March 31, 2026 • 27 mins
What unique title do you earn if you climb Scotland’s tallest mountains? How is the Scots language being preserved? What’s the deep, dark secret behind bagpipes? And most important, do you support Will and Mango’s plan to register an official Part-Time Genius tartan with the Scottish government? Today we’ve got 9 kilt-tilting facts about Scotland!
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Glascope.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
You're listening to part time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio. Guess what, Well, what's that mango? So if
it weren't for a nineteenth century Scottish scientist, my career
right now would be completely different.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
And what do you mean by that?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Well, this particular invention is something you hear mentioned at
the beginning of all the podcasts I work on these days. Oh,
like Kaleidoscope, right, that's right, it's the name of the
podcast network I co founded. And it turns out that
the kalidoscope was invented by a guy named David Brewster.
He was born in the southern Uplands of Scotland and
attended the University of Edinburgh. He actually became a minister
at first, but his lifelong passion for science, particularly the
science of light, inspired him to study optics, and in
(00:53):
eighteen fourteen, while doing an experiment that involved bouncing light
between plates of glass, he noticed that if the glass
was placed at specific angles, it actually created the striking
symmetrical patterns, and he decided to see if he could
recreate this effect in different way, so he tried again,
this time beaming all this polarized light across gold and
silver plates, and the result was this stunning, colorful array.
So he set out to create, in his words, a
(01:13):
new optical instrument for creating and exhibiting beautiful forms.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
So, if I'm understanding this right, this is really my
favorite kind of invention because it sounds like he's not
trying to invent something practical, like he just thought these
light patterns were pretty, Is that right exactly?
Speaker 2 (01:25):
And after a few months of tinkering, he actually built
a proto kaleidoscope, and the device had angled mirrors with
colored glass fastened around them to cast all these reflections.
And the first people to view it were members of
the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and they loved it. But
Brewster wasn't done. His final stroke of genius was making
the colored glass pieces rotate in order to create all
these different shapes and patterns, you know, like the kalidoscopes
we know today. But while the instrument itself might have
(01:47):
been a novelty, the principles behind it were actually really advanced.
So in eighteen fifty eight, Brewster wrote a book about
the science of kalidoscopes, summarizing what he'd learned in the
process of making his invention, everything from like the geometry
of kaleidoscopic forms to the physics of light, and in
chapter sixteen he made a reference to a compound known
as ido quinine sulfate, the crystals of which he said
were remarkably good at polarizing light. Almost seventy years later,
(02:08):
a Harvard student named Edwin h. Land would read this
and get the idea for a new kind of polarizing
filter that could be used for photography, and he called
it polaroid.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
It's amazing, and they think it all began with the
minister who just kind of liked pretty colors.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yeah I know, I mean the idea of this toy
turning into a camera, it was just like stunning. But
more specifically, it all began in Scotland. And today we're
discovering nine surprising facts about the northernmost country in the UK,
from a once in a lifetime fossil fine to the
shocking truth behind bagpipes. So why don't we dive in?
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Heay their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my
good friend mengeshat Ticatter and over there in the booth
all tuckered out. I'm having walked five hundred miles and
that's not it, and then five hundred more. That's our
palent producer, Dylan Thing and his dedication. He never ceases
to amaze.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
It is incredible. You walked to Daton, Ohio and back
again just so we could make a ten second reference
to the proclaivers bitch. I love, Thank you Dylan for
getting us into this Scottish spirit.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
All right, well, speaking of impressive physical feats, mango my
first fact is also a new item on my bucket list.
So I want to bag some Monros.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Is that legal?
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Not only is it legal, it's actually encourage mango. So
in Monroe is any mountain in Scotland that's over three
thousand feet tall? And I was curious how many of
these there were. There are two hundred and eighty two
Monros in total, and if you make it to the
top of one, you've bagged it.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
That's what they say.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Now you may be thinking that a Monroe is a
scientific term or a word derived from Gaelic, but actually
their name for Sir Hugh Monroe, who surveyed and catalog them.
This was way back in eighteen ninety one.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Now, first of all, I love this terminology. Bagging a
Monroe is ridiculous, a great term. It is ridiculous. But
but did this guy just wake up with day decide
to make like like a huge list of mountains.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
No, it was actually an assignment. He was asked to
do it by the editor of the Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal,
and mountain climbing and hillwalking were and of course still
are popular past times in Scotland, and that's, of course
thanks to the country's rugged terrain. So Monroe had co
founded the club a few years earlier, so he was
clearly qualified for this. But he had something else going
for him. According to a biography written by the Monroe Society,
he was known as a compulsive note taker and quote
(04:14):
he flung himself with enthusiasm into everything he undertook. So
it seems like a super interesting guy. But although he
worked tirelessly to catalog them all, Monroe didn't bag all
the Monroes himself. He actually sadly died of pneumonia in
nineteen nineteen with only three mountains left on his climbing list.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
It's just such a bummer.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
That is really tragic, I know, and it means that
he doesn't qualify as a completer. That's the official term
for people who reach the top of every single Monroe,
and that's a lot like that is a lot of climbing,
a lot of walking, and so doing so gains you
membership into the Monroe Society, which says there are just
over seventy six hundred registered completers. And I'd like to
think that Sir Hugh would be especially proud of Jamie Errens,
who holds the fastest record from Monroe, completing in a
(04:48):
single self propelled round, meaning she didn't use any form
of motorized transportation. She bagged the whole list in thirty
one days, ten hours, and twenty seven minutes, traveling on foot,
by bike, and by sea kayak to reach them all. Now,
out of the I can match Jamie's record or even
come closed. But one of these days I'd love to
go to Scotland and put at least one Monroe in
my back.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
I don't want to overdo it one. It feels like
that's impressive enough. Yeah, you gotta do it for Sir Hugh.
I love it. Also, that's incredible. Jja's that really sunning.
Have you been to Scotland before?
Speaker 1 (05:14):
I have not.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
It's definitely on the list of places I want to
get to and you know the coming years, how about you.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
We went with my family. My dad organized a trip,
which you know, my mom does most of organizing, and
so this was a very poorly organized trip and we
went to a farmhouse and there are all these generations
of family and we basically saw none of Scotland. No
one could get coordinated and everyone wanted to do their
own thing.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
It's but a nice farmhouse, I hope, so beautiful.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
I mean, like the land was beautiful. Everyone was so nice.
