Edinburgh-Glasgow rivalry should have had its chips

Has Scotland’s long-standing Glasgow-Edinburgh rivalry gone beyond a joke?

Last week a Glasgow man tried to prosecute an Edinburgh chip shop owner for “racial discrimination” after being charged for ketchup with a fish supper while brown sauce was free. I kid you not!

Tony Winters, originally from Glasgow but “marooned” in Edinburgh for 18 years said: “Just because we come from the west and tend to like ketchup instead of brown sauce, it’s clear they’re discriminating and I don’t think it’s right.

“I’m feeling racially persecuted because of a condiment.”

The Gold Sea chippy owner Paul Crolla replied: “People in Edinburgh want salt and sauce on fish and chips. That’s the tradition. If you go to Glasgow it’s salt and vinegar. For this guy to suggest it is discriminatory takes the biscuit.”

Gentlemen purlease.

I realise it’s the little things in life that make folk see red. But alleging racism over sauce portions when the world is almost at war over Syria suggests a serious loss of perspective in life.

Is there really a deeper ketchup-covered truth behind all this? Are Scots not one race but actually two tribes that can hardly thole one another’s habits, accents, footie teams or culinary preferences?

I suppose it’s true that our two biggest cities behave rather differently.

When I lived in Edinburgh I was astonished to find buses glide to a halt at stops when the driver spotted waiting passengers in Glasgow you have to throw yourself bodily into the road to force a bus to even slow down.

An old pal of mine and Tartan Army founder Ian Black has made a few bob out of the auld rivalry penning the Weegies v Edinbuggers joke-book.

He’s got a modern twist to the old “You’ll have had your tea” line about Edinburgh’s lack of hospitality. It seems that nowadays they gesture towards the drinks cabinet instead and say: “Oh no, you’ll be driving.”

There’s a slogan Glaswegians use when talking about Edinburgh’s world-famous joie de vivre: “Edinburgh! A castle, a smile and a song. . . one out of three ain’t bad.”

Edinburghers retaliate by asking why all the Wise Men come from the East and all the cowboys from the West.

The slogan “Glasgow’s Miles Better” was one minute old when an Edinburgh wag asked “Better than what the Black Hole of Calcutta?”

But of course Weegies get the last word.

When you ask for “some mair” in Glasgow, you get another drink in Edinburgh they just open a window.

The late great Glasgow-based sculptor George Wylie also loved to wind up the great and good of Auld Reekie. When artwork for the M8 was first proposed, he suggested an empty candelabra at the Edinburgh end and lit candles at Bailieston. Cheeky monkey.

So in Scotland we have the Far East, the Wild West and an unbridgeable gulf in between called Falkirk.

The problem for the rest of Scotland is that our biggest cities are so busy competing with one another they hardly notice anyone else.

Still at least this Battle of the Condiments is over. Trading Standards say individual traders can decide to charge for sauces and the Gold Sea chippie has no case to answer.

But the stooshie reminds us of two enduring truths about Scottish life.

Only in Scotland could a chippie become the battleground for big city rivalry and race discrimination.

And only a Scot could spend 18 years craving tomato sauce on his chips without buying his ain bottle. Clearly you can take the man oot o’ Glesca but ye cannae take Glesca oot o’ the man!