NOLA and Glesga Humour!

I've just read an interesting wee post on longayelander's blog about how my fellow Scots are doing what they always do when faced with a frightening situation - they laugh about it!!

There is a true William Wallace in the midst of Glasgow (that's GlasGO) and his name is John Smeaton. He ruled the airwaves of the British media bringing the big lovely rolled up vowels of the Glaswedgian working class to the confusion of anyone outside of Govan. His heroism has been told and retold - how it was 'ah good job ah wis there' - to knock one of the men from the Jeep to the ground to let the 'polis' arrest him. It has inspired a website where people have bought him 1,000 pints to say thank you! There you can witness the youtube videos of this great man of Glesga patter!

My favourite quote (same as Katie's) on the website is the following:

"Those hapless al-Qaeda boys were to find out that Glasgow has no respect for international terrorism. Nobody gets between 10,000 Weegies and a £99 week in Ibiza booked on Thursday night through Barrhead Travel.

And most of all, no-one messes with The Polis. Not in this town."

It all feels very similar to NOLA. The satirical costumes of mardi gras, the New Orleans satirical paper "The New Orleans Levee" subtitled 'we don't hold anything back'. The bloggers' biting wit.

Maybe this is why I feel at home here. Whilst the rest of America quakes in fear of this war on terror, N'awlins laughs at the ridiculousness and tries to find humour in the sorry state of affairs that is post-K NOLA, so that humour can carry us to another day.

I get wet, I get dry

I've been neglecting my blogs recently - I've thought of posts, not got round to posting them or quite simply just felt blah.... I'm sure its just my adjustment to my summer....

Anyway....

I've just been to my local (and favourite) coffee shop, Rue De La Course on Magazine St and devoured the Sunday Times Picayune and the Sunday NY Times. Lots of fodder for my grey matter (and future posts..). However I do miss the Observer and Scotland on Sunday - reading them online just isn't the same and the chances of me smearing my forehead with newsprint ink is far less likely. I love having a Sunday to commune with newspapers. I firmly believe that was what God truly intended "His" day for!!

I was walking home along Magazine when it began to drizzle. I thought about how rare it seems in N'awlins to find drizzle, that widely loved and hated Scottish phenomenon. N'awlins Fog there is plenty of - particularly in the Autumn and "Winter". But drizzle, no. And I thought that, other than my newspapers getting a little soggy, how nice it was to walk in warm drizzle.

It made me think of Stefan, one of my parents' friends from Belgium. We went on holiday as a family to Brussels to see Stefan when I was about ten. I remember we went for a walk in the woods and it began to rain. My Mum quickly got out our waterproofs and kitted us out. But Stefan just stood there in his shorts and T-shirt in the rain getting wet. My sister, brother and I used to the bone-chilling aspect of Scottish rain, were shocked. "You'll get wet!!" we cried. "I'll get dry again!" Stefan replied.

So I was walking in the spirit of Stefan when N'awlins decided to defy me and show how rare indeed the event of N'awlins drizzle is, and really rain. Luckily I was spared the usual downpour - when the heavens open and God dumps his bath water on your head! But my newspapers are decidedly soggy!!