26 thoughts on “Burns Night”

  4. Burns Night is fast becoming a commercial parody of itself, much like St. Patrick’s Day and even Christmas Day. i happen to like haggis (as well as all other offaly good stuff) and I also like scotch, but not necessarily together and certainly not on 25th January as a matter of principle. I hate cr*p poetry too. Pomes rule!

    OZ

  6. Evening FEEG, and a very good Burns nicht to you.

    Funny enough I’ve just returned from a function where I had a couple of these…

    One or two of these…

    and a few tots from one of these (mixed with coke, of course!)

    Nothing to do with Burns though, it was my fathers 88th birthday 😉

  7. Dear Ara/Marge. I happen to have two haggis (haggi?) about my person – proper ones with unmentionable bits and barley wrapped up in stomach, a gift which I intend sharing boiled for dinner shortly with a few bottles of good Alentejo red. The guests will be two Portuguese, a Dane, an American,two Yorshire persons, me and the NSW. Everone stereotypically, loves offal, but I am not sure about the American. Should I instead buy some of those mass produced burgers made from ‘meat’ pressure-washed off the carcass and served on sweet ‘Bimbo’ baps with freedom fries on the side and a two litre cardboard carton of Coke? if so, I fear the party will not go well.

    Yours,

    Worried Amber Eyes
    The Cave

  8. Soutie – My best wishes to your Dad – mine is a mere 85. Good on ’em both and best wishes to octogenarians everwhere, with the exception of Bob of Salisbury.

    OZ

  9. Dear Amber Eyes (worried),

    Slice the haggi in two and stick them in the oven, until the cut surfaces become crispy and some of the fat has drained away. Trust me, this is rather more digestible. Just don’t tell Mr. Mackie!

    Americans? Ignorant colonials should on no account be told what is in the haggi; they are just another sort of burger. Ply them all with sufficient booze and no one will know what the hell they are eating.

    Trust me, I’m English.

    Yours, Marge Mouse.

    xxx

  11. Araminta :

    I love Haggis, but I insist on cooking it in the oven. Mr Mackie would no doubt have something to say about this!

    Ara, Mine is in the oven as I write. Boiled haggis is dangerous as it ends up as spicy porridge if the sheep’s stomach (or plastic) bursts.

    A happy Burns Night to each and every Charioteer.

    FEEG, I am almost certain that I have not wished you a Good New Year yet. Doesn’t matter if I have as it will annoy JW either way. Good choice of haggis gravy. As one of the other great Jock poets, Robert Louis Stevenson has it, “The king o’ drinks, as I conceive it, Talisker, Islay, or Glenlivet.”

    I’m going with the Islay option for gravy tonight, specifically Laphroaig.

    And. sorry about this, but since it is the night that it is, I feel the Muse casting its spell upon me, however ineptly.

    To a Salmond

    Wee sleekit, prattling, puffed-up runt.
    I think your pride is due a dunt.
    Ye’re fu’ o’keech. Wi mony a stunt,
    Ye spew yer hate.
    But dinnae rush to get the bunt-
    Ing oot just yet.

    We’re wise tae ye, my little mannie.
    Though sycophants declare ye canny,
    To us, ye’re just a great big fanny,
    Worse than a midge.
    Ye could’na even sell yer granny
    The Forth Road Bridge.

    Then hae your vote and dae your worst.
    I still believe your cause is cursed.
    Though Saxon, Celt or Viking first,
    We’re a’ still Brits.
    Great Britain must not be dispersed
    By envious tits.

  13. How to cook Haggis.

    First catch a haggis.
    They have two left legs shorter than the two right. This means they run anti clockwise around the hills o’ scotla’.
    Assemble netting at the base of your chosen hill, then ascend the hill and chase the ‘haggi’ in a clockwise direction. They will tumble and fall into the nets. Seemples.

  15. JM – You’re my kind of Scotsman and there’re aren’t many of those. Despite the “or plastic” slur, a happy Burns (Burn’s?) Night to you and please get yourself a decent Speyside. .-)

    OZ

  20. Ferret has advised on how to carch a haggis and has thus breached the secret lupine code of hunting. Notwithstanding this potentially fatal (for him) breach of the Charters of the Ancient and Sacred Guilde of Lupines, I may still be able to negotiate absolution for this dissident for the usual fee customary libations to the Lupine Gods – via, ahem, their agent on Earth.

    OZ

  21. Ferret :

    How to cook Haggis.

    First catch a haggis.
    They have two left legs shorter than the two right. This means they run anti clockwise around the hills o’ scotla’.
    Assemble netting at the base of your chosen hill, then ascend the hill and chase the ‘haggi’ in a clockwise direction. They will tumble and fall into the nets. Seemples.

    Haw guru! ;Hills’? Bluidy’ hills’?. May you be forgiven!. We don’t do hills. You must be thinking of the Welsh.

    A Good New Year to you, by the way. Are you watching, JW?

  23. Sorry, Ferret, To explain, JW aka TR gets seriously huffy if I carry on doing the ‘Good New Year’ bit past about the third week of said New Year. So, of course, I do carry on doing it.

  25. Mrs FEEG uses her Mum;s recipe for haggis and tatties. (Her Mum was a Saffer, her Dad a Weegie). She basically cooks it rather like a shepherds pie, in the oven. That way, the haggis is not greasy and very tasty.

    The Talisker is delicious. I sup as I type!

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