An amazing new discovery!

After all these years, I've discovered I'd interpreted the Robert Burns poem quite wrongly! How many times have we all sung it, not really knowing what it means? Conga-ing around a room or hall or street, and then stopping at the stroke of midnight, joining in bellowing out 'Auld Lang Syne', I'd always vaguely thought it was to do with not losing touch with the people I was conga-ing with, and didn't know from Adam. Perhaps we had become lifelong friends by sharing in this old ceremony, a bit like getting married? But no! It's actually about two friends spending childhood hours together, paddling in the stream, picking daisies, running around the hills. Parted by time and distance, they each take a goodwill drink of ale, remembering the old times. Generally it applies to all old friends not present. In Gaelic, Auld Lang Syne translates literally as 'Old Long Since'. You live and learn.