Would you use a net or a lure?

[pbray]

Buried in this BBC News article lamenting the banning of traditional haggis in the US is this money quote:

A 2003 survey suggested that a third of US visitors to Scotland believed the haggis was an animal. Nearly a quarter thought they could catch one.

I can see it now--Catching the Haggis, the newest event in the Highland Games. :-D

Comments

[desperance.livejournal.com]

The wild haggis notoriously has the legs on one side shorter than the legs on the other, so that they can run around steep Scottish mountains and maintain an even keel.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

That's the side-hill gouger. Very dangerous.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Fortunately compassionate souls have banded together to craft tiny stilts for the shorter legs, so they can be safely relocated to the lowlands.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

And here I thought the haggis was a fish.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure it's one of those evolutionary mistakes, long sought after by cryptozoologists.

[ladysmith.livejournal.com]

No, it's the Haggis HURL, not the Haggis Hunt.

(just spent the weekend at the Highland Games....)

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

I don't know you, but I lurve your hedgehog userpic!

[ladysmith.livejournal.com]

Thank you. The artist is Charles van Sandwyk.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

But what about the Haggis Fling, a hybrid event that combines eating, hurling, and competitive dance?

[ladysmith.livejournal.com]

If you eat haggis while doing competitive dance, you're going to hurl all right....

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much what I was thinking, yeah ;) I have done both things (although ceilidh dancing, not the Highland Fling kind), but fortunately not simultaneously...

[pbray.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't want to be in the front rows of the audience for that event....

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

Indeed (http://www.spike.com/video-clips/aykvso/barf-o-rama-scene-from-stand-by-me).

[lagilman]

I've had lung- and lung-free haggis, and will admit I'm slightly more fond of the lung-free...

(sadly, I'll be missing this year's Burns Night Scotch tasting at Keen's. Just couldn't get my act together in time.)

[pbray.livejournal.com]

There's a big gathering in Binghamton for Burns night, but around here it's not such a big deal. Then, again, Binghamton has a pipe band, so the haggis can be properly celebrated.

[shannachie.livejournal.com]

I know there was a similiar law in Germany. I think they may have changed it (or are looking the other way). I remember many years ago at the Burns Night in Munich, some MSA (Munich Scottish Association) member who was a flight attendant used to smuggle canned haggis before the event.
And some years later at the first Burns Night in Würzburg, the club president went and bribed the local shephard.
But nowadays Scottish clubs seem to have no problem offering haggis to the hungry expats.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

You can find haggis on menus here for Burns night celebrations, but it's a modified version, and most don't know the difference. I've seen canned haggis smuggled in, but not in bulk. Though New Englanders could just hop the border to Canada and get the real deal.

[mtlawson.livejournal.com]

It's the Scottish snipe!

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Indeed!

[libwitch.livejournal.com]

I think this begs a question: Why the hell would someone want to catch a haggis? I mean, ewwwww

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Hopefully it would be a catch & release situation, rather than a catch and cook :-)