I really want to go back to Scotland, but I've
been once. I haven't really seen it, so okay, So
back to this. In nineteen eighty four, a Scottish paleontologist
named stan Wood made a remarkable discovery in this old
limestone quarry and this is in West Lothian. Would by
the way, it wasn't a trained scientist. He actually never
finished a school and worked at a shipyard and then for
an insurance company. But he became this like really respected
(05:59):
diy fossil collector and in fact he eventually amasked such
impressive finds that the Royal Museum in Scotland began buying
them from him, all of which led to this faithful
day in the quarry would actually uncovered the fossil that
would turn out to be the oldest known tetrapod, which,
you know, I didn't know what a tetrapod is. It's
a class of animals that emerge from the water and
involved into familiar things like you know, mammals or amphibians.
And the creature he discovered was about like seven inches long.
(06:20):
It had four stumpy legs and a lizard like tail,
so he nicknamed it Lizzie the Lizard, even though scientists
have since pointed out it's a not really lizard, you know,
in fact that they don't really know what it is.
The best guest seems to be some kind of ancient
relative of the salamander. But even though everyone referred to
Lizzie as she, we also don't know whether the critter
was a female.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Yeah, it's funny how you can take a fossil which
is really just a rock, right, and the minute you
give it a name, you start to think of it
as this cute creature.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
But I don't know.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
It just always amuses me. But but anyway, how old
is Lizzi?
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Exactly?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Well, based on the ages of the rocks in which
she was found, everyone's best guess was that Lizzie was
around three hundred and thirty one million years old, Right,
it's pretty old. But last year, a University of Texas
PhD student and his name is Hector Garza, he decided
to get more specific, and so he used this technique
called radiometric dating, and Garza found that Lizzie is actually
three hundred and forty six million years old, which is
a huge deal because that means she lived during Romer's Gap.
(07:06):
Roamers Gap is this mysterious gap in the fossil record
that runs from about three hundred and forty five to
three hundred and sixty million years ago, And so when
you home in on Lizzie's true age, it actually gives
scientists this better understanding of when vertebrates emerged from the
water and went on the land, and it also gives
them a clue about what might have prompted that huge change.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
All right, well, my next fact is also about an animal,
and it may be less scientifically important, but I dare
say it is cuter than a fossil. I'm talking about
the Scottish Terrier, or as it's often known.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
The Scotti.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Oh like Toto and the Wizard of Oz right well,
actually pretty close.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
So the dog who played Toto in the old Judy
Garland movie was actually a Cairn Terrier. But I'm glad
you did bring that up, because there are several terrier
breeds that originated in Scotland, including the Cairn, the Sky,
the Dandie Denmont which definitely sounds like it's in Scotland,
and the West Highland White, but none have captured the
public imagination quite like the Scotti, which has become a
symbol of its native country.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
I mean it is the one. They call it Scottish terrier.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
It's true, that's a fair point. But although the Scotti
is an icon now, it's got a pretty humble origin.
So historians believe the breed originated with dogs brought over
from Europe by the early Celts, and then by the
fourteenth century it was common for farmers in the Scottish
Islands to have these short legged dogs that they used
to hunt rats and foxes and sort of other vermin.
But these folks were pretty busy with day to day survival,
so they didn't spend much time writing down the descriptions
(08:15):
of dogs or determining if this dog counted as a
different breed from that dog.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Sure, I mean, all they cared about was was this
dog catching a rat? Right?
Speaker 1 (08:21):
One hundred percent?
Speaker 3 (08:22):
And you know it actually wasn't until the eighteen hundreds
that the Scottish terrier became widely known as this unique
type different from other terriers in Scotland. It was sometimes
referred to as an Aberdeen terrier, so one theory is
that the breed emerged from the Highlands via the city
of Aberdeen, which is to the east and any rate.
People began compiling these proper breed records in the eighteen
hundreds and eventually they held dog shows, which further popularized
the idea of distinct breeds with these desirable traits. Back then,
(08:44):
sleek hunting dogs or tiny fluffy toys were all the rage.
The Scotti, with its wiry code and muscular chests, just
wasn't that appealing at that time, and that all changed
in the twentieth century. Scotti clubs and breeders started popping
up across Scotland. And across the US actually for that matter,
and this former farmhand became known as a wonderful family pet.
Now it's because of their person They've been described as
almost human like in their intelligence and their incredible loyalty.
In fact, Scotty's were so beloved that they were actually
(09:05):
immortalized as a game piece in Monopoly. You remember this, right, yeah,
of course? Yeah, and then of course famous owners like
Fdr Dwight, the Eisenhower and Humphrey Bogart.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Wow, yeah, I know. I mean when you are next
to a top hat and a thimble, I feel like
that's when you know you've made it.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
It's a big deal. Like it's a big deal.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Yeah all right, Well we have to take a quick break,
but when we come back, I'll tell you what it
takes to make a Tardan of your own. Don't go anywhere.
(09:40):
Welcome back to a very Scottish part time genius. If
you're enjoying this episode, please share it with friend or
leave us a nice review and rating. It helps us out. Okay, well,
I want you to close your eyes and imagine a
kilt your eyes.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
What does it look like?
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Okay, it's long pleated I think made of wool, and
of course it's plaid.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Yeah, not bad, but technically you can open your eyes.
But technically speaking, the pattern most of US Americans call
plaid is tartan. In Scotland, the word plaid refers to
a piece of tartan fabric used as a blanket or
worn over the shoulder. But right now we're just talking tartan.
So Scottish tartan has a long storied history. In the
(10:25):
eighteenth century, these patterns became popular as military uniforms, and
many clans or families adopted signature tartans of their own.
But the patterns used in Scotland goes back even further.
In the nineteen eighties, a scrap of wool tartan fabric
was found in a peat bog in glen Afric, and
radiocarbon dating suggested it was made in the fourteenth century,
(10:47):
and although it was stained by pete, the die analysis
showed that its true colors included green and brown stripes
on yellow and red backgrounds. And so I know about
the glen Affric tartan because I actually looked it up
on the Scottish Registry of Tartans, and I didn't realize
this existed before, but it's this incredible database that the
(11:08):
country is collected. It's the Official Database of Tartan Designs
and it was established by Parliament in two thousand and eight.
It contains thousands of searchable tartan patterns.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
So how does this actually work? Like, can anybody register
a tartan?
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Yeah, anyone can, but there are three conditions. So first,
that has to meet the government's definition of a tartan,
which is quote, a design which is capable of being
woven consisting of two or more alternating colored stripes which
combine vertically and horizontally to form a repeated checkered pattern. Right,
so it just kind of has that plaid like feel. Second,
(11:42):
it has to be unique. It can't be the same
as any other registered tartan. And finally, there has to
be a clear link between the person registering the tartan
and the proposed tartan name. Right, So anyone can do it.
