Haggis n Bashit Neeps in Downing Street?!?!

Fresh from enduring yet another worldwide mangling and Americanised mispronunciation of 'Auld Lang Syne' and emerging tattered & somewhat battered from the bleak midwinter days of the year just newly consigned to history, the S T o n E  d H o L y B L O g g e R  has rather tiptoed his way into 2018. But the pussyfooting stops HERE!!

For, although the New Year has been somewhat low key and the days have sneaked past the grubby windows of StonedHolyCentral unnoticed almost, today I was roused from my Pop-Slop-Torpor by a paragraph or two which caught my eye in one of the periodicals I peruse, to maintain, at least, a tenuous link to the outside world, disappointing as it is!

Here it was, as I cast a detached and somewhat listless ee over the various columns that told of the latest balls-ups, cock-ups & all-round fuck-ups of the Great & the Good - also known, to me and a growing multitude of disaffected others, as the sad, stunted little gang of playground bullies, imaginationless stuffed shirts & emotionally crippled creeps who we allow to frame the political paradigm - that I was drawn to an item of news which told of a Burns' Night Supper to be held in the State Dining Room of number 10 Downing Street!! And somewhat incredulously, I was informed of how the personality vacuum that is Theresa May was 'looking forward to a great evening to celebrate a great poet, a great nation and an enduring union.' 

As regular cyberpeepers of these jaundiced virtual columns can attest, this is usually when the s t O n e D h O L y B L O g G e r waxes lyrical about Mr. Robert Burns, late of Ayrshire, Scotland and posts a scathing line or two about how the poet would be spinning in his grave if he only knew aboot aw the keech and aw the haiverin done by bletherskites & dunderheeds in his name on January 25th. Dumfries toon could daresay run street lights for free if they stuck a dynamo on the Birlin Bard! The thought of aw them Unco Guid & Rigidly Righteous liftin a glass in his honour wid scunner him for sure! Never mind aw the Holy Willies and their fantoosherie!  Anyway, I had thought I wouldn't bother this year ; after all, how many times can yi scoor the same stibble. But after reading the above & being in no doubt as to what Burns himself would make of  all the liars and phoneys blowin' in his lug, the S t O N E d h O L y b L O g g e R  clambered indignantly aboard his high-horse and made ready tae caw doun damnation & caw time on aw the primpin' prigs!

Perhaps you, like me and, no doubt, the late departed Robert Burns, esq, can take delight in the thought of Mrs. May, wi a wee drammy by her bedside, next to the nuclear destruction button, enjoying a furtive perusal of The Merry Muses of Caledonia and informing her husband that 9 inch would, almost certainly please the lady!!  Perhaps you also can relish the image of Mrs. May warmed by the usqebae n aw the blether aboot pintles and where exactly wiz it that the Guidwife wanted something doin', pleasuring the dessicated, Prime-Ministerial love button!! Perhaps, bathed in the afterglow of the podgering meted oot by the sex machine that is Mr. Philip May, she translates for him intae her clipped R.P. English what exactly "gin a body meet a body comin through the grain, gin a body fucks a body, cunt's a body's ain" actually means! And who could've guessed that the dried up old carlin has a working knowledge o the Scots leid and kens her clamjamfries fae her stooshies!! Who knew the vicar's daughter appreciated a guid doon-tae-earth bit of bawdiness rendered in the Guid Broad Scots?!?!Perhaps flushed from yet another joyous run through the wheat fields of Oxfordshire she likes nothing better than to curl up with her facsimile of the Kilmarnock Edition. Who could've guessed that her love of aw things Scottish extends also tae the dining table?! A wee bitty o the clapshot, hen?! Perhaps, as she lifts another forkful of haggis to her hollow and insincere mouth, the same mouth that speaks of "precious, precious union" the words of her 'great poet' come easily tae her vacuous mind.....here, let me remind her ;

Fareweel tae aw oor Scottish fame

Fareweel oor ancient glory

Fareweel ev'n tae the Scottish name

Sae famed in martial story

Noo Sark rins ower Solway sands

An Tweed rins tae the ocean

Tae mark where England's province stands

Sic a Parcel o Rogues in a nation!

