At the climactic moment of a Burns supper, the invited guest recites Robert Burns' Address to a Haggis and plunges a knife into the steaming offal-filled stomach lining in front of him, before it is divided among the assembled company.

The sale of Scottish & Newcastle duly reached a climax yesterday, the 249th anniversary of the bard's birth. One of Scotland's last FTSE 100 companies looks set to be carved up between Carlsberg and Heineken, unless a counter-bidder emerges. But stay your nationalist lamentations. Over many years, S&N has, rightly, globalised and turned into an adept manager of brands, such as Russia's Baltika, France's Kronenbourg and Australia's Foster's. That is just the kind of foreign muck to make a true Scot spew, according to Burns, but it is what has helped build S&N into a valuable global property.