 Goed in meisje bedankt voor het invite en Suzen om me te suggesten om dit lectuur te doen en bedankt ook om die snip, m'n vijf, om haar volbeerhuis over Christmast en Nieuwe hier te doen. Dit is viral een liever van m'n liever van me. Ik zal u wat Robert Burns in 7 historie's vertellen. These stories all have 27 year old men in mind, a seminal year in the life of the barred. Of course I invite you all to listen because we were all 27 at one point or we will be soon. Oh, and the opening of this lecture was designed well before I knew this was going to be in the John Anderson building. John Anderson my Jo John, when we were first acquaint, your locks were like the raven, your bonny brow was brint. But now your brow is belled John, your locks are like the snow, but blessings on your frosty pow. John Anderson my Jo. John Anderson my Jo John, we clam the hill together and many a canty day, John. We've hid, we ain't another. Now we mone, totter down, John, and hand and hand will go and sleep together at the fit. John Anderson my Jo. That makes me think of my mum and my late dad who will sleep together again one day. But not too soon mummy. In two verses, Boris tells, is the story of a married life. Robert Boris never had hair of snow. He went downhill where he could have been in his prime, an Ivan Edinburgh age 27 looking ten years older. How did you get here? I mean that literally not metaphysically. Burns' journey would have been miserable and arduous. Six miles an hour by carriage dropped off at Trongate. Burns most likely would have saddled his mare leaving tomorrow before first light. Because every daylight hour in January was as precious then as Wi-Fi is now. Why are you here? I mean that literally too. Out of duty? Are you a relative? Hello Matthew. Perhaps you don't have a telly. With luck you are curious about how poverty shaped Robert Burns and what that tells us about ourselves in the same soil. About a second after the bard left his mark, there are over 60 statues. The world over including Poets Corner, Westminster Abbey next to that other bard. If 14 Burns was doing the work of a full grown farm hand, but in truth will have been raising lambs, chopping sticks and how can tatties when we were starting school. At 30 he was an exciseman riding 200 miles a week. All his life lassies and laddies Robert Burns had to put a shift in. This was not the fate of William Shakespeare or James Boswell or Samuel Johnston. At 14 the English Bard left his grammar school after six intensive years. The ninth layer of Auckland Lek arrived at the University of Edinburgh to study the arts. And Robby Coltrane, the dictionary man, was a few years off attending Pembroke College Oxford. It's quite something that Burns wrote much at all. Burns life ended at 37 and he really did not want to go. The morning is the crepitude to his boss at the XIs the week before his daft final journey. Weep that Burns with raging toothache and a weak heart, a big heart but a weak heart, was sent ten miles from his home in Dumfries to bathe daily in the freezing Solway Firth. My last doctors visit was arranged electronically at a time of my choosing. In a pleasant of spartan room, my entire medical history before him, a highly qualified stranger had me bend over and hum my favourite tune. Aethon Kiss, but not out loud. He put a gloved finger on my donut and told me it was still not a bagel. Two weeks later I was back to give blood. They tested me for everything, for I am 57. In his lifetime Burns might have caught smallpox, typhoid or malaria. He did have depression and finally rheumatic fever. Treatment for everything was a herbal tincture or purging. Dr. Maxwell, truly was Burns last true friend, but a useless medic. Burns shared his farmhouses he lived and vomited in with his family, servant girls, farm hands, relatives down in their luck and livestock. He never repaired to his study with snuff, port and a lamp, but sat with a candle by a peat fire or went up to the attic in the glooming. Not for Burns the three story townhouse just off Fleet Street. It's little wonder Samuel Johnson found the time to write that dictionary. When I walked past the bronze of Johnson's cat Hodge on my way to Pret, I often wonder why Robert Burns never took his chances in London. Porridge was for life, well it used breakfast back then. It never came with honey, seeds and a banana. My old grandpa 50 years ago Oswell Wardrobe used to have a handful of salt in his ous, but my grand slipped me some sugar. Scotland's climate ladies and gentlemen looned ruined many a crop and it drove Burns to despair. Life expectancy was 40 and it was a coin toss if you escaped infancy. So Burns death was not unexpected, death never was. Everything you hear about Burns must be understood in the context of life in 18th century Scotland. Truly we have no idea. I delivered my first immortal memory to Robert Burns. This very weak 30 years ago in the men's union at the University of Glasgow. Having heard worthy wax lyrical at pos suppers, I took a different tack and proposed that the bard was known to his closest friends as Shaggar Bob. Yes I'm going to say that again. I took a different tack and I proposed that Burns was known to his closer friends as Shaggar Bob. Here is not any better the second time. Burns, founder of the Tarbolton bachelor's club, would have loved it. Try to cancel them if you fancy ladies and gents, you won't get all the statues. When I was 27, I delivered Shaggar Bob as immortal. Everything you need to know about Robert Burns can be gleaned from his 27th year. It is a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. Yuval Noahari tells us in sapiens our stories of what makes us unique. I will tell Burns' story in seven tales aimed at today's 27 year old men because 27 is an age where you need to get to it laddies. If you like everything I'm doing it wrong, if you dislike everything you're doing it wrong. Burns grew into manhood that year. So let's begin. Story number one, shit happens. At 35 Robert Burns was set. There was money, there was a good job with the excise, promotion on the horizon, a nice house, his extended family working the farm, respectability, self acceptance and a little fame as a poet. Yet at 37 he was dead. Shit happens. Burns' father William was the best dad anyone could wish for, but he lived and died in poverty worse than his sons. If you had a less than perfect childhood, know that Burns never had a childhood at all. And Burns was lucky. The word, the arrow sped and pierced my darling's heart. And with him all the joys are fled, life can to me impart. A lament for a mother losing a child. We have all but forgotten the motivational force that is our own mortality. You must muffle the voices telling you everything will be alright. In your way the world cares about you. It won't, it can't and it doesn't. Politicians tell us life will be better with independence or the union. Brexit or remain. Take it all with a huge sack of salt. But in the words of Ricky Gervais, it's all jokes. We'll all be dead soon. Life is suffering and death are the truest words you will ever hear. As well as being a great Twitter handle. By the age of 27 Burns had a belly full of suffering and death. Hard labour that compromises health forever. Only a few hours education a day to surviving children from the first six