Some think that Rabbie Burns turns in verse, and it's certainly true that the English, those people mostly south of the border, don't care for such immortal verses as "My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here".
But I won an elocution prize at an English Jesuit school called St Michael's College - motto Quis ut Deus - in the early 1960s. It's closed, hooray!* They didn't like it up them, because the Scottish educational system, by and large, far outpaces the Sassenach thingie.
The tradition is that on Burns' Night a small vole called a haggis is piped in and hailed as a pudding. At that point, much whisky is quaffed, quaffed and quaffed again.
This haggis is easy to find in superior sort of supermarkets like Sainsburys, but difficult to find at your local inconvenience shop.
At some point in the proceedings, people need to slump on the floor or carpet and wake up tomorrow with their headaches making their brains throb like there is no tomorrow.
Yes, that's Burns' Night. It's nae as good as Hogmanay for hangovers, but Burns' Night is for posh people, not for the proletariat. And haggis, although some consider it a delicacy, isn't for everyone, that's true.
*EyeSee - The "diocese of Leeds" says this about the college: "The present building rises on a low hill just to the west of the city centre and is a mirror image of the local prison which stands on the opposite side of the valley." That's Armley Jail they're talking about.
Now Heres Point: Thru Elaborate Training by Republic, McMike Now Has Better stance, Until buy thou @ retail,, Graphene, Space alien ,World Drifts Back In Sleepy Hollow of MPLS & Best Buy Blabs. drash Has Dracoinian Way of Teaching that Not ALL intelligencia Goes for, Yet DrashBoard Taught Mike Roberts Vaughn McGee to Play BRAG Pipes well. C TM Registured & Pat Pend. Drash2010
Signed:NEXT.
Instead of University trash, let's dwell on the folk whom Oxfords, such as Gulliver's Travels and the lots of whimsy folks he met, such as
the Brogues,
the Derbies,
the Loafers,
the Monks,
the Winklepickers,
and
the Oxfords.
But heavens me, it's not shoes what gets the Bear's fancy, but decorative ties.
Of course I'm referring to an obscure Oxford University Press edition, or so says I, the moody one, who rose his Harp to you pa rum pum pum pum on my dram, on my dram.
So there we are, raising the spirits of oldy-worldy Inbetweeners off the Highstreet, and Christ Church College around the bin. a-w-k-w-a-r-d.
"A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted By a woman wailing for her demon-lover... And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.