Yes it’s nearly Burns Night again when we Scots celebrate the birthday of our national bard. It’s all about haggis, whisky, poetry, great conviviality and a time to toast his immortal memory and reflect upon the deep human legacy this one man left the world.
I took part in the St Andrews University Global Burns Night by performing my party-piece Tam O’Shanter and Val McDiarmid gave a wonderful talk and was very amusing and thought provoking. I must try one of her books. She does come across as most witty and decent.
All the other performances were excellent and there was a most intriguing piece by the American Burnsian, Dr William Zachs, about his 2025 discovery of Sir Henry Raeburn’s 200 year old lost portrait of Burns (now being exhibited in the National Gallery from Jan 26). It was most interesting and well presented. In fact the whole show was most professionally put together by the Development Team. Well done Robert, Hannah and the rest of the accomplished team.
I am back in St Andrews after a week skiing in Morzine where I stayed with my old pal Ricey (Ambroggio McLintock). He is converting an old farmhouse in St Jean d’Aulps and it’s all rather heavenly. He is midway through the building of the chalet and has completed the Bothy where I stayed, all with log-burning stove and stunning views up the valley. It really is Yeats’s Innisfree stuff. Nine bean rows , a hive for the honey bee and all that. So quiet, so unfettered and quite a tonic to the major resort town of Morzine which is not so.
Ricey is a real Burns man in the sense that he is self-made, not indisposed to the fairer sex, independent minded and has a huge joie de vivre. We worked back together 30 years ago as ski instructors and he now has one of the top-rated ski outfits in the Portes du Soleil with Ski Beyond which he runs with his wife. Pas mal.
We were both party animals back in the day, but he like me doesn’t really drink much at all now. I will admit to sharing a bottle of lovely Chateau Neuf du Pape with him over a steak one night. And it was very enjoyable. But what I found was that it was much more for the flavour and the way it complimented the food than in the old days. It really was a rum thing. Well a grape thing essentially.
Anyway I am back to wonderful St Andrews and looking forward to the forthcoming golf season and my tour-guiding work. I am feeling more fulfilled than ever and at 63 now, want to whack the next few years.
Do have a wee stab looking at the St Andrews University Global Burns Night and tell me what you think.
I did actually get an email from a lady in America during my performance who said she loved my Tam O’Shanter. This really got me. It was such a lovely thing for her to have done. I immediately emailed her back saying how she had made my night.
And she had.