Catriona Stewart gives the reply to the toast to the lassies on Burn's Day

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Of course, our dear Rabbie has suffered the recent indignity of the suggestion he was the Weinstein of his day, a charge levelled by his national poet progeny, the former makar Liz Lochhead.

The accusation has proven as divisive as the #MeToo movement, with the laddies pointing out that things were different then - whether the 1970s or the 1770s.

It would seem men are as eager to apologise for the poor behaviour of their brothers who are 200 years dead as they are to make excuses for contemporary gropey scoonrels.

Burn’s Day, of course, comes around every 12 months but has there ever been a 12 months where women’s rights and sexual harassment have been in the spotlight like those just gone?

Traditionally the Toast to the Lassies is to be a charming thing, the Reply a chance for gentle revenge.

How gentle it is possible to be, I’m not sure, glancing at the headlines.

This week the Financial Times took us inside The Presidents Club Charity Dinner, an exclusive gentlemen-only fundraiser where young women working as hostesses were allegedly groped, sexually harassed and propositioned. Lots held at the dinner included a course of plastic surgery, accompanied by the slogan: “Spice up your wife.”

Gold-medal winning US gymnast Aly Raisman faced former US gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar in court, delivering an electrifying speech. She was one of nearly 160 victims to give testimony against the doctor, who was sentenced to up to 175 years in prison.

Our straucht and outbetald feminist Germaine Greer (there’s no glossary provided, you’ll have to Google it) popped her head up to offer some positives. Ms Greer says rape is an unspectacular crime, punished by too high a tariff. Whichever reading you take of this statement, it’s a depressing one. Reflecting on the #MeToo movement, the Australian has asked women to stop whining about sexual assault and take direct action when felt up by a passing lecher. With friends like these, old Rabbie seems a rare champion of the female sex.

As the louse crawls upon Jenny’s bonnet, we are to take Burn’s point that we are all equal prey. The louse, a common parasite, makes no distinction as to where it creeps and sprawls and sprattles.

In 1786, the louse was a metaphor for man’s equality. In 2017, the louse could be a metaphor for the repeat revelations of men as skellums and bounders.

You would think, surveying the website of your daily paper, that the man who thinks himself decent is deluded. Many a man has wept and wailed, lamenting that their sex is under attack.

How tiresome. We know that most men are decent. After centuries of inequality, stretching much further back than the time of the Bard, it is time for a sea-change and men should be examining their consciences to see how they might help support the cause.

Men are similarly disheartened to learn they are no longer allowed to flirt with women. They are confused as to the new rules of engagement. Fortunately, there are no new rules of engagement. They remain identical to pre #MeToo times.

Some quick examples: do you want to touch a woman who has shown no interest in you? Don’t touch her. Do you want to touch a woman but she’s at work? Don’t touch her. Do you want to use your position of power to coerce a woman into a situation she would not voluntarily enter? Don’t do that either.

The problem is not that new rules exist but that the rules were previously being broken. Now, we’d like them adhered to.

Rabbie’s musing at the end of his poem is thus: “O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us, to see oursels as others see us. It wad frae monie a blunder free us.” Wise words then, and wise words now.

If only the Weinsteins of the world could see themselves as the young women they target see them, surely they would retreat, appalled.

For the coming year, let us turn from the louse, Tae a Mouse. “Cow’rin, tim’rous beastie, o’ what a panic’s in thy breastie.” In fact, Germaine Greer might be on to something. Loud voices and direct action wad dress your droddum.