Jack Sparrow loves Edinburgh!

I’m not going to lie, this article was never intended to delve into the interests of Jack Sparrow, but sometimes at the Tab, we just hit accidental gold.

This article did start life as a competition to see which non-Edinburghians (if it wasn’t a word, it is now) knew the most (or in most cases, the least) about our lovely, little city and our very, VERY cold country. In the end, it turned out to be a great insight into how much other people apparently love our Edinburgh (big up).

Reppin’ The Tab in NYC (yes, I do actually have shorts on).

Every single person that I spoke to in an extremely busy Times Square knew something about the wee country, whether it was about the lack of underwear under a kilt or about the Loch Ness Monster. One man who worked on a food stall was absolutely convinced she’s real, and even bet a packet of chewing gum on it (it MUST be real then).

Mustafa’s food stall loves The Tab (but his boss wouldn’t let us have a picture of his face, sad times).

Don’t get me wrong, the Scotland knowledge wasn’t always expansive, and was rarely accurate, but everyone had something nice to impart about the coldest place on Earth (or at least it seems that way on the long walk back from the Big Cheese after a ScotMid run at 3am).

The lovely Jay, who blamed his lack of Scotland knowledge on being Irish. Seems legit.

One man told me that the capital of Scotland was Glasgow (which made me question for a bit whether or not he was in fact Glaswegian himself..) while a taxi driver convincingly told me that Edinburgh was spelt Edimborough. Close enough.

Hasan, The Tab’s favourite taxi driver.

Another guy thought that Prince Charles was the King of Scotland, while my food stall star told me “I can never actually understand what they’re saying.”

The best bit thought was obviously getting to interview Jack Sparrow, who in reality was an Azerbaijani costume act who’d recently moved to America to find work (and what amazing work he found). He told me that in Azerbaijan, they study a lot of Scottish history in the curriculum, and that’s it’s a vital part of their history teaching (because Azerbaijan has such a strong Scottish community?). He also said that he loved Edinburgh as a city, and would love to visit it one day when he has time. Don’t worry, I told him a Hive visit was a must.

Yes, this moment happened.

So there you have it folks, who knew that Scotland was such a transatlantic hit, even with pirates of the Seven Seas.