Word: scottishly
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...this patchy, fast-paced comic novel, Irish-Scottish Honor Tracy emerges as a satirist wielding bludgeon and scalpel in defense of the Establishment-that in domitable, mutual-aid group of clergy, big business and old school ties who rule Britain, no matter who wins the elections. Her hero, a proper and rather priggish young Briton named Henry Lamb, is sent to Trinidad in the West Indies as correspondent of Torch, a lit'ry weekly "that's going to teach us all to live." In Trinidad, gushes Torch's lisping editor, "the dwegs and outcasts of the community...
...illnesses of the people." Barker has considerable respect for the sincerity of the witch doctors, who regard their vocation as divinely inspired-but very little for their knowledge. One of them tried to cure Barker's hay fever with a mysterious, gagging brew that "tasted like a Scottish peat bog." It didn't work, Barker adds...
Englishmen, who recall that nine of "their" Prime Ministers since the mid-18th century have been Scots, find this Scottish sense of grievance hard to understand. Last week, noting that Prime Minister Macmillan, Colonial Secretary Iain Macleod, Foreign Secretary Lord Home, the chairman of the London Stock Exchange and a clutch of Britain's biggest tycoons are all Scotsmen, London's Tatler declared: "There are those who maintain that the Act of Union has turned out to be more of a Scottish takeover bid." But the Scots have an answer to that one, too. "Once a Scot goes...
...their distinctive, Roman-influenced legal system, which features 15-man juries, permits the un-English verdict of "not proven"-meaning "we know you did it, but we haven't got enough to pin it on you." With justice, Scotsmen boast that their school system (which teaches the Scottish slant on British history) is superior to England's. The true Scot scorns such English institutions as cricket and fish and chips, preferring a hip-twisting Scottish reel and finnan haddie simmered in milk, which he compares to the finest French cuisine...
Takeover Bid. Only a relative handful of Scots sympathize with Wendy Wood's demand for complete Scottish autonomy; only once (1945) has a Scottish Nationalist been elected to Britain's Parliament. But all Scotsmen reserve the right to blame England for everything from Scotland's inordinate unemployment (3.1% in Scotland v. 1.4% for Britain as a whole) to its high rate of emigration (21,000 people last year) and occasional lapses from the stern Scottish morality. "Our illegitimacy rate," they enjoy pointing out, "is highest in those parts of the country that border England...