Many years ago on the kind of stinking hot evening that only Sydney can turn on, I took a visiting Scottish friend down to the Quay for a ferry ride.
Sydney left him speechless.
‘What,’ I asked cockily, ‘is it that you particularly like about our city?’
‘Och aye, it’s yer horse-pitell-ity, no doubt abert-it.’
We had moved to a seat close to the berthing ferry when I noticed someone had left a brown paper bag there. In it were two very cold, very large bottles of beer.
‘Yes,’ I said, not missing a beat and reaching for the trusty bottle opener I carried back then. ‘It even extends to this arrangement for leaving a couple of coldies around the traps for parched blow-ins from Scotland.’
Glug-glug-glug … we each took a few healthy swigs.
I smiled at him confidentially. ‘You’re lucky, you know, mate; you’re drinking a Reschs Dirty Annie.’
He frowned a little, then quickly put the bottle to his mouth and drained it.
‘Aye, it’s yer horse-pitell-ity!’ was all he could say.