births. In the 18th century Scotland suffering and death happened every day in the most egregious ways. Richard Dawkins tells us we have zero percent chance of even being here and Seneca says to wake up every day expecting the worst. We'll amen to both. Accept life, accept life will throw 70 shades of shit at you and you are lucky to be on the small simonings sphere at all. Then you'll be free to celebrate every day expecting the worst does not preclude hoping for the best. So story number one, shit happens. Story number two, you are M&S laddies laddies. My mum at 80 can lightly enjoy a further decade of lunches at the local tratteria. Then coming home to walk the dog before gin o klok. She still drives her Ford Focus to see the great grandkids. Your future lives will be better than my mum's and Italian will still be the go to cuisine laddies. You are the most fortunate young men ever to have left. You are healthier, wealthier, safer, longer lived, more equal and happier than any human beings that have popped out, popped in and will pop their mortal coil. Hans Rosling's factfulness gives you the data. Pinker tells us why we are prone to pessimism. Read both, read Pinker twice if you are the life sucker who everyone avoids at the water cooler. Then go back a generation or two, then a century or two and then 50 more years and there you will find Robert Burns. Shall we put a cherry on top? You are living in one of the best places on this toasty wee sphere. A place so cool that many risk everything just to get here, to paraphrase Warren Buffett. If you are born here, you have already won a lottery. Those thinking will all be gone soon, burnt to a crisp, should no puritans have been predicting our extinction since Robert Burns saw a lassie and wrote a rhyme. In Fantasyland, how America went haywire, Kurt Anderson lists the many times Armageddon has been prophesied. Just like today's puritans is only the date that changes. Laddies, laddies, what would you do if you were not scared? Living in panic and fear is futile and merely a self justification not to grow up. Fear stock burns whole life, rooted in his poverty. His father's poverty and that of the entire nation in the week of the Darien debacle. Not forgetting to throw in the upcoming French Revolution and the fallout from the recent American independence. Despite all that, burns packed quite a bit into his less than two score years. I think you would agree. At 27 laddies, it's time. What will you do with your five score years? Story number three, happiness is a chimera. The mental and physical strength required to create poetry day after day, working in the land, was quite something. In thinking fast and slow, Daniel Kahneman talks about two ways of thinking. The first is fast, instinctive and emotional and the second slower, deliberate and logical. You need both in high amount for any creative endeavour. Burns was a very inspired thought in the day but the hard yards didn't come till the evening. Alasie had harvest his first rhyme. Once I loved a body lass, and I loved her still and whilst that virtue warms my breast, I love my handsome nil, a mouse. Still they were blessed compared with me. The present only toucheth thee, but I backwards cast my eon prospects dreyer and forward, though I cannae see, I guess, and fear. A dog is here, is size, is mouth, it works. Showed he was near of Scotland's ducks. But flap it someplace fair broads. We're sailors going to fish for cods. A letter about Alasie's. There's a lot about Alasie's. He liked Alasie's. My heart was completely tender. Burns would have loved tender and eternally lighted by some goddess or another. And like every warfare in this world I was sometimes crowned with success and sometimes mortified with defeat. Burns was prodigious given his constraints because he had found his muse in poetry. But it was never easy, young laddies. Nothing worth doing is ever easy. It takes focus, effort and commitment. Any elite coach, ask any elite coach to rack attitude, ability en coaching in order. Attitude comes first every single time. Scotty's tennis player, Annie Murray was number four in the world with an 80 mile per hour second serve. Once he got over 100 miles per hour he started winning majors. Focus, effort and commitment gave him that extra 20 miles per hour. So here's what you have to do, young men. Issue happiness and seek purpose. Take the high road, not the low road. Burns did, he had no choice. The conditions for turning wet clay into gold were far from ideal. They never are. But poverty of circumstances was what begat his poetry. Ignore the siren call of the four day week because those who propose it have never worked 20 hours, 20 hours a week in their entire lives. Scotland could do worse than a point a government's are for hard work. It is time to find your purpose laddies and to decide what you are willing to sacrifice to achieve it. Poetry was his muse. But Burns came out of his 27th year with a higher purpose than rhyming. His famous platonic dalliance with Agnes Macalhose from Cessnick produced personal frustration I think top half only and Afon Kiss. Shelly said Afon Kiss contains the essence of a thousand love songs. Afon Kiss and then we sever a fair wheel and then forever deep in hertrong tears I'll plet thee warring sighs and groans I'll wade thee who can say that fortune griefts him While the star of hope she leaves him mean a cheered food twinkle lights me Dark despair around benights me I'll never blame my partial fancy nothing could resist mine and see but to see her was to lover love but her and love forever had we never loved say blindly had we never loved say kindly never met or never perted we had never been broken hurted fair thee will thou first and fairest fair thee will thou best and dearest thine bielka joy en treasure peace, enjoyment, love and pleasure Afon Kiss and then we sever a fair wheel alas forever deep in hertrong tears I'll plet thee warring sighs and groans I'll wade thee A future of Clarinda fame in high society was known for Burns or Sylvander He chose Jean, farming and the common wheel Burns chose what he knew I shall sit down a plain farmer he said The happiest of lives if one can live by it But just like getting to the West Indies in the 18th century the route to a bucolic life in Dumfries would not be plain sailing Oh pale pale now those rosy lips I aft he kissed say fondly and closed for I the sparkling glance that dwelt on me say kindly and moulded me now in silent dust the heart that loved me dearly but still within my bosom's core shall live my Highland Mary Those are amongst the saddest words you will ever hear Mary Campbell, Highland Mary died in childbirth, waiting for Burns in Greenock A real tragedy I mean Greenock Counting people colour of colour off far away field was not something James Boswell had to countenance Around that time the 9th Laird of Auckland Lake was buying the Edinburgh home of David Hume and trying hard to catch the disease he would die of Shit happens to everyone Burns met Mary when he was on tilt after having been told to sling his hook by a respectable Moklin builder Jean Amher's father was pissed he was to become a grandfather to twins sire by a welkend fekles pennilis rogue en founder of the Tar Bolton Bartlers Club Bachelor's Club, Shaggar Bob Jean Amher was packed off by Mum and Dad