2009 - Burns Night

[Calder]

Burns Night – 2009

25th January 2009. The Banqueting House, Whitehall, London

“Happy Birthday to you.
“Happy Birthday to you.
“Happy Birthday, dear Robert…”

The two hundred and fifty-year-old Sir Robert Burns turned ever so slightly red with embarrassment as the other daemons sang to celebrate his birthday.

“If they bring out a haggis rather than a cake I think I’m going to kill somebody.” He whispered to Heather Watson, an undersecretary in the Cabinet Office, who happened to be his current partner.
“Well that pin you wrote about should come in handy then, Rob.” Watson whispered back with an impish grin.

Burns had been well known for his love of the ladies in his own time and only he had any real idea of how many illegitimate children he had left behind in Ayrshire. The transition to daemonhood had done nothing to dampen his ardor, in fact since he was now spared most of the consequences the transition had in many ways increased his drives. Even Burns himself had lost track of how many relationships he had gone through in the two hundred and thirteen years since his ‘death’.
Most of his relationships had been with ‘short-lifers’, but he had pursued just about every female daemon in the Piccadilly Circus and many beyond it at one time or another. However none of his relationships had been as long lasting, or as rewarding than his with Heather Watson, although it had been on and off for the last hundred years.
Not since the days of his marriage to Jean Armour had Burns felt so complete, or found a women who so shared his sense of humour so completely, though the last time they had split had been because he had called Heather ‘Jean’ at a particularly inopportune moment.

*

Sir Humphrey Appleby sat back in his chair and smiled as he saw Burns and Watson whispering what he assumed were ‘sweet nothings’ to each other. He shook his head, Robert and women, what was it they saw in him? The only thing he had more trouble with in the past had been money, which was ironic for a Treasury man.
Getting the excusive use of the Banqueting House for the sole use of a private birthday party had not been easy, but Sir Humphrey had been able to use all of his administrative skills to arrange it, that and the fact that the circus had people in the right place to make it happen.

*

It had been quite a year for Burns; he had spent most of 2008 on secondment to The National Trust for Scotland, a good way to take a break from Whitehall for a while. He had found himself in charge of two major NTS projects, the first had been the new visitors’ centre at Culloden, while the second had, rather ironically, been the new Robert Burns Birthplace Museum.
The NTS had been very impressed with this Whitehall Warrior’s knowledge of his subject. However on at least one occasion Burns had been forced to bite his lip when speaking to a historian.

Getting arrested on New Years Eve for being drunk and disorderly had not, however, been part of his plans….

31st December 2008. Knightsbridge London.
“Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
“And never brought to mind?
“Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
“For the sake of auld land zine.”

The New Year’s Eve revellers in the large expensive house were singing their hearts out as the time approached midnight. Their voices carried outside onto the street where it really irritated a certain inebriated individual.

“They’re bloody well singing it wrong!” He loudly complained to his female companion, who looked like she wished the earth would open and swallow her whole. “Two hundred years of listening to bloody Sassenachs sing ma’ song rang, it’s driving me up the wa’!”
“Rob, calm down, it’s not worth getting worked…”
“Not worth it, not worth it! Ah poured ma heart into that poem, yet every year I have to listen to half-drunk idiots massacre it!”
“Talking of half-drunk idiots…”

But the drunken man was not listening to his companion; he had stooped to pick up a stone lying on the pavement.

“Hey you, aye you in the house!” He shouted as he threw the stone at the downstairs window. “Yir bloody singing it rang!”

*

PC Valentine hated working on New Year’s Eve, it was a time to be with one’s family having a quiet drink, instead he had to spend the night dealing with drunken morons and hysterical women. Now he and his partner for tonight’s patrol, PC Ryder, had been called to a disturbance outside an upmarket Knightsbridge residence. It had been reported that a drunk had smashed a window and was now abusing the residents inside.

“Name, Sir.” He said to the drunken man in the dinner suit.
“Whit?”
“Your name, Sir, what is it?”
“Byrne, Robert Byrne.”
“Well, I’m afraid I’m going to have to arrest you, Mr Byrne, the house owner wants to press charges. Maybe if you apologised…”
“Not till he and his Sassenach friends apologise first…” Byrne began to say.

Valentine shook his head. For once could one of these drunks make his job that his bit easier?

“Mel, what did his companion say before she left in that taxi?” He asked his colleague.
“She said there is no talking to him when he’s this drunk and that we should arrest him, lock him up, throw away the key and that if she did not see him for one hundred years it would be too soon.”

1st January 2009, Kensington Police Station.
Assistant Commissioner Chris Keeble, the officer responsible for the Met’s Central Operations, which included such interesting units as the Air Support Unit, Mounted Branch and Specialist Firearms Command, amongst others, did not enjoy having his New Year’s celebrations interrupted. It was bad enough that he was supposed to be on duty in the morning, but now he would not get much sleep.

“What hiv ye been up tae noo, Rab?” Keeble, who had started his career as Constable Christopher McCulloch of the City of Glasgow Police in November 1800, asked the now sobered up Robert ‘Byrne’. “Ah’ve been called away from ma family to deal with some fu’ idiot.
“Can you give me wan gid reason why I shouldn’t leave you in here overnight?”
“I’m sorry that you’ve been brought oot here, Chris. Ah admit it, I wiz fu’, but I’ve been listening to Auld Lang Syne being sung rang for the last two hundred years.
“Normally it just irritates me and I try to ignore it, but tonight with a bit o’ drink in me those chinless wonders were just the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

Keeble shook his head.

“Okay, Rab, ah understand, ah’ll get this sorted oot. Humpy widnae want wan o’ us to get a record.
“You’ll pay fir the new windae though.”

Burns nodded his head; it was a small price to pay.

25th January 2009. The Banqueting House, Whitehall, London.
“…And here’s a card for you, Robert.” Sir Humphrey said handing over an envelope.
“Now that’s lovely.” He said on opening it. “It’s from Nell: ‘Sorry I can’t be at your birthday bash, ducks, love, Nell’.” Burns read the inscription out loud.

He did not see Heather Watson’s eyes narrow. She was well aware of Burns wayward tendencies and had always been convinced that he and Nell Gwyn might have had some sort of relationship in the past; of course she called everyone ‘ducks’, or ‘love’, so who knew.

“Well I think I have saved the best present to last.” Watson said in a very confident voice handing over a parcel.

Burns unwrapped the present and was speechless for a moment. The front-piece said ‘Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish dialect’.

“Oh my Goad, it’s a Kilmarnock volume first edition.” He stammered. “The first collection I ever had published; made me the princely sum of twenty pounds.
“How did you get one of these…I mean it’s wonderful…I haven’t seen one for, I don’t know how long.”

He embraced Watson and kissed her. Perhaps being two hundred and fifty years old was not so bad.

[Bernard Woolley]

I still regard this as one of the best bits of fiction I’ve written. I decided to write it after one time to many of hearing ‘Auld Lang Syne sang wrongly.

[MikeKozlowski]

I still regard this as one of the best bits of fiction I’ve written. I decided to write it after one time to many of hearing ‘Auld Lang Syne sang wrongly.

Bernard,

You should regard it VERY highly. It's wonderful.

Mike

[Johnnie Lyle]

I still regard this as one of the best bits of fiction I’ve written. I decided to write it after one time to many of hearing ‘Auld Lang Syne sang wrongly.

Bernard,

You should regard it VERY highly. It's wonderful.

Mike

Bernard’s comedic talent is very underrated. The whole vignette is hilarious.