Something Only We Ken

In Aberdeenshire there’s a bizarre phenomenon called “a marquee”. I suppose in the Wild West it would be called a “hoe-down”, in the tales of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen it would be a “ball” and in Latin America it would be a “fiesta”.

Taking place usually the night before or after a Highland games it’s a chance for the town to let their hair down and have a few drinks, as the beer tent for the Highland Games may have been underused during the day (cough). As the name suggests, marquees are held in, yes, a big tent- a marquee if you will. Say what you see.

My husband’s band played their first ever marquee at a local games on Friday and it was an interesting experience. The place was half mobbed. Let me explain- the place was hoachin’ but despite an £8 entry fee, and a bill with four really good bands on the vast majority of punters were stacked ten deep at one end of the tent. In the bar area. For three hours the bands played their hearts out and a loyal group of about 50 danced and enjoyed the music. That 50 had a great time. Meanwhile 250 crammed themselves into a small area and attempted to drink their own body weight in lager. "It's like this every year" the organiser, who is a friend of mine, tells me.

The last band, the aforementioned husband’s, goes on stage and about 20 minutes into their set the organiser comes on stage and whispers something into Meeester’s ear for him to announce. “Right I’ve been told to tell you that’s last orders” he says not to the folk in front of them but to the 250 forty feet away who are already very aware how many minutes they’ve got left until the supply is cut off.

The band start to play again and 5 minutes later the bar is well and truly shut and 300 people now appear at the front of the stage dancing and whooping. In between songs my husband is handed a note from a drunken girl he’s already seen taking enormous care and a great deal of time to write a sentence with a Sharpie from her handbag. You know the thing, tongue out of the side of the mouth, showing real concentration. The note says:

“Play Somethin We Ken”

He winks at her. As luck would have it Meeester announces the next song, “Our next song is ‘Something, Wee Ken” and the band launches in to “World Hotel” not their only but definitely their best drinking themed song. The previous incumbents of the bar area go mental. Woah, this is the best band in the WORLD! The Sharpie girl goes "Eh?"

Ten minutes later the band play their last song and go off stage to a three hundred strong chorus of people shouting for them to go back on and play some more.

Told you marquees are weird.

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Young Archeologist of the Year (1980)

One thing about going on holiday with kids is that their grandparents always give them a tenner before they go. The cash burns a hole in their little shorts from that point forward. In a poll recently conducted by me on the streets of every major city in the UK 8 out of 10 kids claimed they would spend the tenner in the airport gift shop or the train station newsagents. The other 2 out of 10 said they wouldn’t wait that long and would spend it at the ice cream van before they even left for their holiday. Unless you are my brother, in which case you would wait until your sisters had spent theirs and lord it over them that you still had your tenner and the world was your oyster. The world, or a Hoseasons Holiday Camp, or Margate...whatever.

When I was around twelve I was in holiday in Northern Italy with my family, my holiday tenner a distant memory as my brother sloshed about town with his pocket chock full of about one billion lire. These were the days before the Euro when Italians had to take a suitcase of money everywhere with them just to go down the shops. Fashionable chi-chi suitcases mind, we’re talking Italians here. Regretting my purchase of five tins of assorted boiled travel sweets from an all night garage on the A96 on the way to the airport, I had to sit and watch as my brother skipped about an Italian toy shop eyeing up the Mediterranean childrens' booty.

He’s irritating the hell out of me and my sister as he's humming and hawing, but he knows the purchase better be a good one, because once the money is gone, he’s just like the rest of us-skint and reliant on good behaviour to make any ice-cream purchases courtesy of my parents’ goodwill. But then he spies it, and this ten year old with a notorious violent streak and an obsession with all things weaponry sees his must-have item- a bright green catapult with elastic so thick and strong it could propel a reluctant Italian into battle.

All purchases, even those made with your own money must go through my Mum’s strict and non-negotiable veto system. Needless to say strong banded catapults capable of taking the eye out of anyone in the firing line and the next three people behind them did not pass the test. “Put it back and pick something we can get through customs,” she orders the young warlord, now rendered impotent in a potential David/Goliath scenario. The boy is not happy and he refuses to even look at anything else, preferring to whine and sulk for the rest of the day. “This is just like the cross bow incident in William Tell country and the time I found an un-exploded grenade on the Normandy coast- you never let me have ANYTHING!” he pouts.

Some days go past and unexpectedly the boy makes no further mention of a desire to spend his tenner. The subject is dropped and we can all go about our 1970s business of cultivating skin cancer inducing sunburn and peeing in the Adriatic because we can’t be bothered coming out of the sea to find a toilet. It’s in one such dooks in the sea that a miracle happens. “Oh...oh...my goodness. Mum! Look! You’ll never guess what I’ve just found!!” the boy hollers as he runs excitedly towards the beach, something waving blurredly in his outstretched sea-wrinkled hand. The assembled parents look up startled- Jaws was only on cinematic release over a year ago and they are still a tad skittish.

My mum gets off her sun-lounger and heads towards her son who is still shouting excitedly. “Look! Mum! Look what I found in the sea!” he says to the woman like she herself had just washed up on the beach in a banana boat. A plastic bright green handled catapult , I’m guessing an ancient military relic from the epic travels of Aenas from Greece to Italy in around 300BC on his way to meet Sibyl who will show him the Underworld, has been found in the sea by this intrepid young archaeologist. The elastic has survived the briny harsh conditions of the Adriatic and indeed is strong enough to slay a Kraken should one emerge in a menacing fashion from the monster filled seas, even after a period of time that has seen civilisations rise and fall. What a find! What a red letter day in the field of archaeology and the study the weaponry of the Trojan era.

“Give me that” she says, the woman clearly a Philistine who callously puts the bounty in her raffia beach bag knowing nothing of its potential monetary worth and its certain historic and cultural value to the Italian and Greek governments who will surely hail the boy a hero and let him keep the relic to do with what he will for the rest of his holidays before they secure it in a museum.

“Give me that. Do you think my head zips up the back?”

(Thanks for the prompt, Ellen at Ready for Ten)

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New Words from New Wordsmiths

Me rounding up alfresco in the garden today

I haven't posted this week but not because I haven't anything to write about. I do but it'll have to wait because I've been spending the week seeking out new Scottish bloggers. Well new to me anyway...

This week I am the guest editor of the Scottish Roundup and I set myself the mission of making the roundup as diverse as I could with at least fifty percent of the blogs to be featured to be ones that have never been included in the Roundup before. I think I managed. In fact, I know I did. Hurrah!

This exercise has been important to me for a number of reasons:

1. I think that you need to refresh your blogroll regularly- too many bloggers give up, get fed up, or just lose their mojo- you've got to seek out new stuff.

2. I like a political blog as much as the next naked ape, but the Roundup is often exclusively political and I like to shake it up a little when I edit.

3. I like meeting new bloggers because on the whole they are an interesting bunch, so hello to everyone I met online this week. I've come away from the whole thing with some firm new favourites.

4. Sometimes people put pics of their dogs up and that's always good.

Read the Round Up here and if you own, rent, have feudal rights to or have a freehold on a Scottish blog then nominate yourself for next weeks roundup.

The Scottish Blog Roundup is up here: http://scottishroundup.co.uk/2010/06/06/50-new-blogs-or-your-money-back/

And here's a pic of my dog.



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