Wha's Like Us

This always makes me proud to be Scottish and some of the younger posters here might not know some of these things... -->


The average Englishman, in the home he calls his castle, slips into his national costume - a shabby raincoat patented by chemist Charles Macintosh of Glasgow, Scotland.

He drives an English car fitted with tyres, invented by John Boyd Dunlop of Dreghorn, Scotland.

At the office, he receives his mail, bearing adhesive stamps invented by John Chalmers of Dundee, Scotland.

During the day, he uses the telephone, invented by Alexander Graham Bell of Edinburgh, Scotland.

At home in the evening, his daughter pedals her bicycle, invented by Kirkpatrik Macmillan, blacksmith of Dumfries, Scotland.

He watches the news of T.V., an invention of John Logie Baird of Helensburgh, Scotland, and hears an item about the US Navy, which was founded by John Paul Jones of Kirkbean, Scotland.

He has now been reminded too much of Scotland and in desperation he picks up the Bible, only to find that the first man mentioned in the good book is a Scot - King James VI - who authorised its translation.

Nowhere can an Englishman turn to escape the ingenuity of the Scots.

He could take to drink, but the Scots make the best in the world.

He could take a rifle and end it all but the breech-loading rifle was invented by Captain Patrick Ferguson of Pitfours, Scotland.

If he escaped death, he could find himself on an operating table injected with penicillin, discovered by Alexander Fleming of Darvel, Scotland, and given an aneasthetic, discovered by Sir James Young Simpson of Bathgate, Scotland.

Out of the aneasthetic he would find no comfort in learning that he was "as safe as the Bank of England" which was founded by William Paterson of Dumfries, Scotland.

Perhaps his only remaining hope would be to get a transfusion of guid Scottish blood which would entitle him to say...


Here's tae us - Wha's like us? (Damned few, and they're a' deid.)