Published in Press and Journal 28/3/2011
I’LL tell you what’s a lovely word and miles better than its English equivalent. Norrag.
Great word. Nor-rag. It suggests something rare and small, yet it is so precise that it must be something you can only benefit from.
Everyone has heard someone use it, but they often forget to check with their local teuchter to find out exactly what it means.
You must always get the meaning confirmed when you come across an unfamiliar Gaelic word. It could mean anything.
I used to have an old English-born widow for a neighbour. Let’s call her Mary, because that was her name. She told me once how she always felt better for the rest of the day if she slept for half an hour after lunch.
So I would cheerfully inquire if I saw her in the afternoon as to whether or not she had taken her norrag yet. It means a nap, you see.
However, each time I asked, for some strange reason, the battling grannie would immediately scold me in that mischievous way that reminded me of a comedian off the telly.
“Oh, stop it. What do you take me for?” she would say, before giving me a clout round the back of the head for my trouble. I got walloped every time.
Don’t think 78-year-olds can’t hurt you. Ouch.
Her assault made me feel like the foil for that blousy Dick Emery character. When asked some question with a saucy double-meaning, the response was always: “Ooh, you are awful. But I like you.”
The comedian would then playfully thump his open-mouth victim before scurrying off on unfeasible heels. It felt a bit like that.
After months of being assaulted by this pugilistic pensioner, I discovered she thought a norrag was a dram.
Convinced I was suggesting she was on the gin rather earlier in the day than would be proper for a gentle-lady of her years, her strategy to stop me besmirching her reputation was to knock seven bells out of me.
Kenneth Clarke had 40 winks during the chancellor’s Budget speech. Mind you, having seen him recently turn up in parliament with a black eye, maybe I shouldn’t ask if he enjoyed his norrag.
How to have a norrag
Dick Emery reminded me of the women on high heels I saw the other day, rushing for the Point bus.
Two of them atop the highest heels somehow tripped on the pedestrian crossing outside the Clydesdale Bank. Poor dears, they ended up in close contact with the tarmacadam.
A double Naomi Campbell. Four ankles, knees and heels flailing about as the wee green man, and goodness knows what else, was flashing away.
Sorry, ladies. It wasn’t funny. Probably quite sore afterwards, were we? Could have happened to anyone. They were just unlucky.
And how do I know all this? They may remember that white van man who stopped at the lights and offered to help them in their moment of humiliating distress? ’Twas I. Yes, I saw it all.
Only their pride was badly bruised, I hear. I don’t know why I mentioned it. I promise I won’t do it again – at least not without naming names to really give the lassies a red face to go with their red behinds.
When it comes to naming names for the most surprising broadcast this week, I think the prize goes to the BBC’s Gaelic request programme Durachdan.
Normally, tuning in to Radio nan Gaidheal at teatime on Friday, you can be sure you will hear fine old Gaelic songs sung the way they should be, often by great, talented people who are no longer with us – and Costello, of Flair fame.
Not so at the end of last week. Not only did Ailig in Inverness and his co-presenter in Aberdeen, the other Ailig, have a certain jauntiness not often found in traditional music programmes, but they even played a track from a top-selling international chart star with fans in the millions.
Not Costello this time.
They played Cee Lo Green. He’s the guy who did the song with the rude lyrics that eventually became the cleaned-up chart-topper Forget You.
Cee Lo Green on Na Durachdan? How did that happen? It’s like Aled Jones doing Songs of Praise from The Free Church (Continuing).
It turns out that Green, who was also the guy in that Gnarls Barkley outfit which did Crazy a few years ago, recently did a New York R&B tune called The Language of Love. And it’s got loads of Gaelic in it.
And it’s no bad – as far as misty-eyed Gaelic ballads with a hint of R&B go.
Neither Ailig nor Ailig, both veritable masters in the art of analysing Gaelic performances, had any clue who was the female Gael with the delightful tones.
They even appealed for listeners to help. Not a beeg from anyone, even though that programme has listeners calling in from places like Australia, Algeria and Airidhbhruaich.
What do I think? Methinks it’s Cathy Ann MacPhee, who is nowadays to be found in Ottawa. Cathy Ann still hasn’t answered my question asking if that is her. So I think it probably is.
The Barra-born First Lady of Gaelic Song is probably thinking: “That big star Cee Lo Green wants me to keep my role in this song hush-hush and now Maciver is on my Facebook asking tricky questions about it. Trust him to recognise me.
“I’d better not upset an international superstar in case he is planning to give me a bigger role in something else. What am I going to do? I’d better not respond. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do. Nothing.”
Either that, or it’s not Cathy Ann at all.
Come on. Let me know, m’eudail. I can’t sleep until I find out.
Unlike Kenneth Clarke during the Budget speech. Still, he didn’t miss much that was interesting. Just that 1p cut from petrol.
You know, I don’t think etrol has quite the same ring to it.
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Mata Macdonald, son of George Macdonald of North Uist Estate and previously Stornoway Trust, is in the top 20 in the Amazon charts. Here he is with a song about the lighthouse keepers on Flannan Isle.
