so eh how about it

While I was in Scotland someone told me about this ad they used to have up there where a lad practices his chat-up routine before he goes out on a Saturday night. He fancies this one girl, Sarah, and he tries out what he's going to say, tests out various lines, until finally, washed and brushed up, he hits upon his tack, a smooth, sophisticated, gentle, friendly tactic: "Sarah, you know I really like you." Cut to the party, a typically Scottish alcoholistic affair, and our lad, well pissed, spots young Sarah in the kitchen. She looks hopefully at him, touches her hair, and he seizes his moment. He lurches toward her, and over the blaring music delivers his now degraded epistle: "Sarah, I really fancy you so ... eh ... how about it?" Cue repugnanted revulsion by Sarah and Cupid's bow is once again at rest.

The message is, of course, that you don't need to drink 15 bottles of Buckie before you mingle with the opposite sex, in fact you might be better off drinking only 10. Or 11, but no more than you need to keep out the cold. But the Scots didn't much go for that message and instead claimed this advert for themselves, and so "I really fancy you so ... eh ... how about it" became the number one chat-up line round the country, especially used by schoolboys on their teachers. The slogan even has its very own facebook page. I seem to remember that the Heroin Screws You Up campaign of the mid-eighties was said to have given birth to junkie chic. Perhaps government adverts are just always going to go wrong.

anyway, even though I barely remembered the relevant line, the internet still served me up the ad, and here it is



Bonus Scottish health education catchphrases

"It tastes boggin!"
"He jus doesny know when to stop"