Random Trivia Factoid

Well...it's my last night in Edinburgh, so I'll make this an RTF about Edinburgh.

If you're ever visiting this beautiful city, you will undoubtedly find yourself exploring the Royal Mile, which is the cobblestone road that connects Edinburgh Castle to Holyrood House. All along this road, one can find all sorts of twisty, turny, tunnely alleyways that are known as "closes". They got this name from the fact that most of them will lead you to small enclosed courtyards.

You can spend a very agreeable period of time exploring these various closes. But if you were exploring Edinburgh in the 1800's you would probably want to avoid them at around 10 PM.

The reason for this is two-fold:

1) In the 1800's, all of the bars closed at this time, and the closes would be filled with drunken Scottish folk weaving their way home.

2) 10 PM was also the hour that it was legal for citizens to empty their bedpans.

Bedpan-dumping ettiquette in Edinburgh dictates that, as one is disposing of the contents, they shout "Gardy loo!", to warn anyone on the streets what was incoming. "Gardy loo" is actually bad French for "Guardez, l'eau" or "Careful! Water!".

But many a drunk wending their way home were not careful. In fact, while they were passing underneath the plummeting waste, they would often look up, to see who was shouting at them.

And that's where the term "shit-faced" comes from.

I'm serious.


Jim Out.


P.S: While I'm writing this, I'm bidding farewell to Edinburgh by sipping a glass of Glenmorangie. Aged 25 years. Neat, of course.

Jealous?