Living with the Truth Stranger than Fiction This Is Not About What You Think Milligan and Murphy Making Sense

Thursday 27 August 2009

Aggie and Shuggie 18


no_toilet_paper_123675

Aggie:

Shuggie!

Shuggie:

Aggie:

Shuggie! Are yoo in thur?

Shuggie:

Af coarse Ah'm in ere, wumman. Thur's nae need t'shout.

Aggie:

Whit're ye daein?

Shuggie:

Whit d'ye hink A'm daein in tha lavvy – Ah'm tryin t'huv a crap an five meenit’s peace. Af that’s aw raight wi yoo.

Aggie:

Huv yoo goat oor Jim's noo book in thur wi yoo?

Shuggie:

An whit if Ah huv?

Aggie:

Wull, Ah've no feenished it masel.

Shuggie:

An that's ma fault Ah assoom.

Aggie:

Ah neffer said that.

Shuggie:

At's no ma fault af oor Jim only sent us wan book, the stingy bugger.

Aggie:

Wull, are ye dun yet?

Shuggie:

NO! Ah'm no dun.

Maggie:

Ma! Da! Cummere.

Aggie:

Whit is it, hen? Yer da's oan the loo.

Magge:

Unca Jim’s first refyoos ur up oan the Intraweb.

Aggie:

Ye don't say. Whur?

Maggie:

Pics and Poems and Library Hing

Aggie:

Stick the kettle oan, hen. Ah'll jist go an fetch yer da an we can huvva nice cuppa tea an a bit o cake an see whit they've goat t'say aboot is new book. Ah hope it's good. E gets so upset by bad refyoos.

Maggie:

Awraight, ma.

Aggie:

Shuggie! Get yer pasty owd arse oota thur. Oor Jim's ad is first refyoos.

Shuggie:

E's no. Raight. Just gie us a secun. [pause] Ah, shite.

Aggie:

Whit noo?

Shuggie:

Thur's nae paper.

Aggie:

Nae paper? Did ye no check befair ye sat doon?

Shuggie:

Naw. Ah wis too keen to steart the book.

Aggie:

Wull, ye'll jist huv t'imprafise.

Shuggie:

Whut wi?

Aggie:

Use yer immaginashun.

[sounds of tearing paper]

Yer no daein whit Ah hink yer daein.

Shuggie:

At's jist ths dedicashun tae is ma.

Aggie:

Ah'll, kill ye.

Shuggie:

At wis an emerchancey.

Aggie:

Git . . . oot . . . ere.

Shuggie:

No till ye've calmed doon

Aggie:

Calm? Ah'll show ye calm. Maggie! Nae tea fer yer da an ye cun split that last slice o Millyunaire Shortbreed between the tae af us. Yer da's no hungry.

15 comments:

Conda Douglas said...

Yay for the return of Aggie and Shuggie!

Jim Murdoch said...

Yes, Conda, and the scary thing was that it all came back to me so easily.

Rachel Fenton said...

Great stuff...I read Dave's review yeaterday, it's all good so far, no need to worry!

Jim Murdoch said...

Thank you, Rachel. What surprised me was he liked it more that Living with the Truth. Now that was unexpected . . . but I'm not complaining.

Mariana Soffer said...

Funny and interesting dialogue, alghough it is very hard to me to understand what they say, well maybe the content details where not that important, it was more relevant the marvelous talking style which was the same as the bears from the national park where like.
nice and creative jim

Jim Murdoch said...

'Aggie and Shuggie' – that would be 'Agnes and Hugh' – take a wee while to get used to, Mariana. I started writing them when the first book came out. I hate sites where the author is continually saying: "Buy my book. Buy it now!" and so I devised this Glaswegian couple – later supplemented by their daughter, Maggie (Margaret), her boyfriend, Duggie (Douglas) and, of course, the dog (simply known as 'The Dug') – as a way of entertaining my readers and pointing them to where the next reviews were. The tone is self-deprecatory. In this one I get called tight-fisted and when Shuggie realises there isn't any toilet paper he uses the book's dedication page to do the necessary. So you can expect a few more over the coming weeks.

There are no strict rules I'm afraid and pronunciations depend on context but I've tried to be consistent: 'reviews' becomes 'refyoos', 'got' becomes 'goat', 'doing' becomes 'daein' and so on and so forth. I've written the odd poem and short story in Glaswegian; I even provided a translation for one of the poems. You can read it here on page 18.

Dave King said...

What is a fan to say about another triumph? Only to be expected? Knew it would be? Another gold star script! Thanks Jim!

Catherine @ Sharp Words said...

Argh, no, now there are /more/ blogs I have to avoid until I've read and reviewed it myself...

Jim Murdoch said...

We aim to please, Dave. Thanks again for doing your review. It certainly generated a lot of comments.

Jim Murdoch said...

I don't think either of them give away any big secrets, Catherine, besides you've already read the first couple of pages so the scene has been set.

Dick said...

Another triumphant cartoon-without-pics. You were born a generation too late for that perfect pairing with Dudley Watkins!

Terry Heath said...

Well, if the novels don't work out you can always become an editor/spellchecker for icanhascheezburger.com!

Jim Murdoch said...

I don't know, Dick, Oor Wullie and The Broons are still very much on the go. The thing is, I never really read them growing up. They always felt a bit dated. The model for Aggie and Shuggie is, I'm afraid, Rab C Nesbitt, although maybe not quite as uncouth. Not that Shuggie is couth – he spells culture with a 'k' after all.

And, Terry, you know I thought you'd made up that web address. Wonderful cat photos! Shuggie may have a 'dug' but I'm very much a cat person.

R. Brady Frost said...

I bought your two books last week. Of course, it will take some time for them to be shipped to me, I imagine.

I'm looking forward to taking a gander. :)

Jim Murdoch said...

Thanks for that, Brady. Your books were posted a week ago so you should be getting them any time now. I look forward to hearing what you think.

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