to cool off in Paisley The problem for the Amher's was Jean still had the hots for bad boy Bob Plusa shongs Plusa mem shows By the end of his 27th year Burns was in Edinburgh where his star burned bright and flamed out fast He was too chippy, inflexible and talented for the men folk and the posh Edinburgh lassies flirted with him but never followed through The problem in Ayrshire was too much following through In short order Burns had two women pregnant a book of poems selling like haggis in the 24th of January money to collect from all over Ayrshire a subscription crowdfunding essentially for his Edinburgh edition to sort a ticket to the plantations in his sporen a lease for a Dumfries farm to sort out exams for the excise and a whole pile of other shenanigans They all needed letters and visits in a drama 7 but the charismatic farmer now cleverly marketing himself as the Heaven Tall Plouman It was intense It was too intense something had to give So Burns got a break in his 27th year He got two big breaks in his 27th year Burns two big breaks with the death of Mary Campbell and his poems being more popular than Ricky Gervais at the Golden Globes The first got him out of a Gordian knot and the second into some real cash softening the hearts of Jean Armour had her parents eventually Rab and Jean were married Mr and Mrs Armour what did you see in the recently popular successful and rich young poet Shagher Bob Of all the heirs the wind can blow I really like the West for there that Bonnie Lassie lives the Lassie Isle of Best where wild winds blow and rivers roll and many a hill between but day and night my fancies flight is ever we imagine In truth Burns knew he had only recently become man enough had enough substance to be the husband of the builder's daughter Mr and Mrs Burns had loads of kids Burns a few more than Jean funnily enough many died in infancy Burns just about lived as a farmer and a family man just about though Ehlersland went the way of all these other farms and was sold at a loss the family decanted to a house in town and another bastard when appeared for Jean to nurse laddies an imperfect man can still be a man of substance Story number four be more belly At 10 o'clock one Saturday night in 1975 on the Parkinson's show a big bearded Scotsman against all advice told a politically incorrect joke about murdering his wife the punchline I needed somewhere to park my bike started Billy Connolly on a journey to worldwide fame the crucifixion Hey Peter I can see you who's fee he are the territorial army I make 40 pounds a week all told and I keep the lock cause of my cell face bastard my favourite Ivan the Terrible I'm sure many of you remember it Ivan the Terrible it's amazing the sorts of strength you get when you bite your own willy these were punchlines from my teenage years the big yen is remembered the world over because he left he was set in Scotland he could have stayed both are global superstars burns as more statues than Billy but Billy got to enjoy the spotlight in two a mouse burns says he can't see the future it was certainly not a strong suit and when he did it was dark and poverty stricken and 35 living in town in Dumfries the other pubs burns was offered a job in London it paid handsomely I promised a host of other lucrative opportunities by was dying shit happens it's never easy to make a living from a creative enterprise but at 27 ladies and gentlemen in his pomp the 10 pounds and 3 days that would have taken the ploughman poet to London we'd been the best tenner a Scotsman ever spent and we don't like to spend money we've not go material poverty weakened his constitution and helped him to an early grave but it was a poverty of Robert Burns only in own imagination that stymied him never giving London a serious thought currently paid the price in the press for his leaving and for some of the friends he kept but in the context of all that his life that sledging was loose change and my what a journey the biggains havent so laddies give it everything at 27 be ambitious be bold be fearless be more billy story number 5 your own personal Jesus in the summer of 2019 Persio used the Pesh modes brilliant your own personal Jesus to advertise their new SUV the vehicle type with heaviest responsibility for the present poaching of our planet if you have one of these daft vehicles never mention the straw in my pina colada even if I have it in Tenerife today we are in an era of useless empathy where we can pretend to care about everything and do precisely nothing today we donate money to a food bank without ever seeing one unless we go at Christmas to feel virtuous for a day in Burns Day you heard the poor at your door gave to them what little you had and took them in to your modest home we collect twitter followers but don't know our neighbours not even the name of a new born next door in Burns Day you'd know the bairns name and likely attend its funeral before he settled down Burns was a bit of a lad poetry, hoekma gandy and drinking were his thing plus a change to some m shows public pennies at the Kirk kneeling on the cutty stool was Burns' punishment for for well, I'll let you tell him I'll let him tell you himself before the congregation wide I passed the muster fairly my handsome Betsy at my side we got our ditty rarely but my downcast eye by chance did sky which made my lips to water those limbs between where I between commenced a fornicator much of it was own making but Burns was compromised at every turn contraception, feminism and social media would have made his romantic life a different proposition free education and a more meritocratic business environment would have allowed himself improvement and much personal freedom modern modes of transport and communication would have made the world a much smaller place you can now get to London in an hour Burns would marvel at our lives no need to be or stay married marketing jobs that paid handsomely just for ideas 12 cans of cider for under a tenor you laddies of three score years ahead of you and this warming world is at your feet just as it was for Burns and Billy at 27 you're as useful as a chocolate fire guard unless you get up early stay late and find some focus but here's the rub for your future laddies how you balance self interest and taking one for the common wheel will be the biggest conundrum in your future years and you'd be quite right if you would say we must climb the hill together a pressing need as we are often at daggers drawn coming out of our shells only to virtually jab or block someone not in our tribe how often today do we listen to those with whom we disagree and find out what their own personal Jesus is whispering in their ear story 6 wear sunscreen if I could offer you only one tip for the future sunscreen would be laddies you could do worse than say Alexa play everybody's free to wear sunscreen every single morning your own personal Baz Lerman enjoy the power and beauty of your youth but be smart enough laddies to know they fade and then you need to be competent reliable and industrious respect your elders be skeptical not cynical boomers no stuff do one thing every day that scares you Aristotle would force Alexander the Great to swim the tiger every morning before class so what did Alexander do he got up in an hour earlier and did it before his teacher arrived don't be