Robert Burns' bicentennial was celebrated with a ceremonial slaughter of the haggis when I arrived in London on a particularly miserable winter's day last week...
Coming from a culture that's often accused of behaving in strange ways, I was somewhat bewildered at the sight of a bespectacled, kilted bagpiper rattling off something about the "great chieftain of the pudden' race" and then plunging a dirk with sudden viciousness into this defenceless object.
What on earth was this creature then? I quickly referred to my computerised irreverent dictionary, which spat out the following:
"haggis, n.: Haggis is a kind of stuffed black pudding eaten by the Scots and considered by them to be not only a delicacy but fit for human consumption. The minced heart, liver and lungs of a sheep, calf or other inner organs are mixed with oatmeal, sealed and boiled in maw in the sheep's intestinal stomach-bag and ... Excuse me a minute ..."
I think I need to rewrite that programme.
But back to Robert Burns. I remember being struck by how wise he seemed when I first came across his poetry in high school. One particular verse sticks in my mind (and excuse my Celtic as I quote from memory):
Oh wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
And foolish notion.
People see us differently these days, don't they? I came across someone distributing leaflets outside South Africa House on Trafalgar Square and told him: "If you're here for the picket, you're a couple of years too late."
He looked at me strangely. He had no idea what I was talking about.
So I met some friends for a drink in the shadow of a wind-swept Tower Bridge, overlooking the icy Thames river. "What do you think about South Africans today?"I asked.
"Oh, all right. We'll talk about the cricket if we must," said one English journalist, somewhat testily.
He was particularly upset that someone "so devoid of technique" had wreaked such havoc.
"I didn't want to bring up the cricket," I said. "Robert Burns would never approve of kicking a man when he's down. But are you talking about our spin doctor, Paul Adams?"
"Yeah, that's the one. I bet they told him at school that he would never be a sportsman," he replied. "I lost money on this series."
I hadn't. There was money in my pocket from two separate bets — on the Rugby World Cup and on the cricket — with Brits who had put patriotism before common sense. I mentioned this.
"Speaking of the Rugby World Cup," another journalist countered, "you lot really loused that one up in the publicity stakes. Right before the semi-final against the French is about to start, you brought on this entire troupe of black women with squeegees to push the water off the field.
"You can't imagine how badly that looked, especially with the white men supervising them. All the papers carried pictures of that. Couldn't you have had at least two or three whites doing the mopping as well?"
"Not really," I countered. "We needed to get the job done immediately."
"But that's a very British approach, isn't it? ... to pretend a problem doesn't exist by disguising it?"
They considered this for a moment. "That's a fair statement," one responded, "but that's an honourable trait that comes all the way down from Buckingham Palace."
I interrupted. "What were those seven magic words that Diana is supposed to have used on Tiggy Whatsername?"
They told me. I burst out laughing. How unfortunate for Charles. Had he been born just a few centuries ago, he could have had as many wives as he needed, and beheaded those he tired of.
"At least he's still a tourist attraction of sorts," I said. "He should take this asset and shamelessly exploit it. Henry VIII may have ruled by might, but Charles can rule by self-ridicule."
"The entire population can take great pride in being able to look upon Charles and tell their children, `There, but for the grace of god, go we,'" I added.
"Well, at least we're still better than you at soccer," he responded with a sniff.
"Yes, Bafana Bafana don't seem to have much of a chance in the African Cup. Want to put some money on it anyway?"