Thorfinn

Oh I hate to see good old classics like that Minx being banger-raced.But yes, I was there in the '70s watching it all go on. They were, after all, just old bangers to us then.

"Creamola Foam fizzes and foams Foams and fizzes Fizzes and foams" ....... As the telly advert went. Can never remember the last line. Anyway, it was like a cheap substitute for proper lemonade...and the raspberry flavour was particularly noxious as i recall...a long way from the sublime taste of "Moray Cup" (and so back to the original posting...)

I had always imagined the word would be spelt as "DERBS"...but with our accent, it could go either way! Talking of phrases past...anyone else recall "Seeken'd! Jarred a bunch!" - to mean "You've found yourself on the losing side of this argument, my friend"...or maybe that was just an Ardersier saying? Or a group chant on the terraces of Telford Park - "Ayyyyyyyy - Oh! Ayyyyyyy Oh!" (was never quite sure what that meant). And yes, sorry, a LONG way from Tramps etc!

Living as I do, perforce, in England, it's funny as hell to see the genuine worry among the English now that they suddenly have to take seriously the possibility of Scottish independence. You get a lot of "we'd better off without you" bluster, but mostly they are just outraged at the thought - they think we are uppity servants suddenly talking about leaving and taking our stuff with us. The more thoughtful of them are also horrified by the prospect of endless Tory domination. That said, I agree with a previous poster, that the Highlands would be treated by the Central Belt in just the way they complain about England treating them. For that reason, the Northern Isles have a nascent separatist movement...and i don't blame them.

Blimey! The Tryst (going back to that, for a minute) was the first place in Sneckie that me and my mates got a drink - about 14, we were, on a Saturday trip in from Ardersier - and we were so scared that we sat facing the door, convinced the Police were going to come in at any minute! This would have been early or mid 1970s. What the blazes does "Shapla" mean, anyway??

Hmmmm. "Political maverick taken out of play by the legal system". So now he can no longer be an irritant to the complacent and affluent Scottish political elite. Funny how charges were brought just when he was being effective. Julian Assange, anybody?

I've come a bit late to this conversation...but felt I had to defend Mr Bannerman just a litle bit, as I recall he can sound as Sneckie as the rest of us and he's spoken Sneckie on the wireless many a time, which is kind of brave in itself. Having left Inverness a long time ago now, I appreciate all the more the fact that our accent is unique to us, and above all is not the ugly, rasping Glaswegian whine that most of Britain thinks all of Scotland speaks. But that doesn't mean we can't laugh at ourselves a little. You never hear Londoners treating "Cockerney" as funny - that's the arrogance of the Metropolis for you - but you will hear, for instance, Lenny Henry having a go at Brummie. I know which approach I prefer.

Very, very long shot this....but it's family legend that my Dad, Simon (usually Sam) MacLennan played briefly for caley in the early 'Fifties. Don't know anything else, I'm afraid, except that he was left-footed (like me), stocky in build and curly black hair...like about a hundred thousand other Highlanders! He used to take me to games at Telford Park in the 'Sixties and early 'Seventies, he died in '72 at the age of 52 so he'd have been in his late twenties/early thirties when playing. Sadly, his hopes for me to continue the footballing tradition were not to be... Any sniff of recognition would be received with gratitude! Cheers Thorfinn

Hug