Who Are These Kilted Wife-Stealers?!

Lock up your daughters, wives and girlfriends! Remember that time when the USS JFK docked in Dun Laoghaire for a few days and our dear womenfolk took leave of their senses and underwear, desperate to be carried off by some white uniformed, buzz-cut beefcake like at the end of that stupid Richard Gere movie? Well this is the only thing worse.

Why do Irish women love the Scots so much? Why do our fine, home-grown single chaps leave the Lynx in the cabinet and the party shirt in wardrobe on these weekends, well aware that, for the next few days, their presence is not required?

Why don't our damsels go crazy for the English? - Too old; wear wax jackets; drunk.

Why don't our maidens wobble at the knees at the sight of Welshmen? - Too pale; ruddy cheeked; drunk.

Why don't our mademoiselles go "ooh la la" for the French? - Too, well, French; wear strange handkerchiefs around their necks; not drunk enough.

The Scots, however, have a devastating, two-pronged approach to the seduction of the flower of our womenhood: The kilts and the accent.

The kilts operate in a very base, pornographic manner. In the same way a short skirt titillates men with the suggestion of what lies beneath, so too the swirl of tartan around a pair of sturdy Caledonian legs is mouth-watering for the ladies - the drunk ones in particular. From the most sophisticated professional career-woman to the bawdiest, blousiest tart, all have shuffled up to an unsuspecting beefy Scot and uttered the immortal, subtle line: "Whaddaya wear under yer kilt?!" To which the Scot, with the Highlander's nose for easy prey, responds - "Put it this way, I'm a real Scotsman...." and kindly provides the young lady with the answer to her query.

The accent? Well that's simple. Exhibit A: Sean Connery. Women, in general, don't like Bond movies. They're smart enough to see that it is basically the same plot every time, and have no interest in new, technologically ingenious methods of murder. All the same, there's a little, hidden part of them, that would like to be masterfully ravaged by a burly Scot in a tuxedo, then left in a pleasurable daze as he steals off in the night to defuse a nuclear bomb headed for Jupiter, patronising them wittily in a Edinburgh lilt as he goes. Therefore, this biennial weekend allows them the rare opportunity to indulge this shameful desire, even if they may have to settle for an overweight sheep-farmer called Dougie.

It's a formidable and unstoppable combination. Lads, don't say I didn't warn you.