Rabbie's 5-day tour Day 1

Nine-thirty promptly we were at the offices of Rabbie's tours, not a block from our hotel. Picked up in a 16-seat minibus by Graham, a cheeky lad in probably his late twenties, who had clearly been told not to play to the World Cup on the radio while the tourists were in the car.
The tourists were, from front to back as we loaded the bus, an couple from Cambridge, an an Australian couple, two Japanese female friends, and Sue and I. We appear to be the youngest, at about fifty years old. Sue suggests we learn names so we can stop referring to them by their ethnicity, and I agree, but without much hope for Day one. I subsequently learn that one of the husbands is named Raj, and that's all I got from the first day.
We drove out of London with Graham keeping up a near-constant patter about woeful overspending that went into the new parliament building. The numbers were truly horrific, but Susan and I were bored to tears. I live near Boston's Big Dig, after all, and Susan used to live in Washington DC, home of wasted money.

On the way past the zoo, Graham told us a story about the Norwegian armed forces having a "sense of humor" and promoting one of the zoo's penguins to Admiral, or something, and marching in front of it.
This is true.
http://www.friendsofscotland.gov.uk/business/norwegian.html
Norway's ground forces have gotten into trouble, too, and more recently. See:
http://www.break.com/index/kosovo.html

Later we passed some obviously phallic monument built, as Graham said, as a "monument to Scottish insecurity."

Our first major stop was to Doune Castle, owned by some MacGregor who claims he might be King of Scotland. Laird MacGregor's castle is best known for being the backdrop for Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Tourists treat it with the respect the movie deserves, gallumphing around it shouting "I fart in your general direction!" and "Your mother was a hamster!" HRM the Queen would not be amused, but Laird MacG's coronation should be one for the history books, and the guest book comments were hilarious.

I found out this about history. Rob Roy did not look like Liam Neeson. He looked like a fox-colored orangutang. He probably behaved more like the orangutang, too.