Lots of people have, and even corporations, schools, nonprofits have
gotten into this game. I've spent maybe too much time
browsing the register, but I found that there are official
(12:03):
tartans for the University of Delaware, the Canadian Police College,
British Airways, Hello Kitty, the New York Jets, and my favorite,
a tartan created by an Ohio man to raise money
for cats with cancer.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Wow, that's why.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
If you're curious, that pattern is ten black and blue
to mimic the coat and eyes of his late companion JD.
The Siamese cat.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Oh that's kind of sweet. But actually, now that you
say this, are you thinking what I'm thinking?
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Yeah, definitely I want a part time genius tartan.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
I don't even know what we would do with it,
but it just seems like such an amazing thing to have.
I would just in fact, I think I need two
of them.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah. Well, I mean if Hello Kitty got one, I
feel like we should.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
That's a that's a fair point, all right.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
My next fact involves another symbol of Scotland, but there's
no registry for this one. That's because it's a mythical creature.
And this is, of course the unicorn.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
You know, I noticed that when I was doing my research.
There's a unicorn on the Scottish coat of arms, but
I'm not exactly sure why that's true.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Yeah, I mean, unicorns are obviously great. We need to
stop for a moment just to acknowledge.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
That unicorns twenty seconds of silence to just think about
how great they are.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Recognize the unicorn. But also it has to do with history.
So in Celtic mythology, unicorns symbolized strength, purity and of
course innocence, and in art and in legends, unicorns are
depicted as independent and difficult to capture, and that's probably
why in the twelfth century, King William the First added
a unicorn to the Scottish Royal coat of arms. Now,
(13:34):
as the years rolled on, unicorn legends grew in the
Middle Ages, people believe that only a king could capture one.
So it's no surprise that in the early fourteen hundreds
Scotland's King James the Second kept the unicorn symbolism going
and from then on the Scottish throne and the unicorns
were inextricably linked. Now the country's next kings, these were
(13:54):
James's three, four and five super original. They went unicorn crazy,
putting the reachers on coins, seals, other emblems, and eventually
the Scottish Royal coat of arms included a shield supported
by not one, but two unicorns who were draped in
gold chains at least until the Union of Crowns in
sixteen oh three. That's when King James the sixth became
(14:17):
the King of England and Ireland as well as Scotland,
and at that time one of the unicorns was replaced
by a lion to represent England, of course, so today
you'll find unicorn imagery all over Scotland, and every April ninth,
Scott's along with the rest of the world, celebrate a
National Unicorn Day, which is coming up soon.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
So funny. If I was looking for a unicorn or
a lion, I feel like the last two places I
would go are Scotland, and that's probably fair. So while
we're on the subject of sty wait, I got to.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Ask you, where where do you think you would go
to look for a unicorn? Exactly?
Speaker 2 (14:54):
It's a good question.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
I feel I think maybe there are parts of Scott's
got than like the Islis Sky or something that you
might go to.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
But I don't know.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
I don't know where unicorn's natural habitats should be, but
I'm not sure of Scotland's fair. So while we're on
the subject of Scottish heritage, let's turn our attention to language.
After English, the most widely spoken language in Scotland is Scots.
In fact, across the UK more people speak Scots than
Welsh or Gaelic. You may know some yourself, like if
(15:27):
you've ever called a small child a we baarn, that's Scots.
Or if you've ever sung all leanth sign that is
also Scots.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
You know, I have sung all lanth sign, but I've
never thought about what those words actually mean.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Right, You learned something like this as a kid.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
You just kind of go along with it and you
just keep saying and don't really think about it.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah, or you just like mumble along to the lyrics
as other people are singing it on New exactly. Apparently
it's Scott's for the good old days.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Of course it even sounds like old.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Yeah, the old and the old, right. But you know,
that's one challenge. The Scots language is actually face because
modern Scots share some similarity and overlap with English, and
a lot of people even in Scotland don't recognize that
it is a language. It's often referred to as a
dialect of English, and in a twenty ten survey of
(16:17):
Scottish adults, sixty four percent of the people agreed with
the statement I don't really think scots is a language,
it's more of a way of speaking. And while most
respondents felt Scott's was an important part of national identity,
twenty six percent of people equated it with slang, saying
it doesn't sound nice or proper. Now. I actually read
(16:38):
a study from twenty twenty two that looked at perceptions
of language, and it concluded that people are more likely
to consider a language legitimate if it's unrelated to other languages,
if it's written, and if it's spoken widely, as opposed
to in a limited geographic area. You know, Scotts only
passes one of those tests.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Oh it's so interesting and also admittedly kind of sad.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Yeah, I agree, I mean it's funny, right, Like, if
you think about it, there's so many similarities between like
French and Italian, or Spanish and Portuguese. Right, there are
plenty words that are mutually intelligible, but no one would
suggest that they aren't distinct languages.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
So their efforts to encourage the use of Scott's.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Yeah, there are. It's part of Scotland's national curriculum and
in twenty fifteen, the Scottish government released a Scots Language
Policy in which it pledged to promote the use of Scots.
The Scottish Book Trust has also done a lot to
support Scott's language, education and literature, and speaking of which,
there's a growing number of modern Scottish authors writing in Scots.
(17:38):
That includes Irvine Welsh, who you might remember from Trainspotting,
but also James Kellman, Emma Gray, Alan Bassett and a
whole lot more.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Actually, yeah, I was rapidly trying to look up how
to say that's great news in Scots and I didn't
quite get there.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
So I'll just say that's great news.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
I'm pretty sure everyone i'll understand.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
All right.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
So for my last fact, I'm going to tell you
about the googa hunters of Nests.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
First year bagn Monrose and now you're hunting gougas.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
This is the best. This has been my favorite. This
is fantastic. Now I'm not hunting googas. In fact, no
one does, except for ten men from Ness. It's this
remote community and the northernmost tip of the Isle of
Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. Now, in recent years the
population of nests has dwindled to about thirteen hundred as
young people leave to find jobs elsewhere. Now, meanwhile, some
(18:29):
urban newcomers have moved in looking for a less hectic lifestyle.
That means the social fabric is changing pretty quickly and
locals are trying to preserve their traditions. Now, the most
famous tradition in Ness.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Is the annual Googa hunting.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Googa is a Gaelic word referring to a juvenile seabird
called a ganet. In every August, ten men from Nests
sail a rough stretch of the Northern Atlantic to a
tiny uninhabited island. There they haul their gear up steep
cliffs and set up camp and these ancient stone huts.
