Travelogue: our England & Scotland Trip, Part 2 (posted 8/9/23)

Before I get on to the rest of our England and Scotland trip, I have to give a hat tip to some anonymous commenter who described our intrepid Prez and VP team absolutely perfectly.  He called them “Sh*ts and Giggles.”

After what seems like 37 years of the disastrous Biden-Que Mala term – with him pooping on the pope and her yammering on about Venn diagrams and electric schoolbuses – I salute you, anonymous wiseguy.

Our first week in England ended in Liverpool, and from there we drove up into the Lake District, where we hit the only vigorous rain of our trip, though we still took a scenic boat trip on Lake Windemere and had some good fish and chips at a very quaint 300-year-old pub/restaurant.  

From there we moved on into Scotland, where we spent four days.   We got to take in most of the green, hilly countryside under cloudy skies, but the brief interludes of full sun made us appreciate the scenery even more.   We took a boat ride on Loch Lomond, and saw a Commando Memorial – a 17-foot-tall bronze rendering of three impressive WWII soldiers near what had been a training base from which they shipped out to kill Nazis.

We had a scenery stop at Glencoe, where three craggy mountains are in close proximity, and mark the site of a famous 1692 massacre of the MacDonalds by the Campbells.  (The tales of fiercely independent, warlike people, with intermittent feuding and long memories, seemed oddly familiar, consider the Scots-Irish part of my dad’s bloodline.)

We spent a night at a beautiful rustic hotel in the highlands, and after supper we took an excursion to a sheep farm that was one of the highlights of the trip.  We met Neil, one of two remaining shepherds in the area, and he put his 5 impressive border collies through their paces.  We stood in an empty pasture near a ridgeline, and while facing us and with the dogs behind him, Neil demonstrated various whistles.

He’d say that this whistle told the dog to go left and sprint; then he’d give a fairly quiet whistle, and a gorgeous black-and-white collie tore off down the left side of the pasture.  Neil said that the next whistle meant stop, and the dog skidded to a halt like a cartoon character.

The next whistle had the dog walking comically slowly, like Wile E. Coyote trying to sneak up on somebody.  The next whistle meant walk normally, and the dog did.  Then Neil gave the sprint whistle again – all without looking toward the dog – and that good boy tore away like he’d just seen Liz Warren, and mistaken her for a ghost. 

(On account of how ghastly white she is.)  (#wemustneverstopmockingher)

The dog disappeared over the nearest small ridgeline.  And after a minute or two, a herd of maybe 90 sheep came thundering over that crest, with the dog racing back and forth behind them, his fur flying and his teeth bared and tongue lolling in what looked like the smile of a creature doing exactly what God made him for.

I’d count anyone lucky who has half a dozen moments in a given year when he’s as happy as that collie when he’d brought that herd of sheep back to Neil.

I asked Neil what dog breeds he thinks are most intelligent, and he said that he’s worked with several herding breeds over the years, but the border collie is the smartest, and it’s not close.   (Because he’s never met Cassie the Wonder Dog and therefore doesn’t know any better, I didn’t hold that against him.)

Neil also said that there’s no such thing as bad dogs, only bad owners, because any time he’s met an allegedly problem dog, the owner was the actual problem. 

Sidebar: When I got back home and read the stories about Joe Biden’s dog Commander, who has bitten half a dozen secret service agents and WH personnel, just like his previous dog Major, who did the same thing, that made perfect sense. 

In addition to being a lousy father and a terrible president, Brandon is a total failure as a dog owner.  And none of us are the least bit surprised. 

We spent two days in Edinburgh, and had a great time.  I’ve seen pictures of the old castle on the top of the cliff in the middle of town, but pictures don’t really do it justice.  We got a tour of the old town from a local guide, had a dinner with touristy entertainment provided by a bagpiper and a couple of Scottish dancers, and wandered the impressive old city, finding one cool “close” (a tiny, narrow alley between buildings) after another.

