Paul gets Burned

This week I attended my second, ever, Burns Supper and for those of you whose knowledge of Scotland is limited to watching Mel Gibson defeat his dialogue coach in Braveheart, let me explain that these suppers are to honour Scotland’s national poet Robert Burns.

It’s a bit like England remembering William Wordsworth, Germany honouring Johan Goethe, or Australia celebrating Rolf Harris.

These annual get togethers are quite formal and consist of the haggis – a food delicacy whose ingredients you just don’t want to know – being brought in to the accompaniment of a bagpiper. It is laid on a table and stabbed – that’s the haggis not the piper - by someone wielding a dagger while reciting poetry. Think Sweeney Todd with bow ties.

Now you may mock but we Scots love Burns night and take it very seriously, or at least some of us do. The first time I attended one of these great happenings, I was asked to do the poetry bit and stab the haggis until it surrendered. For some inexplicable reason I then had a moment of devilry and said I was going to reply on behalf of the haggis. “Ouch. What the hell did you do that for?” Everyone laughed except the guy who was supposed to pay me. He said I’d committed sacrilege, would be damned to the bad fire forever, and would not be getting a penny of his money. Thankfully I was saved by the evening’s cabaret which consisted of a well known, chart topping, singer who went down like Shane McGowan at a dental hygienists convention and made me look world class.

Because of his way with the ladies, Burns left us the tradition of praising women or “the lassies”, which is formalised in the traditional Burns supper, and I was asked to do that last week. It consists of a few remarks and jokes directed, in the best possible taste, against women. “I’ll never forget how I met my wife. I just opened my wallet and there she was”.

A lassie then has to reply and this was done magnificently by Terry Neason who said her granny had passed on great advice when she was growing up. Terry’s nan said all men were either hungry or horny. “So, if he doesn’t have an erection, make him a wee sandwich”.

Robert Burns loved women, all of them, whether beautiful or the barnyard side of ugly, and eventually he had thirteen kids by five different partners. He was the Ulrika Johnsson of his day. He was also a great spotter of trends and wrote to a Miss Chalmers - September 23rd 1787 since you ask - about his thoughts on women. “I am charmed by the wild but graceful eccentricity of their motions”. So far as I can see this was the first time a man had noticed that women spend all their time in the toilet.

Why is it that men go for a leak, but women “freshen up?” The difference, as far as I can see, is about twenty minutes. We males go straight in, over to the urinal marked ten beers or less, and then out again. But Burns recognised that while we hold our willies, women hold meetings.

Today the Child Support Agency would be chasing Burns and impounding his royalty cheques whilst he would be held up by the Daily Mail as a prime specimen of working class waster who fathered kids as a hobby and then scarpered leaving them to the tax payer to feed.

A great poet. But, perhaps, he should have devoured fewer lassies and gobbled more sandwiches!
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After last week’s knocking piece on the British Airport Authority, I found something they’re good at. Revenge!

On Thursday they managed to delay my plane’s landing, lose the steps to the aircraft so that we stood for half an hour begging to get off, and then misplaced my luggage for over an hour making me miss my connecting plane and spend the night on the floor of London Heathrow’s Terminal One.

No danger of oversleeping tho’ as my wake up alarm, which sounded twice, was the terminal’s fire bell activated by workmen cutting through wires during their all night drilling and hammering.

I promise I’ll never slag off BAA again but this Karma thing takes a bit of getting used to. I’d have had more sleep bedding down in a Taliban village with a crucifix painted on my front door.
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Just a thought if you’re watching BBC’s primetime Saturday night show, The One And Only, which is a hunt for a singing celebrity lookalike who will win a three month residency in Las Vegas alongside Elvis, Cher, Tina Turner and others. Cliff Richard has now been knocked out of the race but what if he, Kylie or the Robbie Williams doppelganger won?

The owner of the Vegas club couldn’t possibly hire them as Cliff, Robbie and Kylie are about as famous in America as the bloke who delivers my milk. So guys enjoy it while it lasts but I wouldn’t be buying those casino chips just yet if I were you.