Whit force n guile cuid no subdue

Through many warlike ages

Is wrought noo by a coward few

Fir hireling traitor's wages

The English stell we cuid disdain

Secure in valour's station

But English gowd huz been oor bane

Sic a Parcel o Rogues in a nation!

O wid, or A hud seen the day

That Treason thus cuid sell us

Ma auld grey heid hud lien in clay

Wi Bruce an loyal Wallace

But pith an power till ma last hour

A'll mak this declaration

We're bought an sold fur English gold

Sic a Parcel o Rogues inb a nation!

Aye, I can really see Theresa enjoying that yin!! Whit's that rumbling noise I can hear? Jings, I think it is, y'know!.....It's Robbie Fukn Burns Birlin' in his fukn grave!!!! 

Here's tae yi, Rob..... & Scottish Independence!!!

     

Birlin' In The Boneyard!

Well, Readers, it's January 25th n yi ken whit that means? It means Mr. Robert Burns, late of Alloway, Ayrshire, is, right noo, furiously birlin' in his grave!! It's noo that his eternal rest is disturbed year after year as 10 million haggises are piped in to be cut up wi 'ready slight' and the formulaic Burns' supper is enacted in every corner o the globe.

"warm, reekin, rich!"

He would've hated it, I'm sure! Just think of aw them folks that he would gladly have seen on the end o a bayonet toastin' his guid name and his work! Arch-Tories, Monarchists, Ministers o Kirk n State and No-Voting Bastards aw lining up tae sing his praises noo that he's deid! The mouth that would've damned them aw tae hell is stopped up wi clay! Words that coulda descried and mocked, mute!

Burns in the Boneyard is a lot safer and sanitised than the flesh & blood swagger o the real thing. Gone are the resentments and indignation that he would've hurled to aw the Holy Willies and their ilk whae made him sit on the penitent's stool. Gone the profane banter o the drinking dens as the yill took hold. Gone the bawdy bonhomie and licentious celebration of the Crochallan Fencibles. Gone the Republican sentiments and egalitarian outbursts o the howff.

And if Burns thought the 28 bankrupt posh-boys whae signed Scotland away  tae English gowd were a 'parcel o rogues', what would he have made of and what fury would he have reserved for those who voted 'No' to Scottish Independence for worries about money! It's just as well the poor bastard's deid, my friends, 'cause the shock of September 19th 2014 would've finished him off, for sure!!

Noo he's dust, the Establishment toadies who would've hated him with a vengeance if he were still around, can toast his memory and stick him on tins o shortie! Maybeez that's the fate o aw rebels ; absorbed, claimed, made safe and explained.
The S T O n e d H O L y b L O G g e r has every confidence in his assertion that Burns would've loathed it all.

Or mebbe no. Burns, after all, never got the chance o growing old n comfortable, pegging oot young, as he did. He just missed oot on that high ranking position wi the Excise doon Leith that would've seen him back in Auld Reekie's boozers n parlours conversing wi the best o Edinburgh's 'enlightenment' and flirtin' wi both the mistress o the hoose and the scullery maid! It could've aw been so different if he'd made it back tae Edinburgh wi' siller jinglin' in his pockets! If only those damned debtors had held off for a year or two more....maybeez then, the s T O n e d h O L y B L O g g e R wouldn't be here in the garret o Stoned Holy HQ hammerin' oot this crap. What would Burns' reputation be if, instead o fizzling oot in Dumfries at the age o 37, he'd lived tae 87, old n well off in his big, fancy hoose in Edinburgh's New Town.

Aye, but these are but idle flights o fancy for Burns didnae make it ; And so' is forever fixed the rebel outsider. As a consequence of this he belongs tae the rebels & outsiders ; the dissidents & rabble-rousers; the firebrands & malcontents.

So, gentle readers, bollocks tae Burns Night and January 25th.....but if yi find yirsel on either bank o the sweet Afton as it flows gently on its way tae the Solway Firth, much as it did twa hunnert year ago when the glowin' een o Robbie the Ranter gazed doon upon its glassy waters, raise a glass or doff yir bunnet tae Scotland's ploughman poet and Auld Lang Syne....a more fitting tribute, ahm sure, and one he would've appreciated.


