"We'll just set aboot ye!"

Saturday before last a baggage handler and Scotsman named John Smeaton was standing in front of Glasgow Airport smoking a cigarette when he saw a Jeep burst into flames not far from him. The driver, on fire, miraculously appeared from within and was soon being pursued by a police officer. The officer caught up with the assailant, an al Qaeda operative, who then began to pummel the lawman.

As the bizarre scene unfolded before him, Smeaton, by his own admission, tried to sort it out in his head. When he did, he took action, kicking the al Qaeda member and unwittingly turning himself into a hero for the times. Smeaton’s message to terrorists, according to the July 7/8 Wall Street Journal article highlighting him was, “You come to Glasgow; we don’t stand for it. We’ll just set aboot ye.”

Smeaton already has a spot on Wikipedia, not to mention at least one website - http://www.johnsmeaton.com/ - set up in his honor within days of his heroics and asking everyone who enters to buy him a pint.

Also circulating on the Internet is this Robert Burns-esque ode:

Twas doon by the inch o’Abbots
Oor Johnny walked one day
When he saw a sicht that troubled him
Far more than he could say . . .
Now that’s not richt wur Johnny cried
And sallied tae the fray
A left hook and a heid butt
Required tae sae the day
Now listen up Bin Laden
Yir sort’s nae wanted here
For imported English radicals
Us Scoatsman huv nae fear

Some are calling Smeaton Glasgow’s Jack Bauer. I say, raise a glass to him and gis uh a wee swalley!