Gathering of the clans
WHO SHOULD I run into with three eagle feathers in his bonnet but the Maclaine of Loch Buie, patron of the Highland Games at Fort Nottingham, wicketkeeper in days of yore for the Durban Press XI and generally known as Drambuie.
He's just back from the 40th Stone Mountain Scottish Festival and Highland Games in Georgia, in the United States, which is on a somewhat larger scale than the Fort Nottingham gathering but conducted in exactly the same spirit with tossing the caber, walking the weight and all the rest of it; pipers, drummers, dancing lassies and lots of whisky.
Drambuie wears three eagle feathers in his bonnet because he's chieftain of the MacLaine clan. His lieutenants (the equivalent of Zulu indunas) are allowed two feathers and the clan notables are allowed one. It's the same with all the clans.
But at Stone Mountain the Maclaines, and all the others, are trumped in the feathers department by the chieftain of the MacIntosh clan. The reason is that the Macintoshes who emigrated to America in the 17th century married into the Cree Indian tribe (who it's PC these days to refer to as "Native Americans"). And the American who has inherited the chieftaincy of the MacIntosh clan (the way Drambuie in South Africa inherited the chieftaincy of the MacLaines) has also inherited the Cree chieftaincy.
This means he's allowed to wear the full Indian feathered headdress – like in the Wild West movies – feathers trailing all the way down his back. He proudly wears it with the kilt in the MacIntosh tartan. (It's a bit like the story of Scots colonial John Dunn who became a Zulu chief and had dozens of wives and scores of children – whose descendants still farm in the Mangete block, north of the Tugela. But it's not recorded whether Dunn ever had a tartan beshu).
Drambuie says it was a highly entertaining three days, though somewhat stressful because he and the other chieftains seemed to be always on some kind of raised dais where you had to be careful of pesky photographers seeking to capture the secret of what a Scotsman wears – or does not wear – beneath the kilt. His wee wifie had to keep telling him: "Sit proper!"
Aweel, it's a wee deoch an doris …
Bog and dog
A BRITISH pensioner spent 24 hours stuck in a bog, comforted only by her sheepdog, Monty.
The unnamed 82-year-old on the Isle of Wight was discovered to be missing when she failed to show for a hairdresser's appointment next day. She was found by a search team of the Hampshire Constabulary, who took 90 minutes to extricate her from the bog.
She had fallen head-first down an embankment while walking Monty in the woods during heavy rain and gale-force winds. She was taken to hospital. Her hair was an absolute fright.
Whale of a time
OVERHEARD in the Street Shelter for the Over-40s: "There were two fat birds in here last night, with strong accents. I said: 'Are you two ladies from Scotland?' They screeched: 'Wales, you idiot!' I said: 'Sorry, are you two whales from Scotland?' That's the last thing I remember."
Red cards
WHAT'S the record for the greatest number of red cards issued in a football match? In Paraguay the other day the ref issued 36 – 22 to the players on the field and the rest to the reserve benches.
It was a junior league fixture. Five minutes from the end the ref red-carded two of the players for fighting but they refused to leave the field and continued their fight. In seconds the rest had joined, in swinging punches and aiming kung fu kicks.
The ref and his linesmen then fled for the dressing room and issued the red cards from there.
The players are now all of them automatically suspended from football and are waiting to know if there will be further sanctions.
Aw, come on now. What's football without a bit of kung fu? Boys will be boys.
Tailpiece
Paddy (frantically into the phone): "My wife is pregnant and her contractions are only two minutes apart!"
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Doctor: "Is this her first child?"
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Paddy: "No! Dis is her husband!"
Last word
The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye. The more light you shine on it, the more it will contract.
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