Let's Hope Things Are Better In 2019 Than In 2018

AS I strike these keys to write this blog, there are less than 15 hours remaining of 2018, a year which I feel the Scottish Rugby community will not be sad to see the back of. Sure, we have had the odd high – none higher than thumping England to regain the Calcutta Cup, but, we have also had some awful lows – Cardiff anyone.

But for me, Scottish Rugby in 2018 has been like British politics. While the politicians and the fans of this subject have been besotted by Brexit, which in truth has become almost like East Enders – a miserable soap opera, featuring a cast on largely unlikeable caricatures, going nowhere other than round in circles.

In Scottish Rugby, we are seeking someone heroic, to rise above the constant arguing about Super-6, to cut through the uncertainty about Agenda-3 and to lead us to a promised land where we are relevant in the world.

The year 2018 has been dominated by argument, about S6A3, about where the S6 “amateur” teams would play. Along the way we have had Russellgate to excite the lieges. I rather think TCD is a wee bit like Theresa May, kicking the can down the road a bit, playing for time and hoping something – Gavin MacColl QC and his Governance Committee maybe, will appear to save him and his beleaguered Board and Council.

Things can surely get better and improve in 2019, but, as ever, I am in the Scottish default position at the gateway to a new year: “An' furrit tho' Ah cannae see, Ah guess and fear.”

BEFORE starting this piece, I had a quick look at what I was writing this time last year, and, well I never, it was deja vu all over again.

My last piece of 2017 was all about the Glasgow leg of the 1872 Cup. At least Mikey Adamson, who had that game, rather than the first leg, as he had this year, got off a bit more lightly than George Clancy did at the weekend, but, the refereeing was the main point of discussion.

Twelve months ago, I said: “Rugby at the professional level is all but unrefereeable.” Nothing has happened since then to dissuade me of this view. I do not blame the match officials, who are making the best of a bad job, but, again, I wonder what John Jeffrey and his committee on World Rugby does. I repeat something I have been saying for years – we need a thorough overhaul of the Laws, and, we certainly need to -

BRING BACK REAL RUCKING!!!

At this point one year ago, Glasgow was our top club, today, I am not as certain of that statement, such is the improvement in Edinburgh since the players began to buy into Richard Cockerill and his approach. If you look at who are now Scotland's main players, you have the exiles: Messrs Laidlaw and Russell, Sean Maitland and the newcomer Sam Skinner, then you have a phalanx of Edinburgh players – Stuart McInally, WP Nel, Hamish Watson, Ben Toolis and Grant Gilchrist, before you get to the first Glasgow player – Stuart Hogg.

In a year, Jonny Gray has gone from an automatic pick, to arguably being only our fourth-ranked lock. We are now starting to ask if Ryan Wilson's nuisance value is still sufficient to place him above the new back-row bunch – Bradbury, Fagerson minor and Ritchie.

We are going into a World Cup year, and certainly Gregor Townsend has some big calls to make.

For me, THE Scottish players of the year have been Hamish Watson up front, and Finn Russell behind the scrum, while the breakthrough player has surely been Darcy Graham.

I am excited about this year, we have a young international team, but an improving one. However, we are only a couple of injuries to key men away from potential disaster.

My big wish for 2019 is that we can put an end to the bickering in clubland and sort things out properly. The big battle will be over where the S6 core clubs play, and I worry about this. Again, we have to hope Gavin MacColl and his team can come up with something workable on governance.

The SRU Board and Council has been concentrating on the performance end of the game, they now really need to look at clubland, get the guys at the grass roots onside and end the infighting. But, hey, we're Scots, infighting is our default position.

I certainly hope, during January, we can stop kicking the can down the road and get some things sorted out, because, we are rapidly running out of time when it comes to sorting-out a few major issues.

Can I send my sympathies to top referee Lloyd Linton, who endured a torrid time when given the Italian Derby between Benetton and Zebre at the weekend.

Firstly, he was, at one point, pinned at the foot of a ruck by some over-enthusiastic counter rucking by Benetton; but, he regained his dignity and control. Then, minutes later he got the ultimate undignified rugby injury – the sharp end of a booted Gilbert ball right in the haw maws.