Ladies n Gentleman, Louns n Quines, please be upstanding... I give you Mister Robert Burns, late of Alloway, Ayrshire!

Robin Wiz A Rovin Boy

Kick Over the Statues!

We merry few, we band of brothers, we dejected and financially troubled middle aged has-beens who call the rococo master bedrooms and badly carpeted garrets of Stoned Holy HQ our home, are Iconoclasts by inclination...our avowed Atheism however, has resulted in the secularisation of our destructive urges to include all the trappings of the Great & Good as they look down on us from plinth and pediment.

Oft in the firebrand days of youth the S t o N e D H o L y b L o g G e r was wont to pass the lonely, girlfriendless moments in flights of idle iconoclastic fancy. I pictured myself atop a sturdy charger galloping o'er the Green & Pleasant bridleways of Englandshire with the New Model Army, tearing down the bloated edifice of church and state. Of course, the truth of the matter is those Iconoclasters were nothing but a bunch of Joyless Religious Zealots cum Humourless Bully Boys who wouldn't have let me shovel their horseshit, let alone allow me into their greeting-faced ranks! Goodness knows how much wondrous artistic endeavour in wood & stone & paint has been lost to us due to the thuggish actions of this mob of  ISIS-like Holy Willies.

Madamme Michel - What a Gal!!

The Paris Commune of 1871 would have suited our Democratic & Iconoclastic ambitions more, I feel. Oh, to be ripping up the cobblestones and darting through the backstreets with the glamorous Petroleuses! Oh, to be at Madame Louise Michel's side watching the Tuileries Palace aflame! Oh, to be with Monsieur Courbet as the Vendome Column toppled in a matchless piece of performance art!

One reason Courbet cited for why the Vendome Column had to go was its  being "devoid of all artistic value" and we here sheltered within the Unadorned & Stark Walls of the Stoned Holy Chapel of Love & Brethrenness mightily concur with this sentiment! So much of Art, after all, is completely NAFF!! Doesn't Portraiture boil down to a bunch of dead people trying to convince us what wonderfully important people they were! Surely, you too, like I, have ambled down many a dreary gallery corridor bored out yir mind as the utterly forgettable faces of big wigs of yore in all their dreary finery with their dreary wives and dreary children and their dreary favourite gun-dogs in front of their dreary over-sized homes stared down at you from dreary ornate golden picture frames! Kings, Queens, Lords, Ladies, Dukes, Viscounts, Chiefs and aw manner of puffed up n self-important High Heid Yins - Bollocks tae the lot of them!! Do we really careif the 4th Duke of Och-Aye-The Noo rendered luminescently in oils goes up in flames?! We here congregated in the Stoned Holy Art School of  Dada say 'Strike A Match & Let's Get the Bonfire Started!!

Anywayz, ahm only mentioning aw this Iconoclasm mallarkey because it's Burns Night and we here assembled in the Stoned Holy Supper Club, we ragbag o raggedy-arsed chiels n skellums, we, like tae think Rantin', Roving  Robbie Burns was an Iconoclast too! Indeed, we're pretty sure he'd join us in tearing doon aw the Pomp & Pantomime that will be played out in his name this very night in locations as far afield as New York and Tokyo. We're not really ones for dates and formalities, here in the Supper Club of Love & Social Union, but January 25th is as good a night as any tae doff oor bunnet n raise a toast tae a man who recognised a tinsel show and ribband star for what they were and are and always will be - Bullshit!!

Here's tae yi, Rob! There's no More Heroes Anymore! We're Kicking Over the Statues!

 "The Rank is but the Guineas's Stamp, 

the Man's the Gowd for aw that!"

As a wee footnote to aw this havering, here's a couple o wee linkies. 1st tae a modrin take on Tam o' Shanter that we few here collected in the Stoned Holy School of Rhymes n Lines fully and heartily endorse.....and 2nd tae a stooshie that happened in the Louvre recently in front of Gustave Courbet's 'The Origin of the World' It is in its own inimitable way, a classic piece of Iconoclasm....and we here in the Stoned Holy Art School of Drawings n Paintings n Sculptings salute this young lady.....and wish we coulda been there!! 

