The latest topical insights from Aberdeen musical sketch comedy team, The Flying Pigs.
View From The Midden, with Jock Alexander of MTV
It’s been an egalitarian week in the village. As August arrived, along wi the collective incredulity that we’re echt months into the year a’ready, there wiz mair disbelief at the unprecedented scenes on the telly.
Hearing the mass cries o’ delight fae the village pub on Sunday nicht, I wiz curious tae ken fit wiz gan on. Wi ab’dy crammed inside staring intently at the 15 inch screen – biggest in the village! – I wiz somewhat confused by fit seemed tae be an affa exuberant Neil Diamond convention, wi’ ab’dy singing Sweet Caroline aff key, in the style o’ Rod Stewart at the Jubilee concert. But, in fact, it wiz the fitba.
Fan I heard there wiz lionesses on the pitch. I thoucht tae masel ‘“Crivvens, the game’s gone a bittie ‘Gladiator’, has it nae?” But it turns oot it wiz something even mair unbelievable – an England fitba team actually winning a European Championship final against some Germans. Michty.
Of course, the cherry on top o’ this particular cake wiz that it wis the Women’s Championship, and after years o’ being patronised or disregarded, they hiv deen fit a’ mannies in cherge o’ the game hinna managed and ‘brought it hame’. So verra much one in the eye for those fa dinna hae the full set o’ chromosomes.
Noo of course I wiznae een of the 87 thoosand fit attended at Wembley Stadium nor am I een o the 17.4 million fit saw the maist-watched women’s fitba final of a time on TV a’ the wye through. I am nae a fitba fan. I ken this is a controversial view, but I spend enough o’ ma days chasing about fields worrying about leathery ba’s fan ma bull gets loose. But I am delighted for the ladies.
Of course oot here in the wilds we hiv lang been equal opportunities – we are perfectly happy for baith sexes tae work theirsels tae death in the fields, get drookit in the horizontal rain and get sprayed in dubs by a passing Massie Ferguson. And indeed in Feel Moira we hiv a veritable colossus o’ formidable feminine power of whom we are aywis proud. Or at least terrified. Needless tae say she has been inspired by the Lionesses’s success and has been rallying the wifies o’ the local W.I. tae jine her in a village womens’ fitba team fit she’s unwisely named the Miekle Wartle Warthogs.
Luckily for the aul wifies, Moira is a unique specimen fa can happily function as a one woman fitba team all on her ain. Ony opponent fa sees her thundering towards them on the pitch will instantly get oot the road or risk being flattened like a country pancake. They think it’s all over? It will be fan Moira tramples richt o’er ye. Cheerio!
Cava Kenny Cordiner, the sports pundit who’s top of the medal table
Even though the football season is back up and rumbling, Old Kenny has found his self more focused on the corny-copier of diddy sports on offer at the Commonwealth Games.
I love watching the sports that you don’t often not see on the telly, like netball, which is basketball without the dribbling, squash which is tennis for agoraphobics and bowls, which is like curling for folk who can’t stand on a skitie floor.
And there is no doubting who my Games heroes has been. I was glued to the edge of my fingernails watching Rosemary Lenton bag a gold in the bowling at the ripe old age of 72, and then George Millier took his at 75. Not even Old Kenny is as old as that! I found their achievement so perspiring, I headed down to the Garioch Bowling Club to see if there was life in the Old Kenny Dog yet. Fair play to Rosemary and George – it’s not as easy as it looks. As soon as I bent down to bowl my first bowl I raxxed my back and knackered my knee!
I has to confess, I thought “Commonwealth” was like when me and Doug Rougvie was on the same wages at Pittodrie, but it turns out it’s something to do with the Queen and all the countries that the UK used to lord it over. So we can count ourselves lucky that athletes from all that different countries are willing to come and take part. In Birmingham.
It also means that with gold medals for the likes of Eilish McColgan, Duncan Scott and Neil Fachie, instead of being a whippet boy on the international stage, Scotland is now a horse to be reckoned with!
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