The Boy Who Likes To…

A wee bit of Scottish culture

Here are just a few things that I have noticed about Scotland (this excludes their fascination of referring to ‘Nessy’ as a person.
So here is my things found out while in Scotland

This is a little more work related, then Scottish related. But in the bathroom on the floor I am on, the hot water tap has a warning advising
“Warning Very Hot Water”
I’ve seen this warning many times before and know that the water, will indeed, be very hot.
But as I went to the loo on the bottom floor, I went to wash my hands and turned on the cold tap and had my hands slightly burnt, well not really burnt, but that kind of burnt you get from hot water. It seems that the bottom floor hot/cold taps are the opposite from the 4th floor ones. I just have to keep my eye out in other toilets.

While out, hunting and scavaging for food, no way Im using work’s overpriced canteen, I came across a Gregs bakery. Well it wasn’t an accident really, I had been tipped off. So I headed down there as I know what they serve as that is the place where I normaly eat when in my home town (must remember to go Benjy’s next week).
One of my regular sandwiches is the the chicken mayo. Where I am from this comes with a tomato. Where my missus is from this has tomato AND cucumber (although I remove the yukky cucumber). But up here the chicken mayo comes with no tomato or cucumber. It’s funny how the same company can have the one sandwich but sell it in different variations.

In a conversation with Soup, it has come to my attention that alot of people use the word wee in Scotland. I half expected this to be a stereotype kind of think. I hadn’t noticed it too much while up here. This is due to everyone in the hotel being from main lan Europe, and only about 50% of the workers in the office, or around me, being Scottish. But last night in a conversation with a Scotsman it was the only word I could hear him clearly say. “blahblahWEEblahblahblahWEE…” and so on.
But across from my work is this shop that will confirm ‘Wee’ is a favourite word of the Scots.

The Wee Shop. A shop for Soup, her wee skirts for Not-So-Wee-Gay-Nights-Out.

Pulling an Italian job on my bank.

So I lost out to girl voters. Damn it. I need more male readers.

The boy who likes to socialize.

 My employers have messed up my pay. Working for an agency means I pick up my pay weekly and if my wage slip isn’t authorised by Monday afternoon I miss my pay.
I have to hold my hands up and say, in all the madness of the late arrangement of coming to Edinburgh I forgot to send my wage slip to my boss. But did so on Monday. But it was too late. I got a call from my agency simple telling me that I wouldn’t be paid.
My next wage would be for two weeks, but in two weeks.  And I have direct debts coming out within that time.
There is a way around this, involving picking up a percentage of my wage by cheque. But that means I have to be at my home to get cheque and cash it. I wished there was a better way.
So I spoke to my bank. I asked if there was a way that I could get an small overdraft of perhaps, if not (as I hadn’t been banking with them long) transfer some cash from my credit card to my account.
I asked for a tiny overdraft, as I didn’t want to be given the opportunity to get in trouble, especially before moving home. But I was told that if I wanted to increase my overdraft it would cost £25 to do so, so maybe “I should think about increasing the overdraft as the maximum is £500.”
FIVE HUNDRED SMACKERS!!!
I couldn’t agree to that much, but it’s nice to see how helpful my bank want to be by giving me a credit card and offering a £500 overdraft having, not only been with them for about 4 months, but also that I join them having no previous bank account. Nice folk. 🙂

So having lost out 2 nil to girl votes on whether or not to go out last night, see previous entry, I went out for a meal with my work colleagues. I was seconds away from hanging up the phone to a friend, leaving the bar and heading to my room for room service and the football when a colleague met me in the bar
We took a walking tour around Edinburgh, from the Castle, in some loop-de-loop and to near the train station, in the cover of darkness. Throughout almost the whole of this walk I was desperate for the loo and didn’t really pay much attention to the conversation.
After what felt like a life time walking with my legs as close to be crossed as could be without actually crossing and in freezing weather we made it to a few restaurants. After umming and ahhing we deicded on a little under street level Italian place.
I went straight to the loo and on my way past the wash room seen some staff watching the Chelsea game so stayed and watched the game with them for a few minutes before rushing back to the table.
The night was alright. Some good laughs. Except at one point the conversation was stuck on wedding dresses. (One girl is wearinga  cape, I’d like to see how someone puts a cape on a wedding dress. Really!)
The meal was nice, not as good as the hotel food – I may slightly be turning to Alan Partridge, I know this. But afterwards we went to some bar called The Dome. It was very grand and very veryu pretty with all its flashing Christmas lights. Except from when the tree lights changed to red, and instead of softly changing colour then just flicked to red making people stumble as they stood chatting.
But everyone is out again tonight. So hopefully get to see a little more of the city.

I heard today on the BBC morning news that they can make a fleece out of 6 (or 12) plastic bottles? I never knew fleece come from bottles!