Although Michael was once a semi-competitive bagpipe player, has intermittently played the bagpipes for Burns Suppers for 40 years (honest!), including one for our partners in Confidence Accounting, the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (CISI), and has given the odd (truly odd) toast at Caledonian Club Burns Nights, Z/Yen has never been known to celebrate Burns Day. In some ways this too is odd. Linda runs Z/Yen with a claymore from north of the border. Scottish Independence has had our Security Forward group pondering the security implications north and south of the border. Before Geneva, our first out-of-London office was in Edinburgh. Unfortunately, bagpipe music fails to soothe the savage beasts, of Z/Yen that is, so our dear Scottish friend, George Littlejohn, decided to compose a Burns Night Address to Z/Yen for 25 January along the lines of the traditional Address to a Haggis. We’re not completely sure that we’re flattered by being compared to a round little mass of sheep stomach stuffed with discarded offal and filled out with cheap starch that meets a nasty end at the point of a sgian-dubh, but we sure as heck laughed. But wait! Knives piercing old windbags? And George has had some strange experiences working with CISI? "If we shadows have offended"... or “The best way to play the bagpipes? With a penknife!"

George begins...

Fair fa' your honest, Z/Yen face,
Great chieftain o' the think-tank race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Alongside Andrew's;
Weel are ye wordy o'a grace
Wi thrumpit agnews...

Recite the rest of a Burns Night Address to Z/Yen