Happy Burns Day 2011

It is Burns Day, and I’ll be tucking into haggis, neeps and tatties tonight. Always a good thing when a duty is so pleasurable. My haggis will be of the normal variety. I have tasted vegetarian haggis and it wasn’t so bad but, nevertheless, Alexander Hutchison’s poem, Surprise Surprise!, written in 1984, always makes me laugh every time I read it. It’s from his outstanding New & Selected Poems, Scales Dog, which would have been a massive bestseller in a better world.

I have a vague hope of making it to the Burns flashmob at 1pm today outside St Giles Cathedral, where anyone can join in an improvised rendition of A Man’s a Man for A’ That, but time may be against me. Peggy, from the Scottish Poetry Library, shows you how it’s done below.