Nae socks. Nae Gaelic.

 

 

 

Regular readers may have been surprised to note that there has been no breast beating over the Gaelic learning and found this surprising in view of the fact that the course started up again in September and I had previously fund it a struggle.

 

As it happens the course did start up again in September, but without me. I had booked a lace on it, downloaded the material for the first unit looked ta it, gave vent to a noise much like 'Waaaaaaaaaaaaaggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh' and ran screaming for the hills. Well I didn't literally run for the hills, I just e-mailed the office and said Sorry I cannot face this.

 

I am not sure if this proved that I am sensible or just a quitter. The little amount of Gaelic I had learned had taken a huge amount of time, money and energy, time which it seemed to me would be better spent working on my thesis. There are two major chapters to write over the next twelve months, and although I had managed to run the Gaelic study and writing the draft of my first chapter in parallel I had always felt that the draft would have been better had I not been spending so much time on learning a language so incomprehensible that the OH refuses to believe it is real, and contends that people just make it up as they go along to bamboozle English speakers when they hove into view.

 

The intention is that I will keep at it on my own, for 30 minutes only per day from January until next September and may pick up part 2 then. Meanwhile for the many who won't get the Nae Socks, Nae Gaelic reference: -

 

the image above comes from a Scottish Comedy Series called Chewin' the Fat. It was a sketch show that was often screamingly funny and had these  sock puppets as recurring characters. They spoke Gaelic after a fashion, and were often heard to be recounting stories of their (mis)adventures, many of which ended with them being thrown out of places with the words 'Nae socks'.

 

If you don't know them, well worth seeking out on You Tube, although I will sound a note of caution. While not adhering to any  theory of racial stereotyping, in my experience the Scottish sense of humour is very particular. I find the Sock Puppets hilarious, as does Son No 1. The OH on the other hand, finds nothing funny about them at all. In fact he didn't find Chewin' the Fat funny. Or Scot Squad. Or any other comedy program to come out of Scotland ever. He does have a sense of humour, but it's not attuned to the comic genius that resides on this side of the Scottish/English border.