vitamin q | a temple of trivia and lists

December 29, 2003 8:52 AM

Scottish puzzle writer, poet, and soon to be author Roddy Lumsden pens vitamin q, a weblog devoted to, as he puts it, "trivia lists, curiosities, and fragments which please me as a connoisseur of the sequential and the inconsequential - it's more a cave of wonder than a grotto of geekery". Vitamin q is the place to go if you need to know 75 terms for being drunk, want lists of fruits and vegetables that have been used as derogatory slang, need the names of the My Little Ponies, or have always wondered which singers have been heralded as "The New Bob Dylan". The archives are bursting with more of the same.
posted by iconomy (9 comments total)

Incredible. Thanks, iconomy.
posted by carter at 9:07 AM on December 29, 2003

My favorite list, by far, is this one (makes me laugh every time I read it):

'The Blythesome Bridal' is an uproarious Scottish song probably written around 300 years ago. It tells of a wedding ceremony, the motley crew of guests and the food and drink they consumed. Here is a guide to the wedding guests and their feast:

Sawney the soutar (Alexander the shoemaker)
Will wi' the meikle mou (Will with the big mouth)
Tam the blutter (Tom the dirty, clumsy chap)
Andrew the tinkler (Andrew the vagabond)
bow'd-legged Robie (bow-legged Robert)
blue-cheeked Dowbie
Lawrie the laird of the land
sowlibber Paatie (Patty the pig-spayer)
plucky-fac'd Wat i' th' mill (pimply-faced Walter from the mill)
Capper-nos'd Francie (copper ie red-nosed Francis)
Gibbie that wons in the how o' the hill (Gilbert who lives in the dell)
Alaster Sibbie wha in wi' black Bessy did mool (Alastair Sibbie who slept with dark-haired Elizabeth. Sibbie, perhaps just a surname, has connotations of sexual disease)
snivling Lilly
Tibby the lass that stands oft on the stool (the girl who often does penance in church)
Madge that was buckled to Stennie and cost him grey breeks to his arse (ie spent all his money)
gleed Geordy Janners (squinting George Janners)
Kirsh wi' the lily-white leg, who gade to the south for manners
Juden Mecourie
blinkin daft Barbara Macleg (very stupid)
flea-lugged sharney-fac'd Lawrie (flea-eared, dung-faced Lawrence)
shangy-mou'd halucket Mag (hare-lipped, giddy Margaret)
happer-ars'd Nansy (Nancy with the scrawny backside)
fairy-fac'd Flowrie (fairy-faced Florence)
Muck Madie
fat-hippet Grisy the lass wi' the gowden wame (ie golden womb, probably a sexual slur)
girn-again Gibby (moan-again Gilbert)
glaiket wife Jenny Bell (meaning both ugly and stupid)
mealy-shin'd Mungo Macapin (dusty-legged Mungo McAlpine)

And the food:

langkail (unchopped cabbage) / porridge / bannocks of barley-meal (meal scones) / sawt herring / a cogue of good ale / fadges (flat wheat loafs) / brochen (honey porridge) / south of good gabbock of skate (best portions of skate) / powsowdie (sheep-head broth) / drammock (gruel) / crowdie (type of cheese) / caller nowtfeet (fresh calves’ heels) / partens (large crabs) / buckies (sea-snails) / whytens (whitings) / spaldings (dried fish) / singit sheepheads (singed sheep heads) / haggies (haggis) / scadlips (hot broth) / lapper'd-milk kebbucks (cheese made with curdled milk) / sowens (gruel of fermented oat husks) / farles (savoury scones) / baps (bread rolls) / swats (beer made from sowens) / brandy in stoups and in caps / mealkail (a dish of mashed cabbage and oats) / castocks (cabbage stems) / skink (beef soup) / scrapt haddocks / wilks (whelks) / dulse and tangles (seaweed)
posted by iconomy at 9:09 AM on December 29, 2003

That list of cravings has made me frickin' hungry.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 9:36 AM on December 29, 2003

fun! thanks!
posted by amberglow at 11:39 AM on December 29, 2003

That was a lot of fun, ike and, best of all, the sort of fun where, without noticing it, quite a few interesting nuggets get stuck in the brain, for further fun during conversation. Thanks a lot!
posted by MiguelCardoso at 1:08 PM on December 29, 2003

Great find!
posted by TimeFactor at 1:17 PM on December 29, 2003

[this is good]
posted by Vidiot at 6:47 AM on December 30, 2003

Thanks - I thought so too.

My new favorite list (I really must meet this guy someday):

16 bands which made it despite having a member named Colin:

1 The Zombies
2 Black
3 Gillan
4 Mull Historical Society
5 Camel
6 Manfred Mann
7 Men at Work
8 Idlewild
9 Magnum
10 Wire
11 Honeybus
12 XTC
13 The Foundations
14 Mungo Jerry
15 Radiohead
16 The Bee Gees
posted by iconomy at 10:51 AM on December 30, 2003

This is fab. Sort of like Borges' 'Book of Imaginary Beings' only as a weblog... same kind of idea, a repository of obscure knowledge.
posted by plep at 11:50 PM on December 30, 2003