Hoots Mon!

I’m going down south tomorrow to teach my nephews the ancient art of conkers and as you can see from the adjacent photo, I have acquired a MASSIVE specimen to ensure that I win all uncle v nephew contests and send them running to their parents with bruised knuckles, ha, ha, ha. But how, I hear you ask, did I manage to secure such a remarkable example of King Conkery…?

Like most Scots, I tend to spend my Tuesday mornings taking a leisurely stroll around my local loch, all the while keeping a sharp eye out in case a rogue haggis runs up my kilt whilst I’m in the middle of playing the bagpipes and eating shortbread. Last Tuesday – as I was sitting having a quiet smoke by the water’s edge and giving my chanter a vigorous rubdown – an Alsatian dog went rushing by chasing a squirrel which promptly disappeared up a tree to escape. The dog remained at the bottom of the tree barking up at the squirrel and seemed set to remain there until Christmas when suddenly a large, jagged, nut-like object came bulleting down from the branches and smacked him on the head. (I swear I’m not making this up.)

Of course I nearly choked on my shortbread with hysterical laughter as the dog sloped off in embarrassment and the squirrel, along the rest of his little Ewok friends, celebrated the destruction of the evil Empire. I kept a safe distance until they had retired to their woodland barbeque and then I went scouting round the base of the tree and discovered my aforementioned MASSIVE conker, mentioned previously.

Now I know sometimes that photos on the internet don’t do justice to the subject matter so I was hopeful of producing a little back-up evidence to underline the impressive height and girth of my specimen. As luck would have it, former Celtic and Liverpool football legend Kenny Dalglish happened to be taking his Tuesday stroll around my local loch so I asked him to pose with the conker to put it in perspective for you. As you can see, my wee nephews don’t stand a chance.