In the recent past a friend of mine posted an amusing note
on ‘Facebook’ that gave several examples of ‘Murphy’s Law’.
Although it gave rise to some chuckles it was, in all
honesty, a little short of the mark in terms of accuracy.
We shall try to put the record straight.
Murphy’s Law
states that: ‘If anything can go wrong it will.”
Example: A piece of wire cut to exactly the right length
will always be too short.
That is it. That is all there is to it.
Now let’s look at another one.
Sod’s Law.
Sod’s Law says, “Anything that can go wrong will always go
wrong at the worst possible moment”.
Example: You climb into the attic of the house in the
middle of the night and pick your way over several obstructions until you get
to the far end. It is at this point that the batteries in your flashlight will
go flat.
McFudgen’s Law.
You have never heard of it? Sorry aout that, but it is a
very common one.
McFudgen’s Law tells us that a piece of bread that is
dropped on the floor will always land buttered side down.
We are aware, before you decide to put me right on this—that
this does not happen in practice. However, that is rather the point.
It means that in the event of a 50-50 chance of something
happening the odds will favour the worst outcome.
We know that to be true.
The interesting part of this must be the origins of McFudgen’s
Law. Let’s look at that.
There exist in Glasgow, Scotland, certain areas that
contain what are known as ‘tenements’.
These tenements are high-rise buildings that are known, in
the United States, as ‘Projects’. In the old days there were no lifts in the
tenements so, for people living at, or near, the top, it was a long haul up
many stairs with the shopping.
In the morning, Mum would be likely to kick out the wain
(‘Wee One’ = child) to go out and play on the street. He would go off down the
stairs and join his friends out in the road to play fitba’ (‘football’).
At lunchtime, Mum spread beef dripping with a pinch of
salt scattered on it over a slice of bread. This was a cheap meal for a small
person. She goes to the window – or balcony, and shouts down to him, “Hey,
Jimmy! Here’s ye’re piece.” She might include the expression ‘ya wee… er…
child’.
The slice of bread and dripping would now be hurled out
into space for Jimmy to catch. At some point in its downward flight it would
begin to oscillate in the air. Jimmy is now not sure where it is going to be at
any one point at its arrival at his level.
Inevitably, it will miss him completely and land, dripping
side down, on the cobbled road.
McFudgen noticed this and concluded that if there were a
fifty-fifty chance of any specific result it would usually end up at the worst
possible outcome – doggy-poos notwithstanding!
There is now other small piece of information that can be
gleaned from this tale.
I mentioned that Mum would shout down to Jimmy that his
‘piece’ was now on its way to him.
‘Piece’?
Ah, well.
In the far distant past when many Scots were living off
the land on small cottages called crofts they lived in those crofts with their
animals. This was a practical way of keeping warm in the winter, which was
often cruelly cold.
The wife would make round, flat, ‘oaty’ cakes. Modern ‘oaty’
cakes are thick and contain sugar and honey – perhaps cinnamon, too. These were
very simple, just crushed oats and flour with a bit of salt.
When these discs were prepared for cooking, Wife would
mark the cake in lines across the diameter rather as you would cut a pizza but
without going right through the cake.
After cooking the cake it would be broken up into
triangular pieces with curved ends called ‘petticoat tails’ and placed into a
lined drawer in the dresser next to the door.
On his way out in the morning, husband would pocket his
bottle of water and take out a section of the cake from the drawer because that
was going to be his lunch that day.
His wife would call after him, “Ha’e ye got ye’re piece?”
“Aye, Hen,” he would answer.
To this day, Scotsmen will still ask you if you have your
piece or have you had your piece. Now it mans ‘lunch’ or ‘snack’. But in the
old days it was life or death.
Now you know.
Never let it be said that I don’t come up with some weird
things from time to time – but, at least, it’s all true.
