It is an occupational hazard that when I meet new people, whilst I am genuinely interested in what they are saying, a small part of my thoughts stray into wondering what their brain looks like.
The words “Thank You Andy Murray” were emblazoned on the big screens at the Australian Open on Monday.
The farming industry is under attack.
Predictions are a mug's game at the best of times but in the current political climate they are particularly daft.
The man sitting opposite me is wearing a University of Michigan sweatshirt. I keep looking at it, desperate to tell him that I visited Detroit while covering the 2016 US presidential election and saw Barack Obama speak in Ann Arbor, the campus town.
SO now, the end is near, and 2018 faces its final curtain. Good riddance to bad rubbish as the saying goes.
Cava Kenny Cordiner, the football pundit who takes no bull
I’ve just about survived the past few weeks.
Brexit cast a long shadow over Derek Mackay’s budget when he stood up at Holyrood to announce his tax and spend plans for 2019/20.
It was clear from the moment the Chancellor announced in his Budget that he was bringing forward changes to income tax thresholds that Derek Mackay was in a difficult spot.
By the time this is printed, I may well have been proved wrong, such is the lot of a columnist. But so far, this year’s I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, is the perfect antidote to the madness that surrounds us.
Charles Kennedy would no doubt have had a few choice words to say about those in power today, be it on Theresa May’s bungling of Brexit or Donald Trump’s daily diatribes.
Waiting in for a parcel to be delivered is one of the least appealing aspects of our modern shopping habits.
It was rock band Pink Floyd’s founder and short-lived frontman “Syd” Barratt who wrote these immortal lyrics on their debut album “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn”.
Death, taxes and a post-Budget spat between the UK and Scottish governments.
It's that time of year again - and I don’t mean the post-Halloween rush to Christmas.
The row about testing four and five year olds rumbles on. Education Secretary John Swinney has now announced an independent review into the controversial policy. The Scottish Parliament recently voted to scrap the assessments, as teachers’ unions raised concerns about the amount of time they take and parents claimed some children were left traumatised.
Just before he died in his early 90s, my grandfather shot bolt upright in his hospital bed, gripped my arms and cried out repeatedly, “I can still see their faces. I can still see their faces.”
View from the midden; rural affairs with Jock Alexander from MTV (Meikle Wartle Television)
There is a road in Applecross in the north-west Highlands called Bealach na Bà, which twists, winds and climbs to more than 2,000ft above sea level, making it the greatest ascent of any road climb in the UK. With a gradient approaching 20% in some places, its narrow, sharp bends have seen it dubbed the UK’s toughest climb.
Now here’s a question: do you know what a “body-slam” is? Neither did I. It seems that to body-slam someone, you have to hurl them to the ground in the way a wrestler might deal with an aggressive opponent. It’s an explosive word with violence at its heart.
It’s pumpkin time again, which always delights me and the girls.
Are you paying attention?
View from the midden – rural affairs with MTV (Meikle Wartle Television) presenter Jock Alexander
Last week a sheep farmer rang me worried that the sheep market might collapse next spring if there was no deal on Brexit.
Erica was on dessert duty at Lunch Club.
I was talking to one of my daughters and she used a phrase that to me was so profound: “environmentally respectful”. Flora followed that up with “‘environmentally-friendly’ is just an excuse to seem as though you are doing something to make a difference”.
Our daughter Hannah went to New Zealand on her own, booking a room in a hostel at random, from her flat in Edinburgh.
How is it possible to hear when so much noise is happening all around us? This is one of the biggest problems of our age.
The year is 2010. Donald Trump is whistling through Aberdeen like the north wind, blowing all and sundry to one side or another as he goes.
J Fergus Lamont, arts correspondent and author of Highland Fling – My Lost Weekend with Molly Weir at Boat of Garten
A new phrase was coined by the head of Highlands and Islands Enterprise last week to describe the region’s most pressing problem.