The Borders Council is getting into the Will- Ye- No- Come-- back-again- to- Scotland's- Favourite- Short- Break-Destination- Year- of -the- Homecoming business by writing to favourite sons and daughters of the Merse with specific invitations to attend the Common Ridings. After much head scratching and Googling as to whom to get hold of (Jim Clarke is dead so is Duns Scotus) a personal letter has gone to the actress Tilda Swinton. The Berwickshire has the whole story here

Doubtless Ms Swinton pops back now and then to see her parents just down the road but whether she can be prevailed upon to grace the Common Ridings or even the Duns Ba' game remains to be seen.

The letter of invitation lists Scotland's contributions to the Planet:

Robert Burns (the 250th anniversary of his birth is in 2009), golf, whisky, great minds and innovations and Scotland's rich ancestry and culture.

The order is interesting. Personally I would have promoted Golf ahead of Burns and indeed whisky, as it was the uisge beatha or water of life which surely inspired his greatest poems (Try preforming Tam O'Shanter without drink taken)I am told that the Gallic Studies Centre at Edinburgh University has turned away many doctorate theses on the theme of 'Burns: One Third Inspiration, Two Thirds Intoxication' as too hackneyed. Anyhow the Uni's Health and Safety regulations forbid extensive research into aspects of this topic.

(Blurry Image from the Berwickshire: Tilda Swinton is on the right)

Labels: Common Ridings, The Year of the Return, Tilda Swinton

  ¶ 10:15 AM