This may be the only time anybody tells you the truth about Burns Night, so pay attention. Though we appear to do this in a spirit of joy and bonhomie, that’s a carefully fostered illusion (clue: when was the last time you associated any of your Scottish pals with joy and bonhomie? Exactly.) We do this because we all know that if we don’t, Rabbie Burns rises from his grave. He then stumps round the country for the rest of the winter, sullen and dead, a terrible stench in his wake – and if he comes upon a house where they didn’t hold a supper in his honour, he enters it by night, corners the cowering occupants, lifts high his rotting arms and in a voice straight from the bowels of hell begins to recite his poetry. This has been known to go on for up to ten minutes, at which points he bows, collects his things and leaves, but the damage is already done. Don’t applaud, he’s more than happy to do encores.
Those few who have survived the dreadful visit are invariably driven insane, and can only be usefully employed as dancing idiots at Hogmanay. That’s what Hogmanay is for. Look, for the love of all things holy, if somebody invites you to a Burns Supper, go, okay? Your hosts’ sanity depends on it.
Here in the name of jingoistic madness is a fundamentally racist stand-up routine by Stewart Lee. The second part is the part underneath the first part, which is the part on top or, if you like, the first part.
