i suppose i still had burns on my mind from the burns night celebrations. i had been at a friend’s for a haggis supper. i had hoped i might get a chance to recite some poetry, but it didn’t seem to be the vibe.

i like that there are some elemental homophones going on in the line. burns, like fire; air, like wind; and wll ice is water. and burns are also water. i don’t think the good people of compton celebrate cube suppers yet though. maybe in two hundred years?

january is the worst month of the year. 2025 is only getting better now. stanza 2 ‘witness (1 dope)’ is live on youtube/insta/the blog from tomorrow and is already up on apple music, spotify, etc

so ostensibly this line is about post-brexit toblerone. prices have indeed risen and qualify has dipped. whether it is toblerone widing its valleys, or cadbury changing its recipe.

but its also about brexit. and about late stage, hyper unequal, billionaires and paupers style capitalism. we privatise, financialise, put the price up and reduce the quality. the trick might have worked in 1979. but that was a very long time ago.

so i wanted to quit my job today, but instead i find myself at hospital waiting to undergo a lumbar puncture to check for signs of brain disaster. which reminds me of the last time I quit a job, ten years ago, and i had a broken hip. i rushed back to the office as it felt a bit weird to give my notice via email from hospital. isn’t the universe mystical?

anyway, i was given the decision to make re the lumbar puncture. and i am a fearty. so tempted to draw a line under the affair. but i shouldn’t make another bad january decision just because i’m stressed and scared of a bit of needle.

weather in the west of scotland is not the most predictable. i type this two days after a powerful wind blasted across the island, taking roofs from houses and depositing them in the sea, and after returning from a very slow and cold run through sleet, ice and mud.

but last weekend it was mild. and next weekend i’m going cycling on the warmer windy island of lanzarote. last year’s cycling holiday was to gran canaria, where we endured winds about as strong as the ones that brought carnage here this week. like cycling through violent treacle. let’s hope for better luck this time.

there is an awkward symmetry to today’s date (25.1.25), which happens to be the 266th anniversary of rabbie burns’ birth. he is scotland’s national poet but his work is internationally famous, particularly ‘auld lang syne’, as traditionally slurred on hogmanay.

i hate the national anthem, ‘flower of scotland’. it’s a nationalist dirge, bleating on about medieval battles and nursed grudges. all the more outrageous when so many burns options are available. i would love to hear 50,000 scots sing ‘a man’s a man for all that’ before the soccer meet at hampden park. 

burns was also a pistol carrying excise man – a tax collector. so he really is my spirit poet. i don’t think i’ll be having haggis tonight but i shall be sure to raise a dram to our nation’s greatest scoundrel.

https://www.instagram.com/n.n_benn/

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@n.n.benn

*toblerone is now available on spotify / apple music etc. new music and videos will be released on the 1st of every month, with the poems dissected in the blog/insta over the rest of the month in daily posts*

burns’ night is 25 january, tomorrow. but clearly it was on my mind, as the haggis is notoriously, ‘the chieftain of the puddin’ race’.

maybe i will reflect more on our national poet tomorrow. today we have a big storm in scotland. its a red warning – the earth’s protective atmosphere is today dangerous to life. all the schools are closed.

except one: tough school, near kirkton of tough. it takes more than a bit of weather to deter the tough children of tough.