reckless with other people's hearts don't put up with people who are reckless with yours play nice laddies but do not be afraid to be a man imagine you are your own best friend and be kind to yourself finding the sweet spot between single minded self fulfillment be more billy and the common wheel is a challenge we have been grappling with forever the pace increasing since the sixties this is John Dunn two hundred years before burns no man is an island entire of itself every man is a piece of the continent a part of the main if a clod be washed up away by the sea Europe is the less please that shows please that meme shows two centuries ago everyone knew your business and it was impossible to disengage from your neighbours now we can virtually live as far away from them as we fancy two generations ago we knew our neighbours we went to church friday was scouts and only the farmers kids were dropped off at school in an suv two years ago and the eulogy to my dad was this story I'm about to tell you it happened when I was fourteen the age burns was where he started work as a full grown man three hundred went on their journey at Madas funeral many telling me about Hugh Wardrop in the Eglinton arm's hotel over soup and a sausage roll John Dunn never met my dad who could be reached only via a bridge fortunately he married Jean is in Bard kingdom Brunel Mackechen Hugh Wardrop is the embodiment of the Nietzschean view that we must be prepared for the savagery legitimately demanded by almost everything valuable his capacity for hard work was simply awe inspiring stoik single minded and taciturn my dad would have hated his eulogy as much as he loved his soup laddies stoicism single mindedness and being taciturn are not toxic trades they are just out of fashion a flatbed lorry outside a neighbour's house wee ones playing in the pile of chuckies in the back high on lime green e-numbers from the alpine man teenagers moeching around all spots in flares the lorry driver is having a smoke chatting with someone's dad it's tea time in the hot summer of 1976 so hot you can smell the soft tarmac on the pavements of eaglesome a burgundy rover fastback swings past and stops at six brownure avenue the lorry driver nips his fag and in jig time hewardrop is striding towards us two shovels in one hand and six heavy duty plastic sacks in the other tie tucked in sleeves rolled up brown moccasins on fast moving feet his tongue is out he says that we weren't to get a half a dozen carry our bags get in his mind two bigger boys now have shovels and are up on top filling bags held by two smouts holding a bag for a fast shoveling shoewardrop was the worst job in the world now we are shuttling back and forth in the heat humping chuckies hewardrop takes two bags at a time half an hour later he palms the driver a fiver picks up his shovels and bags and goes in for his fish tea inside an hour he'll be sleeping on the couch watching telly madad arranged that lorry madad employed that driver for 20 years madad got those chuckies at a good price because he knew folk there were 20 men and boys in the chain gang as many as lived in ellies and farmed on Fries with Burns when he briefly felt he had his own personal Jesus just for a few years Burns had his own personal Jesus just for a little while my uncle Gavin grandpa's brother loan my daddy 1135 pounds money that allowed a man with no secondary education 15 years later to sell the biggest industrial waste business in Scotland his business cleaned up the biggest messes human beings make the fruits of a few wardroops labors rippled through our immediate and wider family to friends neighbours community groups the wider community hundreds of employees many mourners at the funeral had started their own businesses inspired by my dad borrowing his shovels plastic bags and overalls recycling before it was trendy there is no coincidence that I started my business in 35 the age he was when he started his he started his the age Robert Burns was where he started going down the hill that's your blueprint that's your blueprint laddies that is your blueprint find your focus go out and get busy give something back but before you try to change the world do a bit of work on your second serve story number 7 joy the common wheel will remain intangible as intangible is gold at the end of a rainbow if we continue to demonise our fellow travellers if we can't stop cancelling everyone outside our narrow tribe stop using hyperbole to monster others reflect more type less he can start today then gently scan your fellow man still gentler sister woman they may gang at kin and rang to step aside as human step aside and you will become more content and mindful in this wonderfully warm world you can call it happiness if that will make your tofu tastier but I prefer joy because it's obvious you can't always be joyful leave joy be and it will be yours stay in the present do the work and don't compare yourself too much to others there will always be someone taller thinner richer and better looking than you then joy will come it will come to you every single day and in 1000 ways burns knew it was always there in the shadows in the shadows a pretty girl by a river flow gently sweet afton among thy green breeze flow gently I'll sing thee a song in thy praise my Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream flow gently sweet afton disturb not her dream thy crystal stream afton how lovely it glides and winds by the caught where my Mary resides how want in thy waters as gathering sweet florets she stems thy clear wave a drink with friends while we sit bowsing at the nappe and getting foo and uncue happy and finally spring flowers winter snow but pleasures are like poppy spread you seize the flower its bloom is shed or like the snow falls in the river one moment white then gone forever ladies and gentlemen Robert Burns thank you very much thank you very much that was fascinating on the introductory sheet it says the poverty of the society you lived in and the poverty of his own imagination are you defining imagination there purely in terms of fame and material wealth no I think that if you compare him with someone like Billy Conley who got huge fame and material wealth obviously if he went to London in fact the job he was offered in London when he was 35 promised him I think it was five guineys a week or a month which was four times what he was earning at the excise with a promise that he could have earned more as a writer down there so there's no question in my mind that Burns would have achieved more material wealth had he gone to London but that's not really it what I think we might have missed out on was Burns I think he was scared of being a journalist down in London but he might have written plays for the Garec so he might have expanded his repertoire of his creative poems and prose and maybe plays if he had gone to London I think the byproduct of that would have been material wealth no question about that but I think that his circumstances and his lack of imagination forbade him from going to London ironically his first teacher John Murdoch ended up in London many people who knew Burns despite the fact that it took three days to get there went to London so he could have gone so I think what I would say apart from material wealth what I would say we missed out on was the