Fankle is the Scottish word for tangle. It is a word that always seems to be in use at this time of the year. Inevitably the Christmas tree lights are always in a fankle when you dig them out of the box that they have been living in over the past year.

It seems that no matter how carefully you pack them away after the festivities are over, the lights have obviously spent their time dancing the nights away like sugar plum fairies. The desperate cry goes up over the whole country – They’re all fankled up! How does it happen?

Other things that get fankled or in a fankle are hair, particularly mine in the terrible winds that you get here coming off the North Sea. And of course people here don’t get their knickers in a twist when they are panicking about something. Their knickers get into a good old fashioned fankle.