Until next time, Pop-Pickers, Ahm Ooty Here!

Why is there a Robert Burns Avenue in Cheltenham?

 

As the Blowings & Lashings of January continue to hurry themselves along tarmacadam streets and up and over the concrete ravines of the moribund metropolis, thoughts can be bleak. They can also wander lonely as clouds or trudge through muddy fields like the heavy boots of Ploughmen Poets!!

Or thoughts can, as in the case of the 

s T o N e d h O l y B l O g g E R - forever struggling to fill the yawning hours of idleness and distract myself from the ever present existential terror of simply being - become  mired in such burning topical issues as 'Why is there a Robert Burns Avenue in Cheltenham?   Looking tae fortify myself against both the Blasts O Winter and Philosophical Desolation, it is with a welcome sigh of relief that Ah get to use any excuse to reach for the whisky bottle and pull out the stopper...........So split that Warm & Reekin' Haggis open - it's Burns Night again!! When better to devote serious enquiry into the question just posited above!

Here at Stoned Holy HQ, it is our wont to forego all the 'Och aye, Jock McKay' and the 'Donald, Where's yir Troosers'   for a more down home doff o the Stoned Holy Bunnet when it comes to honouring the memory of Scotland's National Poet. We're pretty damn sure the Blessed Bard himself would appreciate this approach more than the Codified Pantomine played out in his name at the formal 'Burns Supper' and  its skirling of the pipes tae a large puddin' consisting o the heart, liver n lungs of a sheep packed intae the poor wee beastie's stomach as it makes it's way from the oven tae the table and then the groanin' trenchers of hungry chiels and coofs!!

It is also that time when we exhort all those within the Blogosphere to lift a glass to the Libertarian & Libertine Burns who we here assembled in Stoned Holy HQ salute as a Stoned Holy Roller of Yore!! We do so again, but briefly ; for this year, seeing as the
S T o N e d h o L y B L O g G e r  has spent a part of it promenading in his periwig doon the Regency boulevards of Cheltenham Spa in Gloucestershire, we thought  we'd shine a light on the little known connections between that particular toon and Burns and why there's a street named in his honour here, deep in the belly of the English beast some 250 miles over the Scottish Border.

Now, tae the best of my knowledge, Mr. R. Burns (late of Alloway, Ayrshire) tiptoed but once on English soil, briefly setting foot in England whilst on a tour of the Border country but he most definitely never tethered his Auld Grey Mare, Meg ootside any of the drinking emporiums of Cheltenham Spa, that's for sure. His sons however, William Nicol Burns & James Glencairn Burns (nae mare than snotty nosed bairns when their Auld Man breathed his last!), both retired tae Chelters after careers in the sub-continent with the East India Company (rising to the ranks o General and Lieutenant General respectively!). Fraternal bonds were obviously tight within the family for the brothers ended up seein oot their days living next door tae one another in 3 & 4 Berkley Street.

Willie died issue-less but Jimmy's loins were fertile.....though, it has to be noted, not as prodigously so as those of his poor, lamented Auld Yin!!).  His daughter Sarah (Burns' grand-daughter) emigrated tae Australia wi an Irishman, losing her 3 young children on the journey oot there. They were obviously made of sterner stuff in them days for her womb was fruitful once more in her new antipodean home. After the Irishman pegged it she returned tae her native shores with her youngest daughter Margaret in tow. Returning to take the spa waters and enjoy the refined promenading of Montpelier along with her sister Annie, the three ladies bided in with Uncle Willie in Berkley Street before decanting tae the urbane surroundings of
7 Pittville Lawn.  Sarah died in 1909, her daughter in 1917 and her sister in 1925. The three of them are buried together in St. Mary's Church, Charlton Kings. The S t O n e d h O L Y B l o g g e r went tae search for them.....and there they were ; nestled amongst auld sodgers whaed fought at Waterloo and the enterprising young men of Victorian Cheltenham who'd gone out tae India looking for careers within Empire but found nothing more than scarlet fever or malaria. Willie n Jimmy were more elusive however. Further online reading reveals they are interred in the 'Mausoleum' in Cheltenham but my inside sources are blowed if they know where this is!! Another time maybeez we'll track 'em doon.........