And no one knows for sure how old these huts are,
(19:03):
but the Ness men have hunted google on this island
since the fifteen hundreds and maybe even earlier than that.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
You know, I didn't realize it was still legal to
hunt these sort of like wild sea birds.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
It's actually not, but in this case, UK law makes
an exception for the googa hunt because of its cultural
significance here. And you know, the hunt hasn't changed much
over the years. The men don't use guns or traps. Instead,
they use these long poles to grab the googas by
the necks, and then they use rocks to deliver a
blow to the head, killing the birds almost instantly. Now
(19:36):
the carcasses are cleaned, they're salted, they're stacked along these
cliffs until it's time to sail back, and so when
the hunters arrive home, they're greeted at the docks by
friends and family. They're all eager to claim their share
of the spoils. Googa is actually a local delicacy, boiled
and then served with potatoes and a glass of milk. It's,
of course in acquired taste, and it sounds sort of
(19:57):
weird to think about all this combination here, but one
report I read described it as a cross between rotten
leather and fishy beef.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
So once you hear that, you're like.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
I'm all in on this, but definitely totally, But fans
say it's closer to to like salted mackerel.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Either way.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
The days of google feast on nests maybe coming to
a close. So after an outbreak of avian flu, the
twenty twenty two hunt was canceled, and last year Scotland's
Conservation Agency reduced the harvest from two thousand birds to
five hundred. But the biggest threat is actually political. Opponents
of the hunt say it's cruel and barbaric, and a
(20:33):
petition calling for its end was sent to Parliament with
eighty five thousand signatures, So a lot of people behind this.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Yeah, I mean there's always that tension right between tradition
and what feels barbaric, like killing birds with rocks feels
a little awful.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Yeah, no, that's true. But you know, as supporters have
pointed out, the reality of factory farm poultry isn't great either, right,
and things like feazen and partridge shooting have been popular
past times for the UK's upper class for century. But
it's a real concern, as is the matter of conservation.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
So where does this stand today?
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Well, as of this recording, this is still TBD. The
petition remains open but won't be considered until after the
Scottish Parliament election in May.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Well, I'm curious to see what happens. Well, it is
time for our final fact well, and I thought we'd
kick it off with some music, So I'm going to
have you take a listen here.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Oh man, that's great.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
I feel like I'm standing on a Scottish more, you know,
with the wind and my hair, you know, pretending I
have hair this wind in there.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Like I think I can remember what that feels like.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Yeah, well you should not, because what you just heard
was a clip from a Slovak folklore fest. Well the
instrument was a guide or Slovak bagpipe.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
You know you wait until the end of this episode
to tell me that bagpipes aren't Scottish.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
We always save the most surprising for last, right, But
it's true. Bagpipes are a truly global instrument. You'll hear
them across Europe, North Africa, parts of Asia, the Balkans,
even the Middle East. It is hard to pinpoint exactly
when and where they were invented, but the idea of
attaching a bag or a reservoir of air to a
set of pipes goes back to ancient times. In fact,
(22:31):
archaeologists in Turkey found a Bronze Age carving of what
appears to be an early bagpipe. The ancient Egyptians, Greeks,
and Romans had bagpipes as well, and as the Roman
Empire expanded, bagpipes followed, which is how they came to Britain.
Now along the way the instrument evolved. They added drones,
which are those pipes at the top that hold a
(22:51):
single tone, and also chants, which allow pipers to play
melodies by opening our closing holes. The first confirmed reference
to Scottish bagpipes, however, dates back to thirteen ninety six,
and this is from an account of a clan battle
which mentions the presence of war pipes. And for the
next several centuries, bagpipes played a huge role in Scottish warfare.
(23:14):
They're not the easiest instrument to march into battle with,
but they are definitely loud, so they are ideal for
signaling troops forward, raising morale and frankly intimidating opponents. By
the late sixteenth centuries, Scotland had created the bagpipe most
of us know today the Great Highland bagpipe. It's got
two tenor drones, one bass drone and a chanter. Great
(23:35):
Highland pipers actually accompany British troops on the front lines
of World War One and World War Two? Do you
know that?
Speaker 3 (23:42):
Whoa Can you imagine just like standing there in a
trench playing a bagpipe while these bullets are flying all
around you so strong sometimes like the parts of war,
like this are just so bizarre.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
It is insane to imagine. And it's actually estimated that
about one thousand pipers died in World War One, and
part way through World War I to the frontline, piping
was banned to reduce these fatalities. But there's actually a
famous story about one exception. So during D Day, a
Scottish commander named Simon Fraser asked his piper, Bill Millen,
to play as the troops charged onto the beach, and
(24:14):
Millan pointed out that the War Office had forbade this
kind of thing, to which Fraser replied, that's the English
War Office. You and I are both Scottish and that
does not apply. So Millan marched along the beach playing
his pipes under a hail of German fire, and both
he and Fraser lived to tell the tale. Is that incredible?
Speaker 3 (24:34):
Yeah, that definitely is an incredible story. And for that, Mango,
and for all the time you spent digging through the
official Tartan register, I decided at that moment, right then,
right here, you deserve today's trophy.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Well I will take it. I don't know if you
knew this, but on my tennis team in high school,
one of our best players used to play the bagpipes
and would play them during practice and warm ups to
annoy other teams.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Oh, that's actually pretty great.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
One of those one of those instruments that sounds amazing
from like a football field.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
The way and you get a little.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
Closer, You're like, that's a little that's a little close.
But I do have to say I'm a little disappointed
we haven't heard a real Scottish bagpipe.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
You know, I had a feeling you might say that,
so I came prepared. Here you go. That is the
Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo and Annual performance held outside Edinburgh Castle.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
That's amazing.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
What a great way to close out the episode. You know,
maybe one day we can go see it in person
wearing the Part Time Genius tartan.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
I can see it now.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
I'd love that. But before we go, remember to follow
us on Instagram and Blue Sky. We're at Part Time Genius.
If you have a question or idea for the show,
please write us an email at High Geniuses at gmail
dot com. That's Hi, Geniuses at gmail dot com. We
always love hearing from you. Now. We'll be back with
another new episode next week. But in the meantime from Will, Dylan, Gabe, Mary,
(26:10):
and myself. Thank you so much for listening. Part Time
Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. It is
hosted by my good pal Will Pearson, who I've known
(26:32):
for almost three decades now. That is insane to me.
I'm the other co host, Mangeshatikular aka Mango. Our producer
is Mary Phillips Sandy. She's actually a super producer. I'm
going to fix that in post. Our writer is Gabe Lucyer,
who I've also known for like a decade at this point,
maybe more. Dylan Fagan is in the booth. He is
(26:54):
always dressed up, always cheering us on, and always ready
to hit record and then mix the show after he
does a great job. I also want to shout out
the executive producers from iHeart my good pals Katrina and
Norvel and Ali Perry. We have social media support from
Calypso rallis if you like our videos, that is all
Calypso's handiwork. For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit
(27:18):
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or tune in wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. That's it from us here
at part time Genius, thank you so much for listening.
