The ballad of Broon and sonsie Jim:… by Robert Burns?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/24/the-immortal-ballad-of-sonsie-jim-and-broon

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I am told by my dear friends Alan Taylor and Rosemary Goring – a couple so literary that their Glasgow pied-a-terre is actually built entirely out of old books – that a new scholarly edition of Burns’s poems is currently being researched by Glasgow University. The project was started in 2009 and isn’t due for completion until 2024. Soon, I expect to be contacting the scholars working on this sacred tome bearing glad tidings. For, into my possession has come a work of improbable provenance but which is causing ripples of excitement in those communities where I seek society.

My pal, Big Tam Lenighan, sage and savant of the Commercial Inn in Campsie, is almost certain that the work is from the pen of The Bard himself: “I know the prose is entirely in the modern idiom, but I believe Burns had a sixth sense and often talked of events yet to happen. The verse structure is a bit scrofulous, yet that in itself probably predicted the falling standards in the teaching of English these last few years.” And so, in the fraternal spirit of Burns season, I now share it with Observer readers.

The trials of Jim

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