How to iron a kilt

Stage 1 - on the table (almost).

The first in what may well be a small series of helpful household and lifestyle hints for the man or woman about town or as in our case country. The Kilt ironing exercise:

Materials.

A kilt - preferably a decent tartan one that you have good reason to need to wear.
Iron - not too clean.
Ironing table - with a soft cover.
Dish cloth (non greasy).
Copious amounts of clean water and a first-aid kit.

Kilts are notoriously difficult to iron with the feared Black Watch design being the worst of the genre. It takes courage, patience and at least the consumption two BLT bagels to even consider approaching the un-ironed kilt in it's naturally wild state. So by using a handy chair as a support (lion tamer style) I managed to get the kilt half way onto the rickety table, thereafter holding it in a Half-Nelson with a dish cloth and hot iron (in the right hand). A Full-Nelson would also work if ironing a larger size of kilt. The first hot thrusts (?) took much of the sting out of the beast and I knew a corner had been turned in the project. I also knew this because I was at this point standing in the dining room and not in the lobby. As the struggle wore on I was sweating profusely and one eye was twitching in a funny way but had the marker on the wrinkled kilt and was ironing the flat bits and those wretched pleats with gusto, like a man on fire in fact. Twenty minutes later it was all over, the finished product is shown below. I followed up this traumatic exercise with a well deserved flagon of Lucozade and a full rub down with a rusty wire brush. The next challenge will be a simple one - how to remove a festive rats nest from a damp garden shed.

Stage 6 (you have to imagine stages 2 to 5) - all over bar the shouting.