Robert (or should that be Rabbie?) Burns

Even worse, numberplease, they sing 'For the sake of auld lang ZYNE'!! Wrong!!!

Yes, greenmossgiel, I forgot to mention that!

Yes! and NEVER Robbie!

I earnestly apologise to all Scots out there on GN, but I hate Auld Lang Syne and Burns' poetry - love poetry but don't get Burns at all; must be an acquired taste! Also hate Land of Hope and Glory and Last Night of the Proms (makes me cringe), though have watched most of the concerts, as I do every year, and enjoyed them.

artygran could it be because the language of Burns is just a bit alien to you that you 'don't get it'? The sentiments are universal. I paraphrase just a little -
'But pleasures are like poppies spread
You pluck the flower, the bloom is dead.
Or like a snowflake on a river
A moment there and gone forever.'

'Man to man the world o'er
Shall brothers be, for a' that'

Agree about your other pet hates though!

arty, I don't blame you for not 'getting' the language of Burns, but if you can get past that and the more sentimental aspects of his poetry, he did write some biting satire, such as 'Address to the Unco Guid' and 'Holy Willie's Prayer'. He really didn't like the sanctimonious Calvinists of the Scottish Kirk and they didn't like him and his lifestyle.

Perhaps.

Yes Annobel - and an activist who was in the vanguard of political thinking!

I love 'the best laid schemes o'mice and men gang aft agley'..sums up my life pretty well!

Crimson, my best-laid plans frequently gang agley and usually because of family demands! GC's and best-laid plans don't usually go together, do they?

I was 10 when I came up from the Midlands to live in Fife. Each Tuesday I used to receive a stoke of the belt because I hadn't learned my Burns' poetry. I had learned it! I just couldn't pronounce it! So, Mr Milne, may you spin rapidly in your grave: 'Wee sleekit, cowrin' timorous beastie, Oh whit a panic's in thy breastie, Thou widnae flee awa' sae hasty, Wi' bickerin' brattle...etc...

greenmossgiel I think that little horror story does show that the old days were not always the "good old days" . Did you get the belt if you pronounced Robbie instead of Rabbie?

I think Mr Milne got the belt out because he was allowed to! My dad (English) pronounced it Robbie, my mum (Scots), Rabbie! No wonder I had problems!

I went to school in Edinburgh and also had an English father and Scottish Mother- she definitely said Rabbie. Oops have I just hijacked this thread or is this a meander?

Did Mr Milne put you off Burns for good, GMG? I used to be made to write out long passages of Dickens when I left a book at home. It took a long time for me to be even contemplate reading his books voluntarily.

There seems to be an intrusive 'be' in that last sentence. Sorry!

Annobel, no! - I love Burns' poetry and how through it he cocked a snook at authority! My mother's side came from near Alloway (his birthplace). And funnily enough, the house we now live in is called Mossgiel (not named by us)! Burns was a tenant farmer on Mossgiel Farm in Ayrshire. That is a coincidence! However, I still cannot escape from the dreaded Mr. Milne, can I?

Greenmossgiel - I'm married to a Scot and told him what you said about "Auld Lang Zyne" and he says to tell you that there is, after all, some sanity in the world and he now knows he's not alone. He winces very time people in England start to sing it. And get the words wrong too!

I do like Burns; "The language of a man, speaking to men." (Or, in Burns' case, women!)

ToAriadne and her DH -

'For auld lang syne, my jo,
For auld lang syne
We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne'

Hope you haven't all abandoned this thread which I have missed, what with the birth of 7th GC (6th boy), holiday, visitors, and other distractions (some of us are easily distracted). I enjoyed reading your views of Burns and his poetry. I had always understood that he was known as Robert, not Rabbie or Robbie, but I don't know if that's right. Artygran, if you google Burns Welcome to his daughter you should get a BBC site with the poem The Poet's Welcome To His Love Begotten Daughter read by 3 different men - I prefer John Gordon Sinclair - with the words as well. I saw it on TV many years ago and found it very moving. His first daughter was illegitimate, and he had a hard time over that, but he says that he loves and is proud of her and her mother and she is welcome. As Annobel says, he wasn't a man to go with the prevailing views if he didn't agree! Hope you enjoy it.

And there I was, when I started this thread, worrying that it wouldn`t get any replies!

There is also evidence that he was sometimes known as Robin. This poem/song about his own birth is read by Alan Cummings:

www.bbc.co.uk/robertburns/works/rantin_rovin_robin/