Burns Night

Eddie Izzard, presenting the programme 'Mongrel Nation', told us that the British had a diet of meat and gruel made from oats until the Romans came. It had seemed to me that the Scots, having fought hard to keep the Romans at bay, or the other way of looking at it, the Romans having fought hard to keep the Picts and Scots at bay, had thus not had their eating habits improved, Glasgow's claim to culinary fame the deep fried Mars bar notwithstanding.
Anyone might be forgiven for continuing to think that when presented with the Burns' Night menu of Haggis and neeps. But they would be mistaken. Last night Austen produced an amazing meal of Haggis, which he and Ben ate, chicken wrapped in bacon and cooked in a madeira sauce for Sue and I. The neeps were mixed with other root veggies and sauteed with mint, there were also pan fried leeks and mash.

As the meal was served, Austen read the Selkirk grace from the BBC website and we listened to The Proclaimers. After we had finished and downed some Scottish wine, we read some of Robbie Burns' poetry, but since we didn't really understand much of it, we went on to other poets. Burns night, as Austen pointed out, does seem to be an acceptable way of reading poetry - haggis, whisky and poetry, perfectly manly.

As well as food, family - past and present - and music, Austen and Sue's home is full of books.
Yesterday, I went to WH Smith, a British institution. They did me proud, they were selling off the last of their calendars for 99 pence, I took several off their hands. This is the place to go for paperbacks, so this is the place for me. WH Smith have three for two deals all year round, so you can buy three books for between twelve and sixteen pounds, (including tax natch) books you may not have read otherwise, books to give people, books that fit in your bag so that you never need to be standing in a queue or waiting for a train without being able to read, books to take in the bath with you until they slowly disintegrate.
Children, we are told, need to be around books, they should be part of a child's cultural experience. If you go into the homes of lower achieving kids with behavioural problems not based on special needs, you frequently see a home devoid of reading material.
Books do Furnish a Room - I remember the BBC radio adaptation of Anthony Powell's Dance to the Music of Time, listened avidly so that his books were destined never to furnish my rooms.
In spite of all of that, I look forward to being able to download a book onto a screen and keep it in my bag. I'm a terrible weeder, but then maybe even that comes from reading too much, too much Beckett.

After Smith's, I went to Waitrose. Waitrose has scanners which you can clip onto your trolley and use to scan your own shopping while you shop. Some Sainsburys have that system too.
In my previous limbo time I discovered that in Waitrose I could buy Mott's clamato, make a caesar, make believe. There they were, 100ml bottles sitting on the shelf - so someone else but me MUST be buying them. 100 mls for one pound 35. I ignored them and bought some elderflower water, I'll be back where the clamato is cheap soon enough, but elderflower - that I can only get here.

Austen told me that the Pope had decided to redefine the universe and that Limbo no longer exists. I don't think Anglicans ever had it in the first place. I hope no-one decides that the North Pole where Father Christmas lives doesn't exist, although I remember Kevin telling me that it had moved out of Canada.

On the way to the shops, on the pavement opposite King Edward the seventh's postbox, three goth girls went flying past on roller blades, black hair and long coats trailing out behind them, like twenty-first century witches all in a line. I stopped and watched them. I thought how Shakespeare would make something of this. Sue's dad, Derek, feels that we should celebrate Shakespeare, have a Shakespeare day like Burn's night. I can see his point, but yet Shakespeare is so universal. He wrote about Europe, about history, men, women, Venice, Denmark, Thebes, people, issues. He wrote sonnets and plays, tragedies and comedies. You may argue that 75% of the world's people don't speak English at all so how universal could his work be ? Because what he gave us were essentially stories. The poetry of his language would be lost in translation, but his stories endure, transformed into films, books and other people's plays.
So maybe I have talked myself round, we should celebrate the Bard, eat fish and chips and drink ale, read stories and talk about politics. If only we didn't do that every day of the year anyway, and if only we knew who Shakespeare was.