Watch out! I’m the master of haggling

ON MANY holidays around the Med and the Spanish islands, we have been harassed by shopkeepers trying to drag us into their stores. One year, in the pre-euro days, I was on holiday in Lanzarote with my two brothers who, like me, were Gaelic speakers, and our three wives who were not blessed with that talent. I decided I would get my own back on the shopkeepers. I needed a new watch and thought I would buy one, but I would just speak in Gaelic to the shopkeepers. As we were looking in the window of one watch shop, sure enough, the owner rushed out and dragged us in. I had already decided which watch I wanted and told him in Gaelic where it was displayed in the window. he spoke to me in at least half a dozen languages to ascertain, in vain, which one it was. When I eventually leaned over and picked up the watch, he whipped out his calculator and put six peseta digits on it. I walked away, but he grabbed me back and reduced the digits. Again I walked away and again he pulled me back. This continued for some time, with me saying the Gaelic equivalents of ‘Man, man!’ and ‘Out of here!’ until he got the figure down to just under half of what it had started at. I was happy. I paid my money and went off proudly boasting to the others that I knew how to handle these people. Back home, I went to the nearest jewellers to find out just how much of a bargain I had, only to discover it would have been cheaper to have gone there in the first place. I kept that part quiet! Lachlan A. Macinnes,

Fleckney, Leics.