Monthly Archives: February 2011

HOW do you stop these telesales people ringing you and trying to sell you double glazing or a phone service when you are tucking into your soused-mackerel salad?

Some of these guys are really persistent and can make the most expensive and rubbish offering sound like the dream you always wanted.

Then you think: no, I don’t need this. You don’t want to be rude and say go away, or words to that effect. You don’t, but actually I sometimes do.

The best thing, of course, is to register your number on the Telephone Preference Service website. It has certainly cut down the number of unwanted calls we get. Still, we get the occasional very annoying ones.

One trick I have learned is to switch to Gaelic and then insert a little sprinkling of English words that the drongo on the other end may just catch.

One phoned the other night. He tried to offer me a 50% discount on double-glazing. Whooppee, I thought. Nah, still far too dear.

So I switched to my native tongue and went into a rambling story about how wrong it would be for the only Scottish coastguard station to be in Aberdeen.

Not giving the fellow a chance to say anything, every now and again I would pop in an English phrase like “I love those Everest commercials on TV” or “See Nessglaze in Stornoway? Wonderful customer service”.

After several minutes of me plugging the opposition and berating in Gaelic the plans of Sir Alan Massey, the chief coastguard, I heard this long sigh as Mr Drongo slowly put down his phone. He hasn’t called back. I’m off the list. Mind you, I am probably now on the list called Crazy People To Call Only If You Have No Other Leads.

It’s all about communications, you see. I mucked up his communications, so I made him feel frustrated. Communications must always be clear and reliable.

Like those at the Gaelic organisation which told its staff recently that jeans were banned in the office. It is looking to shift its image upmarket, so denim will no longer be tolerated. Offenders will lose a week’s wages.

The fact that most of the staff come from people who spent their lives in dungarees is not relevant. In posher Gaelic circles, it seems, denim is now officially infra dig, which is not Gaelic but, I think, from the Latin for “beneath their dignity”.

One poor young fellow has been hauled up already for wearing grey jeans. They’re not jeans, he protests. They are grey trousers. It said so on the label and the receipt. The lad has now been given a week to find the receipt that confirms they are trousers or it will cost him hundreds of pounds.

He cannot complain about the rule. It had been communicated clearly to him. Which is why the plan to have the coastguard station in Aberdeen as the only full-time watchroom in Scotland is deeply flawed for many reasons.

The only way it could work is if everyone of Aberdonian extraction was banned from working there. I mean, have you heard them speak?

They can’t even greet you properly and they don’t finish their sentences. Fit like . . . ?

Yes, go on, Aberdeen person, and tell me who you think I compare to in a fitness way. Fit like who, for goodness sake? Are you talking aboot Big Daddy? Aboot? I’m doing it noo.

The Aberdeen station just about functions just now. There are Aberdonian coastguards, but they only get to speak to other Aberdonians and people who work in the North Sea who have been hearing their peculiar lingo long enough to know that, in the Granite City, baith is both, a puckle is a few, a quine is a girl and dinna fash yersel, min, just means there is no need to worry, sir.

Just think how disastrous it could be if people who can’t speak properly when you meet them in the street were on duty in a coastguard watchroom where they could speak to vessels all around the Scottish coast. That would be really afa. I mean, awful.

What comes out of the typical Aberdonian’s mouth is a mishmash of English, Gaelic, Old Scots and that impenetrable dialect called Doric that afflicts those who have spent too long in a grey and dismal place. The potential for catastrophe on the high seas is immense.

For instance, I am told that a regular radio call from Aberdonian skippers is: “Wye is aabody nae spikkin?”

Who on earth would have a clue what that meant? Not a west-coaster, that’s for sure. I have managed to get a translation from the cribsheet that all the other coastal stations have to decipher calls from north-east fishermen. It actually means: “I regret to inform you that we are unable to establish two-way radio communication.”

Would a fisherman from, say, Harris know that “Foos yer doos, min. It’s getting cal. Ye ken ya’ll need yer semmit on” actually means: “How are you doing, skipper? You should know the forecast is that it’s getting colder.”?

You see the potential for a terrible mix-up? Coastguards speak to skippers regularly and ask them stuff like: “Which was your last port and which is your port of destination?” In Aberdeen, though, they say: “Far hiv ye bin an far are ye gan?”

There is no denying it’s more concise. Apparently, the Doric when asking for any vessel’s port of registration is: “Far ye fae?” The problem is whether everyone would un’erstan. I mean, understand.

It wouldn’t work. Never mind that they wouldn’t have the local knowledge; our local fishers wouldn’t have a scooby what they were being telt – I mean told.

Yon Doric is catching, tae. I’m richt black affronted masel’ that ahm bleetering oan like yon Aiberdonians, ye ken?

Ahm mair sensible than maist, but ahm feart the noo. Will aabody nae help me?

Mayday, mayday, mayday.