Now I know that there are a lot of contenders out there for the Oldest Pub in Scotland, but the Sheeps Heid Inn, in Duddingston, Scotland is the real deal. Either that or they've got a really good marketing team working for them.

The pub is called the Sheeps Heid Inn because the area around Duddingston, right outside Edinburgh was known as the place to get something butchered if you needed it. "Sheep" being pretty self explanatory and "heid" being Scottish for - ready? - "head". This continues with the annoying Scottish tradition of trading normal words for "Scottish" ones, even though they're more or less the same thing. The most egregious case of this being the use of the term "auld" for "old." Hmmm. Ok, you took a word that was pretty short to begin with and then made it longer.

Thanks, Scottish people!

Although the pub bills itself as the oldest in Scotland, I think they might be fudging a bit. The history of the Inn is written on the inside of the walls of the pub. I don't remember the exact wording, but the story was that Duddingston was known for selling parts of chopped up animals and they THINK - not for sure, now - that there was a pub around then called the Sheeps Heid.

So then found the present building and, since it was so old (or "auld" as they'd say), they decided that this must have have been it.

But they can't prove it.

What they CAN prove however, is that they do have the oldest skittles alley in Scotland!

No, I'm not talking about the candy. I'm talking about bowling!

As in drinking a bucket of suds, throwing a ball down an alleyway and writing on an overhead projector!

Skittles is pretty much the same concept as good old fashioned bowl-a-rama American bowling, as you can see from the picture of the "auld" skittles alley in the back of the Sheeps Heid.

Except that nothing is automated. There's even a little wooden platform, way in the back of the alley, for the "auld" pin monkeys to stand on and stay out of the way of drunken Scotsmen hurling twenty pound round stones down the alleyway towards them.

But you'll notice no space for overhead projectors. The Scots may have invented the steam engine and built the longest railway bridge in the world (that collapsed) but they were still lacking in skittle score keeping technology.

Click here for the first part of this post! After my disappointment with not meeting Nessie, I hurried back to Inverness so that the entire trip wouldn't be a waste of time - I was planning to make the afternoon disco!

I had a few minutes to kill until the bus showed up, so I stopped and ate a sandwich and drank a beer that I purchased at the local Nessie shop. This turned out to be more of a chore than I thought it would be because the counterperson, who was probably about 16, wasn't sure if she could sell me the beer. She had to call her manager/mom to make sure that the purchase was kosher. Fortunately for the both of us, it was.

The bus brought me back from Drumnadrochit and dropped me off at the fancy Route 66 American Diner. It was approximately 3pm, which meant that the afternoon disco was in full swing, but I faced a dilemma because I wanted to see a bit of Inverness while there was still some daylight.

I wandered around the town a bit, which, like most towns in the UK, had a fairly compact and traffic-free centralshopping district. Inverness came to prominence as a trading town in the middle ages and was considered to be the capital city for the Central Highlands of Scotland.

Most of the town signs were in English/Gaelic, including the McDonalds! (It says "Welcome to McDonald's" if you couldn't figure it out. And no, I didn't eat there.)

I found the local museum, which was free (hooray, free museums!) and learned probably more than I'll ever need to know about Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobite Rebellion.

Finally, having met my Scottish history quotient for the day, I felt that it was time to make my way to the real purpose of my quest - The Afternoon Disco!!

From outside, the Afternoon Disco pub looked like any other Scottish pub.

The bar is called MacCallums and is in downtown Inverness, not too far from the train station.

Inside, however, it was a different story.

I arrived shortly before 5pm and the place was already packed. The lights were out in the pub, and the dance floor was illuminated with flashing disco lights. There was a singer belting out favorite standards on the stage, backed by a tape machine.

People were coming and leaving in waves. This was a big destination for bachelorette parties ("Hen Nights" as they say over there) and there was a contingent present all festooned in pink shirts, balloons, feather boas and penis lollipops.

I tried to take a picture of the crowd, but it doesn't really do the Afternoon Disco justice. If you look at the pic at the top of the story, you can see the clock on the wall showing that it was just a little after 5pm.

The singer was actually pretty decent, but the main problem with the Afternoon Disco was that it too a really long time to get Afternoon Disco Juice from the bar keeps.

I was tempted to hit the dance floor to wow the locals with my signature move - The Robot but I didn't want to upset the locals and make them jealous of my dance movies, so I merely observed the disco unfold and drank my disco juice.

I didn't want to tarry too long at the Afternoon Disco, as I felt that it would spoil the magic.

I'm just happy to know that if I'm ever in the vicinity of Inverness and need to hear some tunes, hang out with some penis lollipops and it's 3pm in the afternoon, I know exactly where to go.