opportunity for Burns to expand his legacy by going to somewhere like London but he decided I think he decided specifically at 27 simply not to do that not to do it do you not feel that he developed his imagination much more attractively by simply doing what he did in Scotland yes I think that's another really good point because there's no question that his muse was the land and I think he possibly another thing is somebody who spends a lot of time in London he might have felt that if he'd gone there his muse would have gone because he loved the land he loved the landscape of Scotland he loved the people of Scotland so maybe that's another thing that stopped him that he thought I won't have the embankment in London won't hold the same cache for me so there's no question that his decision to stay was based on Jean Noclarinda to some extent was based on farming not becoming a celebrity or a writer or a journalist and those things were were active decisions whereas if you look at Billy Connolly he decided no I'm going for it so I absolutely agree that the possibility is that he would have lost the muse if he'd gone to London and we did get a lot of output from him between the age of 27 and early 30s, mid 30s there's no question but I'm just paus it down in London he might have given us a lot more I'm not that convinced about that we're talking about the poverty he had what we have now is instant access to media and Billy Connolly made it because he managed to go on to the Parkinson's show which was seen nationwide and he came out of Scotland and he was a breath of fresh air now whether you like Billy Connolly or not is neither here nor there but he came out with that Burns did not have that he published in Kilmarnock and he published in Edinburgh so there was a poverty of communication now was he about now different ballgame he would have been on social media and had his blog and been on YouTube et cetera et cetera et cetera I completely agree but I think the interesting thing I did say in my introduction that any lens through which you see Burns has to be seen through the fact that he was working in the 18th century but if you look at it interestingly enough there was a London edition of his poetry of his poems and it was called the stinking edition interestingly enough now those of you who know the haggis they stink and wear the joutes and luggies what they did was they spelled it wrongly in the London edition it was old Scotland once they stink and wear the joutes and the luggies now the interesting thing is there was a London edition and there was a Dublin edition now these were pirated to a large extent and they were published by people on the strand now I walk along the strand every bleeding week nearly now I appreciate it's much easier to go now than it ever was there are countless people in Burns time that went to London countless and I do think that it would have been different then to make it Samuel Johnson had just died James Boswell had just died of something really horrible but James Boswell was up and down to London all the time so if he'd gone down there as he was a good marketer Burns if he'd gone down there as the Ploughman yeah the Ploughman poet they liked Scottish people in London they liked it okay there was the independence thing back then in the Act of Union that might have been a bit more difficult but I do think that if he'd gone where he was maybe in his mid-twenties now here's the further thing I would say about 27 the man at the age of 27 I try to explain to you what his life was like it was crazy in his 27th year so I don't think he knew what way was up I really don't but if he had taken that chance I firmly believe that for good or ill he had the talent to make it but I appreciate there are a whole pile of reasons that made it very, I find it ironic that he was willing to counter his going to the West Indies which was just a crazy thing to try it could have killed him he was told this will kill you but he couldn't spend a tenner to go to London and it's not meant to be a huge criticism of him we got a lot of poetry from him I just think there's a different life that could have happened there if he'd given it that chance could have later just in front my first encounter with Burns was through an open university course where he was presented as an introduction to the English Romantics I'm wondering had he gone down to London and presumably sort of written in English for the theatre and written poetry in English we know he could write perfectly well in English but chose to write in Scots would he have been was it fairly shrewd moved for him to remain in Scotland and write in Scots rather than and be unique rather than go down to England and be part of a group with Wordsworth and Coleridge and the other early romantics I think the first thing I would say I was going to you've stolen part of my funder there he was perfectly capable of writing in English so it didn't have to be Scots that's the first thing I think that going down to England and writing in English with all those other successful people Samuel Johnston wasn't long dead but there was Richard Sheridan Thomas Sheridan how funny is that Thomas Sheridan went about Irish heritage these people were over and back to Dublin all the time and I think Richard Brinsley Sheridan ended up running the Garek Theatre so when I walked round theatre land in London and I see what is there in the scale of it and size of it again I come back to it he might have made an active decision not to go but I think the Scottish poet down there doing his thing in the wake of Johnston he gets some introduction from Boswell and he did know people down there if he'd given that a shot he could have been as big as Billy Connolly in a different era of course and there was loads of women in London I'm sure and he liked women sort of I think so it was related to your comments about the difficulties he faced obviously due to the situation he was in society in relative to the time but surely success was a product of the time because his romantic style poetry would not have fit into the empiricism of the Enlightenment era that would come around that time and it was necessary that he be in that period had he been in any other period people would have gone this is a bit nonsense I don't really like that he was following certain artistic trends and so he probably wouldn't have been as successful today or 50 years later 50 years earlier I think that's a really good point and I spent a lot of my life talking about various things related to this I think that there are lots of talented people that don't get lucky now Burns really was on the cusp I'm sure he was he was on the cusp of going to the West Indies from Greenock right on there and if he had gone there I don't believe he would have got any more poetry he might even have copped it on that and he knew he had some good poems he knew he had some good stuff and no doubt round the pubs and all that all Burns has got a good poem and he's written some out on a slate and the Kilmarnock edition just went crazy and then he goes to Edinburgh and here's the funny thing about that and again it's difficult to understand from 250 years later we'll do an Edinburgh edition rap it'll be great and he thinks it's just going to be as easy there's a whole pile of the Edinburgh and it becomes