It’s almost that time of year again.
Don’t know about you, but there’s nothing I love more than busying myself with plans for the big day.
Yes, I’m obviously talking about the start of Edinburgh’s Winter Fun™. For me, this holiest of events captures the real meaning of the season.
It heralds six weeks of untrammelled joy for Auld Reekie. How privileged we are.
The article below, apparently written on Christmas Day 1790, appeared in the Caledonian Mercury on 1 January 1791.
It is possible that the subject matter appealed to some Presbyterian editor sucking in his cheeks at the celebration of a Rome-ish mass south of the Border. But it is more probable that the Editor enjoyed the deadpan humour of a supposed 'member of the Church of England' urging abstemiousness in terms that would have struck many disapproving or hypocritical Scots as excessive.