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: