The latest topical insight from Aberdeen musical sketch comedy team, The Flying Pigs.
Tanya Souter, lifestyle correspondent
I da ken aboot youse but I am a big fan o’ the Olympics on the telly. Noo some folk will be surprised tae hear ‘at seeing as I am nae fit ye’d cry a natural athlete, physically spikking. True, maist days I div rock a selection o’ active-fit leisure wear, but I also get puffed oot pitting on ma socks.
Truth be telt, I hinna broken intae a run since I wis doon toon wi’ my pal Big Sonya and she got chased by the Woolies store detective, but there’s nithin I like better than watching a’ that perfect physical specimens straining ivery sinew files I’m sat on ma sofa, shovelling maltesers in ma moo.
Seeing wee Tom Daley finally winning gold wis amazing. Fan he wis getting his medal tears wis rolling doon his cheeks and I kent exactly foo he felt. The chlorine in Tullos Pool aye made my een watter an a’.
Another British Olympian fa I found inspirational wis Helen Glover, the rower. She won gold in baith London and Rio, retired, hid her femily and then come back tae the top flight. Fit a woman. There’s nae mony folk wid get back intae a coxless pair efter ha’en three kids. I’m nae sure I could hiv got intae a wee boat lik yon efter a big breakfast.
I wiz sat wi’ my moo hingin open fan Charlotte Dujardin became the country’s maist successful female Olympian, winning her sixth medal in the dressage. Mind you I’m aye sat wi’ my moo hingin open fan the dressage is on. I still da ken fit wye they cry it that, it’s got nithin’ tae dae wi’ claes. But I suppose if they cried it Strictly Come Show Jumping, Tess Daly wid insist on presenting it.
I tell ye, if ye hinna seen a posh wifie on a horse fit’s skipping sideways tae the strains o’ I’ve Hid The Time o’ My Life fae Dirty Duncing, ye hinna lived. I hid a rare time singing alang and shouting: “Naebdy pits Dobbin in the corner!”
My youngest, Jayden, wiz sufficiently inspired that he’s trying tae teach next door’s staffie tae dae the slosh. I’ve telt him its nae a good idea, but he winna be telt – he’ll just end up getting bitten again, and I’ll end up wi’ the bill fae the vets.
Cava Kenny Cordiner, the football columnist who’s less Rodin’s Thinker more Manneken Pis
I was tackled punk when I heared that AFC has commisserated a statue of my old gaffer, Sir Alex Ferguson, to loom large over the Concorde outside the Dick Donald stand at Pittodrie.
Say what you want about Sir Alex, but it is without no question of a doubt that he is truly one of the greatest ever to wear the big coat and fill the Pittodrie hot tub.
I have wrote before in these hollowed pages about the time I spent at Pittodrie under Fergie’s stewpotship, but it is ages since I last done it, and they’ve changed my sub-editor twice since, so I think I’ll get away with doing it again.
When Fergie arrived at Pittodrie, I could tell how much he valued me because I quickly became his leading bench warmer. As Super Sub, he relied on me to lift the team.
“Cordiner,” he would scream, cheerfully, his chuddy going mental: “I can always tell when you’re on the pitch – the other 10 lads all have to raise their game.”
I was sold not long after that, and people think our relations was stained, but I found out after what I never knowed at the time, that actually Fergie idolised me. I seen an interview about his Aberdeen days where he says: “The first thing I had to do was get shot of that idol Cordiner.”
They could do a statue of Alex Ferguson giving someone the famous hairdresser treatment, or the classic ‘looking furious while pointing at his watch’
I seen Fergie at a dinner not long ago and thanked him for saying something so nice as that. “No problem, Kenny,” he says to me, “Even after all my years in football, you is still the idolest player I ever managed.” What a gent.
As for the statue itself, there is not no shortage of isotonic poses in which Sir Alex could be imobilised in bronze in. They could do him giving someone the famous hairdresser treatment, or the classic “looking furious while pointing at his watch”.
Chairman Dave Cormack says this is the first in a series of statues to recognise people who’ve had a massive impact on the club. So Old Kenny is looking forward to seeing Willie Miller holding aloft the Cup Winners Cup Winners Cup; Stewart Milne effing and jeffing on the BBC, and of course the lads from HMRC who put Rangers out of business.
