore at least, is an incredibly closely guarded secret. Only three people in the company know the exact recipe, and they are never allowed to travel together, in case there is an accident and the recipe is lost forever.
[00:12:40] So, if you happen to be travelling to Scotland and you see people drinking what looks like it could be radioactive fluid, that’s what’s going on.
[00:12:50] And I would certainly recommend that you try it yourself, as it is pretty hard to come by anywhere outside the Scottish borders.
[00:12:58] Right, for our last tradition, I’m going to tell you some unusual facts about the national instrument of Scotland, the bagpipes.
[00:13:07] As I said at the start of the episode, I can actually play the bagpipes, so this is something I can tell you about from firsthand experience.
[00:13:16] In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, the bagpipes are a musical instrument made up of a bag with several tubes coming out of it. To be precise, one tube where you blow air in, three tubes that sit over your shoulder, called drones, and another tube that you hold with both hands and play a tune with. It's not an easy instrument to play, you need to properly manage blowing into the bag and squeezing it with your left arm, but when you do it properly, it sounds like this.
[00:13:52]
[00:13:52]
[00:14:06] So, to finish up this episode, here are five unusual facts about the bagpipes.
[00:14:13] Firstly, the bagpipes can never be silent. Unlike almost any other instrument, you can’t stop making noise when you are playing, there is always the background noise, the drone, and the noise of the chanter, the one that makes the tune.
[00:14:31] Secondly, bagpipes were traditionally made from the skin of an entire animal, with the pipes attached to where the neck and head would have been.
[00:14:41] Thirdly, as you may know, forms of bagpipes exist in many different countries. France, Spain, Italy, Poland they all have different forms of bagpipes, and there are similar kinds of instruments all over the world.
[00:14:57] Fourth, and this in fact came as news to me, alongside myself, the famous and not particularly pleasant Roman emperor, Nero, was said to have been a skilled bagpiper, and played a form of bagpipes not so dissimilar to the Scottish “Great Highland bagpipe”.
[00:15:17] And for number five, I’m going to give you a fact that you won’t find anywhere else online.
[00:15:24] There is a kind of whisky called Glenmorangie.
[00:15:28] It's a very famous, high quality whisky, made just outside a town called Tain in the north of Scotland. You can visit the distillery and see how the whisky is made. The distillery employs many people in the area, including a man called Jimmy, who was also my bagpipe teacher.
[00:15:49] Jimmy was the nightwatchman, so it was his job to monitor everything in the distillery during the night, to make sure that nothing went wrong overnight.
[00:16:00] And Jimmy would spend his evenings walking up and down the distillery floor, playing the bagpipes to pass the time.
[00:16:08] And given that Glenmorangie whisky is 10 years old or more, if you have drunk Glenmorangie at any point in the last 20 years or so, in all probability that whisky has been aged to the sound of a man called Jimmy MacLeod playing the bagpipes.
[00:16:29] OK then, that is it for today's episode on weird Scotland, the first in our mini-series on this wonderful country.
[00:16:37] As a reminder, next up will be Donald Trump’s battle to build a golf course, and how he realised that the locals were going to put up more of a fight than he expected.
[00:16:46] Part three will be on Scotland’s quest for independence, and part four will be on one of the bloodiest events in Scottish history, the Glencoe massacre.
[00:16:55] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:17:00] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:05] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:12] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:21] I'm Alastair Budge, and today it is the start of another mini-series, this time on the theme of Scotland.
[00:00:29] In part one, in this episode, we are going to have some fun talking about unusual Scottish traditions and facts.
[00:00:36] In part two, we are going to talk about the time that Donald Trump tried to build a golf course in the north of Scotland and, well, it didn’t quite go to plan.
[00:00:46] In part three, we are going to talk about the quest for Scottish independence, and ask ourselves whether Scotland will ever break free from the United Kingdom.
