Tag: Robert Burns
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Cookin’ Burns’ Puddin’ in the Twenty First Century
This post is confessional. It’s like a diary entry, rather than a post about the Eighteenth century, but since it’s about the haggis and Burns Night (Rabbie Burns being an Eighteenth century Scottish character) I felt I could, nay, should, reveal how I ate my haggis on Burns Night 2026.…
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Can You Understand Robert Burns’ Poetry?
Robert Burns is Scotland’s national bard, yet who understands his poetry? I daydreamed not even Capt Kirk and his Starship Enterprise crew have the gadgets to translate – it’s that difficult. Only scholars and language enthusiasts can read Burns poetry, I reckon. Does Burns’ Scots language still survive? Read on.
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Robert Burns and his Poem – To a Haggis
In his brilliant poem To a Haggis, Scots poet Robert Burns introduces us to the family of puddins, of which the haggis is the greatest, the Chieftain. With confidence it rules over all others, including painch, tripe and thairm – all parts of the digestive tract of cattle, sheep and…
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Recognise Any of These Eighteenth Century Wigs?
I’m a bald man, have been since I saw a reflection of myself, aged 28, in a shop window in High Wycombe and had a barber shave it all off the next day. I’m fine with it (ughhh!), but it would be nice to have a Barnet*. If I was…