Porridge

"You're avoiding me!" I heard Eamonn's voice behind me as I scuttled down the corridor towards the kitchen. "I always know when people are avoiding me. I want that blog post," he said.

"I'm not avoiding you," I answered. "You're the first person I called this morning when I got in at 7.30." (Eamonn's in earliest, and if you have no key of your own, you can ask him to let you in.)

"Ah, I was at the dentist's."

"What did you have done?"

"I'm having all sorts of problems. Had my teeth knocked out when I was 13!"

"Shinty?"

"Hurling! It was a bad time. Thirteen, no teeth. My parents couldn't afford dentistry."

"They could afford a hurling stick!"

"Ah, but you could use that for all sorts of things — herding animals, prodding recalcitrant sheep, stirring porridge."

"In Scotland, we have utensils for stirring porridge."

"Do you, now?"

"They're called spurtles."

"Spurtles? What's the leading brand of porridge oats in Scotland?"

"Scott's. There's a man in a kilt putting the shot on the packet."

"Ah, yes, of course. You know, there's an oats company in Cheshire who are inviting people to make them a YouTube ad. Fifteen thousand pounds for the winner. Now, that's innovative. Mornflake, they're called."

You can learn a lot when you're trying to avoid Eamonn in the corridor.

* Porage or Porridge? Porridge! The spelling of this word has varied over the years. It's a mixture of the old word "poray" and the French word potage. Up to the end of the 16th century, it was always spelt "porage". After that time, there was a wide variation and some of the spellings were "parritge" and "parrage". Around 1800, the word settled down to "porridge" and has been spelled that way ever since. Scott's chose the old Scottish word "porage" to use as their trademark, which is why it appears that way on the packet today.