Burns Night

I don't have a particularly good record with Burns Nights. I was first invited to one in the house of one of W's colleagues many years ago. If I'm honest, I'd probably never even heard of a Burns Night and certainly had no idea what it entailed, and as it was in pre-internet days I couldn't just Google it. They had asked me to propose one of the 'toasts' so I went to the library to do a bit of research. Frankly, it wasn't very helpful. The invitation had mentioned that tartan may be worn and as my only experience of dressing up at the time other than 'black tie' was to go to fancy dress parties I was lucky I hadn't chosen an out and out 'Funny Scotsman' outfit. I did, however, wear a hired Kilt etc. As the evening wore on it was clear that, although this family lived in Buckinghamshire and to all intents and purposes were as English as me, they must have had some Scottish ancestry as they were all taking it deadly seriously and reciting passages from the appropriate Burns poem at every toast. The time for me to propose a toast was getting closer and I knew that what I had prepared was not at all what they were expecting, and sure enough when my time came I noticed little sideways glances and knowing looks. The evening was capped by one of the other guests asking me if I was 'entitled' to wear my tartan; the clear inference being that he knew damn well that I wasn't. We were not invited again. It is one of those evenings that even now, some 20-plus years later, still makes my toes curl up with embarrassment when I think about it.

We went to a much better evening some years later at the University where W worked. A much bigger event and the evening went well until an eminent lady Professor stood up to make one of the toasts. The lady in question does a lot of work to promote women in business, is very well known and is highly honoured and respected in her field, but her speech that evening was totally inappropriate to the occasion. In the right forum it might have been an excellent speech but it killed an otherwise fun evening.

There won't be any toasts or speeches in our house this evening. But there will be haggis, neeps and tatties because even though I still can't get my head round Burns' writings, I do rather like the food. And if you are going to a Burns Night supper this evening have a good time, and enjoy your 'Great Chieftain o the Puddin' Race'!