The crunch and kilts

Well, the world has not imploded yet... but there are tough times ahead as we were told this morning that the North East of England offices of Trinity Mirror are being merged into one, in Newcastle. What does this spell for us in Scotland? Speculation is rife, as you can imagine, but we'll just have to take each day as it comes. If redundancy does loom this will be the second time I have been through it. The last time was with the Scottish Standard, a short lived newspaper project based in Paisley back in 2005. That project was run by a fairly unpleasant fellow with an ego the size of Scotland who, for some reason, refused to advertise his new newspaper, thus making it's sales figues horribly low. There probably was not the market for yet another newspaper anyway but still I am sure the promotion was to blame for the whole disaster. Is there any job out there that is safe nowadays though? There was news today of Seguro Holidays and XL Leisure Group going bust and leaving thousands of passengers stranded at holiday destinations. The economic crisis being blamed and the high cost of fuel. Another victim of the credit crunch. Still, at least they have got an excuse for the boss if they can't get home on time and have to spend another arduous day on the beach or by the pool.
As a result of all this I'm feeling slightly depressed about money at the moment. I'm supposed to be getting married next year?! Ka and myself may end up in Ayr for the honeymoon or taking the tent to Whithorn. I may end up having to get one of those towel kilts from Clinton cards and a 'Hey Jimmy' hat for my wedding outfit. Or maybe Lidl are still selling their kilts. The German supermarket chain were selling cheap kilts for Burns Night back in January for £25. Critics said they had a tendency to itch. I'm not a fan of wearing a kilt at the best of times. I remember wearing the whole kilt outfit to my Uncle Laurence's wedding and feeling uncomfortable the whole day. The whole thing felt lopsided sitting on me. What made matters worse was I had to do a flamin' reading as well. I hobbled up to the podium feeling like a scottish hunch back.
Why is it that your not a true Scotsman if you wear anything under the kilt? Who says?! It's tradition, they say. Tradition, my arse! It's a myth invented by the military. When you were younger you'd wear a kilt to these weddings and all you'd get was drunk people staggering up to you and asking in a slurred, leery voice, "Are you a true scotsman then?". Another question you get is "What have you got under there then?". I always wondered why people would ask this question with it's fairly obvious answer. If it's a bloke what you should reply, "Same as you, only bigger". If it's a woman you should say "My mum once told me a real lady wouldn't ask - and she was right". Women like kilts though. Chaz wore a kilt one New Year on the streets of Glasgow and barely survived the night. The women of Glasgow seemed to transform into crazy tazmanian devils! Needless to say he loved every minute and needless to say, there'll be none of that nonsense at my wedding (I mean the lifting of kilts not crazy Glaswegian women).