Sour Alba

This afternoon, I looked out of the window and caught a glimpse through the haar of the strange glowing thing in the sky that non-Scots call “the sun”.

As I reached for my summer fleece, my eye was caught by this post from Andrew Heavens, a Scottish journalist working in Sudan. (Well, he was born and brought up in England and works in Africa but he went to uni in Edinburgh and used to work here so I claim him as Scottish.) I won’t spoil it all for you but it starts:

“You know you lived in Khartoum when…you think that 35 to 39C is a good outside temperature.”

Lucky, lucky swine.( Though his post does end with a cheery: “But anyway, back to the looming war.”)

Well, I like that idea a lot and am going to steal it. But I want to keep away from the bullshit weedgie media cliches about Hibs casuals, “sex of coal” and “mair fun at a Glescae stabbing than an Edinburgh wedding”.

You know you live in Edinburgh when:

• It’s called Embra.
• The “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” is summer, without the fruitfulness bit.
• A road is a long trench with cars sitting beside it.
• Every August you pay an involuntary levy of an extra 10% on the price of drinks and taxis.
• You know someone who knows someone who’s the inspiration of a character in Trainspotting.
• You know someone who was in Oi Polloi, The Exploited or The Proclaimers. Or you’ve been in the pub with Dick Gaughn or Andy Chung.
• The big hotel at the east end of Princes Street is called “The North British”. End. Of. Story.
• Your mum/dad/uncle/aunt’s friend insists they were on Sean Connery’s milkround OR painted him when he was a life model. They were also at Tynecastle for the 0-7 game. (It must have had a capacity of 150,000 back then.)
• Your doctor, lawyer, estate agent and mortgage adviser all went to the same school.
• A flute is something your cousin plays in her school orchestra.
• Scotland is divided into five regions: us, Fife, Borders, Highlands and apocalyptic industrial wasteland that should really be part of Northern Ireland.
• There is one condiment for fish suppers. And one only.

Did I miss anything?