I was a guest at my first Robbie Burns Night this year and I couldn't help but notice a glaring contradiction:

All night, the speakers would make jokes about "aye, be on guard, for there may be an Englishman about"...and yet they toasted the Queen.

Of course, I joked that my mum's family is Irish and there was never any ambiguity about where the Queen stood when I was growing up. ;-)

(Then again, my dad's family is English and he used to playfully taunt my grandparents that he was the "fruit of Cromwell's loins." It's good to laugh.)

Peter