Not spot on

When watching the Football World Cup in the absence of anything (at all) to do on a very wet summer holiday in the north-west Highlands, I will admit that I didn’t know anyone on the field or any of the commentators, as I am a black hole of football knowledge.

One commentator – a Scot – was prone to uttering a mystifying phrase on a regular basis, namely ‘Spawn!’

I asked one of the family what on earth he was saying and, in the end, we managed to work out that he was saying, ‘Spot on!’

At the Battle of Waterloo, a Scots regimental commander uttered another incomprehensible expression before his head was sent for six by a French cannonball.

‘By Dand!” he cried and it remains, to this day the motto of whatever remains of the Gordon Highlanders. No one knows what, ‘By Dand!’ means, which is inconvenient, but probably, “Bide and...” something.

In what I thought was a clear instruction, I ordered a Tesco delivery last week which included a turnip. When the aforesaid turnip appeared, it was the size of a cricketball. We were so astonished, that we just fell about laughing. How was that to feed two healthy adults? Who eats turnips that size?

Apparently, a turnip in the south of England is minute. What we wanted is called a ‘swede’ and that is what we were supposed to order – in Edinburgh, mind – if we wanted a normal-sized vegetable for our meal.

Maybe Tesco could learn what things are called in Scotland? It’s called market research.

PETER HOPKINS Morningside Road, Edinburgh