Hamish McShanks

Ham Shanks Secret Diary w/e 28^th January 2007

It’s the end of January, I’m getting togged up in my kilt, it has tae be Burns night. For those of you unfamiliar with the occasion it is a very Scottish event where proud Scotsmen and women gather together to celebrate the work of our most famous bard, Rabbie Burns. There’s singing, dancing and poetry readings, it’s all very cultured. The fact that everybody gets roaring drunk is purely coincidental.

I was pouring a dram and reeling off a wee bit of the bards finer works as I put the finishing touch to my outfit ‘Fair Fa’ your honest sonsie face, great chieftain of the pudding race! Aboon them a’ ye tak yer place, painch, tri-Beep Beep Beeeeep! ‘Och for f-‘ beeeeeeeeeeep ‘-ake’ Dropping the bow tie I’d been wrestling with I angrily pulled back the curtains and peered outside.

Sadly it wasn’t a road runner that was making all the noise. It was our hired transport. I could see a shabby white saloon car parked outside, its cracked plastic ‘TAXI’ sign flickering a dirty off-yellow colour in the gathering darkness. I glanced at my watch ‘what’s his problem were not late, he’s early’ I growled as our chauffeur started leaning on the horn once again ‘you’re not going to cause a scene are you’ mumbled Mrs Shanks as she applied her lip gloss. All the neighbours curtains were twitching now as dial-a-cretin continued playing the dance of the sugarplum bawbags on the centre of his steering wheel ‘No no, I’m just going to have a quiet word dear’ I replied as I marched down the stairs and out the front door.

As I strode towards the vehicle I could see that the driver was on the large side of enormous, his stubby fat arms were nestling on top of a gigantic stomach and I was quite surprised he could even reach the steering wheel. He was still giving it laldy when I tapped on his window. Grudgingly he stopped making a din and wound his window down a few inches to talk to me, the verbal tirade I was about to deliver fell slightly flat when I was hit full in the face with the fetid stench of onion and three day fermented body odour ‘Taxi fer Shanks’ he grunted as I rubbed my stinging eyes ‘yygg.yggg.es’ I replied weakly, my anger now dissipating ‘hurry up you’re late’ he retorted …… this was sufficient to re-ignite the blue touch paper

‘No Jabba, you’re early’ I snapped angrily ‘and if you’d bothered to put down your munchie box and look at the time ye might have realised that!’ I poked him violently in the chest with my middle finger, immediately regretting it, as disappeared to the knuckle between two rolls of fat ‘and why do you feel it necessary to disturb the entire street to pick up one fare?’ I enquired after hastily withdrawing my finger ‘hmmmm?’, ‘you could have phoned me to tell me you were waiting outside you cretin’ I continued ‘if your chubby sausage fingers are too fat too use the phone you should have radioed your base to do it’, ‘Or, and I realise this might sound ridiculous, but you could have actually got off yer lazy fat backside, walked to my front door, and rung the fuuuuucking doorbell!’ I roared, drenching his piggy face in white spittle.

Our blubbery friend was now in a full blown panic in the face of my ranting, he was fumbling to wind up the window whilst simultaneously scrabbling for the ignition keys as I continued bellowing abuse through the ever narrowing gap in the window. Eventually he managed to engage his faculties, and the correct gear, as his vehicle departed in a plume of grey tyre smoke.

‘All sorted then dear?’ enquired Mrs Shanks as I stomped back into the house with a face like thunder ‘I’ve decided we will be using a different taxi company from now on’ she rolled her eyes and sighed ‘another one, are there any left we can use?’ I stared longingly at my untouched whisky then picked up my car keys ‘yes, Shanks Ponies, a very reliable company I believe! Shall we go?’

My altercation with big daddy meant we only just made it to the supper venue in time. We sat down just as the haggis was getting piped in. This is very traditional, although I imagine to the uninitiated it may look like a man in a skirt blowing into an understandably distressed octopus. This is not the case, bagpipes are supposed to sound like that. The sweaty looking man who trails behind and parades the ovine entrails on a silver platter is in fact a chef. And yes that’s what you’re eating for dinner tonight. But don’t worry if you’re not sure what’s in a haggis, you are about to find out …… graphically ….

A man is about to disembowel said haggis with a large knife whilst gibbering away in a foreign tongue, or so it will seem. There is no cause for alarm; he is actually performing ‘address to a haggis’ and not an escaped mental patient. Police intervention is not required. Sit back and enjoy the work of the bard.

‘Address to a haggis’ is one of Burns seminal works. I shant recite the whole poem, what I will try to do is give you the ‘essence’ of what I think Burns was trying to say. First of all you have to remember the era, the Jacobite Rebellion had not long fallen on its arse, the French were lopping the heads off their aristocracy, and the yanks had just won independence. Relations between Scotland and England were as usual ‘strained’ What did the Scots have that was unique? The haggis, all the bits you wouldn’t normally eat, with a handful of oatmeal, and encased in an animals stomach. Some might say it looks like the animal had already eaten it.

It’s a great poem. One of the verses says: Is there that owre his French ragout, Or olio that wad staw a sow, Or fricassee wad mak her spew, Wi' perfect sconner, Looks down wi' sneering, scornfu' view, On sic a dinner? He’s saying French food is for lassies, Haggis is for men. If you think otherwise, you are a snob. In subsequent verses he has a pop at the fighting ability of foes that don’t eat haggis and how ‘haggis power’ makes the Scots invincible. If Popeye was a Jock he’d eat haggis not spinach, ‘uhgg ugg uggg ugggg I needsk me haggisk uuugg uggg uggg’ and Olive Oil would be probably be seventeen stone and called ‘Saturated Senga’

Burns was really using the haggis to demonstrate his nationalism, he was saying ‘yes it tastes like shite, but you are just a poof if you cant eat it’, ‘we can, so we are nails’, ‘come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough’

And unlike us, he didn’t have to listen to several middle aged woman mangling the folk songs he wrote and collected as he tucked into his oaty sheep entrails!

Nae wonder we all get pished! Hoots mon whaurs ma liver

Doei

Ps I actually like haggis; it tastes better than it sounds ….. It’d have to …