AN English newcomer to Burns Night believed it was some sort of eating contest for offal and mushy vegetables, not an annual celebration of a national hero.
Tom Booker, whose new girlfriend Jasmine claims to be half Scottish, was shocked to find her planned dinner party involved a 200-year-old tradition of honouring gibberish poems as well as weird food.
Booker said: “I assumed it was a night to mock the English and make them eat sheep balls, so I turned up in a fancy dress kilt and a tartan hat with ginger hair attached. Turns out it’s a serious event for a bloke they treat like Shakespeare.
“I thought the uncle giving the first toast was having a stroke. It was only when I managed to make out ‘gushing entrails’ that I knew I was getting tripe after all. But what on earth’s a skink?
“Even The Proclaimers are bearable next to recitals of Robert Burns ‘classics’. Mice and witches? They’ve got better Scottish culture they could celebrate, like Don’t You Forget About Me.”
After failing to think of a single work by an English poet when politely invited, Booker chose to watch from the sidelines while Scots downed drams and swung each other round in a primitive Gaelic peasant manner.
He added: “If anything was making spicy mince come out of both ends, it was dancing. I assumed we’d just drunkenly doze the haggis off and watch Highlander.
“Thank god for all that Talisker, because the food really was that shit.”
