SAGE: Willie, are you actually Scottish?
Willie: I was born and bred on the banks of Loch Ness, and still live there, making a meagre living frightening tourists.
SAGE: How did you become involved in the advice business?
Willie: Ah, there lies a tale. A few friends and I had come down to the bonny banks of Loch Lomond, looking for girls, as young men do. Now, one of my friends was Sandy MacAllan, a fine, big, braw, lad but awful shy with the lassies. All the rest of us would be dancing and kissing with the girlies, for the maids of Loch Lomond were ever keen on high jinks, and poor Sandy would be sitting all by himself, nursing his beer and looking miserable. So I took it on myself to have a wee chat with him about his lack of success with the womenfolk. Seems he didn’t have a clue on how to approach a lassie, and I advised him to hitch his kilt a little above the knee every now and then, for he had a braw pair of knees, and that this would drive the girls into a frenzy and they wouldn’t be able to resist him.
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SAGE: And did this methodology work?
Willie: Sandy MacAllan has been married eight times and always to women called Morag. He had a kind of fetish for the name. There was not a Morag for twenty miles was safe when Sandy MacAllan was in the mood and had his kilt hitched above his knee. Mind you, you might say that it was not Sandy himself who approached me for advice, but I who forced my wisdom on him. But I knew from that moment that my destiny was to be a sage.
SAGE: But surely you didn’t have the life experience to offer advice at that young age?
Willie: Ah, that’s where you’re wrong. I might not have had the life experience, but I had the intoition.
SAGE: You mean intuition?
Willie: No, intoition. Once I’m into something I see the solution as sure as it was Ben Nevis right in front of me. It’s a thing you’re born with, the intoition. I tried to teach it to a chap once but he ended up with a sprained neck with the concentration.
SAGE: You offer advice on just about every facet of the human condition. Is there anything you don’t know?
Willie: Chinese car washing practices are a mystery to me. They might be the same as those in the rest of the world, but I have no knowledge of them and so I admit my ignorance.
SAGE: And that’s all?
Willie: God, you’ll be wanting me to admit that I’m a total ignoramus! No, Chinese car washing practices is the limits of my ignorance. Well, that and the capital of Uru-guay.
SAGE: Have you ever considered taking your advice onto radio or TV?
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Willie: Willie’s Wisdom started as a small weekly column in the Bendoon Times. It was offered to national newspapers, but they rejected it, because they said I wasn’t sophisticated enough for city dwellers. So, I thought to myself, a pox on them and their media cronies in radio and TV, and took the column directly to the internet, where I can help people from across the world.
SAGE: Yet your column appears to show the influence of a certain Gurmeet Mattu.
Willie: Mr Mattu is a fine gentleman and my literary advisor. He sorts out my spelling and comes round to do the windows on a Wednesday afternoon.
SAGE: And you really think your life as a Scottish villager qualifies you to give advice to someone in, say, New Zealand?
Wilie: Of course, of course, because as the bard, Rabbie Burns, said, ‘For aw that, an’
aw that, it’s comin’ yet, for aw that, that man to man, the world over, will brothers be, for all that’. That’s a fine creed to live by, to stretch out your hand to your fellow man and give them the benefit of your intoition. The lad concerned about acne in S.
Africa is no different to his brother in Sweden.
SAGE: And the cure for acne is?
Willie: Tomato soup and yoghurt, applied on alternate days.
SAGE: Thank you very much for your time, Willie, I’m sure your readers will have greatly appreciated learning a little about you. I’ll take that whisky now, if I may.
And so, on with the show, as they say, all the advice you’ll ever need, no matter what is ailing you.
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