Twelth Night

                                   

January 6th is Christmas day for the Orthodox Church but for western christians it is the feast of the Epiphany celebrating the coming of the Wise Men to worship the infant Christ and is otherwise known as Twelth Night being the 12th day of the Christmas Feast.
In the middle ages this would be the day that the fool or one of the lower servants was made Lord of Misrule and took the place of the master to direct the feast.
Nowadays most people regard it as the end of the Christmas celebrations and the day they take down their decorations and throw out the tree although one vicar has been on the radio a lot yesterday and today explaining that the  church regards Christmas as a 40 day feast which ends at Candlemas on February 2nd. This is of course a cross quarter day and emphasises the link with pre-christian religion.
Shakespeare wrote one of his plays for the court festivities of 1601. It is a comedy and one of its themes is a play on the upside down world usually created by the Lord of Misrule. We saw an excellent production at Stratford in the summer by the Royal Shakespeare company and they had managed to make it completely up to date with characters speaking on mobile phones.

                                      

The commercial drive peters out now as the January Sales come to an end. In my youth these started in January with the excess stock not sold by Xmas substantially reduced to make way for new stock. All the repricing had to be done by hand so sales started in January. Now it's done by computer so some start before Xmas  and most on Boxing Day and most have finished by the time the schools go back next week. 

Burns night

                                            

January 25th2013 may be the feast of the Prophet's birthday in the Islamic world but in Scotland it is Burns Night. This celebrates the 18th lowland scots poet Robbie Burns and all over the world groups of (usually only)men get togther in his memory. They eat Haggis, a Scottish speciality made from a sheep's stomach stuffed with various parts of its minced offal, barley and flavourings and boiled for hours. It is ceremoniously piped in by a pipe'r wearing full kilt costume,(usually all the men will be in kilts too), Burns' poem "Ode to the Haggis" is recited and the it is cut with a sword before being served.
At many Burns dinners each diner is required to bring a bottle ofwhisky and there is subtle competion as who has brought the rarest or oldest malt (and hence the most expensive).Everyone is supposed to partake of each and as theorectically each man is expected to drink a bottle of whisky (for a non-alcholic to do so would probably mean a trip to Casualty with alcohol poisoning) everybody gets very very drunk.

                                                

                                                                                

                                                      
Here is one of Burns' more lyrical poems which is often set to music

My love is like a red, red rose

That’s newly sprung in June :

My love is like the melody

That’s sweetly played in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

So deep in love am I :

And I will love thee still, my dear,

Till a’ 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 love,

And fare thee weel a while !

And I will come again, my love,

Thou’ it were ten thousand mile.