Have a bonnie Burns Night

There'll be celebrations a'plenty in the highlands tonight with feasts of haggis, neeps and tatties and more than wee drams of whisky flowing - and what we think is the best ingredient, plenty of reading aloud - as it is Burns Night; the annual celebration of Scotland's national poet, Robert Burns.

Over 250 years on (253 to be precise), the Ploughman Poet is still heralded as Scotland's finest and his work holds a firm place in the heart of many a Scot, as well as people of various other nationalities. Just days ago, a poll questioning over 1,000 Scots about their ultimate Rabbie poem concluded the nation's favourite to be the epic Tam O'Shanter, one of the first and arguably finest examples of narrative poetry. Coming in second place was A Man's a Man for A' That, with - very appropriately - Address To A Haggis just behind.

But you might not know that Rabbie was not just the poet of the people, but that A-list stars had a fondness for him too. In what is probably one of the most bizarre meetings of literature and music I have ever come across, it has been revealed that back in the late 1980's Michael Jackson recorded a series of showtunes inspired by Burns's life and work. The intriguing sounding collection has not seen the light of day before but is now to be donated to the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Ayrshire, as a way of illustrating Burns's "international, enduring artistic legacy". Let's hope the songs are more Bard than Bad (if you can come up with any better Burns/Jacko puns they'd be appreciated because that was, quite frankly, rubbish).

Seeing as today is not only Burns Night but also St Dwynwen's Day - the Welsh Valentine's Day - it seems only appropriate to mark the two occasions with what has to be Rabbie's most romantic poem (which can also be found in Poems To Take Home). A bonnie Burns Night and Dydd Santes Dwynwen Hapus ('Happy St Dwynwen's Day', for those of us who don't speak Welsh) to all.

A Red, Red Rose

My luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June:
My luve's like the melodie
That's sweetly played in tune:

So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will love thee still, my dear,
Till all the seas gang dry -

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun -
And I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run!

And fare thee weel, my only luve,
And fare thee weel, a while -
And I will come again, my luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile!

Robert Burns