Scots Wae Hae

There are times when it is quite impossible to do anything but love this country. One of my favorite things about Scotland is also one of the biggest differences from home - singing. Perhaps singing isn't exactly the right way to describe it; shouting words loudly as a group would be better. At any rate, it's something that happens here alot more than it does at home and I love it - even though I'm not enough in the know to join in.

Last time I was at King Tut's, the crowd fully sang one of Sergeant's songs, which isn't too unusual to see at concerts except - and this is the part that's amazing - they sang it before Sergeant had even stepped on stage.

As well as this, there's the countless number of times you'll pass a group of people drunk in the street/pub/hallway/flat singing (shouting?) their football team's song. Nothing even close to that even happens at home. People just don't randomly start singing and I want to know why? Why can't we all break out in song for some reason? The only time this has even came close to happening was at a flat party I was at last year. There was shit music blaring (which is a thing that happens at parties I've noticed) and then 'Wonderwall' came on and everyone stopped and sang. Except for me, I thought it was a bit ridiculous at the time. I still do actually. There's a difference between everyone singing along to a song that's playing on the stereo and everyone singing a song just because they fucking can .

Last night my roomate and his friends put on a Christmas dinner in their kitchen and my roomie invited me. Everytime someone spilled a drink, the whole kitchen (about 15 of them) sang part of 'Finland Finland Finland' and then counted down from 8 and in that time the person who spilt had to finish their drink. I don't think that's a widespread cultural thing either. They just decided that they should sing really loudly whenever someone spilled their drink. Fuckin' brilliant. I'm gonna start doing that and screw anyone who looks at me funny. Sometimes you just gotta sing loudly with a large group of people for absolutely no reason.

Also: Before we ate they did (in jest) The Robbie Burns Grace. I looked it up, it's actually called The Selkirk Grace and wasn't written by Robert Burns, he just used it lots I guess? At any rate, the grace itself is quite short but so delightfully Scottish (both linguistically and in attitude) that I'm going to share it (and probably start using it).

" Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it,
But we hae meat and we can eat,
Sae the Lord be thankit."