Vinegar or sauce? It’s a blurred line

THERE have been some great lines from history – and I don’t mean the “Infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it in for me” type. Although that is a great one.

No, I’m thinking of the physical kind. Like the Maginot Line, from which the French let loose their escargot at the Germans.

Or the Siegfried Line, over which the Germans leapt to tell the French what they thought of theirsnails.

The Thin Red Line, when Highland troops danced a conga round the Russians while wearing balaclavas.

But there is one line, one which has existed for generations, its whereabouts a mystery, which splits the people of Scotland more deeply than either independence or Brexit. I speak of the Salt ’n’ Sauce Line. I remember the first time I bought chips in Edinburgh. Having spent most of my life until then not being in Edinburgh, I assumed every chip shop was like those in Glasgow and everywhere else I’d heard about, and put salt and vinegar on chips.

So when I was offered salt and sauce I was nonplussed. Why would I want sauce? Wouldn’t it be

Does it affect voting patterns? It should affect house prices

messy? Wouldn’t it taste weird?

Having been told bluntly that vinegar was not an option, I plumped for salt alone and decided there was something wrong with Edinburgh.

But it’s not just the city, there are whole swathes of the east where sauce trumps vinegar. So what I want to know – apart from why, obviously – is where the dividing line runs.

Is there a village somewhere in Lanarkshire where you get sauce on one side of the street and vinegar on the other? Do the two sides meet every Hogmanay and assault each other with fish slices while singing traditional songs about their condiment heritage?

What does it say about you if you’re vinegary or saucy? Does it affect voting patterns? It should certainly affect house prices.

Then again, like so many lines, this one has probably become blurred. As it happens, now that I’m a Ryanair cosmopolitan type – what Theresa May would call “a citizen of nowhere” – I find I prefer mayonnaise with my chips.

Maybe Article 50 will draw a line under that.

Infamy, infamy...