much more complicated and then he nearly chucks it and he does his calculations he's going to make 20 pounds from 1000 copies in Edinburgh and I think he's thinking these people are robbing me so I think he was definitely of his time and I think that a lot of the stuff that you wrote there is no question that it came from the land and the landscape of Scotland I mean, you know how want in thy waters her foat snowy feet lave is gallering sweet flower at she stems I clear wave the lyrical stuff is just astonishing and it's very very Scottish very Scottish in terms of the enlightenment and all the other contemporaneous poems I'm not an expert on that by any stretch of the imagination but I do think again if you have talent in fact here's a wee story from you from London from last week I was, I finished a course in London last week and I was going with I was walking with a Canadian lassie God my wife's here I was walking with a Canadian lassie to the tube station and she was talking about London and she said this is a great place you can make it here it's a cosmopolitan city where if you've got talent they'll give you a chance and I believe it would have been like that back then and I think if you'd gone down there with the unpowdered hair he's ponytail looking like a anesher farmer 5 foot 10 dark hair good looking big boots, white twosers and all that kind of stuff I think he would have knocked them dead even, it's not all about the poetry it's about the whole he was good at marketing himself and I think he could have done he could have done really well but yeah take your point thanks thanks Russell in 250 years will anyone know who Billy Cordenley is whoa I was told I was talking to I was asking about this stuff and I've lectured it here before he says yeah your lecture is going to be fine it's the questions you have to watch out for I'm trying to think when I do the three punchlines or the four punchlines I gave you from Cordenley I'm pretty sure most of the people in this audience would remember most of those punchlines and I can actually just think to remember when my mum first went to see Billy Cordenley she came back and said that's a very very rude man I'm never going to see him again and then proceeded to buy every single one of his records and go to all his concerts so the crucifixion and the territorial army and particularly Ivan the Terrible are at the time were just sites splittingly funny but a little aside about the that I needed somewhere to part my bike joke I had some more stuff in the lecture on that one I'm sitting there as a 14 year old thinking I don't think that's that funny I knew loads of folk we knew loads of folk in Glasgow who were like that who were a bit profane and a bit rude but it seemed down in England that it was oh this is something special I'm just buying time here by the way before I give you an answer I'm trying to think of stuff like Afon Kester flow gently sweet after etc that Billy Cordenley would leave behind and I'm probably thinking I'm struggling to find that but that could go back to the fact that how many poets do we have today there are not that many world famous poets so if Burns was about today he might have been a filmmaker or another kind of media person but I take your point I think we'll remember Burns forever because he was pretty good at doing that branding stuff and so were the folk behind him and maybe not quite so much Billy maybe just big Billy's big yellow boots manna ones good question I wondered do you think that if Burns had been a wealthy man rather than a poor man his drinking and his luminizing would have been less or more I love these questions I tried to get this across but what happens when you're doing something that's got to be 45 minutes long there's a lot of stuff left in the cutting room floor I tried to get across that Robert Burns wasn't actually poor so actually his father was really poor but actually Burns when he got to his mid twenties his late twenties in between 27 and say when he died by comparison with the rest of the population he was not a poor man I think that like anything if you come from poverty or whatever it would be that forums you another reason I think he stayed he was really a man for the common wheel he really believed in the egalitarianism properly believed in it he really despised I think too strongly actually the hoi poloi who got above themselves and I think that maybe stopped him from making it in Edinburgh going to London in terms of the drinking I don't think Burns was as disillute as many of the other poets he certainly wasn't as disillute as Mr. Boswell the 9th Laird of Hockenleck and a number of other ones so it's funny he didn't have that much time for poetry because he had to work so much I don't know if he had that much time for Hock McGandy or drinking either he did like both for God's sake who doesn't we all do if he made it going down to London and really made it he could have been come just a complete disillute lecture that might have been disastrous for him because he still had to work but I think that his reputation for all that stuff is sometimes a little bit overblown there was a biography done not long after he died which was a bit sensorial sensational and that stuck a little bit so I'm not sure he was that bad and obviously I don't know contraception the CSA and social media would have been much better for him these days because I mean the poem I told about the fornicator that was his first his first parents at the cut he still was Elizabeth Baten who he got pregnant and she had a kid and all that kind of stuff so he was you know he was just a typical man really was he have I said that out loud I hope you're wrong there oh I don't think I am thanks Russell that was excellent I'm really glad that I came and coincidentally before I came I was in Curlers and was chatting with the barman and he told me he was 26 years of age now I have committed because he started talking about starting sociology and various things I said look I need to come back and we need to talk some careers advice so in any case these seven stories that you've told they're a beautiful part that I'll be able to pass on to him but so this is the question I think it's my hearing that's going I heard the titles of the six of the seven stories but I never heard number two correctly I don't think what was number two just check your notes I think it's shit happens shit happens was number one shit happens was number one did you don't say something like your M&S laddies sorry I had various names for that your M&S laddies yes that means you're not just normal laddies you're not just normal fortunate laddies you are M&S laddies you are the best laddies at the most opportune time ever Marks & Spencer's M&S okay fair enough not SNM M&S on that one I did toy with to put that into the lecture because it added another dimension but I wanted a purpose for this and I'm glad you saw it because I passionately am of the view that young people today want the kind of guidance that's in those stories you have to go for it and work hard and I do again I specifically made it young laddies because I was 27 when I delivered my first immortal memory in the men's union and Burns was 27 where he was he had kind of made it as a poet but he had to become a man he had to make some big decisions and I tried to