Burns' Night supper with Michael Binyon OBE, foreign correspondent of The Times, next Monday

[Pádraig Belton]

Dear Young Stationers and friends,

 Hullo, and I hope all of you are very well indeed.  Now we have got through the doldrums of Christmas and New Year, we finally can look forward to the real excitement of fresh-captured haggis, barrels of whisky, beskirted chaps, and great chieftains o the puddin'-race!!

 We're tremendously lucky to be able to have our haggis in the Caledonian Club, with our speaker Michael Binyon OBE, distinguished foreign correspondent from The Times.
 
 I am given to understand in the heady days of the Cold War, Michael - then Moscow correspondent - was renowned for his address to the haggis, when Red Army generals and elegantly-suited Brits met to exchange gossip over the bashed neeps.

 Michael attended some educational establishment in the Fens, and was at Magdalene (sic.) opposite John Simpson, and then Brussels, as the Times's man, alongside the Telegraph's Boris Johnson. But it was in Moscow that he made his name through the heights and close of the Cold War, going on after to serve as diplomatic editor, Washington bureau chief, and leader writer, and along the way garnering two British Press Awards and, in 2000, the OBE for services to international journalism.

 Within the livery movement, he is Past Master of the Leathersellers and a Court Assistant of the Stationers. Some of his skill with words doubtless traces to the fact poet Laurence Binyon is a relative.

 He is a splendidly nice chap in spite of his Filthy Tabness. 

 Dinner is 7 for half 7 pm, black tie or skirts for men, and the Club is at 9, Halkin Street, Belgravia, SW1X 7DR. 

 The menu is below.  Dinner will feature: tots of whisky, Cranachan, toasts to lassies, a piper. Dinner will conversely feature nae: skinking ware / that jaups in luggies.

Pre-prandial sherry

Warm Arbroath Smokie and Horseradish Tart served with a fresh beetroot salad

2011 La Borie Viognier, Vin de Pays d'Oc

Haggis and bashed neeps, with a tot of whisky (Glenfarclas 10 Year Old)

2009 Chateau Saintongey, Vielles Vignes, Bordeaux

Vacherin Mont d’Or and truffle soufflé

Cranachan ice cream, Drambuie syllabub, and Ecclefechan butter tart

Coffee and Orkney tablet

Vintage port

Please do jot in.  Dining pennies are but £65, a pleasure to any true Scots amongst us, and negotiated down quite a bit by quoting Burns extensively at the Club Secretary. (Perhaps you might send these to me, at sort code 30-96-35 and account 02779270? Please do use your name as the reference, and message me also to let me know you have done. Sometimes mystery pennies appear, which add to the spice of life.)

Finally, I'm so very grateful to everyone who attended the Christmas charity dinner at Boodle's, launching with quite a bit of fun and flourish my small Channel-swimming appeal for the Alzheimer's Society, with 78 people kindly popping along, and raising £3,000 for the charity.

It would be churlish to sign off with anything other than Yours Aye.

Paddy  

p.s. Just for your new 2015 diaries, I'd be very grateful too if you might scribble in these jollities of ours:

• Our annual dinner in Oxford, which this year will be held jointly with our friends in the Oxford University Society of Bibliophiles, will be 5th February in the Old Senior Common Room of Balliol College. Liveryman Alison Strachan, a very active Young Stationer and director of bookbinding at Shepherd's Bookbinders, will talk about the art of traditional bookbinding in the 21st century, and possibly give us a chance to try our hands at it.  (Facebook page here.)

• On 23d February we will have dinner with Lord Balfe in the House of Lords, who will speak to us about the UK, the EU, the coming general election, and the press.  (Lord Balfe was a longstanding MEP for London before entering the Lords.  Facebook page here.)

• On 13th to 15th March, the weekend before St Patrick's Day, we will have a group outing to Dublin, to visit the Irish Times, the United Arts Club (where we will have a dinner), the Old Library of Trinity College Dublin, Archbishop Marsh's Library, the Gate for a Pinter play, St Patrick's Cathedral for evensong, possibly one pub (just the one), and hear over dinner from a few Irish journalists and writers.

• And though not strictly a Young Stationers event, all of you are really very welcome to the Garrick Club on 17th March for a St Patrick's Day dinner, which also will be in support of the Alzheimer's Society and my beastly idea of swimming the Channel.

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www.justgiving.com/SwimPaddy

Training to swim the English Channel for the Alzheimer's Society