Glascope.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
You're listening to part time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio. Guess what, Well, what's that mango? So if
it weren't for a nineteenth century Scottish scientist, my career
right now would be completely different.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
And what do you mean by that?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Well, this particular invention is something you hear mentioned at
the beginning of all the podcasts I work on these days. Oh,
like Kaleidoscope, right, that's right, it's the name of the
podcast network I co founded. And it turns out that
the kalidoscope was invented by a guy named David Brewster.
He was born in the southern Uplands of Scotland and
attended the University of Edinburgh. He actually became a minister
at first, but his lifelong passion for science, particularly the
science of light, inspired him to study optics, and in
(00:53):
eighteen fourteen, while doing an experiment that involved bouncing light
between plates of glass, he noticed that if the glass
was placed at specific angles, it actually created the striking
symmetrical patterns, and he decided to see if he could
recreate this effect in different way, so he tried again,
this time beaming all this polarized light across gold and
silver plates, and the result was this stunning, colorful array.
So he set out to create, in his words, a
(01:13):
new optical instrument for creating and exhibiting beautiful forms.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
So, if I'm understanding this right, this is really my
favorite kind of invention because it sounds like he's not
trying to invent something practical, like he just thought these
light patterns were pretty, Is that right exactly?
Speaker 2 (01:25):
And after a few months of tinkering, he actually built
a proto kaleidoscope, and the device had angled mirrors with
colored glass fastened around them to cast all these reflections.
And the first people to view it were members of
the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and they loved it. But
Brewster wasn't done. His final stroke of genius was making
the colored glass pieces rotate in order to create all
these different shapes and patterns, you know, like the kalidoscopes
we know today. But while the instrument itself might have
(01:47):
been a novelty, the principles behind it were actually really advanced.
So in eighteen fifty eight, Brewster wrote a book about
the science of kalidoscopes, summarizing what he'd learned in the
process of making his invention, everything from like the geometry
of kaleidoscopic forms to the physics of light, and in
chapter sixteen he made a reference to a compound known
as ido quinine sulfate, the crystals of which he said
were remarkably good at polarizing light. Almost seventy years later,
(02:08):
a Harvard student named Edwin h. Land would read this
and get the idea for a new kind of polarizing
filter that could be used for photography, and he called
it polaroid.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
It's amazing, and they think it all began with the
minister who just kind of liked pretty colors.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yeah I know, I mean the idea of this toy
turning into a camera, it was just like stunning. But
more specifically, it all began in Scotland. And today we're
discovering nine surprising facts about the northernmost country in the UK,
from a once in a lifetime fossil fine to the
shocking truth behind bagpipes. So why don't we dive in?
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Heay their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my
good friend mengeshat Ticatter and over there in the booth
all tuckered out. I'm having walked five hundred miles and
that's not it, and then five hundred more. That's our
palent producer, Dylan Thing and his dedication. He never ceases
to amaze.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
It is incredible. You walked to Daton, Ohio and back
again just so we could make a ten second reference
to the proclaivers bitch. I love, Thank you Dylan for
getting us into this Scottish spirit.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
All right, well, speaking of impressive physical feats, mango my
first fact is also a new item on my bucket list.
So I want to bag some Monros.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Is that legal?
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Not only is it legal, it's actually encourage mango. So
in Monroe is any mountain in Scotland that's over three
thousand feet tall? And I was curious how many of
these there were. There are two hundred and eighty two
Monros in total, and if you make it to the
top of one, you've bagged it.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
That's what they say.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Now you may be thinking that a Monroe is a
scientific term or a word derived from Gaelic, but actually
their name for Sir Hugh Monroe, who surveyed and catalog them.
This was way back in eighteen ninety one.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Now, first of all, I love this terminology. Bagging a
Monroe is ridiculous, a great term. It is ridiculous. But
but did this guy just wake up with day decide
to make like like a huge list of mountains.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
No, it was actually an assignment. He was asked to
do it by the editor of the Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal,
and mountain climbing and hillwalking were and of course still
are popular past times in Scotland, and that's, of course
thanks to the country's rugged terrain. So Monroe had co
founded the club a few years earlier, so he was
clearly qualified for this. But he had something else going
for him. According to a biography written by the Monroe Society,
he was known as a compulsive note taker and quote
(04:14):
he flung himself with enthusiasm into everything he undertook. So
it seems like a super interesting guy. But although he
worked tirelessly to catalog them all, Monroe didn't bag all
the Monroes himself. He actually sadly died of pneumonia in
nineteen nineteen with only three mountains left on his climbing list.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
It's just such a bummer.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
That is really tragic, I know, and it means that
he doesn't qualify as a completer. That's the official term
for people who reach the top of every single Monroe,
and that's a lot like that is a lot of climbing,
a lot of walking, and so doing so gains you
membership into the Monroe Society, which says there are just
over seventy six hundred registered completers. And I'd like to
think that Sir Hugh would be especially proud of Jamie Errens,
who holds the fastest record from Monroe, completing in a
(04:48):
single self propelled round, meaning she didn't use any form
of motorized transportation. She bagged the whole list in thirty
one days, ten hours, and twenty seven minutes, traveling on foot,
by bike, and by sea kayak to reach them all. Now,
out of the I can match Jamie's record or even
come closed. But one of these days I'd love to
go to Scotland and put at least one Monroe in
my back.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
I don't want to overdo it one. It feels like
that's impressive enough. Yeah, you gotta do it for Sir Hugh.
I love it. Also, that's incredible. Jja's that really sunning.
Have you been to Scotland before?
Speaker 1 (05:14):
I have not.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
It's definitely on the list of places I want to
get to and you know the coming years, how about you.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
We went with my family. My dad organized a trip,
which you know, my mom does most of organizing, and
so this was a very poorly organized trip and we
went to a farmhouse and there are all these generations
of family and we basically saw none of Scotland. No
one could get coordinated and everyone wanted to do their
own thing.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
It's but a nice farmhouse, I hope, so beautiful.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
I mean, like the land was beautiful. Everyone was so nice.
I really want to go back to Scotland, but I've
been once. I haven't really seen it, so okay, So
back to this. In nineteen eighty four, a Scottish paleontologist
named stan Wood made a remarkable discovery in this old
limestone quarry and this is in West Lothian. Would by
the way, it wasn't a trained scientist. He actually never
finished a school and worked at a shipyard and then for
an insurance company. But he became this like really respected
(05:59):
diy fossil collector and in fact he eventually amasked such
impressive finds that the Royal Museum in Scotland began buying
them from him, all of which led to this faithful
day in the quarry would actually uncovered the fossil that
would turn out to be the oldest known tetrapod, which,
you know, I didn't know what a tetrapod is. It's
a class of animals that emerge from the water and
involved into familiar things like you know, mammals or amphibians.
