A Short Guide to Scotland.

What exactly is Scotland? Wikipedia describes it as "a country that is part of the United Kingdom." To a Pole, the idea that a country could be part of another country is nonsensical, which is probably why most Poles give up and just call everything over there 'England.' Whenever I hear this, I have to fight the instinct to duck and cover my head in the expectation of flying words and bottles from Scots.

No Englishman or Scot would ever make the mistake of saying that Edinburgh or Glasgow is in England. It would be like a Pole claiming Wrocław is in Germany or Białystok is in Belarus. The confusion among Poles is understandable though: how can a country as small as the UK have four other countries inside it? How can you tell the difference when they all speak the same language (most of the time) and, to outsiders, all look the same and have the same habits? Universal training in the nature of the three-in-one Holy Trinity does not appear to help the Polish mind comprehend the mystery of the four-in-one British state.

If certain Scots have their way, the problem will soon become a little easier. The dramatic news from the Islands is that Scotland wants to hold a referendum on independence. If they are successful, there could be a brand new nation on the European map. Here is the Okiem Angola Guide to What You Should Know About Scotland:

1. It isn't England.

An obvious point, but one that comes at the top of most Scots' lists of reasons for wanting independence. Whatever they say about the economic and social reasons for independence, what Scots really want is for the rest of the world to stop mistaking them for England. Scotland and England are like brothers who grew up beating the hell out of each other and now, in adulthood, are good friends but more than ready for a brawl after a few drinks.

2. Food

Scottish food falls into two categories: delicious things that Scots are proud to export to the rest of the world, and delicious things that Scots would prefer nobody else knew about. World-beating Scottish foods include haggis (animal guts cooked in a sheep's stomach – a lot tastier than it sounds), shortbread (sweet, buttery biscuits that are impossible to resist) and Cock-a-leekie soup (which is just chicken soup, but with an hilarious name).

The second kind of Scottish food is what makes Scotland the unhealthiest country in Europe. Essentially it involves taking already unhealthy foods, like chocolate bars and pizza, and deep frying them in batter. The deep-fried Mars bar is a national delicacy that few Scots will admit to.

3. Celebrations

Scots like to party. They more-or-less invented the idea of the New Years' Eve party (which they call Hogmanay) and take it so seriously that not only is the first of January a holiday in Scotland, as it is in the rest of Europe, but the second of January is too. You know you are dealing with a country of serious party people when a two-day hangover-recovery period is actually built in to their national calendar.

By the middle of January, Scots feel the need to have another party, so they invented Burns’ Night. This is a celebration of the life and work of Scottish national poet, Robert Burns and, coincidentally, an excuse to drink a lot of whisky. Haggis is traditionally served at Burns’ Night dinners and is escorted into the room by a man in a kilt playing bagpipes. The host then reads a poem to the haggis, which includes the delightful line: “Your buttocks are like the distant hills.” All of this is before the whisky is even poured.

4. Inventions

If you talk to a Scot for long enough, he will eventually tell you about the huge number of things that his people have invented – this usually takes about five minutes. The list of Scottish scientific and technological achievement is, indeed, very impressive. We have Scots to thank for television, telephones, pedal-powered bicycles the laws of electrodynamics and the deep-fried Mars bar. In extreme cases, Scots will also claim that their ancestors came up with breathing and walking on two legs, though these remain to be proved.

5. Whisky

‘Whisky’ is one of the few words that can get you into serious trouble if you spell it incorrectly. ‘Whisky,’ without an ‘e,’ means it comes from Scotland. ‘Whiskey,’ with an ‘e,’ means it comes from Ireland or the United States. If you ask a Scot for whisky and he even suspects you think it is spelled with an ‘e,’ he will pretend he had no idea what you are talking about.

6. Sport

Poles sometimes ask why Scotland and England have separate international football teams. This is like asking why Poland and Russia have separate armies. The first ever, international football match was held between England and Scotland in 1870. The result was a draw, and we’ve spent the last 142 years trying to sort this out.

Although football is the national game of Scotland, as it is in England, Scots also have their own set of sports just to prove how much tougher and insane they are than the soft folk who live to the south of them. Most of these sports involve picking up very heavy things and throwing them over your shoulder. The most famous example is the caber toss, in which men attempt to throw tree trunks from one end of a field to the other. The great advantage of this sport over football is that no other nation is crazy enough to play it, so Scotland always wins.