Burns' house in Dumfries
Jeremy Paxman's been dissing Robert Burns, at the Edinburgh Festival no less, the great gowk. The bloggers are out on CiF; and here in Dumfries, where Burns is buried, I'm feeling a bit miffed on his behalf. Here's the first verse of 'Tam O' Shanter' which is too long to post in its entirety - you can read the rest
here.
"When chapman billies leave the street,
And drouthy neibors, neibors, meet;
As market days are wearing late,
And folk begin to tak the gate,
While we sit bousing at the nappy,
An' getting fou and unco happy,
We think na on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps and stiles,
That lie between us and our hame,
Where sits our sulky, sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm."
Bit of an argument brewing at the end there!
6 comments:
My great grandfather was a Burns: so Paxo can get stuffed.
Is that poem responsible for all the the pubs called Drouthy Neiboors about the place?
Whoops, correction: it wasn't at the festival, it was in the introduction to the new edition of Chambers that he said it.
My friend's wife is the editor of that version of Chambers, she's been kept quite busy over all this, but her wise response of "I'm sure we Scots can handle this" puts it into graceful perspective!
Talking of poetry, if any of you ever venture over onto the elitist trenches of the Books blog, have a read of one of my least favourite blogger's response to the question of "books about bands". Light touchpaper, watch her froth!
I'll be buying the new Chambers as soon as Azed, the Observer's hard crossword man, changes over to it. So maybe I'll tear that page out.
There's glory for you!
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