New York Times Review: "A Dickensian epic! A wild ride of emotion, drama, and a fundamental, if beautiful, allegory for our troubled political times. I really felt for that poor wee haggis. 5*"
Being a Christmas card (and the current GMT season being mid Autumn), evidence would dictate that this card has in no means anything directly related to current politically interesting events happening within the UK (As a hint, it is almost, but not completely, unrelated, to this article... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-29253796, in so much as both require a substantial amount of time, effort, funding and are fundamentally a bit of a joke).. Being an Essex boy (http://yepwecan.co.uk/uploads/2013/01/essex-boy-web-spt-345x548.jpg), I was glad to see pro-union win out and celebrated by cooking haggis from George Bower, Stockbridge, (the best in Edinburgh) bought last time I was in travels seeing friends. I did however decide to upload this card also in celebration.
I don't want this blog to become overly political and will say no more on the subject, if you happened to be pro-independence, I respect your views, would probably agree with quite a few of them (as long as not too extreme), but overall with agree to disagree on the final "Yes" trend. However, I am not averse to political shakeup and feel the vote will hopefully awaken people to the need for change in other avenues.
This card was given as bright and bold Xmas cheer for some friends in Edinburgh to arrive back to from a scorching trip in Tulum, when the weather would be understandably less scorching (and more bitey) upon arrival. Set out like a colourful penguin classic gone 1960's Ikea kitch and featuring our adorable little haggis protagonist on the front (everyone knowing that haggii (as the plural) run free abound on the misty nights upon the dew ridden moors below the lower back tilts of Arthurs' seat, happily retreating from their familly dens to scavenge on on wild whiskey spriggets and are, when ready, naturally plucked for the butchers shop) I was surprised by the photo-realism of the haggis I made, complete with duck beak, Christmas hat and tinsel scarf... it's almost like you're there! The title was borrowed creatively for a well known book by a famous author, but the details of who and what escape me currently.
The story inside (rather scrubbily written, handwriting scratchy due to my unfortunate Y chromosomal inheritance and an even more unfortunate 4th year school teacher.) is a winding tale of a single haggis thrust headlong into the night, finding good will and help from a past apparition out on the moor when lost and in need of returning the the family hovel with the required neeps... to save the day... I won't ruin the plot twist at the end, but you may be able to guess the overall outcome by the back cover... poor begger, at least the steam looks realistic. It was all written in a drunken Scottish drawl (can't remember if I was actually drunk when writing it.) full of half swears, missssshhhhplet wordssshhh and Scotland only slang words. Bit gutted. I haven't actually got a picture of the inside (many older card before I though of blogging have been lost altogether), but I know for a fact that this card is still around on a mantle piece surrounded by a nipple newtons cradle and about 50 bazillion geodes and mineral rocks. I implore that if this person sounds like it may be you ...any chance you could send me a piccy to upload here? ("sheep lord emplores! thankee! ;)xx")I would be nice to show the one other person that occasionally stumbles upon and maybe even reads some of these blog entries (if THIS sounds like you, drop me a comment!) Overall, my only regret was that i didn't print and glue a penguin classics logo don the "binding".This card was pretty easy to make with most of the paper patterns coming pre-printed. If anyone decides to ever copy the theme or adapt it for their own future card, it would be great to see a picture in comments (none of the designs I make are, to my knowledge, copyrighted in any way.)
And yes Haggis IS customarily served on aqua blue shiny plates.. didn't you know?
