Rabbie Burns

Just came home from a Rabbie Burns dinner. Great food, great pipes, great scotch.

Good for you, that's certainly my idea of something to do too. And that's one of the great things about being Canadian, you can enjoy the best of what pretty much every culture on the planet has to offer, all the food and drink and song and dance and joie de vivre that make life worth living. My mother's mother was a Mackay and my father's mother was a MacQueen, I feel a particular affinity to Scotland, and I love a good single malt and well played pipes. Wish I'd been there.

Highland dancing toasting the lassies, and all washed down wi' a wee dram or two.

And haggis with a hag or two!

Haggis was delicious. No hags when there's scotch to be had.

"Oh, Age has weary days,
And nights o’ sleepless pain:
Thou golden time, o’ Youthfu’ prime,
Why comes thou not again!

Can't remember the last time I went to an old Célidh - but usually when someone gets a bit tipsy he starts to lift the hem of his feileadh and flashes all the pretty lassies. Glad you had a good time.

Me name is Robbie Burns and I'm on the Bridge Aneit. I've lost the key to me arse so I'm shytting through my teeth

Och aye!

d y mother was m

My father was a McQueen, my mother a Kennedy, I was a drummer in a Scottish Pipe Band and attended many Robbie Burns birthday celebrations, and I love Haggis! I named my son Steve, he has a Rock Band in Calgary, AB, Canada, check him out on You Tube, Steve McQueen Band!

The only problem is that the bagpipes produce the worst sound known to man.

No wonder you English banned the pipes once you conquered the Scots back in the day. I can't get enough of the skirl.

This is my favourite Robert Burns offering. When I was a lot younger we used to have a Robert Burns
party and we would all stand up and recite a verse from: "Ode to a mouse". I swear we heard some of the worst Scottish accents in the world.....and they got worse the more we drank.

To A Mouse

by Robert Burns
[On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With The Plough, November, 1785]
Wee, sleekit, cow'rin', tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle!
I'm truly sorry man's dominion,
Has broken nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion,
Which mak's thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An' fellow-mortal!
I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen-icker in a thrave
's a sma' request:
I'll get a blessin' wi' the lave
And never miss't!
Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!
It's silly wa's the win's are strewin'!
An' naething, now, to big a new ane,
O' foggage green!
An' bleak December's winds ensuin',
Baith snell and keen!
Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,
An' weary winter comin fast,
An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
'Till, crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro' thy cell.
That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!
Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the winter's sleety dribble,
An' cranreuch cauld!
But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men
Gang aft a-gley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief and pain,
For promis'd joy.
Still thou art blest, compar'd wi' me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But, och! I backward cast my e'e,
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I canna see,
I guess an' fear.

I'm surprised you would socialize with those heathen Scots, they might be Presbyterians. Or Methodists.
And likely not far right enough.

Hold on, you're talking about Scots here. There is no joie de vivre, it's dour all the way.

Dour ye say. Well I'll flip my kilt your way and flash my thingy in your general direction. Ye heathen basturd!

Robbie Burns..ah yes.... a drunkard and a philanderer. Certainly something to look up to. Then again, when you're a Scott, the dregs at the bottom of the barrel is about all you have to choose from.

Who's a Scott?

I know that I come from Scots blood, but I don't know any Scotts.