1. Snow, especially in cities.
We sometimes pretend to like snow, because it briefly covers up all the rotting leaves and dog poo and litter in cities and makes them look kind of pretty, but literallly an hour later it turns into muddy, slippery, shitty brown slush and it can fuck off sorry.
2. The sudden, intense July sun.
It's nice to see it when it eventually shows up in the last week of July, but two seconds later you're sweating like a pig in a parka and you have third-degree burns. It can also sod off. We like our weather like we like our sausage rolls: tepid.
3. Bagpipes.
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Specifically, bagpipes played quite badly by buskers in an attempt to separate gullible tourists from their money. We're trying to get to work in a snowstorm; we don't want to hear your ear-splitting cock-up of "Scotland The Brave".
4. Literally all seagulls.
They actually go into our shops and steal our crisps, the shitheads.
5. Local trains.
Forget all the postcard shots you've seen of the Hogwarts Express steaming majestically over Glenfinnan Viaduct, real Scottish trains are sticky, covered in lager, and filled with drunk Aberdeen oil rig workers going "WHURRR". They are shit.
6. Battered fish with the skin left on.
Is there anything more horrific than going to a chippy down south and being served battered fish with the SKIN STILL ON? No, there isn't. Biting down into crisp batter, then hitting a layer of sad, soggy, grey scaly rubber is enough to give you PTSD.
7. Braveheart.
No one wore blue face paint back then, William Wallace didn't have a dodgy American accent, and the whole film is total mince. The bit where they all show their bums to the English is quite good, but the rest of it can fuck off.
8. Cringey pantomimes.
They always have The Krankies in them, and watching the Krankies is like watching the Chuckle Brothers during a fever dream while you're on morphine. In short, pantos are surreal, weird, and not fun at all, so they can piss off too.
9. Every single castle.
You always think it's going to be a fun day out, but you get there only to find the car park is full to the brim with Rabbie's tour buses, it costs £29.99 plus VAT to get in, and there's nothing bloody well inside apart from an overpriced tea room. Nah.
10. Deep-fried Mars bars.
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NO ONE EATS THESE, but nevertheless they're used as an oily, greasy stick to beat us with. "Lol Scottish people love deep-fried Mars bars" er, no, only tourists eat them, because they think it's something Scottish people do. Mars bars are lovely on their own, there's no need to make them into a turd-shaped, battered coronary.
11. Stupidly high tenements.
Yes, some of them look pretty but have you ever tried living in one? If you haven't, then you've never known pain like the pain of carrying five shopping bags up six flights of stairs while your fingers go white and eventually drop off. Ban them.
12. Tinned haggis.
We invented haggis because rich folk were keeping all the good bits of the sheep, leaving us to make do with miscellaneous organ fragments. Sure, it's a testament to Scottish invention, but we're allowed to eat actual meat now so idk why we continue to eat innards out of a tin.
13. Edinburgh.
Sorry Edinburgh, but nobody likes you, not least because your main shopping street is about 26 miles long, with all the shops laid out in a straight line, so buying clothes is like an exhausting marathon that you have to train for in advance. 1/10.
14. Crappy link sausages.
There's a reason we like square sausage: it's solid, flat, meaty, fits perfectly into a sandwich, and doesn't erupt in your mouth like a boil when you bite into it, spraying spunky grease all down your shirt. Link sausages can piss off, end of.
15. Ceilidhs
They're just hot, exhausting dances with complicated instructions that everyone's too pissed to follow, so we all basically just trample people's feet for an hour while sweating. It's like Extreme Zumba with fiddles and kilts.
16. Voice recognition technology.
It's got slightly better in recent years, but when we say "Siri, please text Harry Murdoch", chances are she'll still say "Did you mean Hairy Mycock." Because she's a wee cow.
17. Major transport infrastructure projects.
If it's not Edinburgh trams, it's M8 roadworks. If it's not M8 roadworks, they're closing the bloody Forth Bridge for a year, forcing us to have to swim to Fife if we want decent (skinless) fish and chips. It's all a giant bag of wank and we've had enough.
18. And, of course, each other.
If we're from Edinburgh, we hate Glasgow. Glaswegians hate Dundonians, who in turn hate Fifers. The only thing we hate more than each other is all of the other things on this list, because at least hating them brings us together. 💖
