Hardeep Singh Kohli: Why are Sassenachs so feart of the blether?

I HAVE no shortage of annoying traits. It would be simpler to list those few idiosyncrasies I do not have than to list the myriad annoying foibles that I have developed and cultivated over the years.

But one trait I wish to own up to is a rather anally retentive precision when it comes to language. Blessed as we are with a richness of words, phrases and idioms, it seems a shame not to search out the most apt, the most fitting language when it comes to describing events.

Perhaps I should have become more interested in a useful pursuit such as horticulture or needlepoint, but my burden would seem to be one of linguistic exactitude. (The word exactitude itself is a fine example of my linguistic exactitude: ironic, huh?)

One such instance of my desire for precise self-expression occurred but last week. I was attempting to explain to a friend how I had managed to pour orange juice into my coffee rather than milk. There was a whole issue about certain brands of orange juice being produced in glass milk bottle type containers; I'd had a late night and was still recovering from man-flu. I hadn't fully woken up and I couldn't find my glasses. In an attempt to convey the sense of my sleep-walking self that morning, I employed one of my favourite of all words. "I was in a dwam," I concluded. My English friend looked upon me blankly. "Dwam?" he responded. "What's a dwam?"

Having overcome my initial shock as to how the English have come this far without knowing the brilliant word "dwam" , I realised that I had slipped a Scots word into conversation; unwittingly. Now, I never tended to divide my words up into Scots and English words, not till I came down here and lived amongst them. Then I realised the chasm of expression that existed between us and them.

Their feet will never lowp, never truly ache the way ours do after hauling the messages home on three different buses. Somehow trying to sell the idea of playing around the bins has none of the magical charm of stoating around the middens; middens were so much more than receptacles for rubbish, the difficultly is trying to express what that "so much more" actually was. A child of English heritage is never to be threatened with a skelp, a form of corporal punishment with more menace than a slap. My brother, still resident in the fair city of my upbringing, often excuses himself while he dukes down to Byres Road to buy a Luther Vandross album. To be feart and to be scared are worlds apart on the emotional range of responses. Clyping for us back home has become grassing down here. I can't imagine the police squeezing information out of a superclype…

It would appear Kirsty Wark is the only person to employ the word stooshie south of Gretna, and my attempt to annoy a colleague by calling him a tumshie was an abuse wasted. Perhaps most noticeably of all, if a big bosomed wifie was to settle down on a bus with half the world in her bags and tell everyone and no one that "this is me since yesterday", would anyone in Manchester, Birmingham or Winchester know what she was talking about?

Dwam-gate has made me resolve to stop limiting the full use of language I have at my disposal. I intend to dust off my underused Scots words and phrases and attempt, through gradual and continual use, to educate my English friends and neighbours of the rich complexity of our Celtic ways. Either that or I will never be understood again.

The root of all innocent pleasure

I love rhubarb. I absolutely adore it. I have to confess that this love affair started late in life for me. From school dinner indifference through it falling out of gastronomic fashion during my twenties, I now find myself mildly obsessed with the pinky/reddy/green fruit. I have cooked it three times in as many weeks, punctuating kitchen-based activity with various restaurant offerings of the deliciously tart dessert. I myself refuse to limit rhubarb to a third course, although I am rather smugly self-satisfied with my rhubarb and oat crumble.
One of my personal favourites is to gently cook it with red onions, sugar and red wine vinegar to make an astringently sweet rhubarb jam, the perfect accompaniment to roast belly of pork or more adventurously served with lamb. I have also cooked rhubarb cranachan, replacing raspberries with stewed rhubarb. Poached in a sweet white wine or grilled with blue cheese I am currently embracing the rhubarb and all it has to offer, particularly rhubarb vodka jelly.

Why I never mix brain and grape

For a man that loves food as much as I do, and with the ever-expanding girth to prove it, you could quite easily make the logical link that I am equally interested in wine. They are a natural pairing. Alas, I lack any knowledge or sophistication in matters of the vine. I tend only to order wines with names I like saying.

For instance, the word "Vouvray" gives my lips a pleasing tingle as I speak it. And I love saying either "Pouilly Fumé" or "Fuissé", the difference between the suffix lost on me. I will offer stolen statements like "I do enjoy a Fleurie out of the fridge", not fully aware of the implications of such a comment. Or I will moan about Californian Chardonnays being too brash and buttery for me.

I truly have no idea what any of it means. The only wine I really like is dessert wine, the Jessie's favourite tipple. And since I am nothing but a big Jessie, I am happy to quaff the sweet, syrupy ambrosia after any and every meal.

Have a very nice day… NOT

Warden: "Is this your car sir?"
Me: "Yes. Why?"
Warden: "I am going to ask for it to be towed away."
Me: "Why?"
Warden: "It is illegally parked."
Me: "Surely you have to issue a ticket first before you tow a car away."
Warden: "Do not tell me my job."
Me: "OK. And what are the grounds for towing me away?"
Warden: "You are illegally parked."
Me: "I'm not. If you check the parking plate and look at the lines and boxes you will see that I am at liberty to remain in this parking state for another quarter of an hour at which point I must move my car not to return to the same parking area for 40 further minutes."
Warden: "I could still have you towed away."
Me: "But it would be wrong. I am legally parked."
Warden: "Yes sir, you are legally parked but you are also very annoying. We tow you away and you will have to deal with the paperwork."
Me: "Have a nice day."