And the creature he discovered was about like seven inches long.
(06:20):
It had four stumpy legs and a lizard like tail,
so he nicknamed it Lizzie the Lizard, even though scientists
have since pointed out it's a not really lizard, you know,
in fact that they don't really know what it is.
The best guest seems to be some kind of ancient
relative of the salamander. But even though everyone referred to
Lizzie as she, we also don't know whether the critter
was a female.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Yeah, it's funny how you can take a fossil which
is really just a rock, right, and the minute you
give it a name, you start to think of it
as this cute creature.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
But I don't know.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
It just always amuses me. But but anyway, how old
is Lizzi?
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Exactly?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Well, based on the ages of the rocks in which
she was found, everyone's best guess was that Lizzie was
around three hundred and thirty one million years old, Right,
it's pretty old. But last year, a University of Texas
PhD student and his name is Hector Garza, he decided
to get more specific, and so he used this technique
called radiometric dating, and Garza found that Lizzie is actually
three hundred and forty six million years old, which is
a huge deal because that means she lived during Romer's Gap.
(07:06):
Roamers Gap is this mysterious gap in the fossil record
that runs from about three hundred and forty five to
three hundred and sixty million years ago, And so when
you home in on Lizzie's true age, it actually gives
scientists this better understanding of when vertebrates emerged from the
water and went on the land, and it also gives
them a clue about what might have prompted that huge change.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
All right, well, my next fact is also about an animal,
and it may be less scientifically important, but I dare
say it is cuter than a fossil. I'm talking about
the Scottish Terrier, or as it's often known.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
The Scotti.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Oh like Toto and the Wizard of Oz right well,
actually pretty close.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
So the dog who played Toto in the old Judy
Garland movie was actually a Cairn Terrier. But I'm glad
you did bring that up, because there are several terrier
breeds that originated in Scotland, including the Cairn, the Sky,
the Dandie Denmont which definitely sounds like it's in Scotland,
and the West Highland White, but none have captured the
public imagination quite like the Scotti, which has become a
symbol of its native country.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
I mean it is the one. They call it Scottish terrier.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
It's true, that's a fair point. But although the Scotti
is an icon now, it's got a pretty humble origin.
So historians believe the breed originated with dogs brought over
from Europe by the early Celts, and then by the
fourteenth century it was common for farmers in the Scottish
Islands to have these short legged dogs that they used
to hunt rats and foxes and sort of other vermin.
But these folks were pretty busy with day to day survival,
so they didn't spend much time writing down the descriptions
(08:15):
of dogs or determining if this dog counted as a
different breed from that dog.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Sure, I mean, all they cared about was was this
dog catching a rat? Right?
Speaker 1 (08:21):
One hundred percent?
Speaker 3 (08:22):
And you know it actually wasn't until the eighteen hundreds
that the Scottish terrier became widely known as this unique
type different from other terriers in Scotland. It was sometimes
referred to as an Aberdeen terrier, so one theory is
that the breed emerged from the Highlands via the city
of Aberdeen, which is to the east and any rate.
People began compiling these proper breed records in the eighteen
hundreds and eventually they held dog shows, which further popularized
the idea of distinct breeds with these desirable traits. Back then,
(08:44):
sleek hunting dogs or tiny fluffy toys were all the rage.
The Scotti, with its wiry code and muscular chests, just
wasn't that appealing at that time, and that all changed
in the twentieth century. Scotti clubs and breeders started popping
up across Scotland. And across the US actually for that matter,
and this former farmhand became known as a wonderful family pet.
Now it's because of their person They've been described as
almost human like in their intelligence and their incredible loyalty.
In fact, Scotty's were so beloved that they were actually
(09:05):
immortalized as a game piece in Monopoly. You remember this, right, yeah,
of course? Yeah, and then of course famous owners like
Fdr Dwight, the Eisenhower and Humphrey Bogart.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Wow, yeah, I know. I mean when you are next
to a top hat and a thimble, I feel like
that's when you know you've made it.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
It's a big deal. Like it's a big deal.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Yeah all right, Well we have to take a quick break,
but when we come back, I'll tell you what it
takes to make a Tardan of your own. Don't go anywhere.
(09:40):
Welcome back to a very Scottish part time genius. If
you're enjoying this episode, please share it with friend or
leave us a nice review and rating. It helps us out. Okay, well,
I want you to close your eyes and imagine a
kilt your eyes.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
What does it look like?
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Okay, it's long pleated I think made of wool, and
of course it's plaid.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Yeah, not bad, but technically you can open your eyes.
But technically speaking, the pattern most of US Americans call
plaid is tartan. In Scotland, the word plaid refers to
a piece of tartan fabric used as a blanket or
worn over the shoulder. But right now we're just talking tartan.
So Scottish tartan has a long storied history. In the
(10:25):
eighteenth century, these patterns became popular as military uniforms, and
many clans or families adopted signature tartans of their own.
But the patterns used in Scotland goes back even further.
In the nineteen eighties, a scrap of wool tartan fabric
was found in a peat bog in glen Afric, and
radiocarbon dating suggested it was made in the fourteenth century,
(10:47):
and although it was stained by pete, the die analysis
showed that its true colors included green and brown stripes
on yellow and red backgrounds. And so I know about
the glen Affric tartan because I actually looked it up
on the Scottish Registry of Tartans, and I didn't realize
this existed before, but it's this incredible database that the
(11:08):
country is collected. It's the Official Database of Tartan Designs
and it was established by Parliament in two thousand and eight.
It contains thousands of searchable tartan patterns.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
So how does this actually work? Like, can anybody register
a tartan?
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Yeah, anyone can, but there are three conditions. So first,
that has to meet the government's definition of a tartan,
which is quote, a design which is capable of being
woven consisting of two or more alternating colored stripes which
combine vertically and horizontally to form a repeated checkered pattern. Right,
so it just kind of has that plaid like feel. Second,
(11:42):
it has to be unique. It can't be the same
as any other registered tartan. And finally, there has to
be a clear link between the person registering the tartan
and the proposed tartan name. Right, So anyone can do it.
Lots of people have, and even corporations, schools, nonprofits have
gotten into this game. I've spent maybe too much time
browsing the register, but I found that there are official
(12:03):
tartans for the University of Delaware, the Canadian Police College,
British Airways, Hello Kitty, the New York Jets, and my favorite,
a tartan created by an Ohio man to raise money
for cats with cancer.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Wow, that's why.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
If you're curious, that pattern is ten black and blue
to mimic the coat and eyes of his late companion JD.