Well peoples, there yiz have it. The shortest peep at the connections between the Burns family and a toon in Gloucestershire....and why, the next time somebody asks you 'Why is there a Robert Burns Avenue in Cheltenham you'll be able to say 'pull up a pew n fire up a brew and Ah'll tell yi aw aboot it'!!......now, time for that whisky bottle ah mentioned earlier........

Here's tae Rob Burns and aw his issue and Old Long Since!!

& here's a wee linkie tae a photograph of Willie n Jimmy in all their stovepipe glory! 

Willie n Jimmy

  

Ho! Ho! Ho! - Oh, No! No! No!!

"Aw Hell....its....."

Whilst the S T o N e d h o l Y B l o g g e R  is wrapped within the Sleepy Vale of Night, sleeping like a newborn in swaddling 'neath the cosy protection of the Stoned Holy Winceyette, my dreams are untroubled, floating on gossamer strands of psychedelic wackiness and everyday surrealism! But not so my waking hours!!

You may well imagine the s T O n E D H o l y b l o g G E r  incarcerated within the Dickensian austerity that pervades the bare and echoing chambers of Stoned Holy HQ, opining to himself  "Oh, Knowledge; Why Didst thou Come to Wound and Not to Cure!"........but fret not! For although I do spend an inordinate amount of time in acrimonious recollection I do manage to divert myself from these fruitless philosophizations with cryptic crosswords, pictures of nekkit wimmen on the Tinternet and baking scones! (What's that you say? A JOB? Heaven Forfend!!)........but B'Jaysus,was it not just yestreen whilst peering through the 'Devil's Windae' at Japanese lovelies in various states of undress and savouring a Stoned Holy Scone, fresh from the Stoned Holy Oven n hoochin' wi creamy Scottish butter, that the efficacy of these hereto mentioned diversions was found to wane somewhat and I came to reflecting on the inexorable Tick of Time - "Nae Man can Tether Time nor Tide" as the Great Robbie Burns once put it -  T'was then a realisation sneaked up on me from the rear and kicked me in a manner rather rude in the seat o ma Stoned Holy Britches!!

                          Aw Hell.......it's that time again!!

That time o year when aw the Beaten Down & Dejected Ones; aw the Broken Down & Disaffected Ones; aw the Skinflints, Cheapskates & Pinchpennies; aw the Lonely Hearts, the Lovelorn n Loveless get to trouble the Starry Heavens with their bootless cries as they and everybody else are, like it or not, subjected, once again, to the Gaudy, Brash, Tasteless, Venal Free-Market onslaught of......

CHRISTMAS!!

Yip, it's Chrimbo! And before yi say it.....Yes! I know it's the middle of November.....but please not to shoot the messenger......and prithee, what news?
Well, it's not so much glad tidings of comfort n joy, that's for sure! More of a Brutish, Boorish & Blundering Scrum of Desperate Consumers looking for Something....Anything!!  A Mass! A Mob! A Swarm! A Surge!

Now, lemme tell ya, Users n Abusers o the Blogosphere, despite having read ma Gramsci n being boned up on ma 'Philosophy of Praxis', I have to admit to being somewhat conflicted when considering any crowdings of Humankind. In theory I yearn to be assimilated into the thronging mob of dissentors n righteously indignant ones clamouring for change and not afraid tae lob some chunks of masonry at the dupes n stooges of the Police force to prove it!.....but, in reality, after a lifetime spent with my nose pressed firmly to the windae pane looking in, I am somewhat wary of anything that is 'doing' rather than 'observing'! So more than likely I'd be the shadowy figure skulking round the perimeter of any crowd and any shit hitting any fan!!

