Tintin Forums

Loch Lomond.

The southern end of Loch Lomond (the body of water after which the ubiquitous Tintin-book whisky brand is named) is crossed by the Highland Boundary Fault. I guess on a calm day, its flat surface could literally "mirror" (or reflect) both Highland and Lowland scenery. It's a big loch so, historically, you might have once found that people living at the southern end of it spoke Scots and people at the northern end spoke Gaelic!

Loch Lomond whisky is certainly featured in both books, and I suppose you could describe the brand name on the label as "data" (though the word data would more usually suggest the more specific small-print information on the label - location of the distillery, alcoholic strength, single or double malt info etc).

Loch Lomond Whisky features in quite a few of the Tintin books of course, so you might have a stronger case for identifying it as a particular link between these two books if, say, the actual Loch Lomond featured in The Black Island and then the whisky brand featured uniquely in Flight 714. And an easier, neater question too! (That's assuming I'm right in thinking I've got the right answer now, of course!)

Whisky could count as a liquid "avatar" (in your sense of the word) as it certainly transforms Snowy and the Captain, if not for the better. But I suspect you mean the Loch is an avatar that can take you from the lowlands to the highlands if you sail up it.

It'd also be a neat tie-in with your question if the Loch Lomond tanker-truck on the goods train in The Black Island actually took Tintin over the geological fault line from the Lowlands of Scotland into the Highlands (ideally going past the Loch itself), but it doesn't, sadly. Tintin leaves that train somewhere in the north of England, then (as I said in my last post) flies directly from there to the West Highlands.

Never mind. If Loch Lomond Whisky is the answer, your question sort of makes sense anyway, but I'd still maintain that it was a lot harder to unravel than my last question!

Balthazar
Well done Balthazar!

Loch Lomond Whisky features in quite a few of the Tintin books
Lots of whisky bottles feature of course, but L.L. in those two books & in Picaros only, as far as I know!

I suspect you mean the Loch is an avatar that can take you from the lowlands to the highlands if you sail up it.
Yes. I meant the whisky brand name matches the name of a lake connected with a geological Border* somehow connected with a -bygone- Scots/Gaelic language-barrier.

for Loch Lomond geology, see http://www.hydromod.de/Eurolakes/partner/uog.html
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loch_Lomond
for Scots vs Gaelic, see http://www.answers.com/topic/scottish-lowlands-1
and http://www.answers.com/Scottish%20Highlands

A well deserved point! Your turn Balthazar!

yamilah
Lots of whisky bottles feature of course, but L.L. in those two books & in Picaros only, as far as I know!

You're right; sorry. I was thinking it featured in The Castafoire Emerald too, but, thinking about it, it doesn't.

I have to say that having been born and lived the greater part of my life in Scotland, I can’t say that I understand the distinction being made in the answer.com articles, nor that the Highland Boundry fault has played any part in the “boundaries” of the country as I understand them.
I don’t know anyone in the plain of Buchan in the N.E. who would think of it being “the Highlands” - you have to have mountains for it to be anything like Highlands, for a start, despite what the article says. Perth is miles below Stonehaven, but is clearly “Highland” in its aspect, yet Stonehaven itself is in no way Highland, and neither is Aberdeen above it.

I'm sure you're right, jock. Although I eventually twigged that yamilah was referring to this theory of a clear connection between this fault line and the topological features and traditional language areas on either side of the line and was happy to refer to it in my answer, I'd agree that this theory isn't really accurate when applied! Not only is Aberdeen not 'Highland', it's certainly not traditionally Gaelic speaking either.

Not that I'm blaming yamilah for inventing the theory in the first place, and not that I'm wanting to say her question thus made no sense, having got a point for answering it!

And to be fair, you probably could accurately say you were moving from a Scots-speaking lowland area into the traditionally Gaelic-speaking highlands as you sail north up Loch Lomond (or drive up its bonny bonny banks), even if it doesn't all change instantly the minute you cross the invisible fault line! So the answer "Loch Lomond" has some relevance to the change between Scots and Gaelic referred to in yamilah's question. (As I said, I'm not sure this language change actually features in The Black Island book as significantly as yamilah implies, but that's another quibble entirely!)

Balthazar
Not that I'm blaming yamilah for inventing the theory in the first place

No, neither am I; I am just perplexed at the articles’ assertions…
Given that I am in London, and you are in Edinburgh, I just wondered if I wasn’t au courrant with some recent linguistic upset that my Mum might have neglected to mention, and given that I am going home at Christmas, I thought I might need to brush up on my (non-existant) Gaelic…!
But as you say, it works in theory, if not in practise!

jock 123
I just wondered if I wasn't au courrant with some recent linguistic upset that my Mum might have neglected to mention

Well, there are quite possibly more kids in the posher suburbs of Edinburgh learning Gaelic at trendy Saturday morning classes than there are children actually speaking Gaelic day-to-day in places like Ullapool, so there probably has been something of a weird linguistic shift in recent years!

And there's a lot of Gaelicized kids programmes shown throughout the country by BBC Scotland. My kids have never seen the Koala Brothers (an Australian animation set in the outback) in anything other than its dubbed Gaelic version!

But, cynicism aside, Gaelic is probably also making a comeback in genuinely Gaelic areas, which is good.

Scots also has official language status these days, you'll have noticed I'm sure, and if you log onto the Scottish Executive's website, you can click a button to have the whole website in Scots, instead of standard English. I'm sure it means I'm some sort of linguistic cultural imperialist, but I find something very funny about serious government business all looking - to me - as if it's been rewritten by Oor Wullie and Grandpaw Broon. I'm not complaining - obviously it's redressing a real problem of class snobbery towards Scots as a proper way of speaking, and restoring what had been relegated to an oral dialect to the officially-used written language it once was. It's just that I find that particular website funny and feel slightly guilty for doing so.

Anyway, I'm possibly digressing again. I'd better stop before I'm deported.

Thanks for that - that’s the funniest post I’ve read in ages anywhere…!

I aim to please, Jock :-)