Bothy McWeevil – On The Road Back To “Civilisation”

As the Bothymobile travels from Oban to and past the Glasgow/Edinburgh population belt, will the tourist offerings become more or less creative? 

1. Nessie Droppings

All children, of any age, like jokes about poo, and chocolate covered raisins are a confectioner’s dream when it comes to poo jokes.  But the Nessie Droppings are “Mini Mixed Fruit Boiled Sweets”.

Bothy feels that even he would find this a callous piece of marketing exploitation taken too far, although he was spotted scribbling down some notes about Thistle Droppings.  It has been entered for the “Biggest Disappointment On Opening The Box” award, an award which he says has seen some very good quality entries over the years.

The “wee tin” might also have some potential for Sassenachs who don’t know (or maybe don’t care) that “wee” is the Scottish for small.

2. Elephant Polo

The present Duke of Argyll has “captained Scotland to victory in the World Elephant Polo Championships”.  Sponsored by Chivas whisky while he was working as Brand Ambassador for… Chivas.

Bothy wondered how many teams you need to create a World Championships and estimated that the minimum was probably two.  He thoughtfully wandered off muttering about the possible rules for a World Thistle Throwing Championship, with the sole authorised provider of championship-quality thistles to be one Mr B McWeevil.

But the Golden Spurtle remains the leading contender for the “Invent The Event And They Will Come” award.

3. SecretScotland.org.uk

Looking at the route ahead on the OS Map, Doris notices a collection of carefully-spaced buildings that can only be a munitions depot. This site has lots of interesting information about it and in fact if you go to their contents page you will find the most extraordinary list of… well… things.

However, Bothy notices that they have failed to monetise the site, leading to some grumbling on their part on the cost of hosting.  But if the point of the site is to expose secret things then you can’t really start selling your visitors’ information to advertising sites.  So, sadly, this can only really be nominated for the “You Are Not Going To Get Rich Doing This” wooden spoon award.  There will be a short pause now while Bothy goes and clicks through on some of their truly fascinating entries…

4. Devil’s Porridge Exhibition

As Sid drives derminedly non-stop down the A75, the most amazing sign is seen.  The Devil’s Porridge Exhibition is a mere measly ¾ of a mile away and Bothy and Doris both try their utmost to get Sid to turn right.

Because it turns out that Devil’s Porridge was the name that Arthur Conan Doyle coined for one of the early stage processes in the manufacture of Cordite, and the factory at Gretna was a key centre for making shells in WW1 and WW2.  There are interactive exhibits and it had its own railway and everything.

As it turns out there were no tickets available for the whole of the rest of the morning, so even if they could have got Sid to stop, this would have qualified for the “I Didn’t Know I Wanted To See That And Now I Am Devastated That It Is Shut” award.

5. Gretna Green

You may think that you can get married pretty well anywhere in the UK now, but the key question is WHEN can you get married.  And the answer in the UK is still “not in the next 28 days”, because you have to give that much notice.