Perhaps I was just so overcome by the epicurean excess of January 25th that it has taken me until now to recover fully - at least to the point of sufficient coherence to cut and paste and captionize for some sort of recollection of that night.
In any event, here is a small and woefully insufficient recap of that wonderful evening, nearly two weeks ago.
After we were all seated, the very first thing (after the head table is piped in) is the Address to a Haggis. A proper oration of that poem is an art form unto itself - your scotch brogue has to be flawless; your manner effete, haughty and reverent; your knife-hand steady as a surgeon's; and your anticipation palpable enough to rival oatmeal for viscosity.
It's so awesome.
Then, it's just frikkin' cool that it gets piped back out on a silver platter, escorted by septuagenarians with claymores. Mind me another dish what can make THAT claim, eh?!
My regular annual table mates:
James (the best man at my wedding), his dad Peter, and Neil, who's the chairman of the provincial Capital Health board. (This event is one of the year's best opportunities to rub elbows with some of the local and provincial political elite, if you're into that sort of thing. Me, I go for the haggis.)
The lassies (yes, they wear underwear) stepping very lightly as they each prance about two crossed swords on the floor.
A brand new addition to the Bill this year was a performance by the PPCLI Drum Corp. I think it's pretty hard these days to look good in pith helmets, but these guys totally pulled it off. They also performed under black lights with the house lights turned off to further emphasize their precision, which was outstanding.
See? A drum corp performing under black lights. (That's, like, a 10-second exposure, totally free hand. Sorry.)
Every year, the official Burns Club piper plays a few skirls on the Waterloo Pipes, a set of bagpipes that was played at the Battle of Waterloo - so they're kind of old. Watching him stride up and down the centre aisle while 500 men stare rapt at a lone piper is one of the highlights of the night.
The final entertainment of the evening is always the Alberta Caledonia Pipe Band. The dear, departed author Dorothy Dunnett has always, in my mind, had the best description of the sound of bagpipes:
Then a desolate, mammoth, mourning Troll inflated its lungs and uttered. Through the shocked air tore a stern, snoring shriek followed by another. It became a united bray; the bray a wobble; the wobble a tune. High above the gallery balustrade swam a human head, inhumanly antennaed; the cheeks plimmed, the eyes closed, the fingers leaped, and all audible hell released itself.
That's exactly what listening to a Grade 1 pipe band is like.
Then, when all is done, the entire room disperses, mourning the 364 day wait ahead of us until next year.
I cornered a guy to take a shot of the three of us as we were leaving for the night.
And one more, just for the ladies in the audience:
