By Judith Fitzgerald
First? Doug Gibson (with an assist from our Intrepid Travellist Laszlo Buhasz) provides The Globe and Mail's readers with a gorgeously generous insider's view of Robbie Burns's life, times, tribs and triumphs on the eve of what would have been the poet's 250th birthday. (He'd need an all-over lift of cosmetic surgery plus those dang little blue thangs, IMO, if he'd lived that long and still wanted to chase dames. Just a jot of thought.)
Next? One day earlier, another continent entirely? Bonnie Prince Charles of Wales decides he'll contribute his "encharming" vocal deux to a planned archive of massive proportions and records a pair of the guy's poems ("My Heart's in the Highlands" and "My Love Is Like a Red Red Rose") in the name of posterity and Burnsian celerity during a visit to Dumfries House in Ayrshire (lovingly and vibrantly rendered in the aforementioned encomium by Mr. Gibson. Well worth your readerly time, BTW).
Now? Holy sacred (or sacrilegious) cow. That infamous 1786 bawdy Burnsy poem, "Fornicaters' Court," rises again, this time in a limited print run of 1,000 copies of the facsimile version produced by the Faculty of Advocates, for a very good cause, of course. According to the BBC, the proceeds from the sales of the seer's salaciosity (which was, incidentally, discovered in Sir Walter Scott's private library at Abbotsford in the Scottish Borders) will go towards conservationist funds in the Abbotsford Library Project Trust as well as marking the year of Homecoming. (Ah, I won't stoop to conquer with that one, given the fact I come from Away, eh? Hokae-Dokae.)
So? For those in possession of a burning desire to consume the poem entire, said artifact can be viewed online as part of the Beeb's Robert Burns Website (launched to celebrate the bouncin' bard's shooting the moon a thousand times . . . J/kiddin' . . . J/iddin' . . . Breathe, Dear Readers, breathe . . .).
<*BEAM*>