[00:00:55] And in part four, yes, lucky you, this is going to be our first four-part mini-series, we are going to look at one of the bloodiest events in Scottish history, the Glencoe massacre.
[00:01:07] OK then, let’s not waste a minute, and get talking about some unusual Scottish traditions.
[00:01:15] There was a famous survey done several years ago of American tourists considering making a trip to Scotland. The survey asked the reason for the trip, and a reported 23% said that they had come in the belief that they could hunt and catch something called a “haggis”.
[00:01:38] When asked to describe this haggis, one tourist said it was “a wild beast of the Highlands, no bigger than a grouse, which only came out at night”, while another said that it was “a creature that sometimes ventured into the cities and was similar to a fox.”
[00:01:59] You may know that haggis is a popular Scottish dish, it’s eaten during special occasions.
[00:02:06] The problem is…haggis isn’t an animal.
[00:02:10] It is a collection of sheep organs mixed together with oats and other spices. It might sound disgusting, but if you ask me it’s delicious.
[00:02:21] Now, this survey was created by an American tour company and a haggis producer, so perhaps we should take the results with a pinch of salt.
[00:02:32] But even today, if you go to Google and start typing “is haggis…”, the first option that pops up is “healthy”, and the second is “an animal”, so clearly there are plenty of people who still believe this quintessential Scottish dish is in fact a cute furry little animal.
[00:02:54] We will talk more about haggis in a moment, but the reason to start with this little story was to underline this strange mythology that Scotland and Scottish customs have in many people’s minds, especially in those of Americans.
[00:03:11] Scotland is a small country, only five and a half million people, but it has an outsized global impact. It has produced great inventors, scientists and philosophers.
[00:03:24] Scottish people are rightfully proud to call themselves Scottish, and the hundreds of millions of people with some kind of Scottish heritage, Scottish ancestors, often embrace it and feel a strong connection with this country that in many cases they will have never stepped foot on and know nobody from.
[00:03:47] One of those people with Scottish ancestry is, in fact, me.
[00:03:53] If you’ve been paying attention, you will know that my name is Alastair, which is a Scottish name. My grandfather was Scottish, I still have a lot of family in Scotland, and I partially grew up in Scotland, from when I was 7 until when I was 13.
[00:04:11] I might not sound Scottish to you, that’s what lots of moving around a lot and then living in England does to your accent, but I am more Scottish than several players on the Scottish rugby team, and I can actually play the bagpipes, so I am more Scottish than you might have realised.
[00:04:30] So, here we are, someone who is at least partially Scottish, talking to you about some unusual Scottish traditions.
[00:04:39] For our first one, we are going to return to the haggis.
[00:04:45] You might know that there are some days on which haggis is traditionally eaten. The most famous of these is Burns Night, which is a celebration of the life of the famous Scottish poet Robert Burns, and falls on January 25th every year.
[00:05:05] But what you might not know, and is certainly an unusual Scottish tradition, is what is done before the haggis is eaten.
[00:05:15] The haggis is prepared, of course, which really only means boiling it in water.
[00:05:21] It is brought to the table, ideally to the sound of bagpipes. I have piped in many a haggis, I should add.
[00:05:29] But before the haggis can be eaten, it is tradition to read a poem to celebrate the haggis. It was written by Robert Burns himself, and is called “Address to a Haggis”.
[00:05:44] It is written in Scots, so it is hard to understand, even for a native English speaker, but it starts like this:
[00:05:53] Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
[00:05:56] Great Chieftain o’ the Puddin-race!
[00:06:00] I imagine you might not have understood any of that.
[00:06:03] “ Fair fa” is a way of wishing someone well and “sonsie” means happy or cheerful. And then he is calling the haggis a “chieftain”, a great leader, of the race of puddings.
[00:06:16] So to translate it into normal English, it would be something like:
[00:06:21] Hello, honest and happy haggis,
[00:06:24] You wonderful leader of all puddings.
