FREEDOM!!!! [2]

Except your skint and noone in England wants a nukeplant built next to them- look at all the fuss just trying to build a new railway line- can you imagine when England has to start building nuke plants and somewhere to keep your actual nukes.
Actually Im quite looking forward to that bit.  

You know you are Glaswegian (from Glasgow)when....

You consider Edinburgh part of England

It doesn't matter what the maps and atlases say, or what the people of Edinburgh themselves think, if you're Glaswegian, Edinburgh is essentially part of England as far you're concerned. If that isn't bad enough, there are no decent pubs there and they put a horrifying mix of brown sauce and vinegar on their chips. Really, the only time anything worthwhile happens in Edinburgh is during the Festival, and then it's full of Americans.

You judge people by the quality of their "patter"

Glaswegians value conversation pretty highly. Someone with good quality patter is a pleasant conversationalist and if they're funny their patter is even more highly regarded. In fact, patter is so important in Glasgow that you don't even have to know someone to engage in conversation with them, you just have to be located at roughly the same longitude and latitude.

If it isn't a square sausage it's a square go

If someone asks you to think of a Glasgow square you might suggest George Square, one of the city's central meeting points. However, two other squares you might be even more familiar with are the square sausage and the square go. These staple elements of Glasgow life refer to two of the best loved hobbies in the city, eating poor quality meat products and having a fight.

It isn't a fry-up if there's no tattie scone

No-one loves fried food more than a Glaswegian. If it's so heavily processed it has lost any trace it once had of a plant or animal, you will have a go at deep-frying it. However, when it comes to breakfast, a missing "tattie scone" (potato scone) is unforgivable.

When it comes to "ginger" it has to be Irn Bru

Glaswegians refer to all sugary, fizzy juice drinks as "ginger." Scotland's own Barr's Irn Bru is always the "ginger" of choice for a Glaswegian, particularly when you're dealing with a hangover. Famously, Scotland was the only country on earth where a Coca Cola product was not the top selling soft drink.

You think a tonic wine product made by monks counts as one of your five-a-day

Buckfast tonic wine is one of a range of products made by Benedictine monks at Buckfast Abbey in Devon. Much to the monks' surprise, Buckfast quickly became one of the most popular drinks in Glasgow number of years ago, with a bottle of Bucky frequently enjoyed al-fresco by your typical "jakey." Some Glasgow pubs even serve this notorious refreshment by the glass.

Football is your main anger outlet

If you're Glaswegian, attending a football game is primarily an opportunity to furiously salivate on the back of the head of the person sitting in front of you. This form of extreme supporting is seen frequently at "Old Firm" matches between Celtic and Rangers. However, rather than screaming at the opposition, you spend most of the match hurling abuse at your own team's players, "giving them pelters."

You can swear and be polite at the same time

In Glasgow, swearing is so commonplace you will rarely hear a sentence without it. Far from implying that Glaswegians are rude, this often actually demonstrates how it is possible to swear in a complimentary, or even polite way. The downside to this overuse of swearing is that when something shocking happens, Glaswegians struggle to find an appropriate word, so must resort to incomprehensible sounds and facial expressions.

Hee hee, thats a great way to sum up a Glaswegian !  

Just watched a vid with an altercation between a Glasgow bouncer and a customer, its overlong and most of it is just the bouncers letting the customer rant till he gives up and walks off so Ive not bothered posting it, but the guy only goes after the bouncers have used their unique Glasgow patter to put him in his place- favourite lines include; "you couldn't punch a number into a phone you bell end" and "Your an £8 an hour faggot. I can smell the dick on your breath from here."

Contains some scenes of real violence-

Theres nothing like being straight to the point ! I like the "£8 an hr faggot" line !  

Weird thing about Glasgow is whilst all this casual violence does go on, its one of the friendliest cities you will ever go to- that bit above about how people will engage you in conversation is perfectly true- its impossible to sit alone publicly in Glasgow as if you do someone will plonk themselves down beside you and engage you in (usually) very funny conversations- assuming you can understand them- they are even more friendly to complete strangers. Its each other and other Scots that are fair game.

When I stayed there I got into a bit of trouble early on because whilst I have a west coast accent it is, to Glasgow ears 'soft' sounding- this mistakenly gave the impression, whilst in pubs usually, that I was a Glaswegian 'putting on airs'- which is a worse crime than being from Edinburgh.
In the end it was easier to modify my accent and adopt a more Glasgow twang whilst there than trying to explain to drunks, whilst drunk, that I was just from somewhere else. Had a couple of close shaves along the way though.

people are funny ! theres bucket loads of snobbery down here on the south east coast, between one town or even a village & another. If "they" dont want you in, they treat you like shat. One simply has to have the correct social standing darrrrling ! God forbid if you dont know your fish knife from your steak knife ! crime of the century ! And your not poor until you get down to your last £150.00. Ive had so many snubs & dirty looks, & workers putting my change anywhere rather than even NEAR my hand, I just laugh ! what small minds,

Drunks and jakeys are the main form of street entertainment in Glasgow-

Petty, for gawds sake put yer trews on ! scheesh !

Is it true that Glaswegians think anyone from Edinburgh is basically English?

Well they treat them like they are! - there's a very old rivalry there- Edinburgh is posh- always has been- home to nobility, Kings and Queens- and the accent doesnt help as to west coast ears it sounds very snobby.
Edinburgh also has quite a structured and seemingly more robust class system in the city.

Glasgow by contrast was built on the working man- shipyards, steel works and the like. It for a long time only had two classes- working class and the owners.
To Edinburgh ears west coast accents sound harsh and blunt.

