Come Wednesday it will be time to raise a glass of whisky, dust off your dancing shoes and gorge on er, haggis.
The occasion of course, is Burns Night.
A time to toast Scotland’s national poet Robert Burns, celebrations typically entail poetry recitals, suppers and general merriment.
The tradition began in 1801, five years after the Scottish bard’s death when a group of his close friends decided to commemorate his memory by hosting a dinner.
Scotland offers a veritable smorgasbord of events, including haggis-free options for vegetarians and mini-breaks in the poet’s birthplace of Alloway.
Not to worry if you can’t get there in time, for the occasion is celebrated nationwide. A list of locations for the annual Scottish knees up in London has been handily gathered by Time Out.
“There is no such uncertainty as a sure thing.” Robert Burns
And if you’re staying in for a quiet toast to the man who famously declared: “O thou, my muse! Guid auld Scotch drink,” check out these suggestions from The Whisky Exchange.
9 Fast Facts About Robert Burns
1. He has more nicknames than a rapper: ‘Rabbie Burns’, ‘The Ploughman Poet’, ‘Scotland’s favourite son’, ‘the Bard of Ayrshire’ and (in Scotland) ‘The Bard’.
2. He wrote ‘Auld Lang Syne’, giving drunk people around the world an excuse to snog each other every year.
3. He founded a Bachelor’s Club when he was 20 with the first rule: “Every man proper for a member of this Society, must have a frank, honest, open heart; above anything dirty or mean; and must be a professed lover of one or more of the female sex.”
4. He wrote against slavery before most people were even aware of the abolitionism movement.
5. In 2009 he was voted ‘Greatest Ever Scot, beating William Wallace and even this man...
6. Rabbie was loved in the Soviet Union as the ‘people’s poet’. They taught his poems in schools and even put him on a stamp in 1956.
7. He said: “But to see her was to love her, love but her and love forever.
8. JD Salinger was a fan, basing the title ‘Catcher in the Rye’ on Rabbie’s poem ‘Comin’ Thro’ the Rye’.
9. He drank beer with everything, and on his birthday gives us an excuse to drink scotch (and eat haggis.)