Hoots, mon – let the games begin
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HOOTS, mon – it’s that time again, when the heavily kilted and scarcely panted gather together to slog it out in a bizarre array of novelty sports, music and dance events. And no – I don’t mean Prince Harry’s birthday party. It’s the start of the Highland games season, of course, kicking off today in sunny Gourock.
Harry’s birthday does, however, fall at the end of the season, in September, and may well be a kilted affair with eccentric events and minimal underwear, but I’m pretty sure we’re not invited to that.
We are, meanwhile, very much invited to enjoy, in our droves, the 90 Highland games being held all over Scotland between now and Harry’s birthday – by which time we’ll be all kilted oot and dying to get some pants and trousers on.
But if you’re heading down to Gourock Park this afternoon, why not get tartaned up and into the Highland spirit (single malt) while the season’s young.
According to the official Discover Scotland Highland games Calendar, you can look forward to a “day of tartan, music and tradition”, with plenty of “piping, drumming, athletics and dancing competitions”.
From today onwards, there will be at least one Highland games event taking place in Scotland every weekend, so there really is no excuse for missing out – unless, of course, you hate Highland games for some reason, in which case you and I could never be close friends.
You see I love Highland games – for lots of reasons. First of all there’s the talent – have you ever seen a finer set of brave, brawny men kilted up and sweating it out for all to see?
Tug o war has to be one of the sexiest sports known to man, and as for tossing the caber – the sheer raw, animal power that ripples through those arms and legs as Mr Porridge Oats lifts that almighty pole just makes me weak at the knees – and often has the same effect on him.
Then there’s the massed pipe bands and drummers whipping up an atmosphere so highly charged that even the nearby dead feel quite alive.
I have to confess, I’m no fan of the bagpipes in general, especially when played on Princes Street in Edinburgh, or just about anywhere else for that matter, but at a Highland games they come into their own, and I love them. I especially love the look on all those blawn-oot faces as they march and play around the games park.
I LIKE the Highland dancing, too, and the hill race. I even took part in a hill race once, at the Braemar Gathering, and did quite well – but almost killed masel. Never again.
I love the tug o war (I’ve said that already, haven’t I?) and the “heavy events” – more of them later (fwoaar), and the quaint little stalls, and the whisky, and the merriment, and to just take in the great Caledonian outdoors.
The other major draw for me is the sheer eccentricity of the events. As an obscure sports enthusiast – I do love dodge ball, pillow fighting, three-legged racing, fly-tig, stone skimming, and such like – the weird and wonderful selection of brawny and just plain zany events that make up your average Highland games tickles me no end. In this year’s diary, we have everything from hurling the haggis to pillow fighting (a favourite, as I’ve said), wellie-boot throwing, tossing the sheaf, salmon and trout casting, axe throwing, historical re-enactments, falconry, sled-dogs, parachute displays, wrestling, haggis-eating competitions and grass cycling – how very bizarre. And that’s just the novelty events.
The core competitions, common to every Highland games, comprise various running, jumping and throwing, or “heavy” events – which, in themselves, don’t sound that wacky, but when you consider what is being thrown (everything from hammers to telegraph poles and arbitrarily weighted metal objects) and where and in what attire people are running (up a mountain, or “hill”, or in a kilt, as in the “kilted mile”) you’re in a whole different games park.
LET’S face it, the Highland games is no place for wimps. It’s a real “come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough” kind of gig, and that’s why it’s got so much raw sex appeal. It’s primaeval, rough and ready – full of grunting and sweating and huffing and puffing. It makes the Olympics look like tiddlywinks (not to disparage tiddlywinks – another fine obscure sport).
If the Olympics and the Highland games had a fight, the Highland games would trounce it with a single blow of its 21lb weight (why it needs to be that weight, I do not know), whip it with its caber, hammer it with its hammer and throw it several kilted miles to kingdom come.
My Highland games enthusiasm has been fostered mainly at the Braemar Gathering, where good friends of mine host an annual mini gathering of their own – complete with barbecue and edible treats galore, and all in perfect eye-shot of the pipers, Queen and crowds as they head to and from the games park.
At Braemar, I have eyed up many a rugged tug o war team and many a kilted caber-tossing hunk. I have marvelled at the ancient, yet novel, traditions being played out year after year and laughed, and gasped, and swooned, and once or twice been tempted to take part – and only once been brave enough to do so.
Needless to say, coming 24th in the hill race, 2003 was one of my proudest, craziest, happiest moments yet – especially as I got photographed at the finish line with the RAF tug o war team.
Hoots, mon, indeed – let the games begin. And if you’re not going to be in Gourock Park this afternoon, there’s always the rest of Scotland and 89 more games days to get your bare bahoochie into gear.
But please, feel free to wear underwear if you’re female, or “not hard enough”, or if you’re English, as midges can smell the blood of an Englishman a kilted mile off, and are merciless. Like I said, Highland games are not for wimps. Take porridge.
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