The Siamese cat.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Oh that's kind of sweet. But actually, now that you
say this, are you thinking what I'm thinking?
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Yeah, definitely I want a part time genius tartan.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
I don't even know what we would do with it,
but it just seems like such an amazing thing to have.
I would just in fact, I think I need two
of them.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah. Well, I mean if Hello Kitty got one, I
feel like we should.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
That's a that's a fair point, all right.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
My next fact involves another symbol of Scotland, but there's
no registry for this one. That's because it's a mythical creature.
And this is, of course the unicorn.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
You know, I noticed that when I was doing my research.
There's a unicorn on the Scottish coat of arms, but
I'm not exactly sure why that's true.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Yeah, I mean, unicorns are obviously great. We need to
stop for a moment just to acknowledge.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
That unicorns twenty seconds of silence to just think about
how great they are.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Recognize the unicorn. But also it has to do with history.
So in Celtic mythology, unicorns symbolized strength, purity and of
course innocence, and in art and in legends, unicorns are
depicted as independent and difficult to capture, and that's probably
why in the twelfth century, King William the First added
a unicorn to the Scottish Royal coat of arms. Now,
(13:34):
as the years rolled on, unicorn legends grew in the
Middle Ages, people believe that only a king could capture one.
So it's no surprise that in the early fourteen hundreds
Scotland's King James the Second kept the unicorn symbolism going
and from then on the Scottish throne and the unicorns
were inextricably linked. Now the country's next kings, these were
(13:54):
James's three, four and five super original. They went unicorn crazy,
putting the reachers on coins, seals, other emblems, and eventually
the Scottish Royal coat of arms included a shield supported
by not one, but two unicorns who were draped in
gold chains at least until the Union of Crowns in
sixteen oh three. That's when King James the sixth became
(14:17):
the King of England and Ireland as well as Scotland,
and at that time one of the unicorns was replaced
by a lion to represent England, of course, so today
you'll find unicorn imagery all over Scotland, and every April ninth,
Scott's along with the rest of the world, celebrate a
National Unicorn Day, which is coming up soon.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
So funny. If I was looking for a unicorn or
a lion, I feel like the last two places I
would go are Scotland, and that's probably fair. So while
we're on the subject of sty wait, I got to.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Ask you, where where do you think you would go
to look for a unicorn? Exactly?
Speaker 2 (14:54):
It's a good question.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
I feel I think maybe there are parts of Scott's
got than like the Islis Sky or something that you
might go to.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
But I don't know.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
I don't know where unicorn's natural habitats should be, but
I'm not sure of Scotland's fair. So while we're on
the subject of Scottish heritage, let's turn our attention to language.
After English, the most widely spoken language in Scotland is Scots.
In fact, across the UK more people speak Scots than
Welsh or Gaelic. You may know some yourself, like if
(15:27):
you've ever called a small child a we baarn, that's Scots.
Or if you've ever sung all leanth sign that is
also Scots.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
You know, I have sung all lanth sign, but I've
never thought about what those words actually mean.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Right, You learned something like this as a kid.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
You just kind of go along with it and you
just keep saying and don't really think about it.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah, or you just like mumble along to the lyrics
as other people are singing it on New exactly. Apparently
it's Scott's for the good old days.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Of course it even sounds like old.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Yeah, the old and the old, right. But you know,
that's one challenge. The Scots language is actually face because
modern Scots share some similarity and overlap with English, and
a lot of people even in Scotland don't recognize that
it is a language. It's often referred to as a
dialect of English, and in a twenty ten survey of
(16:17):
Scottish adults, sixty four percent of the people agreed with
the statement I don't really think scots is a language,
it's more of a way of speaking. And while most
respondents felt Scott's was an important part of national identity,
twenty six percent of people equated it with slang, saying
it doesn't sound nice or proper. Now. I actually read
(16:38):
a study from twenty twenty two that looked at perceptions
of language, and it concluded that people are more likely
to consider a language legitimate if it's unrelated to other languages,
if it's written, and if it's spoken widely, as opposed
to in a limited geographic area. You know, Scotts only
passes one of those tests.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Oh it's so interesting and also admittedly kind of sad.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Yeah, I agree, I mean it's funny, right, Like, if
you think about it, there's so many similarities between like
French and Italian, or Spanish and Portuguese. Right, there are
plenty words that are mutually intelligible, but no one would
suggest that they aren't distinct languages.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
So their efforts to encourage the use of Scott's.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Yeah, there are. It's part of Scotland's national curriculum and
in twenty fifteen, the Scottish government released a Scots Language
Policy in which it pledged to promote the use of Scots.
The Scottish Book Trust has also done a lot to
support Scott's language, education and literature, and speaking of which,
there's a growing number of modern Scottish authors writing in Scots.
(17:38):
That includes Irvine Welsh, who you might remember from Trainspotting,
but also James Kellman, Emma Gray, Alan Bassett and a
whole lot more.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Actually, yeah, I was rapidly trying to look up how
to say that's great news in Scots and I didn't
quite get there.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
So I'll just say that's great news.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
I'm pretty sure everyone i'll understand.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
All right.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
So for my last fact, I'm going to tell you
about the googa hunters of Nests.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
First year bagn Monrose and now you're hunting gougas.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
This is the best. This has been my favorite. This
is fantastic. Now I'm not hunting googas. In fact, no
one does, except for ten men from Ness. It's this
remote community and the northernmost tip of the Isle of
Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. Now, in recent years the
population of nests has dwindled to about thirteen hundred as
young people leave to find jobs elsewhere. Now, meanwhile, some
(18:29):
urban newcomers have moved in looking for a less hectic lifestyle.
That means the social fabric is changing pretty quickly and
locals are trying to preserve their traditions. Now, the most
famous tradition in Ness.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Is the annual Googa hunting.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Googa is a Gaelic word referring to a juvenile seabird
called a ganet. In every August, ten men from Nests
sail a rough stretch of the Northern Atlantic to a
tiny uninhabited island. There they haul their gear up steep
cliffs and set up camp and these ancient stone huts.