One close opened into a small courtyard, where my brother-in-law and I came across a Writer’s Museum, in a three-story built in the 1600s.  (Google it.) The building was gorgeous, with one floor dedicated to each of the big three Scottish writers: Robert Burns, Robert Louis Stevenson and Walter Scott. 

Scott has an impressive statue in the middle of town, and Adam Smith (a hero of mine, as he is of all right-thinking economists) has a smaller one not far from the castle.  A bunch of kids were acting the fool around his statue, and I was barely able to restrain myself from knocking their hats off and telling them to show some respect. 

(I had the same instinct in many churches all over England and Scotland.)

I really liked Scotland and the Scots, for several reasons, including their proper appreciation of dogs.  In every small or medium sized town where we spent any time, many dogs accompanied their Scots owners – along with Welsh dogs in Wales, and English ones in the Lake District, too. 

(Walter Scott’s statue – and many paintings and sculptures of Burns – included a faithful dog at the great man’s side.)

I also like the Scots’ national self-confidence.  I ate haggis three times, and while the last was the best, it still wasn’t great.  But man, are the Scots proud of their national flower (the thistle), their writers, and their haggis!

That last meal was a dinner in a small town in the countryside, maybe 20 miles from Edinburgh, in a restaurant owned by the same family for many generations.  Two other tour groups were there with us, and I’m sure that the owner’s performance is partially a tourist-driven exercise.

But there was no mistaking their national pride, either.  The owner sang a melancholy song by Robert Burns in a very nice baritone, and then he announced the introduction of the haggis. 

A bagpiper in the back of the room belted out a tune – I like bagpipe music, though a little of it goes a long way – and as he slowly piped his way in a serpentine path among the tables, a waitress followed him, holding high a platter with the haggis.  As she passed each table, she lowered the dish so that the appreciative audience could see it.

When they had both made their way to the stage, the piper and the owner dribbled the top of it with Scotch, as they recited alternating verses of a Robert Burns poem called – I’m not making this up – “Address to a Haggis.”    

They recited the poem – one in partly confusing Scots English, and the other in regular English, and it was amazing.  It started by addressing the haggis and praising it (“Good luck to you and your honest, plump face/ Great chieftain of the pudding race!”), and ended by attributing Scottish martial bad-assery to their terrible national meal:

“But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,

The trembling earth resounds his tread,

Clap in his ample fist a blade,

He’ll make it whistle;

And legs, and arms, and heads will cut off

Like the heads of thistles.

You powers, who make mankind your care,

And dish them out their bill of fare,

Old Scotland wants no watery stuff,

That splashes in small wooden dishes;

But if you wish her grateful prayer,

Give her [Scotland] a Haggis!”

Good lord!  I tried to imagine America – after these dispiriting recent years – having that kind of patriotic pride about a national dish, and it beggars the imagination.

Can you picture an American host singing the national anthem, then announcing the entrance of the hamburger?  A guitarist could weave through the room (probably playing a Johnny Cash song), followed by a pretty waitress displaying a giant burger on a silver tray to all of the foreign tourists in the place.

When they’d made their way to the stage, the host could dribble some Kentucky bourbon over the opened bun, while he and the guitarist recited an Ode to the Burger:

“You may be named for Hamburg drear,

but you have been perfected here.

And while foreigners about their foods prattle,

you are the finest gift from cattle.”

And a closing that ties American military prowess to the hamburger? 

“While pathetic vegans, weak and pale,

choke down their gruel and at life fail,

our armies triumph like conquering lords

with bellies full of Angus and Hereford!

We won at Bastogne and Peleliu,

but not by slurping beef-less faux stew.

So let your soy boys eat their swill,

we’ll feed on the bounty of the grill!”  

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m a little choked up, and in need of a few shots of Knob Creek 9. 

Next up: my third and final entry about our trip.  In the meantime, as always…

Biden delenda est!