[00:06:27] Anyway, I won’t go through the entire poem, it’s quite long and complicated, but about a third of the way through the poem the person reading it needs to ceremoniously stab the haggis with a knife, cutting it open and spilling all the contents of the pudding.
[00:06:47] It is a lot of fun, and if you ever find yourself in Scotland on Burns Night and see an animated person reading a poem out loud and holding a large knife, do not worry, this is what is going on.
[00:07:02] Now, for our second unusual tradition, we are going to talk about something called The Highland Games, and you will be pleased to hear that haggises feature here as well.
[00:07:14] The Highlands, as you may know, are the northern half of Scotland. If you have seen pictures of wonderful mountains and forests, you are probably imagining the Highlands.
[00:07:26] And during the summer months, all throughout the Highlands, different towns and villages put on “Highland Games”, which are a sort of day of sporting activities and competitions, as well as music and celebrations.
[00:07:41] Some of the events will be familiar to you: there are normally running races and weight lifting, but some of the activities will probably be less familiar.
[00:07:53] There is something called “tossing the caber”, which involves picking up a large telegraph pole, a huge pole of wood, typically 5 to 6 metres tall, and throwing it so that it lands on one end and then flips over on the other.
[00:08:11] There is the hammer throw, which involves someone trying to launch a heavy ball attached to a rope as far as they can.
[00:08:20] It's quite scary and impressive to watch, as the person needs to spin around and around and then let go of the rope just at the right time so that it doesn’t fly into the crowd and smash into some unsuspecting spectator.
[00:08:35] And then there is also something called “hurling the haggis”. To hurl is another word for to throw, it means to throw with great force or effort.
[00:08:47] And haggis hurling is exactly that, it requires someone to throw a haggis as far as they possibly can.
[00:08:56] But, there are some nuances, some rules to be aware of.
[00:09:02] A real cooked haggis must be used, and the haggis cannot break. If it splits in mid air or when it lands, the throw is disqualified.
[00:09:14] And this happens quite a lot. After all, a haggis is only held together with a thin lining, so there is real skill in throwing it a long distance but so that the landing is relatively gentle.
[00:09:31] And if you are wondering what the world record for haggis hurling is, it is 66 metres, which is quite impressive if you ask me.
[00:09:40] Now, we are going to move away from haggis-based traditions, but we are going to keep on the subject of food.
[00:09:49] As you may know, if you are looking to visit somewhere that prides itself on healthy, nutritious food - fresh vegetables and fruit - then Scotland probably isn’t your best bet.
[00:10:03] Our first unusual Scottish tradition is one that you might have heard of, and that is something called a “deep fried Mars bar”. You probably know what a Mars bar is, it’s a chocolate bar filled with nougat and caramel.
[00:10:19] And you probably know what to “deep fry” means - it means to submerge something in hot oil. It’s what you do with chips, or fried chicken, or the fish in “fish and chips”.
[00:10:32] And a deep fried Mars bar is exactly what you probably think it is. The Mars bar is chilled, put in a fridge, before being covered in batter and then deep fried.
[00:10:45] If you like fried food and you like Mars bars, it will be delicious, but it should come with a health warning. Each one contains a reported 1,200 calories, almost half the daily recommended allowance for a man, so it is a treat best enjoyed infrequently unless you also enjoy visiting the hospital.
[00:11:09] Now, moving on, you probably know that Scotland is the home of whisky, but you might not know a less famous and less alcoholic Scottish drink.
[00:11:20] It’s called Irn-Bru, and you can recognise it by its bright orange colour.
[00:11:27] And if you are thinking, hmm, delicious, a kind of orange-tasting soda, nope, it doesn’t taste like oranges at all.
[00:11:37] I actually quite like it, and I used to drink it a lot as a child, but it has such a strange taste that it took me quite a while to figure out how to describe it to you.
[00:11:49] I looked through various forums to see how other people described it, and one of the most popular comments was that it tastes “kinda like rust and battery acid and it's magic.”
