SPORTS presenter Dougie Donnelly told the tale that his daughter wondered if he was allergic to dinner suits.

Every time he wore one, she said, he always had a sore head the next morning.

Across Scotland dinner suits are being resurrected from the recesses of wardrobes for their annual outings to Burns Suppers where haggis will be eaten, whisky drunk, and impossibly long poems recited. Now that might not sound like the recipe for a good night out, but somehow it works. Not only in Scotland either. Burns Suppers have been taken by Scots throughout the world.

As Glasgow solicitor Len Murray, arguably the doyen of Burns speakers, puts it: "On the 25th of January there is not an hour of the day or night where there is not a Burns Supper taking place somewhere in the world. No other figure is honoured in such a way."

Nor is it simply the heady mixture of haggis, whisky, bagpiping and poetry recitation. It is the quality of the speakers that makes or breaks a Burns Supper. As Len shrewdly observes: "There is nothing as good as a good Burns Supper. There is nothing as bad as a bad Burns Supper."

Some can be a bit riotous. I don't know if they still do, but Glasgow rugby club Cartha Queen's Park subdued heckling of speakers at their Burns Supper by warning that the first four people to heckle loudly would be the speakers the following year. That quietened most, other than the brash extroverts who were probably keen to be speakers anyway.

Fortunately many Burns Suppers are now of mixed company so that bad behaviour is less prevalent. "It's a great step forward," says Len. "Men behave themselves better when women are around."

Yes, you have to know a little of Robert Burns to deliver The Immortal Memory, but please, try not to be boring. When Partick diner Velvet Elvis held its inaugural Burns Supper, speaker Phil Strange confided: "Owner Allan Mawn told me not to worry about being witty or clever. 'Just be yourself,' he said."

I remember the then Labour leader Neil Kinnock speaking at the prestigious Ravenscraig Burns Supper - the steelworkers took their Burns Night seriously - and being ferried from Glasgow Airport by local MP John Reid who inquired in the car if he had a speech prepared. "Yes," said Neil, who showed John a worthy, but coma-inducing speech on the state of British politics.

By the time they reached Motherwell, John had ransacked his memory for a dozen lighthearted yarns and jokes to replace the political speech which was figuratively thrown out the window. Mr Kinnock, the old trooper, went down a storm.

There can also be unexpected drama. The late entertainer Andy Stewart, delivering the Address to a Haggis at a Burns Supper in Glasgow was making a show of wiping the knife on his jacket sleeve after cutting open the haggis at "An cut you up wi' ready sleight", not realising how sharp it was.

Suddenly, there was blood everywhere as he had cut through to his arm, and his appearance was abruptly curtailed as he was taken immediately to casualty for stitching.

Yes haggis. It truly is a delicious meal despite what Groundskeeper Willie once observed on the cartoon show The Simpsons: "Chopped heart and lungs boiled in a wee sheep's stomach. Tastes as good as it sounds."

The haggis is normally piped in, with a dram on hand for both the chairman and piper. As reader Bob Forsyth in Uplawmoor once recalled: "At one Burns Supper the chairman was teetotal, and had arranged with the hotel staff to provide him with two glasses - one with the cratur and the other with cold tea. When the moment arrived he gave a glass to the piper and took one himself.

"The look on his face when he inadvertently quaffed the goodly measure of whisky was nothing compared to that of the piper on scoffing the cold tea."

But why should we honour Robert Burns?

As Len Murray explained: "I read a letter in the Telegraph once from an English reader asking why there were not Shakespeare Suppers. But what message did Shakespeare have?

"Burns had the obvious message of friendship and love of your fellow man expressed in the song A Man's A Man for A' That, which in those days was almost sedition.

"Remember that Burns achieved all that he did achieve in virtually only 10 years. The Kilmarnock edition, the first publication of his work, was published in July 1786 and he died on 21 July 1796. An astonishing impact, all in such a short period."

As the great Burns performer John Cairney summed up: "Robert Burns wrote more than 300 songs, almost one for every month of his 37 years. He had always to work for a living. Never as was his dream, as a full-time writer. It was not until the end of his life that he was able to devote any time at all to his songs, and even then it was only because he was dying."

Is he still relevant? Kofi Annan, former United Nations general-secretary, once said: "If we are to survive the destructive threats facing mankind in the 21st Century, then we must begin by promoting the brotherhood of man and the tolerance and wisdom as promulgated by Robert Burns, the world's lyric poet."

So lets agree with Kofi, and warmly celebrate Burns this year - even if it means hearing an onslaught of old gags you've heard before. To quote the diplomatic words of Len Murray when I asked him about hearing a joke for the millionth time: "I don't know how many times I've heard Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, but I still love it."

Now if only we could remember the words for Auld Lang Syne.