by
Frank Hatton

First of all, let me offer my apologies for my absence from ‘Scottish Radiance’ during the last three months. Without getting into too many details, suffice it to say that it has been a combination of personal, and health problems, in addition to which, my computer screen gave up the ghost, and I have had to wait for a replacement. So, to any of you good folk who may have written to me, and not had a reply, I trust I will have both your forgiveness and understanding. Having cleared the air on that, let us now get back to business. Probably the biggest item of news on our side has been the massive demonstrations on the price of petrol by the truckers and farmers. They recently blockaded the oil refineries and completely shut off the petrol supplies to the whole country for over a week, and while the blockades have now been lifted, the protesters have given our government sixty days to do something about the high level of tax, (you may have read in my last column that we were approaching $6.00 a gallon in your money), the current situation now looks decidedly rocky, with both sides refusing to change their demands and attitudes, but, in spite of the very real problems that the petrol shortage has caused to the majority of our people, the protesters have had overwhelming public support in their actions. The next major issue has been our weather. Now while we British have for years been the butt of many jokes about how any conversation in this country will inevitably finish up on the subject of the weather, and how it looks like rain/ sunshine/ fog/ snow/ hailstones, or whatever other condition which looks imminent. This time we really do have justification!!!! It has rained consistently for so long, that the rivers have burst their banks, the ground is absolutely waterlogged , and whole cities and villages are flooded, with an additional problem of rats being forced up from the sewers, and invading surrounding properties,.....and at the time of writing, it is still going on........ I hear there has been a great rush on sales of the bible, because folks want to refresh their memories on how that guy Noah dealt with the problem. One of the popular TV shows over here has been the ‘Inspector Morse’ series. It is about this fictional character, ‘Chief Inspector Morse’, who is a police detective, based in the famous city of Oxford, (it has a well known university ), and his appeal is his rather unusual way of life, in his love of classical music, and opera, plus his addiction to good draught bitter beer, but, most of all for his success in solving crimes of murder etc.. The programme has been running now for some 13 years, and has a great following of viewers. Just a couple of evenings back, I was watching a documentary TV programme devoted to the success of the ‘Inspector Morse’ series, and how for various reasons he was ultimately going to be killed off in the next broadcast. While it was quite interesting in the way it looked at the reasons for the popularity of the series, I was very pleasantly surprised by the number of the countries overseas who buy and show this series. Among these was a top TV company executive from the USA, who said how much the ‘Inspector Morse’ character was liked in America, primarily because he was so different to the type of detective shown in the normal American TV series. Have any of you folks seen the programme at all? If so, what did you think of it? The reason I ask, is that some while back, some misguided soul in this country decided to make a British version of the American TV show, ‘The Golden Girls’, which incidentally was one of the most enjoyable I have seen...... Our British version was terrible, and had nothing like the entertainment value of the American show. Conversely, I recently watched an American version of a British comedy series, which over here was called ‘Faulty Towers’, and all about a zany hotel proprietor., with a domineering wife, and a lunatic staff. I forget what the American version was called, but it was painful to watch,...... nowhere near as good as the British version. My feelings are, that it is better to view either an American or a British series in it’s original form, than look at some watered down adaptation for the home market. One big advantage has come from your folk and ours viewing each others TV shows, and that is the gradual,... but, so very gradual, growth in an appreciation of the differences between the American and British sense of humour. As some of you may know, I am of an age when TV was not yet born, and I would add that we had it over here in 1936, so you can guess how long my teeth are!!! I well recall going to the cinema to see American movies many moons ago, and wondering what on earth was so funny about what had been said, that made the characters laugh, and I’m sure that it worked the other way round with Americans trying to understand the British type of humour. With the benefit of retrospect, I can understand how difficult it must have been for the early American visitors to our shores. Our currency must have been a nightmare, with the pounds, shillings, pennies halfpennies, plus the farthings, the sixpences, the half-crowns, florins, threepenny-bits, ten bob notes, etc., etc., and if you add to that the peculiarities of our humour?????? Couple of items that may be of interest,..... the old one penny piece was in actual fact cut into two halves originally, and hence came about the half pence coin. This half penny was in turn also cut into halves, and that become a fourthing of a penny, and of course from that the word somehow changed to one farthing. For those of you that do not know,.... we now (1971) have only pounds and pence, sooooo, much easier to convert to dollars and cents. At this point I feel it would be wise to finish this offering, in that having not had to suffer my blatherings for three months, you might need to be broken in gently to my return.

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You can find more articles in the archive under From Over the Pond