Tonight is Bobby Burns Night, when sanity-impaired yobbos celebrate the doggerel of Robert Burns and stuff themselves with haggis. Washed down with as much whisky as makes that dish edible. I've made haggis, and consequently do not eat it. And for sound medical reasons abstain from whisky, so my observance of the festival will be sour and disapproving.
All rational people should avoid haggis.
Which tells you what Scots are.
HAGGIS
A sheep's plucks (heart, liver, and lungs) are minced, mixed with oatmeal, spices (salt and black pepper) in a sheep's stomach. The resultant glob blob is then boiled or steamed until done or the second coming. It should be remembered that the lungs need to be simmered a very long time with the breathing tube hanging over the edge of the cauldron draining black muck into a receptacle before they can be considered edible.
What you end up with is a thing that is served with boiled turnips and potatoes.
Why don't you have a hotdog instead?
Same ingredients, better.
The reason why Bobby Burns is lauded is because his poetry is not as bad as Ewan McTeagle. Or William McGonagall. A remarkable accomplishment.
"What's twenty quid to the bloody Midland Bank?"
How about two bob till Tuesday?
Final thoughts: Haggis is ghastly. Probably better than Thanksgiving turkey as cooked by many Americans. Scots whisky is fine stuff, superior to Bourbon by such a wide margin that it might move people to song, except that poetry in the English language is rather drab, which explains the adulation of doggerel-meisters like Burns, McTeagle, and McGonagall. If chanted in the right accent, their verse sounds altogether German, and mercifully unintelligible.
If you're wearing a kilt in this weather, your privates are freezing off. No wonder you need the whisky. Poor sodding bastards. The vikings gave up on raiding Scotland because the climate was awful and the takings were poor. And good lord, that cuisine!
Happy Burns Night, you heathens.
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HOLIDAY GRAYITY
It was supposed to stop raining. It didn't. The whole day yesterday was marked by drizzle, drip, actual rain, blattering, suspended mois...
3 comments:
So THAT'S why I'v had "Donald Where's Yer
Troosers" stuck in my cranium the 3 days
preceding this.
(A very slightly Scaughtish) Aunty Kiki.
I've always felt somewhat conflicted on Burns Night. Indeed, the plurality of my paternal ancestry were Scots (albeit ones descended from Viking raiders) - but it clashes in many ways with my Ashkenazi Jewish maternal ancestry and religion of upbringing. And haggis is awful.
Scotch whisky is lovely, though. So on Burns night I skipped the haggis, prepared a cranachan trifle off the BBC Good Food website, ignored the plaintive stares of the felines, and enjoyed a sweet treat accompanied by a dram or two of smooth Jura single malt picked up in duty-free at Gatwick. Then a cigarette to round things off. I didn't read any Burns, but I did watch a few episodes of Burnistoun and Chewin' The Fat. It's far more comprehensible than Irvine Welsh. And funnier.
Single malt, Burnistoun, and Chewin' The Fat are all good things.
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