4th Nor Cal Rabble Burns Night Supper (photos & videos)

**walkerk** · 25th January 10, 10:52 PM

To the Lassies.

**kiltimabar** · 25th January 10, 11:39 PM

Jamie, you say you're supposed to have gravitas with the haggis? I thought that was for the neeps and tatties.

**cessna152towser** · 30th January 10, 03:50 PM

Overall a good performance, spoilt by the rather sad behaviour at the address to the haggis. How would you 'mericans like it if we in Scotland held such a mockery of Independence Day 4th July and then broadcast it on the internet?

To discover how you ought to conduct yourselves at a proper Burns Supper and in particular at the address to the haggis I suggest you could learn a lot by viewing the videos in the thread about the SOKS Burns Supper http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/s...ght=soks+burns

It is not necessary to wear a fez to a Burns Supper btw.

**Tartan Hiker** · 30th January 10, 05:17 PM

Originally Posted by cessna152towser

Overall a good performance, spoilt by the rather sad behaviour at the address to the haggis.

I don't know, Alex. I like the admonition that no Burns supper should be conducted in such a manner that Burns himself would not want to attend. He was a lover of good times, and I think that the "translations", while a bit Vaudevillian, were in keeping with the festive nature that such an event should enjoy.

It is not necessary to wear a fez to a Burns Supper btw.

But if the fez has become something of an icon to the group holding the event, why not? My guess is that if I were putting together a Burns Night event in Fiji, there would be some form of native garb in evidence.

I really don't think that the NorCal folks were attempting to ridicule Burns...quite the contrary!

**walkerk** · 30th January 10, 09:39 PM

A presentation by Richard (way2fractious).

**Pour1Malt** · 1st February 10, 02:56 AM

sorry... I disagree completely... the Fez is not native Scottish headgear and it is not native american headgear- it is Turkish... and it is often used (in the usa and the UK) as a symbol of foolishness and stupidity... (which is pretty racist in and of itself)

Robert Burns was a patriot and IS a national symbol... do not fool yourself into thinking Burns would find it amusing to have him, his country, his country's symbols ridiculed...

Originally Posted by Tartan Hiker

I don't know, Alex. I like the admonition that no Burns supper should be conducted in such a manner that Burns himself would not want to attend. He was a lover of good times, and I think that the "translations", while a bit Vaudevillian, were in keeping with the festive nature that such an event should enjoy.

But if the fez has become something of an icon to the group holding the event, why not? My guess is that if I were putting together a Burns Night event in Fiji, there would be some form of native garb in evidence.

I really don't think that the NorCal folks were attempting to ridicule Burns...quite the contrary!

**Pour1Malt** · 1st February 10, 01:03 AM

wow... takin' the piss oot o' Burns, the haggis, an Scotland?....

that 'address' is very offensive folks...

dinnae forget you arr makin' fun o' oor national hero, national dish, and country...

I dinnae think you would find it funny if we did the same aboot america and your national symbols...

**David Dalglish** · 1st February 10, 04:04 AM

I too was a little offended by the way the adress to the haggis was performed & I think it deserved a little more respect than you gave it.

**Panache** · 1st February 10, 08:55 AM

David and Robertson,

I take full responsibility for this year's Address of the Haggis. I'm the MC and I'm in charge of the evening's activities. It was my impression that Burns' poem about a haggis was written tongue in cheek, a humorous poem. Now obviously Burns' uses the haggis as a symbol of simple honest highland virtues, but as I noted in my Immortal Memory speech, it is a poem about a sausage.

The grand ceremony that has been put around this poem about a humble dish in the Burns' Night Supper celebrations is something that happened well after Burns' death and is rather comic in itself if you think about it. Now translations of Burns' poem during the Address to a Haggis are nothing new. Here we took a visual one. Do you object to the posters? Those images are very much in the poem. I had the opportunity this year to go to a Scottish Society's Burns night Supper and listened to a very dry rendition of the Address. I will tell you that those in the audience not already familiar with the poem waited patiently and clapped politely when it was over.

Those words of Burns were as dead as he is

Each year our goal is not only have a wonderful party but to bring all the Burns' pieces to life for our group. You may not have liked this year's rendition, that is certainly your right. However all the folks that came to our event who didn't know about Burns or would have trouble with the Scot's dialect he wrote in left with an appreciation of the poet and they understood that poem. They laughed with it and with us. We will undoubtedly do something different next year, but you can be sure that we will always be approaching The Address to a Haggis and our Burns' Night Supper with the idea that Burns' words are alive and we will bring them to our group instead of leaving them bored and without understanding.

As for the fez hats, it is an in joke about the Nor Cal Rabble and how we do things in a humorous fun way, this was mentioned in the introduction. The pith helmet and the fez have become symbols of our group.

Sincerely

Jamie :ootd:

**Pour1Malt** · 1st February 10, 10:13 AM

what your statements above seem to confirm is that you have no respect for Robert Burns or his works...

if you think the Address Tae a Haggis is a poem about a sausage you are frighteningly ignorant...

if a group of us in the UK got together on the 4th of July and had a 'usa independence ' party where we wore silly hats and did comic readings of your constitution or bill of rights or whatever documents are important symbols to the struggle of your people... and held up pictures of pigs vomiting and big arses during it... and lost our place and every laughed at how stupid it all was... I'm glad to know you would find it funny... but I doubt many people in the usa would think it was funny at all...

since this is 'Black History Month' in the usa- perhaps you should do a comic reading of 'I have a Dream' in Blackface...

then maybe you will understand what you just did to the Address Tae a Haggis.