Burns Supper, 2012
Last year we attended our first Burns Supper and it was a grand evening of traditional food, poems, protocol and whisky. We were lucky enough to be invited back this year, and this is the first post about that wonderful evening.
Aya was given the honour of opening the evening by reciting The Selkirk Grace.
We kept it traditional, but with one small, important word change.
Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it;
But we hae meat, and we can eat,
Sae let the Good be thankit.
And some wad eat that want it;
But we hae meat, and we can eat,
Sae let the Good be thankit.
Keith was invited to prepare a Toast To The Lassies and addressed the challenge in as manly a fashion as possible.
Keith's Toast To The Lassies:
Before any toasting is
done, we thank our starlit and effervescent Host, Eilidh, for
bringing these much-anticipated Robert Burns Suppers together, taking
up the Sisyphean task of communications and bridging the gap between
our unfathomable ignorance and what needs to get bloody-well done.
Brian, our Chairman, we
thank you, too, and I pledge to honour you with two masculine
adjectives to be named later, most likely after my third whisky*. For
while it is Eilidh who assigned me this privilege, it is Brian who
forwarded me the trust to properly toast the Lassies in his presence,
and for that I am truly grateful.
I must also give a nod and
a wink to Greg, who last year showed us how this toast should be
done. He navigated his way through the challenge with wit, warmth and
sincerity, lit only by the light of his i-Pad. It is a fool who would
try to follow that act, but a greater fool who would ignore the path
carved by his success.
And now a Toast to the
Lassies.
To properly toast the
Lassies at heart,
I think we must really go
back to the start,
Of all successes that
evolution suggests,
Splitting into two sexes
was surely the best,
None of us here, of course,
can remember,
What life was like before
there was gender,
Think of the emptiness,
the complete perversity,
Of Earth in the days
before biodiversity,
We left the tangled bank
behind,
And what a pleasure then
to find,
That mating benefits the Id,
Far more than
parthenogenesis did,
Now, stereotypes about
who's in control,
Are neither accurate nor
droll,
No jokes from me about who
makes the decisions,
Lest the coming Reply
roast me through with derision,
“Fair, gentle and
loving” may be the cliché,
But we must agree, in the
name of fair play,
That Lassies are not
always as sweet as they seem,
Men's lives are enriched
by these cherished Others,
Friends, sisters,
lovers, wives and mothers,
We Lads are charmed into
clumsy domesticity,
By Lassies' wild but graceful eccentricity,
To a marriage a Lassie
brings what she will,
Her blend of strength and
passion and skill,
She offers her self, her
sincerest treasure,
And man reciprocates with
pleasure,
For every man quietly
comes to know,
Whether or not he lets it
show,
Without Woman there is no
Man,
We say “Woman is,
therefore I am”,
So Eilidh, Shawna, Tracey,
Janet,
And Aya, my favourite on
this or any planet,
Let this crude
communication,
Show only our
appreciation,
I've made this project too
complex,
Is that the birthright of my sex?
My caveman forebears
doubtless would,
Have made the point with
“woman good”,
And now the toast is here
at last,
We're one step nearer our
repast**,
And as you drink, don't think
me rude,
If I ask that we might all
include,
Not just the Lassies in
our quorum,
But all their kin who've
gone before 'em,
Their living faces freshly
bloom,
In every flower in this
room.
To the Lassies!
2012
*Brian's masculine adjectives, as pledged:
altachadh-beatha
ionmholta
**Keith mistakenly thought the toast preceded the main course.
