Burns Night

Last night was the celebration of Robert Burns, Scots poet, surveyor, taxman and womaniser. That's a lot for someone who died at thirty-seven. I'm not that bothered about his poetry, to be honest, but I do like the one that he wrote about a field mouse, and don't we all sing Auld Lang Syne at New Year?

Apparently he was recently voted the Greatest Scotsman or something (by the Scots.) This puzzles my Scottish genes a bit. My list of greatest Scots would include Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin. Then there's John Logie Baird who invented television and Alexander Graham Bell the telephone man, and only a Scot would have invented the waterproof raincoat. Dunlop, as in rubber tyres. If not for him all the cars would run on tin wheels. Square ones. Then...

Andrew Carnegie, philanthropist
J M Barrie, author who gave us Peter Pan
Arthur Conan Doyle, as in Sherlock Holmes

Eric Liddell, missionary and sportsman, and have I mentioned Andy Murray and David Tennant?

I just checked some lists of Great Scots and there are thousands of them. Anybody got any favourite Scots?