[00:12:02] It tastes a little bit like bubblegum, a little bit of lemon, but looks highly radioactive and tastes like nothing else I’ve tasted anywhere outside Scotland.
[00:12:14] And in Scotland, it is exceptionally popular. It is the best-selling drink in the entire country, outselling Coke and Pepsi.
[00:12:23] And its recipe, according to folklore at least, is an incredibly closely guarded secret. Only three people in the company know the exact recipe, and they are never allowed to travel together, in case there is an accident and the recipe is lost forever.
[00:12:40] So, if you happen to be travelling to Scotland and you see people drinking what looks like it could be radioactive fluid, that’s what’s going on.
[00:12:50] And I would certainly recommend that you try it yourself, as it is pretty hard to come by anywhere outside the Scottish borders.
[00:12:58] Right, for our last tradition, I’m going to tell you some unusual facts about the national instrument of Scotland, the bagpipes.
[00:13:07] As I said at the start of the episode, I can actually play the bagpipes, so this is something I can tell you about from firsthand experience.
[00:13:16] In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, the bagpipes are a musical instrument made up of a bag with several tubes coming out of it. To be precise, one tube where you blow air in, three tubes that sit over your shoulder, called drones, and another tube that you hold with both hands and play a tune with. It's not an easy instrument to play, you need to properly manage blowing into the bag and squeezing it with your left arm, but when you do it properly, it sounds like this.
[00:13:52]
[00:13:52]
[00:14:06] So, to finish up this episode, here are five unusual facts about the bagpipes.
[00:14:13] Firstly, the bagpipes can never be silent. Unlike almost any other instrument, you can’t stop making noise when you are playing, there is always the background noise, the drone, and the noise of the chanter, the one that makes the tune.
[00:14:31] Secondly, bagpipes were traditionally made from the skin of an entire animal, with the pipes attached to where the neck and head would have been.
[00:14:41] Thirdly, as you may know, forms of bagpipes exist in many different countries. France, Spain, Italy, Poland they all have different forms of bagpipes, and there are similar kinds of instruments all over the world.
[00:14:57] Fourth, and this in fact came as news to me, alongside myself, the famous and not particularly pleasant Roman emperor, Nero, was said to have been a skilled bagpiper, and played a form of bagpipes not so dissimilar to the Scottish “Great Highland bagpipe”.
[00:15:17] And for number five, I’m going to give you a fact that you won’t find anywhere else online.
[00:15:24] There is a kind of whisky called Glenmorangie.
[00:15:28] It's a very famous, high quality whisky, made just outside a town called Tain in the north of Scotland. You can visit the distillery and see how the whisky is made. The distillery employs many people in the area, including a man called Jimmy, who was also my bagpipe teacher.
[00:15:49] Jimmy was the nightwatchman, so it was his job to monitor everything in the distillery during the night, to make sure that nothing went wrong overnight.
[00:16:00] And Jimmy would spend his evenings walking up and down the distillery floor, playing the bagpipes to pass the time.
[00:16:08] And given that Glenmorangie whisky is 10 years old or more, if you have drunk Glenmorangie at any point in the last 20 years or so, in all probability that whisky has been aged to the sound of a man called Jimmy MacLeod playing the bagpipes.
[00:16:29] OK then, that is it for today's episode on weird Scotland, the first in our mini-series on this wonderful country.
[00:16:37] As a reminder, next up will be Donald Trump’s battle to build a golf course, and how he realised that the locals were going to put up more of a fight than he expected.
[00:16:46] Part three will be on Scotland’s quest for independence, and part four will be on one of the bloodiest events in Scottish history, the Glencoe massacre.
[00:16:55] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:17:00] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:05] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:12] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:21] I'm Alastair Budge, and today it is the start of another mini-series, this time on the theme of Scotland.
[00:00:29] In part one, in this episode, we are going to have some fun talking about unusual Scottish traditions and facts.
[00:00:36] In part two, we are going to talk about the time that Donald Trump tried to build a golf course in the north of Scotland and, well, it didn’t quite go to plan.