And no one knows for sure how old these huts are,
(19:03):
but the Ness men have hunted google on this island
since the fifteen hundreds and maybe even earlier than that.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
You know, I didn't realize it was still legal to
hunt these sort of like wild sea birds.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
It's actually not, but in this case, UK law makes
an exception for the googa hunt because of its cultural
significance here. And you know, the hunt hasn't changed much
over the years. The men don't use guns or traps. Instead,
they use these long poles to grab the googas by
the necks, and then they use rocks to deliver a
blow to the head, killing the birds almost instantly. Now
(19:36):
the carcasses are cleaned, they're salted, they're stacked along these
cliffs until it's time to sail back, and so when
the hunters arrive home, they're greeted at the docks by
friends and family. They're all eager to claim their share
of the spoils. Googa is actually a local delicacy, boiled
and then served with potatoes and a glass of milk. It's,
of course in acquired taste, and it sounds sort of
(19:57):
weird to think about all this combination here, but one
report I read described it as a cross between rotten
leather and fishy beef.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
So once you hear that, you're like.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
I'm all in on this, but definitely totally, But fans
say it's closer to to like salted mackerel.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Either way.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
The days of google feast on nests maybe coming to
a close. So after an outbreak of avian flu, the
twenty twenty two hunt was canceled, and last year Scotland's
Conservation Agency reduced the harvest from two thousand birds to
five hundred. But the biggest threat is actually political. Opponents
of the hunt say it's cruel and barbaric, and a
(20:33):
petition calling for its end was sent to Parliament with
eighty five thousand signatures, So a lot of people behind this.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Yeah, I mean there's always that tension right between tradition
and what feels barbaric, like killing birds with rocks feels
a little awful.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Yeah, no, that's true. But you know, as supporters have
pointed out, the reality of factory farm poultry isn't great either, right,
and things like feazen and partridge shooting have been popular
past times for the UK's upper class for century. But
it's a real concern, as is the matter of conservation.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
So where does this stand today?
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Well, as of this recording, this is still TBD. The
petition remains open but won't be considered until after the
Scottish Parliament election in May.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Well, I'm curious to see what happens. Well, it is
time for our final fact well, and I thought we'd
kick it off with some music, So I'm going to
have you take a listen here.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Oh man, that's great.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
I feel like I'm standing on a Scottish more, you know,
with the wind and my hair, you know, pretending I
have hair this wind in there.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Like I think I can remember what that feels like.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Yeah, well you should not, because what you just heard
was a clip from a Slovak folklore fest. Well the
instrument was a guide or Slovak bagpipe.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
You know you wait until the end of this episode
to tell me that bagpipes aren't Scottish.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
We always save the most surprising for last, right, But
it's true. Bagpipes are a truly global instrument. You'll hear
them across Europe, North Africa, parts of Asia, the Balkans,
even the Middle East. It is hard to pinpoint exactly
when and where they were invented, but the idea of
attaching a bag or a reservoir of air to a
set of pipes goes back to ancient times. In fact,
(22:31):
archaeologists in Turkey found a Bronze Age carving of what
appears to be an early bagpipe. The ancient Egyptians, Greeks,
and Romans had bagpipes as well, and as the Roman
Empire expanded, bagpipes followed, which is how they came to Britain.
Now along the way the instrument evolved. They added drones,
which are those pipes at the top that hold a
(22:51):
single tone, and also chants, which allow pipers to play
melodies by opening our closing holes. The first confirmed reference
to Scottish bagpipes, however, dates back to thirteen ninety six,
and this is from an account of a clan battle
which mentions the presence of war pipes. And for the
next several centuries, bagpipes played a huge role in Scottish warfare.
(23:14):
They're not the easiest instrument to march into battle with,
but they are definitely loud, so they are ideal for
signaling troops forward, raising morale and frankly intimidating opponents. By
the late sixteenth centuries, Scotland had created the bagpipe most
of us know today the Great Highland bagpipe. It's got
two tenor drones, one bass drone and a chanter. Great
(23:35):
Highland pipers actually accompany British troops on the front lines
of World War One and World War Two? Do you
know that?
Speaker 3 (23:42):
Whoa Can you imagine just like standing there in a
trench playing a bagpipe while these bullets are flying all
around you so strong sometimes like the parts of war,
like this are just so bizarre.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
It is insane to imagine. And it's actually estimated that
about one thousand pipers died in World War One, and
part way through World War I to the frontline, piping
was banned to reduce these fatalities. But there's actually a
famous story about one exception. So during D Day, a
Scottish commander named Simon Fraser asked his piper, Bill Millen,
to play as the troops charged onto the beach, and
(24:14):
Millan pointed out that the War Office had forbade this
kind of thing, to which Fraser replied, that's the English
War Office. You and I are both Scottish and that
does not apply. So Millan marched along the beach playing
his pipes under a hail of German fire, and both
he and Fraser lived to tell the tale. Is that incredible?
Speaker 3 (24:34):
Yeah, that definitely is an incredible story. And for that, Mango,
and for all the time you spent digging through the
official Tartan register, I decided at that moment, right then,
right here, you deserve today's trophy.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Well I will take it. I don't know if you
knew this, but on my tennis team in high school,
one of our best players used to play the bagpipes
and would play them during practice and warm ups to
annoy other teams.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Oh, that's actually pretty great.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
One of those one of those instruments that sounds amazing
from like a football field.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
The way and you get a little.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
Closer, You're like, that's a little that's a little close.
But I do have to say I'm a little disappointed
we haven't heard a real Scottish bagpipe.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
You know, I had a feeling you might say that,
so I came prepared. Here you go. That is the
Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo and Annual performance held outside Edinburgh Castle.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
That's amazing.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
What a great way to close out the episode. You know,
maybe one day we can go see it in person
wearing the Part Time Genius tartan.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
I can see it now.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
I'd love that. But before we go, remember to follow
us on Instagram and Blue Sky. We're at Part Time Genius.
If you have a question or idea for the show,
please write us an email at High Geniuses at gmail
dot com. That's Hi, Geniuses at gmail dot com. We
always love hearing from you. Now. We'll be back with
another new episode next week. But in the meantime from Will, Dylan, Gabe, Mary,
(26:10):
and myself. Thank you so much for listening. Part Time
Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. It is
hosted by my good pal Will Pearson, who I've known
(26:32):
for almost three decades now. That is insane to me.
I'm the other co host, Mangeshatikular aka Mango. Our producer
is Mary Phillips Sandy. She's actually a super producer. I'm
going to fix that in post. Our writer is Gabe Lucyer,
who I've also known for like a decade at this point,
maybe more. Dylan Fagan is in the booth. He is
(26:54):
always dressed up, always cheering us on, and always ready
to hit record and then mix the show after he
does a great job. I also want to shout out
the executive producers from iHeart my good pals Katrina and
Norvel and Ali Perry. We have social media support from
Calypso rallis if you like our videos, that is all
Calypso's handiwork. For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit
(27:18):
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or tune in wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. That's it from us here
at part time Genius, thank you so much for listening.
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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