The Xenophobe's Guide to the Scots: OS Mpt

Highlights the unique character and behavior of the nation. Frank, irreverent, funny--almost guaranteed to cure Xenophobia.

David Sutherland Ross is a fully fledged member of that well-established species, the Scottish literary exile. Born in Oban, Argyll, he was removed at an early age to his ancestral county of Ross and Cromarty, where he grew up and went to school. Furnished with a little knowledge about all sorts of things thanks to a Scottish education, he migrated to London expecting to become a journalist, but became a publisher instead.

Having learned from blurb-writing how to represent a tangle of ill-assorted elements and random events as a unified whole, he realised he was eminently qualified to write the history of Scotland, and produced Scotland: History of a Nation. Nowadays, as chairman of a small Scottish-based publishing company, he combines publishing with writing and the compilation of anthologies, including Awa¿ and Bile Yer Heid, a collection of Scottish insults and invective. Although he enjoys it all immensely, sometimes he wonders whether it isn¿t too late to try something completely different, like utilising his ability to do water-divining; or perhaps opening a beach restaurant in Bali.

His favourite place in Scotland is the summit of Ben Venue; his favourite Scottish food, new-baked scones with raspberry jam; his favourite Scottish book, The Scottish National Dictionary, and his favourite Scottish phrase, ¿Just a sensation.¿