get across in those seven stories that the metaphors of it's your time now you're just thinking you look cool and you can be one of the boys you're not, you're a man and it was difficult to get across in the 45 minutes but that's what I was trying to do with those seven stories but yes, your M&S laddies was the number two what do you think about the fact that Aloy was in a gamletarian by reputation he considered going to West Indies where presumably he would have been an overseer of slaves or something you know I love really interesting questions like that and it gives me a chance once I've done seven and a half minutes in this and got on my soapbox just somebody hit me with something it's 250 years ago we have to stop cancelling people because they lived 100, 200, 250 years ago we have to stop doing it it is ludicrous so 250 years ago here's Burns and I'm going to extend it further because he was a Jacobi he was a rebellion guy and the French Revolution he sent guns to the French Revolution and then of course when it got quite serious and the people in the UK were going well you know like this French Revolution they're chopping people's heads off are you for it? no not me, not me I'm for the king so actually we can all be any number of things if you come back to that one I absolutely believe that Robert Burns was intending to go to the West Indies and I think he was intending to go for a few years to make some cash and work on a plantation just like I've got a dozen people who I know in the Middle East right now and in tax free dollars and they'll bring back to Scotland so back then you can say you shouldn't have done it you simply can't judge people today by 250 years ago and this is a hobby horse and you can follow me and Twitter you can do whatever you like I find it utterly astonishing that we are looking at people, God Gandhi nearly never got a statue toppled in Manchester because somebody said he said something he didn't like and he did have some views that were a little bit frutie for today's liking but back then Burns was in a bind he was not just generally speaking a poor place, people had nothing so I don't decline for going to the West Indies at all and if he had gone it would be nothing disastrous for him but I do think we have to I know you're asking me the question I'm directing this by I think it is a very very dangerous thing to do to judge the people of those times by our current moors yes yes, yes please do, please do because some of you may know a lot more about this than me my point is to me it seems a great internal contradiction in Burns because he was such a humanitarian at one level that's the point I'm trying to make but I love it, but I love that because here's the interesting thing and I would do this if I was doing a business thing ok, all look into yourselves got any contradictions I've got a ton of them I am so imperfect I am so shit at so many things there are half a dozen people in here who know I'm terrible at some things so we're all a massive contradictions take things like and I alluded to it the SUV is the most popular car in the world today 40% of SUVs yet apparently we've got global warming I regularly speak to people regularly speak to people who the amount of cognitive dissonance they have over things like anything from global warming to any of the major issues is utterly astonishing because we're basically emotional beings what was it Nietzsche said our emotions are a huge blind monster that goes wherever it wants and intellect is a tiny sighted being sitting on the emotions shoulders justifying everything the emotions do he was a unionist he was for independence both at the same time in the same week sometimes depending on what uniform he was wearing and to a certain extent I think we've all got those that's why I think I like him when I look at him because we've all got contradictions and here are the most the uncle good here are the people you have to watch most in your life the people who think they're really good and those are the ones he was most suspicious of as well apart from my mum she really is really good there's a question on the right Burns wrote in a man's man for all that who subases be a slave it sounds as though he thought slaves didn't deserve any better yeah I think again back 250 years ago and I think again we're coming back to it a little bit when you're in a bind and I tried to in one paragraph explain all the things that was happening in the 27th year you know two women pregnant and he really loved and I think he really loved Mary Campbell any any any any kind of love and then the relief that he must have felt when Mary Campbell died at the same time as trucks he's died at the same time he's tried to do at least for a farm and he's published saying we need another 100 copies of your poem but you're going to write some more poems you're going to be a rich man all of that is happening in a very concentrated period of time and I think if you imagine that yourself you know it must have been really really intense so I think we've all got contradictions in us absolutely and I think Burns was no different from us but I do think he was going to go I really do think he was going to go and you can make your own view on that one but I was and we're slaves of the same value as everybody else and of course there's no hierarchy in the society we have today is there jees I mean God we are stratifying it we're stratifying it by class, race gender, I think we're up at 193 genders just now for God's sake we are doing it you know right, left and centre I can't believe I've just said that out loud we could be here till 10 o'clock thank you just briefly on the genome Mary Campbell 2 timing you'll remember how happy could I be with either what other dear child are we however that's not my question so I'm cheating what actually I was going to ask you was what you felt about the fantastic Burns industry now I believe the figures are he brings in over 4 million to the Scottish economy and the Burns brand brings in 140 million I say this with some reluctance because it is my alma mater but I do believe that Glasgow University has currently got a project and got a considerable amount of money for a project to double or treble those sums I just wonder what you felt about the commodification of the point I'll bring it on and I think he would have loved it himself, I think that commodify as much as you like it can be as tatty as you like and you can still I'm a member, I'm a director of Santaford Burns Club, I've not been to the meetings for ages I'm sorry if there's anyone here who's a director so you can have the highbrow stuff you can have your Burns uppers and they've done many Burns supper but commodify Robert Burns and bring as many tourists here as possible for Robert Burns, for Harry Potter for Charles Rennie McIntosh and for all the rest, absolutely bring it on and I do think that Burns is known the world over and we probably could make more of them we absolutely could make more of them and I personally don't have any difficulty with that so you can have the highbrow stuff that is more academic you can have all the rest of it as well put it in teaters in fact I think my mom is giving me 13 teatails with Burns poems on them 13, it's only 12 I think we have time for one, two questions one at the front is here what in