GET YER RABBIE BURNS TEA TOWELS HERE FOLKS.

Anyone who writes as much stuff as Robert Burns is almost certain to produce something with merit, similar to people like Paul McCartney in a way.

The difference between Burns and McCartney as well as Yeats, Wordsworth, Keats, Byron Etc. Etc. is that you can, by and large say that you dislike the others, you can criticise them even, with Burns however any criticism or expression of dislike stirs up a hornets nest of bile and abuse from the delusional pseudo patriots who have convinced themselves that Burns was the greatest genius who ever lived.

This crew are prepared to vilify anyone who does not agree with Burns’s greatness it’s damned unpatriotic to them if you are critical, it’s worse, it’s un-Scottish, it’s treason. This parochial guff leads to the Scottish Cringe, it manifests itself in many ways a classic example was a radio programme near the end of December 19 99 they were choosing the person of the millennium (1 thousand years)

Alex (the spiv) Salmond suggested Robert Burns and he was serious. Einstein, Galileo, Shakespeare Etc. Etc. how are ye ! he then came over all maudlin and, eschewing “my grannie’s heilin hame” and with cod sincerity launched into the following quote - “the best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men aft gang agley” the con man telling us Burns was the man of the millennium and almost in tears of reverence goes on to make an absolute a**e of quoting one his best known lines.

Recent comments about Burns have of course stirred these clowns into life and it’s once again time for Scots. to be embarrassed by them, you can criticise Yeats in a Dublin pub and get an argument, Keats or Shelley in an English pub and get the same, only in Scotland is this kind of thing likely to get risky particularly if you are English. This suggests to me that Burns is not the giant they make him out to be, otherwise he would not need the scotty attack dogs to defend his reputation. They are afraid to let the poetry speak for itself.

As far as the much maligned Jeremy Paxman is concerned I offer the following.

"My Heart's In The Highlands" By R. Burns.

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer -
A-chasing the wild deer, and following the roe;
My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go.

Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North -
The birth place of Valour, the country of Worth;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.

Farewell to the mountains high covered with snow;
Farewell to the straths and green valleys below;
Farewell to the forrests and wild-hanging woods;
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer -
Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe;
My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go.

That great Dundonian William Topaz McGonagall would have been thrown in the Tay for doggerill like what this is.