Where wealth in Edinburgh tended to mean everyone lived in their own big house, poverty in Glasgow meant several families could be living in 2 or 3 rooms, and those rooms would be part of a tenement block housing lots of families in similar fashion- which is largely where the friendly, talkative side to Glasgow derives from. Poverty tends to lead to knowing your neighbours and being able to talk to them, because they might need your help one day and you might need theirs the next.
Its also why if they think you are pretending to be something you are not, acting above your station and putting on airs you will soon after be looking for your teeth in a gutter.

I drink to those who dance even worse than me.... fine achievement...  

Youve made a mistake there Orwell- the trick is to drink so much you take your dancing badly to a whole new level.  

'Health chiefs have warned that Scots are still drinking too much, despite figures showing a fall in the amount of alcohol sold per person.'- BBC

I try to make up for everyone else cutting back, slackers.  

'The alcohol sales report said drink sales were 8% lower than in 2009, the equivalent of about 10 million fewer bottles of wine, three million bottles of spirits or 35 million pints of beer in a year.'

Do bear in mind there are only 5 million of us in the country, and some of them are probably children so only drinking a bottle or two.

'The latest statistics also showed that alcohol sales in Scotland were 6% higher than in 1994 and 19% higher than in England and Wales last year.'

Bunch of amateurs down south.  

If my math is right the Scottish are only drinking the equivalent of about half a bottle of wine per week.   That's amateur stuff.

It's estimated the Americans from about 1650 to 1900 or so were drinking 3 to 4 gallons of pure alcohol per year, which works out to 8 to 10 gallons of liquor, or 25 to 30 gallons of wine. With about 5 wine bottles per gallon this is between 2 and 3 bottles of wine per week, a much more sensible figure than that miserly half bottle the modern Scots are drinking. 

In fact modern Americans are drinking about half as much as their forebears, still more than the Scots! I admit to being proud.

So why all the drunkenness in Scotland? Must be a nation of lightweights.

Yeah but strong beer, cheap fake cider (its never so much as seen an apple) and vodka are actually the drinks of choice here.
With the exception of buckie wine is generally viewed in Scotland as a tipple, a warm up to the main drinking of the day, which should ideally if you can afford it be a spirit, and if not a very strong cheap cider.

I just chose wine because it was the number given that most easily divided by the 5 million Scots. Divide by 3 and you get only 1/6 bottle = 1/2 cup of liquor per week per proud scotshobbit. This is but a trifle. Modern americans drink double that.

But my math may be confused by the phrase "Pure Alcohol". I was doing the conversion of liquor as being 40% alcohol and wine being 12% alcohol. If the phrase was referring to pure liquor than my numbers are off by a factor of 2.5, and Americans and Scots are drinking about the same.

But given the figure of Colonists drinking 5 gallons of pure alcohol a year, that's only 1/10 of a gallon per week, or 1.6 cups. This means only an ounce of liquor a day, or about one drink a day. Since they are described as routinely having several drinks of hard liquor a day I think my original math is correct. Modern Americans have about 1 drink per day, about half that of the Colonists.

I'm actually inclined to doubt that 10 million bottles of wine a year is an 8% decline in Scotland. That's 2 bottles a person per year, which means 100% is about 26 bottles, or half a bottle per week, one drink every 3 days. It's got to be low.

looked it up. The UK is consuming 11.7 liters of pure alcohol per capita (about 3 gallons), the US 8.8 (or 2.3 gallons). There's something funny in the math, doesn't agree with the former statements. I'm not convinced someone at the paper did their numbers right.

Does stuff like Budweiser count in the US figures?  Cause that stuff doesnt even qualify as a mixer here.  

I hold you in awe, Halfy ! Maths is the worst subject on the planet for me ! Im left amazed by your brain bucket ! ( Im fooking envious !)  

Not at all hard compared to learning German grammar or something.  At least math makes sense.

Petty: I use budweiser for rehydration therapy.  But the numbers referred to are the total alcohol content.  A gallon of budweiser still has alcohol, and college boys swill buckets of the stuff.

college boys swill buckets of the stuff.- Halfwise

You'd have to. It would take gallons just to get tipsy on the stuff.
Id be bloated long before I was drunk.  

I was at a jobs fair today.
To give you an idea of how good it was about half the stalls there didnt have any jobs but were either government agencies- job centre stand, or companies associated with the Governments various job schemes- none of whom had any jobs to offer.
I went to one desk- ACHA the local housing association, I got a ten minute speil on the advantages of working for their company before the guy had to finally admit they only had 1 job available at that time, and it was for a specialised roofer.  

To add insult to injury there was a Better Together Unionist campaigner handing out leaflets as you left!  
He decided to engage my friend and I after we put his flier straight in the bin and proceeded to tell us that a Yes vote would take Scotland out of NATO and put us at risk.
I noticed he had, among his variety of badges, a Labour one, and asked him if he was a labour party member- he was- so I point dout how odd it was to hear Scottish labour argue to keep nuclear weapons when they have traditionally been at the forefront to remove them.
This seemed to annoy him and he went to declare that i was the bigger picture, that by getting rid of nuclear weapons entirely we would be cast from NATO putting national security at risk.
I pointed out that many other NATO members such as Norway were not nuclear powers. And that having nuclear weapons base din your country was not a criteria for membership.
Thats Scotlands importance to the NATO alliance lay in its strategic placement combined with easy access to well protected, deep water lochs even submarines can slip into without surfacing.
He went on to argue, incredibly, that all NATO partners had nukes, and that Norway wasnt a member anyway!