Middle class English people acting a bit Scottish

ENGLISH Guardian readers are pretending to like Scottish culture, food and drinking habits.

Burns Night has become a firm fixture for comfortably-off English people who want to patronisingly dip their toes into the carb-heavy rawness of Scottish life.

West London architect Joanna Kramer said: “My partner Ben and I will be having a ‘wee’ supper for Burns Night. It’s going to be ‘bonny’.

“Everyone will have a little mouthful of my Waitrose organic haggis, declare it ‘interesting’ and leave the rest.

“I’ll read out some Burns verses in a slightly ironic Scottish accent and then we’ll get stuck into the whisky. I’ve managed to source alcohol-free whisky from the internet because we’re actually doing Dry January.

“Also there will be Irn Bru, or at least an Irn Bru-style homemade orange cordial.”

Kramer explained how she felt a particular affinity with Burns Night because she’s an eighth Scottish and her partner is two-fifths working class.

She said: “Burns Night is a chance to show solidarity with the indigenous tribes of the Highlands, who are so often marginalised by the mainstream media.

“For a special after-dinner treat I’ve got a ‘wee’ bag of heroin.”

Take Me Out contestant suspected of judging on looks

A MALE contestant on last night’s Take Me Out is suspected of choosing his date not on personality but on physical appearance.

Nathan Muir, a 24-year-old spot-welder from Bolton, paid little attention to the banter between the girls and Paddy McGuinness and made his final selection based purely on looks.

A chastened McGuinness said: “I am disgusted. Take Me Out is an attempt to engineer a meeting of minds, not some tawdry carnival sideshow where bodies are auctioned like meat.

“This is one occasion where we should not have, as I said last night in words that have come back to haunt me, ‘let the lemming see the cliff.’”

Muir’s date ended when he proved determined to go in for a kiss regardless of several compatibility issues that had arisen during the couple’s jetskiing trip.

Date Donna Sheridan said: “I realised that he wasn’t interested in a long-term relationship and was instead after a quick grope behind the palm trees.

“Apparently they don’t take well to that kind of thing on the Isle of Fernando, and before I could finish my caipirinha he was being burned alive in a giant wicker donkey.”