[00:00:46] In part three, we are going to talk about the quest for Scottish independence, and ask ourselves whether Scotland will ever break free from the United Kingdom.
[00:00:55] And in part four, yes, lucky you, this is going to be our first four-part mini-series, we are going to look at one of the bloodiest events in Scottish history, the Glencoe massacre.
[00:01:07] OK then, let’s not waste a minute, and get talking about some unusual Scottish traditions.
[00:01:15] There was a famous survey done several years ago of American tourists considering making a trip to Scotland. The survey asked the reason for the trip, and a reported 23% said that they had come in the belief that they could hunt and catch something called a “haggis”.
[00:01:38] When asked to describe this haggis, one tourist said it was “a wild beast of the Highlands, no bigger than a grouse, which only came out at night”, while another said that it was “a creature that sometimes ventured into the cities and was similar to a fox.”
[00:01:59] You may know that haggis is a popular Scottish dish, it’s eaten during special occasions.
[00:02:06] The problem is…haggis isn’t an animal.
[00:02:10] It is a collection of sheep organs mixed together with oats and other spices. It might sound disgusting, but if you ask me it’s delicious.
[00:02:21] Now, this survey was created by an American tour company and a haggis producer, so perhaps we should take the results with a pinch of salt.
[00:02:32] But even today, if you go to Google and start typing “is haggis…”, the first option that pops up is “healthy”, and the second is “an animal”, so clearly there are plenty of people who still believe this quintessential Scottish dish is in fact a cute furry little animal.
[00:02:54] We will talk more about haggis in a moment, but the reason to start with this little story was to underline this strange mythology that Scotland and Scottish customs have in many people’s minds, especially in those of Americans.
[00:03:11] Scotland is a small country, only five and a half million people, but it has an outsized global impact. It has produced great inventors, scientists and philosophers.
[00:03:24] Scottish people are rightfully proud to call themselves Scottish, and the hundreds of millions of people with some kind of Scottish heritage, Scottish ancestors, often embrace it and feel a strong connection with this country that in many cases they will have never stepped foot on and know nobody from.
[00:03:47] One of those people with Scottish ancestry is, in fact, me.
[00:03:53] If you’ve been paying attention, you will know that my name is Alastair, which is a Scottish name. My grandfather was Scottish, I still have a lot of family in Scotland, and I partially grew up in Scotland, from when I was 7 until when I was 13.
[00:04:11] I might not sound Scottish to you, that’s what lots of moving around a lot and then living in England does to your accent, but I am more Scottish than several players on the Scottish rugby team, and I can actually play the bagpipes, so I am more Scottish than you might have realised.
[00:04:30] So, here we are, someone who is at least partially Scottish, talking to you about some unusual Scottish traditions.
[00:04:39] For our first one, we are going to return to the haggis.
[00:04:45] You might know that there are some days on which haggis is traditionally eaten. The most famous of these is Burns Night, which is a celebration of the life of the famous Scottish poet Robert Burns, and falls on January 25th every year.
[00:05:05] But what you might not know, and is certainly an unusual Scottish tradition, is what is done before the haggis is eaten.
[00:05:15] The haggis is prepared, of course, which really only means boiling it in water.
[00:05:21] It is brought to the table, ideally to the sound of bagpipes. I have piped in many a haggis, I should add.
[00:05:29] But before the haggis can be eaten, it is tradition to read a poem to celebrate the haggis. It was written by Robert Burns himself, and is called “Address to a Haggis”.
[00:05:44] It is written in Scots, so it is hard to understand, even for a native English speaker, but it starts like this:
[00:05:53] Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
[00:05:56] Great Chieftain o’ the Puddin-race!
[00:06:00] I imagine you might not have understood any of that.
[00:06:03] “ Fair fa” is a way of wishing someone well and “sonsie” means happy or cheerful. And then he is calling the haggis a “chieftain”, a great leader, of the race of puddings.
