Beau Peep Notice Board

And then this is generally how I see you Scotsmen.

Sorry that your brother had to be stitched up but at least he got a story out of it.

Happy New Year to all.

Now you understand how I feel about the world in general, Mince!
Happy New Year, everyone!

...my daughter made enough soup to feed a Shinty team...

I'm not sure that is actually possible, Diane. But in my experience, shinty players mostly eat Guinness.

I totally understand where shinty's "robust" reputation comes from, Roger, but even though I'm sure I've perpetuated that aspect in my own sporting tales many times, it is also undoubtedly a game of great skill and cultured players.

Unless you're playing against the Strathclyde Police team that is, as I once had the misfortune of doing in my late teens. My first thought as we faced up to them was they looked less like constabulary than Barlinnie inmates, and played in the same manner. The tall skinny guy with psychotic eyes who was marking me unnerved me early on when he gleefully informed me that he considered the game to be excellent baton practice. I thought he was joking until one of his teammates managed to split open my brother's head with his caman, resulting in a different blue light service rushing my bro to the nearest hospital to be patched up. We won the match, simply because truncheon practice doesn't trump actual skill, but I've never been so glad to leave a field of play and get back to the bus for soup and sandwiches, as our opponents trundled off for some raw meat.

Always a joy to play against any of the more cultured teams from up north after that, even though we rarely won any of those.

No, I never played, mate, other than the odd knockabout in the local field. Far too ferocious for me. Funnily enough, I played football for Kingussie---a shinty hotbed---with several guys who played both sports. (Shinty was played in the winter and football in the summer). What surprised me was the football skills of the shinty players. I'd expected them to be, shall we say, robust in their style but, to a man, they were all extremely skilful and cultured. One of those players, nicknamed "Tarzan", started to tell me about the bones he's broken while playing shinty. I stopped him after a few minutes and told him it would be quicker to tell me the bones he HADN'T broken. These were seriously tough guys. So, I repeat---I never played!