Rabbie Burns, George Bush, and Church Bells

As it was the 250^th anniversary of Rabbie Burns’ birthday last Sunday, I thought I would give the great man a mention in my ramblings. Having been taught in Scottish schools in the 50s and 60s, I was one of those unfortunates who weren’t given lessons in Scottish history, literature, or culture –we were only colonists in this great British Empire after all, and should be indoctrinated in all things English.

The Scottish media carried innumerable stories about the Bard last week, and all that coverage reminded me of a story I’d heard back in 2005. The G8 Summit was being held in Gleneagles, Scotland, and George W. Bush, quite a man with words himself, went to visit patients in a nearby hospital. In one of the wards, he went round greeting the patients, asked them how they were getting on etc, and was answered by each one with such snippets as:-

“Fair fa your honest sonsie face, Great chieftain o the puddin race”, “Some hae meat an canna eat, And some wad eat that want it, But we hae meat an we can eat, So let the Lord be thankit.”, and “Wee sleekit, cowerin, timorous beasty”.

What he thought of it all was not mentioned, but I do know that he didn’t go around the White House saying that he’d been to the Serious Burns Unit.

Back to the present time, or maybe not. It was reported a couple of days ago that the timepiece at All Saints Church in Sudbury, Suffolk, which is nearly 130-years-old, recently began striking 13 times. George Orwell's famous parable on fascism and the erosion of freedom famously begins, of course, with Big Brother time striking 13. Could this be a sign of what our government is doing nowadays, with any privacy we had slowly being eroded?

Anyway, the report continues, “Neither the vicar or clock builders can get to the bottom of the inauspicious chime.” Well, I can understand the vicar trying to sort things, but the clock builders? I’m not sure that it would be safe for them to climb up there, given the amount of time that they seem to have been drawing their Old Age Pensions.