Chrimbo illustrates this point rather well. As an army of shoppers crowd the shining outlets of vacuous consumerism I find myself retreating ever further from such Swellings & Heavings! If my dismal career in Pop-Slop had followed the mercurial path I had dreamed of once and success had filled my bank account with readies, Chrimbo would be the time of year when I would bid farewell to my native shores and make for distant horizons. Somewhere where the sun was shining and sexy Christmas pixies in red lingerie & high heels could serve me my egg-nog and mince pies poolside! 

Alas, these are idle fancies and here it is I find myself once more in a state of penury with no escape in sight from the Ghastly n Glistening Baubles of the Chrimbo Bubble! And every year now, it seems, outstrips the shameful excesses of the one proceeding it. So it is, with just these kind of thoughts swimming round the Stoned Holy Noodle Box, I have decided to hermetically seal myself away from outside agencies in the Stoned Holy Hermitage!  I intend not to emerge until the nightmare is over. I'll see yiz aw on the other side o December.......Happy Holidays! Good Luck....yiz'll need it!!

Robert Burns : Rock n Roll Animal!

It's that time of year again, folks. The time when the S T O n e d H O L y b L o G g e R reminds aw you Cyberdarlings (or at least that portion of yiz amongst the teeming multitudes of the blogosphere who have blundered their way onto these exalted pages!)  that the birthday of Robert Burns, late of Ayrshire, Scotland, will soon be upon us. It's the 25th January when yiz aw need tae get the whisky bottle oot and raise a toast tae Rantin' Robbie!!! So keen am I tae draw yir attention to this impending anniversary that I am here, sitting in the Cramped n Chilly confines of the computer suite at
S t o n e d H o l y H Q, hammerin' awa at the keyboard on a Saturday night, when any other self-respecting Rock n Roll Animal worthy of the name wid be oot on Cuban Heels, Scavenging & Scouring the Skirted Streets seeking out Raw Flesh & Live Heat!!! Fie, even the Bardie himself would surely be one of them!

*    *    *   *    *   *    *

But here I am ; caged within the Hallowed & Hushed Halls of  R O l l e R C e N t R a l, 
the indifferent S t o n e d H o l y W a l l s flickering in the glow from the computer screen, writing this garbage for the elucidation of  Virtual Loons n Quines! By rights, I should be spending my evening entertaining several delightfully upholstered nubiles, keen to show their appreciation of my S T o N e d h O l y g E N i U s by enveloping my dulled senses in Sumptuous & Voluptuary excess! Oh, such a Realm of Fleeting Pleasures to be abandoned to! Yes, I know, Sex without Love IS an empty experience.....but as empty experiences go (and there are many in this meagre & pitiable world) it's one of the best!!

*    *    *    *    *    *    *

A fact, I'm sure, that would not have been lost on Robert Burns : For although he was a man of Prodigous Poetic Capabilities and a man firmly engaged with the Political Upheavals and Intellectual Altercations of his age, a man possessed of Easy Charm & Wit, he was a man also, who liked nothin' better than tae Cock Up his Beaver and loosen his breeks tae gie the Bonnie burdies a treat!! Though undoubtedly one who relished the pleasing company of rosy cheeked lovelies as a way to fill his hours and afford him the opportunity to display his breadth of learning, a means whereby he could show off his dazzling rhyme makkin skills....ahm pretty damn sure he liked it even better when the jades bade him lift up their petticoats and lug oot his pintle!!

*    *    *    *   *   *    *

I here recommend yi hunt doon a copy of "The Merry Muses of Caledonia." for the collected Smut & Bawdy Verse of Burns and a Joyous & Jovial Jaunt in Rhyme through the World of Fornication. 'Say, Puritan, can it be wrong, tae dress plain truth in witty song?'  asks the frontispiece and what follows is guaranteed tae put a smirk on the most door of faces. Here's wee sample tae whet yir appetite;

O gin a Body meet a Body comin thro the rye

Gin a body fuck a Body, Need a Body Cry!

Gin a body meet a Body comin thro the Glen

Gin a Body fuck a Body, Need the Warld ken!

Gin a Body meet a Body comin thro the Grain

Gin a Body fuck a Body, cunt's a Body's ain!

