A Scotsman, yesterday

Just when you thought the terrors of Hogmangy were safely behind you, they strike, and strike again: January 24th is the most depressing day of the year, they say. To mop up any survivors while they're still staggering, Burns Night promptly follows. I know they don't claim to be a civilized nation, so you can't say we weren't warned. But even so...

"What are bashed neeps?"

"Neeps hackit with balmagowry."

Patrick O'Brian, Treason's Harbour [sic] p74

You may do as you like; I'll be arming myself and barricading the door. But what if they come in the windows? They always do.

Just pray the Scotsmen don't get their uncanny humanoid mitts on one of these (via those miserable libertarians).

Update!

A coyly pseudonymous reader directs our wavering attention to an unspeakably monstrous being, native to Scotland, seen here ferociously devouring the civil servants who attempt to restrain it. Note that the man partially visible at left is disguised as Charlie Chaplin, and the man behind the creature as Sly Stone. This behavior is by design; since the time of the druids, human sacrifices in Scotland have been disguised as Chaplin and Stone before being fed to fiends. The rationale is lost in the mists of antiquity.