[00:06:16] So to translate it into normal English, it would be something like:
[00:06:21] Hello, honest and happy haggis,
[00:06:24] You wonderful leader of all puddings.
[00:06:27] Anyway, I won’t go through the entire poem, it’s quite long and complicated, but about a third of the way through the poem the person reading it needs to ceremoniously stab the haggis with a knife, cutting it open and spilling all the contents of the pudding.
[00:06:47] It is a lot of fun, and if you ever find yourself in Scotland on Burns Night and see an animated person reading a poem out loud and holding a large knife, do not worry, this is what is going on.
[00:07:02] Now, for our second unusual tradition, we are going to talk about something called The Highland Games, and you will be pleased to hear that haggises feature here as well.
[00:07:14] The Highlands, as you may know, are the northern half of Scotland. If you have seen pictures of wonderful mountains and forests, you are probably imagining the Highlands.
[00:07:26] And during the summer months, all throughout the Highlands, different towns and villages put on “Highland Games”, which are a sort of day of sporting activities and competitions, as well as music and celebrations.
[00:07:41] Some of the events will be familiar to you: there are normally running races and weight lifting, but some of the activities will probably be less familiar.
[00:07:53] There is something called “tossing the caber”, which involves picking up a large telegraph pole, a huge pole of wood, typically 5 to 6 metres tall, and throwing it so that it lands on one end and then flips over on the other.
[00:08:11] There is the hammer throw, which involves someone trying to launch a heavy ball attached to a rope as far as they can.
[00:08:20] It's quite scary and impressive to watch, as the person needs to spin around and around and then let go of the rope just at the right time so that it doesn’t fly into the crowd and smash into some unsuspecting spectator.
[00:08:35] And then there is also something called “hurling the haggis”. To hurl is another word for to throw, it means to throw with great force or effort.
[00:08:47] And haggis hurling is exactly that, it requires someone to throw a haggis as far as they possibly can.
[00:08:56] But, there are some nuances, some rules to be aware of.
[00:09:02] A real cooked haggis must be used, and the haggis cannot break. If it splits in mid air or when it lands, the throw is disqualified.
[00:09:14] And this happens quite a lot. After all, a haggis is only held together with a thin lining, so there is real skill in throwing it a long distance but so that the landing is relatively gentle.
[00:09:31] And if you are wondering what the world record for haggis hurling is, it is 66 metres, which is quite impressive if you ask me.
[00:09:40] Now, we are going to move away from haggis-based traditions, but we are going to keep on the subject of food.
[00:09:49] As you may know, if you are looking to visit somewhere that prides itself on healthy, nutritious food - fresh vegetables and fruit - then Scotland probably isn’t your best bet.
[00:10:03] Our first unusual Scottish tradition is one that you might have heard of, and that is something called a “deep fried Mars bar”. You probably know what a Mars bar is, it’s a chocolate bar filled with nougat and caramel.
[00:10:19] And you probably know what to “deep fry” means - it means to submerge something in hot oil. It’s what you do with chips, or fried chicken, or the fish in “fish and chips”.
[00:10:32] And a deep fried Mars bar is exactly what you probably think it is. The Mars bar is chilled, put in a fridge, before being covered in batter and then deep fried.
[00:10:45] If you like fried food and you like Mars bars, it will be delicious, but it should come with a health warning. Each one contains a reported 1,200 calories, almost half the daily recommended allowance for a man, so it is a treat best enjoyed infrequently unless you also enjoy visiting the hospital.
[00:11:09] Now, moving on, you probably know that Scotland is the home of whisky, but you might not know a less famous and less alcoholic Scottish drink.
[00:11:20] It’s called Irn-Bru, and you can recognise it by its bright orange colour.
[00:11:27] And if you are thinking, hmm, delicious, a kind of orange-tasting soda, nope, it doesn’t taste like oranges at all.