*    *    *    *    *   *   *

Awright, cyberpeepers, ahv said ma piece. Ah'll leave the rest to you. Meanwhile, here's a doff o the cap and a raising o a glass tae Robert Burns (1759 - 1796), a real Rock n Roll Animal & a real gone..... 

S t O N e D H o l y r O L L E r! 

Of Ploughman Poets & Champit Tatties & Bashit Neeps!!

Hey Gogglers of the Glowin' Screen, yi might no' ken it, sittin' aw oan yir lonesome there doing yir Tinternet Business, whatever that may entail, but it's January 25th and aw ower this Sceptred Isle and indeed, all quarters of the Globe, people who cherish the Poetic Stylings of Robert Burns, late of Alloway, Ayrshire, will be enjoying a warm, reeking and rich meal of  Haggis accompanied with some Champit Tatties N Bashit Neeps! Even as I write, a Handsome Pudding, just today purchased from the premises of  Mr. Abercrombie in Broughton Street, Edinburgh, awaits it's heating in the oven of the S t o n e d   H o l y   K i t c h e n !   The S t o n e d H o l y B l o g g e r  is One who shall, most assuredly, be raising his glass to the Ploughman Poet and Toasting his Immortal Memory!

The S t o n e d H o l y S c h o o n e r , however, will not be lifted in 

Salutation of the Canonised Burns of Biscuit Tins and Postcards,

 the Appropriated Burns of Tartan-Clad Parochialism, 

the Sanitised Burns of Conservative Club Suppers, 

nor the Emascualted Burns of the Highly Mannered and Codified Pantomime of Piping in the Haggis. I've got more than an inkling that Robert Burns Esq' would be spinning furiously in the grave which holds him at the thought of aw the shite enacted in his name!!

No, here at S t o n e d H o l y H Q  we will be raising our glasses aloft and Bringing To Mind another Robert Burns entirely :

  Burns the Radical, who, referencing the Religious Dissenters of the English Civil War, styled himself 'Robbie the Ranter'! 

Burns the Libertarian, who defended the American & French Revolutions!

  Burns the Democrat, who knew 'The Rank Is But The Guinea's Stamp'!   

Burns the Libertine, the self-confessed & Proudly Proclaimed Fornicator! 

Burns the Indignant, who blasted the hypocrisy of the Church and aw the Unco Guid! 

The Political Burns, who poured scorn upon the Parcel of Rogues who had signed Scottish Independence away! 

The Bawdy Burns, the Crochallan Fencible, who knew 9 inch would please a lady! 

The Convivial Burns, at home in the Inn and the Howff where the Swats were Reaming!!....

....and How, How, How could we ever forget the Burns who, one cold starry night during the Winter of 1786, upon attending a dinner party in the parlour of Mr. Adam Ferguson's 'Sciennes Hill House' in Edinburgh and encountering a fifteen year old lad by the name of Walter Scott, thereafter spent  the evening entertaining the Great n the Good of Scotia's Darling Seat with his intelligence and charming the Darling Young Things with his flirtatious wit, before begging his esteemed host's pardon for needing to 'Mak His Water' and quietly nipped upstairs & Tupped the Scullery Maid!!!

So without further faffin' aboot and without further bletherin', I ask you not to be upstanding nor raise a formal toast, but rather, just to take a moment to think on Robert Burns & Old Long Since! 

A Mover & A Shaker - Undoubtedly! 

A Rantin', Rovin' Billy - Unquestionably! 

A S t o n e d   H o l y   R o l l e r  - Most Ceratinly!..........

Doubt ye not that our Well-Thumbed copy of his Collected Verse takes its place Most Rightfully & is displayed Most Proudly on the Seldom Dusted Shelves of The S t o n e d H o l y L i b r a r y ! (It sits next to a facsimile edition of 'The Merry Muses Of Caledonia'!)

Let the final words be Walter Scott's : 

"Long Life To Thy Fame & Peace To Thy Soul, Rob Burns! When I Want To Express A Sentiment Which I Feel Strongly, I Find The Phrase In Shakespeare or Thee."  

Well yi cannae argue wi' that, can yi?!

SO REMEMBER TO TAK THAT RIGHT 

GUID-WILLIE WAUGHT! CHEERS!