In honour of That Scottish Play opening this evening, I thought I’d share some Scottish wisdom with you

1. Money cannot buy happiness but somehow, it’s more comfortable to cry in a Mercedes Benz than it is on a bicycle.
2. Forgive your enemy but remember the bastard’s name.
3. Help a man when he is in trouble and he will remember you when he is in trouble again.
4. Many people are alive only because it’s illegal to shoot them.
5. Alcohol does not solve any problem, but then neither does milk.

FYI, That Scottish Play is the one that Shakespeare wrote that’s apparently bad luck to talk about… Please don’t make me say the name!!!

Upon the heath

This is quite a common theme and I’m sure a lot of these ideas have been covered by people far more knowledgeable than I, but I thought I would add my 2 cents worth

Growing up I loved Disney, as did every other kid, and part of me still does. I may be jaded about love and not believe in fairy tales but I do still want to believe in magic. So I do But in the process of growing up I did a course at university which opened my eyes quite a bit. The course was Contemporary Popular Culture and the best part of it was the “Disney is evil and has brainwashed you” section. The funniest part was watching how angry the students got when the lecturer trashed a huge part of their childhood (I sometimes wonder how these people survive in the real world if they refuse to look beyond the obvious and can’t workout that the lecturer was merely pushing the envelope to get us to think and question… the entire point of doing a BA!!! But I digress…)

So here are my brain farts on Disney (some original Faeron, some not…) :

Beauty and the Beast: Succumbing to Stockholm Syndrome… It’s ok, so long as it gets you a husband! (this, so-long-as-it-gets-you-a-husband theme is quite common in Disney)

Aladdin: Don’t work hard kiddies, steal stuff and a Princess will fall for you… Of course she believed you were a Prince at the time of said falling and by the time she realised what you really were it was too late and she had invested. In other words, pretend to be what you aren’t and then by the time the lies fall down you’ll be trapped. Oh wait, I think I may sound bitter here

The Little Mermaid: My favourite Disney movie! But… Getting a wave to splash dramatically behind you while you sing about growing legs and stalking a man is really difficult. Have you ever tried it? It really isn’t that easy. And the whole dramatic hair flip as you gracefully burst out of the ocean… No… Long hair is very rarely graceful when you are emerging from the ocean, best not to attempt that.

(And I know both of these Mermaid points as a result of years of attempting to accomplish them, both in the swimming pool and the ocean… The only part I got right ever was the stalking – oh, wait, I wasn’t supposed to admit that out loud )

The Lion King: Well aside from the fact that there are no people in Africa… and the bad guy has a British accent (yes America, we do notice these things). I don’t think this movie tried to teach us anything too bad. I even met a guy in Zanzibar who said “Asante sana, squash banana”

(But I assume that was because some obnoxious tourist once asked him to and he got a good reaction from the other idjit tourists around so he continues say it…)

There are so many other instances of stupid women in Disney movies. I mean, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White both get woken up by true love’s kiss… They never met the guy! And in Sleeping Beauty’s case, he’s how much younger than her?!?

But I think Disney has redeemed itself and isn’t all evil. Have you seen Enchanted? Do yourself a favour and watch it! Amy Adams is the luckiest girl in the world because she gets to play a real-life Disney Princess (I secretly hate her for that, but can’t think of a more perfect actress to play the part).

But why I love this movie and why I think it redeems Disney, is because they made fun of themselves and made fun of the entire genre of animated fairy tales that they created and became famous for.  It’s a funny and whimsical Disney movie while still being intelligent.

So what will you be wearing for the Royal Wedding? I haven’t quite decided yet…

Wait, what? You don’t know why I’m asking about your outfit for the Royal Wedding???

Um, it’s only the biggest event of 2011!  In case you missed the memo, Prince William will be marrying the very lucky Katherine Middleton on the 29th of April in an lavish ceremony with much pomp and ceremony, as only the British Royal Family can pull off. And we’re all invited Thanks to the wonders of modern technology of course

Now that we’ve established that we are not all flying to the UK to attend the wedding (only a special 1900 guests will be doing that). And we know that we will be watching in the comfort of our own homes… This is still the Royal Wedding. You cannot, repeat cannot, wear your fluffy bunny slippers and eat chips and drink beer! Oh no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no…. No, just no! No! Once more for luck, NO!

So I repeat, what will you be wearing for the Royal Wedding?

I’m not sure yet, but I think I want new shoes for the day

So after school I did what I think everyone should do, I took a gap year. This was possibly the most intriguing year I will ever have in my life!

The gap year is so often confused as being the refuge of those who have no idea what to do with their future and are terrified of committing to studying more. It is also often considered by those who never took one as an excuse to not get on with your life and just party for a year straight before getting on with a degree or tertiary studying. So often both of these reasons are true, but with me it was anything but.

I am not a party animal and I never will be (I just spent the entire weekend recovering from Friday night’s head banging affair)! I also knew exactly what I wanted to study and what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. So why did I take a gap year? Well if I look back now, I know it was because I wasn’t ready for university and I wasn’t ready to be as strong as I needed to be to succeed with what I wanted to do. But if I’m honest, when I took the gap year, I wanted to be in the UK and be discovered and made famous over night.

So… it took me almost half the year to pluck up the courage to go overseas. Then one day I said to my parents “please can I use a credit card? I want to book my tickets now.” And I did. Two weeks later I was on a plane to the UK, terrified out of my wits! I am a British citizen and have one of those lovely little maroon books, so I didn’t need to organise visas or have so many thousands in my bank account before they would let me into the country. I arrived at the airport, pulled out the maroon passport and was told “welcome home, Miss Wheeler”. (Dear Parentals, thanks for being British!)

So I was there… now what?! I was staying with family friends, for whom I will always be thankful, who lived just outside of London. I spent my days looking on the internet for jobs, terrified to commit to anything because this was not how I imagined my trip to the UK would go. I was supposed to land a job immediately that was flexible and then somehow land an acting job next to someone famous and be discovered. That wasn’t going to happen working and living in a pokey little pub outside of London. After many tearful conversations on the phone to my mom I took a job. It was a live-in job in a pokey little pub outside London, somewhere between London and Oxford.

I stayed one night, made up a family emergency and fled up to Liverpool to my loving and dear Aunt and Uncle. They took me in with big hugs and told me how brave I was to be in a foreign country on the other side of the world to my home and be there all by myself. I stayed with them a week and then knew I had to make a decision. There was a potential job in London which I could go and interview for or I could just fly straight home…

I took a deep breath and went to London. I stayed in a backpackers by myself and went to the interview. After all, I told myself, I could always just fly home after the interview if it didn’t work out. I got the job! It was a live-in pub job but it was in the heart of London. I hated the work but the people I lived with took me in and looked after me like a baby sister.

True to form, there wasn’t a single person native to London working at the pub. Four of us were South African, the assistant manager actually being someone I am sure I met during high school. The manager was Irish and the girl I became closest to was from Jersey, but had lived in Cape Town for years with her ex-fiancé.

During my time at The Barley Mow I met very interesting people and some not very interesting people, I learnt how to pull a pint, I didn’t get discovered and I found my inner courage. It was the quintessential life lesson scenario and I got as much out of it as I could. I didn’t get what I expected out of the trip but I got what I needed. It’s much like Dirk Gently’s (Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency) theory on navigation: follow a car that looks like it knows where it is going… you may not get where you want to go but you get to where you are meant to be.