your opinion is the reason for his early death wow I think medicine was getting much better in that century I think he was just too early for that I think some better medical treatment at the end and I said in the lecture you really could weep you've got raging toothache possibly I don't know sepsis in your mouth and you've got rheumatic you've basically got a burst heart and what does your doctor say go to the saw way first now have you ever been to the saw way first the saw way first is not the end of the world but you can definitely see it from there forget the temperature of the water it is miserable and he was told to bathe up to his chest every single day so there's no question that I contributed to it as somebody who comes from farming background and you know ma dad's folks for farmers and Newton men's not the men's in up north but you know I would go and chop sticks as a young lad and I would bugger about doing the tatties and picking the foot and all that but farmers work I've got relatives who are farmers two cousins in their 70s and one story that never made the cut was the funeral of my uncle Gavin in the farm you go to the farmhouse after the funeral and Hugh his son as soon as he arrives at the farm as soon as he arrives at the farm after the funeral all the folk are in the big room having empire biscuits and homemade and tea and all the rest yet and he gets his overalls on and goes and trains to the beast and the buyer the astonishing amount of hard work that he did from the age of probably four or five dead for him sheer volume of work and I think also Scotty Scotland's climate wouldn't have helped because it's really interesting when was the last time you were properly caught in the rain like properly drenched and caught in the rain that will have happened to Burns all the time just all the time and I think all of that was cumulative so bad health care generally bad health care at the end from his early life having to do ridiculous amounts of hard labour that will have given him a really good constitution I've got a robust constitution causing my antecedence but I think that sheer volume of it just contributed to killing them absolutely that would be my view of the enemy is there any final question thank you very much for your talk I visited Walter Scott's house who was I don't know was a contemporary or not because I couldn't do literature but Scott wrote books and made a bloody fortune and built a huge house and he lived 20 miles down the road from Burns so what did Burns do wrong? I'm not an expert I'm seriously an expert but I remember seeing a documentary about Walter Scott and I could be way off beam here I mentioned that his lack of creative imagination stopped him from simply going to London let's use a word as a consultant as a poet I mean there are consultants who are in London all the time I'm one of them much more down there than you do up here today still so Burns never even did that this is a bit of a guess right not only was Burns' imagination lacking in terms of not being able to envision that he wasn't a businessman he wasn't a businessman if you look at the way that he was treated by the creatures in Edinburgh my dad in an industrial waste company my dad was not an educated man he knew what he did if he never paid him for your skip excuse my language he gave you your fucking rubbish bag that's what he did he literally did that he took a skipper rubbish he went to somebody's house and I said dad you're not going to do that he says I am he borrowed a lorry permanently that wasn't his because a business was going to go down so I think he was maybe a bit too soft and I don't think he was commercial enough I think Walter Scott was a commercial businessman and he nearly went bust once or twice yeah but you got to speculate to accumulate we had a board meeting today where in my small business we were making big decisions that means investing money and it's always a risk and I think he was extremely risk averse in relation to that and Walter Scott got a bit of a production line going there and he saw ahead the future though I can't see a guess in fear I don't think Walter Scott guessed in fear and I think he went for it he was like Billy it's a little bit of a guess but I don't think Burns ever saw any of that and again, back to an earlier point that's to our advantage because we got him always poetry here and not elsewhere but that would be my view I think we sweeted one last last question just to set the record straight so Walter Scott was a highly acclaimed solicitor in Edinburgh and accountant and he had a publishing house and he did hit loads but he made it to the top in the end so that's a really well made point in as much as when Burns went to Edinburgh not only did he not go on with the Edinburgh folk because he was a bit too rough and ready and not flexible enough but he didn't have the networks and the connections and could you imagine going from being an Ayrshire farmer into the society of Edinburgh and first of all being a bit of a curiosity and being faded but what you're saying there is Scott had all the connections to a certain extent and obviously knew how to write a contract if he was a lawyer and lawyers still know how to do that into the Eglinton into the Eglinton estate so he may never really have however well known he was he may never ever escaped his roots because I'm quite sure some of the more influential people who impinged in his life may have closed doors to him well I love this if we've got to finishing this one I had some stuff in about Burns father as well who was a market gardener and he built his own cottage with his own hands and he did all that but he certainly couldn't get out from under being a tenant and scraping a living and I think that Burns hinterland as you're saying Burns hinterland compromise all of that too yeah but I'm just going to do a little bit of myself a grandising one here then because I'm going to talk about me my dad was a lorry driver my dad on my birth certificate had the best job description ever in any birth certificate my dad was a bulldozer driver if your dad has got a better occupation on your birth certificate and bulldozer driver you tell me my dad was a bulldozer driver who worked so hard he created the biggest industrial waste business in Scotland and sold it but I tell you what my business is much easier and much more lucrative than that and my business is so far removed I teach million pound lawyers how to sell so far removed back to one of my points I don't think Burns could escape from his hinterland he wasn't able to do that he didn't have the imagination to do that I could easily be running an industrial waste company right now in the west of Scotland and probably be reasonably successful I'd have a Volvo lots of brown moccasins and I wouldn't be doing this lecture right now and it would have been fine but I'm not the past two jobs I've organised are for the Premier League from there to Barcelona to speak to 150 global surgeons and it's ridiculous what these rich people are willing to pay for an hour of your time to do that I'm really very disappointed they're so generous so you can escape it if you try thank you we've had an absolutely fabulous talk today I'm singing as well I think the questions reflected that so I just thank Russell in the usual way thank you