[00:11:37] I actually quite like it, and I used to drink it a lot as a child, but it has such a strange taste that it took me quite a while to figure out how to describe it to you.
[00:11:49] I looked through various forums to see how other people described it, and one of the most popular comments was that it tastes “kinda like rust and battery acid and it's magic.”
[00:12:02] It tastes a little bit like bubblegum, a little bit of lemon, but looks highly radioactive and tastes like nothing else I’ve tasted anywhere outside Scotland.
[00:12:14] And in Scotland, it is exceptionally popular. It is the best-selling drink in the entire country, outselling Coke and Pepsi.
[00:12:23] And its recipe, according to folklore at least, is an incredibly closely guarded secret. Only three people in the company know the exact recipe, and they are never allowed to travel together, in case there is an accident and the recipe is lost forever.
[00:12:40] So, if you happen to be travelling to Scotland and you see people drinking what looks like it could be radioactive fluid, that’s what’s going on.
[00:12:50] And I would certainly recommend that you try it yourself, as it is pretty hard to come by anywhere outside the Scottish borders.
[00:12:58] Right, for our last tradition, I’m going to tell you some unusual facts about the national instrument of Scotland, the bagpipes.
[00:13:07] As I said at the start of the episode, I can actually play the bagpipes, so this is something I can tell you about from firsthand experience.
[00:13:16] In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, the bagpipes are a musical instrument made up of a bag with several tubes coming out of it. To be precise, one tube where you blow air in, three tubes that sit over your shoulder, called drones, and another tube that you hold with both hands and play a tune with. It's not an easy instrument to play, you need to properly manage blowing into the bag and squeezing it with your left arm, but when you do it properly, it sounds like this.
[00:13:52]
[00:13:52]
[00:14:06] So, to finish up this episode, here are five unusual facts about the bagpipes.
[00:14:13] Firstly, the bagpipes can never be silent. Unlike almost any other instrument, you can’t stop making noise when you are playing, there is always the background noise, the drone, and the noise of the chanter, the one that makes the tune.
[00:14:31] Secondly, bagpipes were traditionally made from the skin of an entire animal, with the pipes attached to where the neck and head would have been.
[00:14:41] Thirdly, as you may know, forms of bagpipes exist in many different countries. France, Spain, Italy, Poland they all have different forms of bagpipes, and there are similar kinds of instruments all over the world.
[00:14:57] Fourth, and this in fact came as news to me, alongside myself, the famous and not particularly pleasant Roman emperor, Nero, was said to have been a skilled bagpiper, and played a form of bagpipes not so dissimilar to the Scottish “Great Highland bagpipe”.
[00:15:17] And for number five, I’m going to give you a fact that you won’t find anywhere else online.
[00:15:24] There is a kind of whisky called Glenmorangie.
[00:15:28] It's a very famous, high quality whisky, made just outside a town called Tain in the north of Scotland. You can visit the distillery and see how the whisky is made. The distillery employs many people in the area, including a man called Jimmy, who was also my bagpipe teacher.
[00:15:49] Jimmy was the nightwatchman, so it was his job to monitor everything in the distillery during the night, to make sure that nothing went wrong overnight.
[00:16:00] And Jimmy would spend his evenings walking up and down the distillery floor, playing the bagpipes to pass the time.
[00:16:08] And given that Glenmorangie whisky is 10 years old or more, if you have drunk Glenmorangie at any point in the last 20 years or so, in all probability that whisky has been aged to the sound of a man called Jimmy MacLeod playing the bagpipes.
[00:16:29] OK then, that is it for today's episode on weird Scotland, the first in our mini-series on this wonderful country.
[00:16:37] As a reminder, next up will be Donald Trump’s battle to build a golf course, and how he realised that the locals were going to put up more of a fight than he expected.
[00:16:46] Part three will be on Scotland’s quest for independence, and part four will be on one of the bloodiest events in Scottish history, the Glencoe massacre.
[00:16:55] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:17:00] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
