Under the Scotsman's kilt It's true what they say about what's under a Scotsman's kilt. Or, at least, one particular actor playing a Scotsman in the "The Amorous Prawn", a 1962 comedy which is lightweight and dated but entertaining enough if you don't take it too seriously.

A few years back I videoed that film as it was on in the mid-afternoon of a weekday, and I was working.

Towards the end of the movie there's a scene where a Scotsman in a kilt leaps into a bedroom through a hatch in the ceiling. He jumped down, the kilt flew up, I thought "W-h-a-t?!" and hit rewind. Did a frame by frame playback and - yup. No underwear. And a clear view of what lies beneath underwear but which we are seldom lucky enough (or unlucky, depending on your point of view) to be vouchsafed even a glimpse of, except maybe for a nanosecond in an out of focus documentary on Channel 5 after midnight. Yes, at 4 in the afternoon. In full anatomical glory.

Cue lots of dirty laughter, telling of friends and lending of video to a friend's mother who had a great time inviting the little old ladies of the neighbourhood round for a fun-filled afternoon of pause-rewind and tittering. This was a film familiar to many of them from their youth, and they'd never spotted that before. Ah, the wonders of modern technology...

Sadly, what technology giveth, technology can taketh away. Recently The Amorous Prawn was shown on TV again, and I set the digital video recorder with bated breath. Was I disappointed to find that they'd digitally airbrushed out what was all too visible just a few years ago. Don't know who told them, the spoilsport, but it sure wasn't me.

Now I wish I hadn't taped over that video. Could have made a tidy sum renting it out to the disbelieving. But that's life...
  ¶ 11:52 PM