Day 16 - Cosy trivia

We reach the cosy hostel in the dark of early evening - Morag's Lodge, Loch Ness. Dinner is a delicious chicken stuffed with haggis - if haggis wasn't so difficult to make this could be a surprising dinner party dish. Over a couple of pints I discover that some of my fellow Haggisers are not only Australian, but from Annandale, the suburb where I live. They're having a nice family trip - two sisters and the younger brother. I commend the brother for his courage in dressing up Scottish-style earlier that afternoon.
"I'm in my element," he states, "My sisters have been dressing me up since I could walk, even as a woman. I don't mind this,  I'm used to it. I don't care. Just before this tour I wore a sparkling dress and high heels and sung karaoke."
Not what you would expect from a six foot two lad wearing a Wallabies jersey.
"I don't care," he says again, seeking further vindication.

Trivia follows dinner, with historical questions testing our knowledge of the trip so far. A larger proportion points go, however, to the team who have the dancers most capable of standing on their chairs and shaking their booty as soon as a  TV theme song is played. Unfortunately I was picked as one of our team's chair dancers, and my first sortie in the limelight produces howls of "He's hopeless! That's dancing? Awful .." and the like. I redeem myself in a later set doing a twist, but only because I keep my eye on the judges and only start twisting when they're actually looking at me. I think they took pity on me after lashing out so strongly against my previous "dancing". I must admit, their reaction to my first effort was similar to the madness exhibted by the audience during the first performance of Stravinksy's The Rite of Spring.

Other games? Directing a blindfolded team mate to the bar to get the table drinks and then dancing with him/her whenever a Disney theme song is played. I can't tell the difference between Disney and television, and leap upon the chair during the Little Mermaid.

But the greatest number of points go to the team who can most ably dress a team mate in Scottish rags .. I mean highlander garb. We choose the younger brother as our model because he has a good kilt record. After 15 minutes the teams reconvene, disco lights flash and the schmodels schmooze down the catwalk. We win, perhaps unjustly, because our man is prepared to show the most flesh. He announces to the audience, flipping up his rags, "I have come au naturel". He just doesn't care.