The Broon's Guide to days out in Scotland, with extensive coverage of Historic Scotland and National Trust for Scotland sites.In this book you willl find ideas for visiting over 200 galleries, and museums, castles and gardens, or enjoying a day at the Highland Games, and many more activities to get the family out and about. It also contains a free tourist map of Scotland, from Nicholson Maps and there are money-saving offers from The National Trust for Scotland and Historic Scotland at the back of the book too. It is also hilarious,irreverent, rude and laugh out loud funny. David Donaldson, scriptwriter of The Broons, has written the text, and this is the first time the Broons have spoken directly to their readers

250 years of Robert Burns 25 January 2009 will mark 250 years to the day since Scotland's national poet was born. Born in Alloway, Ayrshire in 1759 into fairly humble circumstances, Robert received a certain amount of schooling and was well read for a boy of his background. He began his working life as an apprentice flax-dresser in Irvine, Ayrshire, but after his father died he worked the family farm along with his brother, Gilbert. In 1786 he had published, in Kilmarnock, a first collection of poems: Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, which made him an overnight success. He went to Edinburgh where he was well received by the polite society of the day (though Burns' personality did not always sit well with that world). As well as poetry, Burns is well known for his songs, and his contributions to George Thomson's A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs for the Voice and James Johnson's The Scots Musical Museum have perhaps contributed more to his 'Immortal Memory' around the world; the most famous being, 'My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose', 'Ae Fond Kiss' and of course, 'Auld Lang Syne', sung at Hogmanay. In 1789, having spent most of the wealth from his published poetry, he began work as an Excise Officer in Dumfries (an irony not lost on him) and resumed his relationship with wife Jean. His increasingly radical political views influenced many of the phenomenal number of poems, songs and letters he continued to pen, including such famous works as For a' that and a' that. He died on 21 July in 1796 in Dumfries at the age of 37, his life foreshortened by drink and poor health, and leaving a widow, Jean Armour, and a large family. A memorial edition of his poems was published to raise money for his wife and children.