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

Thursday 4 November 2010

Aggie and Shuggie 29

 

electric shock

Duggie:

[Knock knock]

Aggie:

Maggie! Wull you get tha door? It might be tha taxi.

Maggie:

Okay, Ma! [Opens the door] Oh, s’yoo.

Duggie:

Ow’s it goin?

Maggie:

Fine. Super.

Duggie:

Ah heard aboot yer da. Ow’s e daein?

Maggie:

As well as wan cud expect Ah suppays. Me an Ma is jist waitin oan a taxi tae go an see im in tha hospital.

Duggie:

Whit happened?

Maggie:

At Oggie’s. Da wis up gi’in it laldy – Oggie’s goat this new karaoke hingy in –

Duggie:

Ah heard.

Maggie:

– an Da wis jist feenished singin ‘We Are The Champions’ an e wis well pished accordin tae Oggie an e fergoat whur e wis an peed all ower tha speakers. So Oggie says.

Duggie:

E whit?

Maggie:

Aye. An thur wis sum kinda feedback ur short circuit ur sumhin an e electrocuted is willie.

Duggie:

Yer yankin ma chain.

Maggie:

Do Ah look as if Ah’m jokin?

Duggie:

Naw. Naw, ye don’t. E’s no serious? Ah mean, thur no goanne dae a williectomy ur oanyhin like tha?

Maggie:

Ah huff nae idea. Would serve im right tha’s aw Ah cun say.

Duggie:

Ow’s yer ma takin it?

Maggie:

She’s ragin wi im.

Duggie:

Aye?

Maggie:

Yoo huff nae idea. Embarassin er like tha.

Duggie:

Ah widne want tae cross yoor ma tha’s aw Ah cun say.

Maggie:

Whit’s tha ye’ve goat thur oanyway?

Duggie:

This?

Maggie:

Aye, tha hing in yer hand!

Duggie:

Jist a bottle ur Irn Bru an sumhin Ah printed aff tha computer fer yer da.

Maggie:

Whit is it?

Duggie:

Ah refyoo af yoor Jim’s poemtry book.

Maggie:

Who by?

Duggie:

Tha lassie Marion frae Dunoon.

Maggie:

Poemtry in Progress?

Duggie:

Tha’s the wan.

Maggie:

Oany guid?

Duggie:

S’no bad.

Maggie:

See us it ower ere then. Ah’ll slip it tae im befair we leave.

Duggie:

Whit aboot tha juice?

Maggie:

Nah, you hang oante tha tha noo. Ah’d raether no take oanyhin in wi us tha Ma cud yays as a weapon.

Duggie:

She’s that pissed?

Maggie:

She is that pissed.

Taxi:

[Honk! Honk!]

Maggie:

Ma! Tha’s oor ride ere.

Aggie:

Ah’ll be doon in a second, hen. Ah’m jist lookin fer ma heels.

Duggie:

Ah’d better shuff aff then.

Maggie:

Aye. Hanks fer callin roon an at.

Duggie:

No proablem. Ah’ll text yer later.

Taxi:

[Honk! Honk!]

Maggie:

Wull ye jist hawd yer hosses? Christ.

11 comments:

Marion McCready said...

Haha, how great it is to get a mention in Aggie and Shuggie, and such a er...interesting episode too!!

Anonymous said...

Almost as entertaining as this further episode of A & S (with its incursions from the Real World this time) is the reading of it. The impenetrabilities of Scottish dialect have posed an impossible challenge this time!

Dave King said...

That's got to be the b est yet! Wonderful.

Jim Murdoch said...

Glad you appreciated it, Marion. And I finally managed to get that comment up on your site. Don’t know what was happening there.

Dick, as you know my wife proofreads all my posts and so if she thinks my Aggie and Shuggies are too impenetrable she does soften them a bit. She did wonder what “gi’in it laldy” meant in English but it doesn’t translate neatly. It basically means to sing or do proudly; with great gusto. I suppose it might be a contraction of ‘loudly’ but there’s a fervour that goes with that – ‘giving it loudly’ doesn’t really cut it. ‘Laldy’ can also mean an alcoholic beverage as in, ‘Three pints of laldy please John,’ and I can only assume that it’s come to mean that because of how Scots act when they’re ‘fu o bevvy’ [inebriated].

The basic story here is that, following on from the last one, in an attempt to lose his voice so he has an excuse not to go to marriage counselling with his wife, Shuggie’s agreed to Oggie’s plan that he sing karaoke power ballads until he’s hoarse. In doing so Shuggie gets so drunk that he forgets where he is and urinates on one of the speakers; in doing so he somehow manages to electrocute himself and ends up in hospital. Maggie’s boyfriend, Duggie, hears that her dad has been hospitalised and calls, bringing a bottle of Irn Bru (Scotland’s other national drink) and a printout of a review of my book. When he hears where Shuggie has been shocked he wonders if he’ll have to undergo a ‘williectomy’. (Seriously, do I need to translate?) Maggie doesn’t know but accepts the printout. She doesn’t want to take the bottle in case her mum thumps her dad with it. Just then the taxi arrives and her mum says she’ll be down as soon as she finds her [high] heels; she will not be weaponless. Trust that helps.

And, Dave, glad you managed to wade your way through it. Where the hell to go next? We will just have to wait and see.

Conda Douglas said...

Aggie and Shuggie talk in my head when I read these posts, Jim--and I keep hearing my grandmother say, "You savvy me?"!

Fun. More.

Marion McCready said...

Jim, unless I'm going mad, I don't see a comment by you!

Jim Murdoch said...

I would be happy to provide more, Conda. All I need is another review. I know of two at least that are due but I’m completely in their hands.

Mariana Soffer said...

Really cool post, I like the way they talk and the way they are written the words. How it depicts the strange (for us) things that happen to them and their thoughts in their own world.

Jim Murdoch said...

I imagine that I would have much the same problem, Marina, if you did a little dialogue in your local lingo. The thing about Aggie and Shuggie is that they're nowhere near as caricatured as you might imagine.

Gwil W said...

Jim, that reminds me...

... there's my unread Welsh, yes it's the 'glue'. Yes, it's high time I did, yes I really must. I know. I know. I know.

Pluck ep yer kooreej mon! Git in theire. And so I will. It'll drive crazy.
But it starts so harmlessly, The sun rose up from behind the concrete of the block...

Jim Murdoch said...

Interesting to have the shoe on the other foot there, Gwilym.

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