Many of you, my dear readers, will know what a Weegie is but many of you will not. A Weegie is a Glaswegian. The Scottish equivalent of a Liverpool Scouser. The difference being that Weegie has an obvious link with the term Glaswegian and Scouser has no grammatical link to Liverpudlian. (I do like rambling introductions).
There has been a rumour for the last couple of centuries that the folk from Lewis are a dour Presbyterian lot. Presbyterian many may be. Dourness is, however, fading fast and, even then, I'm not sure a many deserved the accolade.
Some years ago a number of statues began to appear in Stornoway. This is one of them. Recently someone with a sense of humour (and probably with Glasgow connections) has tried to outdo the Weegies as their own game.
So what, you might ask, is the Weegies game? It is adorning the head of the Duke of Wellington statue outside the Museum of Modern Art in Glasgow's Royal Exchange Square with a traffic cone.
There's a larger than life stone statue of Venus in a nearby town. The local scalawags often paint a bra and pants on the poor thing. The authorities always remove it.
ReplyDeleteCro it's a long time since I heard the term scalawag. In fact in Liverpool it was 'scallywags' and shortened to 'scally'.
DeleteThat's how I say it too, but 'spellcheck' corrected me.
DeleteSo that horse in Stornoway must be a ... duplicone ?? ... ;)
ReplyDeleteVery droll Monica.
DeleteI didn't know putting traffic cones on statues' heads is a favourite pastime of Weegies, and that the trend has spread to Lewis!
ReplyDeleteAs for rambling introductions, I thought I am the master of that :-)
I think, Meike, that it's just the one particular statue. The Glasgow Council has done a lot to try and stop it but it's so iconic that I think they may now have given up.
DeleteNow I'm laughing at "iconic"...
DeleteI love the horse; and the cap on the Duke of Wellington with his hand on his hip tickles my sense of humour! Love it! :)
ReplyDeletePerhaps you can become an honorary Weegie Lee.
DeleteI probably already am, Graham. I'm of Scottish heritage on my maternal side...Irish on my paternal side...which probably accounts for many things! lol
DeleteScouser come from Scouse which is virtually an Irish Stew.
ReplyDeleteI think to elaborate more, Heron, scouse comes from lobscouse which was a stew eaten by sailors over a wide area of Europe (of which Liverpool, of course, had a great number) and Liverpudlians simply inherited the moniker.
DeleteOh my goodness. that horse will haunt me for some time to come. I wish I hadn't seen it just before going to bed :)
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry about that Jenny. Don't worry though. He's a very docile horse.
Delete.....The dear Dukie, however just makes me laugh!
ReplyDeleteThe Duke, on the other hand Jenny, is probably quite upset by the fact that his treatment does make everyone laugh.
DeleteIf I was going to put a cone on that Duke statue, I'd hang it UNDER the horse! Kind of like a modesty patch, only louder.
ReplyDeleteMrs S there's no such thing as modesty in Glasgow.
DeleteThis made me smile and reminded me of one of our local statues...a white coral stone lion at Gun Hill which was painted overnight in Rastafarian colours...red, gold and green.
ReplyDeleteI must write a post about that lion statue soon.
Virginia I look forward to that post.
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