“Does this go to Glasgow?” I asked. “Near a station?”
I had stressed the second part like a typical briton on a foreign holiday, trying to make a local understand them by talking louder. It wasn’t really necessary in the event, as the driver had replied in such a thick Glasweigan accent that Rab C Nesbit himself would have struggled to pick it up.
“Aye – goestae Central – Glasgae Central!” He spat, stressing the last part in case I was a foreigner.
“Thanks – I’ll just have a single then.”
“Tae whair?”
I blinked once to see if he was taking the smeg, but he wasn’t so I told him “Glasgae Centrul” in the best scottish accent I could muster. It came out like a bad impression of the driver.
Why is that? I wish I could understand why my scottish accent is crap whenever I’m trying to put on a scottish accent. I know I spent three years in Cornwall, but that was fourteen years ago now and I’m well aware that I have a scottish accent of sorts.
Anyway, I sit on this bus after quite a surreal adventure involving crossing a field in what appeared to be the middle on nowhere, but turned out to be right beside a dual carriageway. I had turned up at the bus stop, via the field, clutching a recently burned copy of Windows 98 with absolutely no idea where I was or in which part of Glasgow.
An hour and a half before I had struck up a conversation with a stranger in a computer shop in the city. I had told him that my developers copy of Windows 98 had expired and he offered to drive me to his place and give me a copy, which was nice.
I didn’t realise at the time that the 30 minute drive was a one way trip and that Mr Helpful would bid me goodbye with a brief wave in the direction of civilisation and one of those head-tilt-wink things that scottish people do when they say “Seeyie”