American tourists more ill-informed than thought

That little gem comes from this BBC news story, via Gareth.

Now, obviously, this is not the case. The haggis is in fact a small furry animal that lives in the Scottish highlands. It has two short legs on one side and two long legs on the other side, a peculiar adaptation that enables it to run particularly efficiently around hills. This is also its weakness. A decent pair of hunters can bag a fair number of haggises in a day armed with only a net and a set of bagpipes: one of them inflates the bagpipes, causing a tremendous noise, startling the haggis, who panics, turns around and makes a run for it. Unfortuantely, at this point the haggis’s legs are now working the wrong way for the hill; it loses its footing, tumbles down the hill, and at that point the guy with the net catches it.

Ask any Scot (or, for that matter, anyone who has lived in Scotland long enough), and they’ll tell you the same story.