It happens, every year. You could set your watch by it, if that was how watches worked. Normally, in February, when the crocuses start to peek out the ground, and for a flitting moment the sky clears to remind us it is blue, something happens. WHOOMP, out come the shorts - normally fashioned with a full-sleeved hooded top (because you wouldn't want to look ridiculous). The funny thing is, such brazen displays of flesh often result in a red skin, not unlike that after Scottish flesh has been put in direct line of sight with the Sun. Except this red is a cold, hard, pneumonia-inducing feeling that numbs the legs, and numbs the general pain of life at living in a country which has Susan Boyle as its most popular export.
12. Most Gardening Programmes Are From The Future Except For The Beechgrove Garden
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu5FYCokkmc One for the older readers who have roses and apples and worry about the number of worms in their dirt. Gardeners World - it's nice and everything, but goodness, they are clearly broadcasting from the future, approximately two months by the looks of it. It's March, and already plants aren't just budding, they are pretty much in full bloom and about to hibernate for the winter again. Turn over to the Beechgrove Garden, filmed in Aberdeen, and compare the two. Monty Don swans around in his light shirt and floppy hair planting kiwi fruit, singing lah-de-dah about the butterflies, the narcissus and the always unseasonable warm weather, whilst in Aberdeen, wee Jim McColl has his soggen bunnett on and is struggling to hear himself talk over the hurricane winds and battering hailstorms that pummell his flowers whilst he tries admirably to put his tatties into his sodden soil. Oh how the other half live... And we're pretty sure Jim shouts "Feck" at the start of this show. Get it up ye, Monty Don.
11. Glen Michael's Cartoon Cavalcade
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF1wg77F8bw Sing together now..Doo doo do... oh ok then, don't. See if anyone cares - you're going to die alone in a cold bed ridden by woodworm anyway. What links a grumpy oil-filled lamp, a talking robot and a man born in Devon? Why, It's Glen Michael's Cartoon Cavalcade, the show that introduced many a Scottish child to classic cartoons, and which was like a better, Scottish version of the BBC's Broom Cupboard. If you remember this you will probably also remember the Untied Shoelaces Show with "Tiger" Tim Stevens, back when entertainment was watching grown men jog on the spot. This was literally the most awesome thing on the telly for a while. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJWYGFD1irI
10. Dotaman
Ah, Gaelic stuff again. For most kids who remember it, we would watch the titles, wait for the presenter to start talking about their horse (possibly?) before saying "Heloooo!" in a weird accent. It was then considered acceptable that you could turn over, as you had paid your dues and could turn over to ITV leaving this foreign nonsense to the ten kids in the Highlands that 1) spoke the language and 2) had a telly. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GOj3Kj_74c Gaelic telly really was a disappointment to most kids of the age, as it meant you had to find something else to do. It would occasionally mean you would learn a new word though, like in Gaelic, Postman Pat is Padraig Post. Knowledge is power, folks.
The pressure is on, isn't it, to write something meaningful and/or funny in these bio bits. Well, let me think about that. I could probably quote from my favourite film, or book. Or lyric.
Instead I shall quote from my hero, Sam Beckett.
"Oh boy".
