Scotland is a province of Great Britain, just like England and Wales, but they’ve convinced themselves and the world that they are a country.

Scotland is a province of Great Britain, just like England and Wales, but they’ve convinced themselves and the world that they are a country. It’s like Taiwan but without the Chinese military ready to kill everyone if America says, “Okay, you’re a country.”

When I went online to check the weather, I couldn’t find Scotland under the UK section. It was under S for Scotland. Not even Taiwan could pull that off, they were still under China. Scotland even has a pretend parliament and their own money. I love my Scottishness, don’t get me wrong, but holy shit are they ever masters at rewriting history.

Anyhoo…

This woman is 95 and attributes her longevity to five beers a day. Nobody drinks more than the Scots, except maybe Russians.
—

Hi.
—

Again with the delicious food. What the fuck happened to Britain? This used to be the home of the deep fried Mars bar. Now it’s home cooked steak pies with roasted vegetables from down the road.
—

Cults Sold Out.
—

They did “Go Outside” beautifully and played everything live, including the xylophone. They also projected old movies over their heads. Everyone loved the shit out of it.
—

Glaswegians are the least politically correct people in Europe.
—

This is a common Glaswegian headline. My favorite from last visit was “17 PINTS IN ONE HOUR KILLS KEVIN.”
—

Dragon’s Den is Britain’s (and Canada’s) version of Shark Tank. This story is about a spouse of one of the hosts attacking a Celtics fan. The two main teams there are Rangers (protestant) and Celtic (Catholic). They fucking hate each other and each team’s coach is in constant fear of losing his life. The kids of the Celtics coach have to be escorted to school by security guards.
—

It all sounds a lot less ridiculous when you’re wasted and in a huge pack of hollering buddies. As the Tartan Specials put it, “I love sex and drugs and sausage rolls but nothing compares to Archie Gemmill’s goal.” This goal happened over three decades ago and Scotland still can’t stop screaming about it.
—

Here is a bag for the match which I bought for about a million dollars. I had a meeting with some guys who are doing a movie about some Scottish soccer fans who take a submarine to the match but get lost because they’re drunk. We were supposed to talk about the movie but we just got hammered and did Michael Caine imitations. I was out of my league.

It’s from the film Zulu but Caine never actually said it in the film.
—

I fucking love this: It’s a hotel ad using a picture of a statue that’s in the city center. The statue is of a British ponce named The Duke of Wellington and the Scots fucking HATE the English, so they put a cone on his head. They’ve been doing this since the 1980s and every time the city takes the cone off, drunks stick it back on again — only people were so wasted they started getting seriously hurt climbing up there, so the city stopped taking it down. Then drunks would take it off so someone else would put it back up. But the city didn’t want people getting hurt so if they see the cone is not on his head, they put it back on. So, now vandalism is to take the cone off his head. Nothing sums up Glasgow better than this.
—

Unless maybe it’s the People’s Palace. Glaswegians decided the city’s museums were too stuffy and posh, so they made their own and filled it with bric-a-brac from their homes. Over the years I’ve seen a random stuffed monkey in there with the words, “From Maggie McClennan’s attic.” They had a big display of punk rockers once and of course plenty of Celtics VS Rangers shit. One thing that’s never left is Billy Connoly’s banana boots. I grew up listening to this song. It’s about being so wasted and broke you don’t have a ticket to get home. “And on the train, going home, I was hiding in the lavatory when the ticket man came” becomes “An’ on the train, goin’ hame, I was hidin’ in the lavee when the ticket man came biddy biddy bum bum woo hoo.”
—

Glasgow’s Archie Bunker is Rab Nesbitt and the People’s Palace has his sneakers.

Here he is giving the guy at the welfare office shit for not giving him more money.
—

You can’t have guns in Britain, which England and Wales don’t have a problem with, but in Scotland they need to protect themselves, so they make these really intense weapons. It’s not unusual for the police to confiscate a shiv or a mace or some kind of handmade nail shooting device. It’s always been this way.
—

And this is why.
—

Met a bartender wearing a Leslie Hall shirt. I asked him where he got it and he goes, “My boyfriend gave it to me and I still love him.”
—

In 1965 this bar finally caved in and built a women’s bathroom. My mom and all her friends went there because it was a big deal in the broad community. She met my dad that night and they later made this.
—

Brad Pitt was shooting a zombie movie there so the streets were filled with destroyed cars that had American license plates. Not sure why someone would travel all the way to Scotland to create Philadelphia. I smell tax breaks.
—

These have good arch support and the soles will last for at least five years.
—

At the airport, I discovered Gary Numan is now singing for Battles? Oooooh kaaaaay.
—

Drew a picture of Greek Elmo.
—

Not only did this German cow have to show the world her fucking feet, she also put her chair back into my wife’s face while watching Pirates of the Caribbean. I had to tell her that’s not on and she acted like I stuck my finger in her ass. What is it with people on planes? Here’s the deal: You can only put your seat back if you’re sleeping AND the person behind you is either doing the same or a midget or a child.

Also, you can’t get off the plane before someone who sits higher up than you. If you’re at seat 23 then let the people in 22 get organized and off the plane first. Don’t go budding down the aisle so you can get out 30 seconds faster.
—

Spider-Man looks a lot happier upside down.

-GAVIN McINNES

UPDATE: I forgot two things:

This is a great Glaswegian band. A lot of their songs involve getting the shit kicked out of them because that’s what you do there. Lyrics like, “Your body was black and blue” and “I have to say goodnight / I’m leaving before you’re punching out my lights” and “We’ll leave before our blood will hit the floor.” If you ever go to Glasgow, listen to this song on your headphones to get you into the zone.
—

There is a Dennis the Menace in Scotland and he was invented at the exact same time (March, 1951) as the American one and it’s only a coincidence. Isn’t that fucking weird?

The Scottish one is a lot more intense. Their Dennis doesn’t just antagonize some old neighbor, he terrorizes “softies” by assaulting them. A softy is a wimp but what classifies as wimpy in Scotland includes things like owning an umbrella or attending school. I bought some Beano books (where Dennis hosts a bunch of other comic characters) and a shirt for my kids, but it’s tricky explaining why such a mean asshole is cool.

Related posts:

1. UPSTATE NY: MY SUMMER VACATION PART 1
2. SOUTH CAROLINA: MY SUMMER VACATION PART 2
3. ESSEX (DIAL HOUSE): MY SUMMER VACATION PART 3
4. DEAR STREET CARNAGE: MORE GLASGOW
5. GLASGOW STORIES: I GOT A GIG