Lloyd assures me, he counted them, and both are still there, but, this was a difficult injury to run off. Still, he's a former hooker, the blow was nothing.

And finally, can I wish the great WM McMurtrie (Paisley Grammar School, Galashiels Academy, the Glasgow Herald, Glasgow Warriors, the SRU and GHA) a better 2019 than 2018 was.

Both Bill and his good lady have been troubled somewhat with illness over the past 12 months, but, I understand are now, slowly, on the mend. I know it embarrasses him when I say this, but, Bill is the best president the SRU never had, he is one of the few remaining pillars of wisdom and good sense in the game and we really need him restored to good health and able to offer his wise counsel throughout the coming year and hopefully for a guid few years to come.

The same hopes and good wishes also go to another giant of our game, the great Allan Hosie, another man who has been spending more time in the care of the excellent Scottish NHS than we want to see.

So – have a great time tonight, a Guid New Year tae ane an' awe – and, see you across in 2019.

George Clancy - A Handy Stooge, But He Wasn't To Blame

WHEN I was a boy, getting into Rugby in the late 1950s, there was something of a religious divide in the game. Our school football teams had games against a few Roman Catholic schools, but, apart from a fixture with St Joseph's College – which was an RC school in Dumfries, with an attached seminary, I don't think we played a single RC school at rugby.

Sure, St Aloysius, even then, was a power in the West of Scotland, but, there were not many chances for good Rangers-supporting boys like the majority of our team to “Kick a Catholic” legally on the rugby field.

Therefore the Celtic/RC concept of: “Always cheated, never defeated, since 1888” has, for as long as I can recall, been unknown in Scottish Rugby.

I must therefore conclude, Glasgow Warriors must have been doing a sterling job in converting at least some of the Celtic Family to at least occasional devotions at Scotstoun. That's the only reasoning I can come up with for some of the squeals of anguish from the Scotstoun faithful, in the wake of Edinburgh's victory in the second leg of the 1872 Cup, yesterday afternoon.

My view of the game was coloured by listening to the BBC Radio Shortbread coverage – and, by the way, where was Colin Gregor? We need some West Coast counterweight to the wit, sagacity and colour of Peter Wright; having Scott Hastings, with his big brother doing a half-time guest cameo was a bit Edinburgh overkill. Balance BBC, always balance. But, I digress.

I will watch the re-run on Wednesday, however, the picture the BBC's Heart of Midlothian supporters club: Wright, Hastings and Paul Mitchell, painted was of a comfortable Edinburgh win.

George Clancy - rugby's answer to Willie Collum

As-ever, Peter Wright spent a fair bit of time “dissing” George Clancy. Can I say, I am arguably vice-president to president Peter among the members of the George Clancy is an erse-hole who should not be allowed near a rugby game as referee club. I am prepared to concede, he might have learned a little over the years, and he has certainly turned in some half-decent performances over the past two seasons.

That said, I honestly believe, rather like football's Willie Collum when faced with either half, or, perish the thought both, halves of the Old Firm – when George is given a Glasgow game, his brain goes into melt-down.

OK, maybe yesterday, Glasgow got on the wrong end of George's frequent brain farts more than Edinburgh did, but, can we be clear on this: he was bad to both sides. George's fellow principal culprit in the ranks of Irish referees sent to annoy us, John Lacey, is retiring at the end of the season – having already stood down from international duty. There are rumours that George is also about to cause more bother, by stopping match officiating, doubtless to become a referee spotter and teach the next generation how to fuck-up several thousand spectators' match-day experience on a regular basis. Perish the thought.

Any way, to disgruntled members of the Warrior Nation, I offer this sage advice, posted on Facebook this morning by one of the most-easily-recognisable members of the Edinburgh support – Scottish Rugby Forum moderator Ian Wallace. Who posted:

• If you miss 21 tackles in a match
• if you concede 9 penalties in your own half
• if you continually spill the ball
• if you only score 15 points in two games
• if your stand off goes missing for two games
• if your pack are bullied for two games
• if you are second best at set piece for two games
• if your players lack composure
• if your coach having lost the first match can't come up with a plan B for second game ...................
• Then you cannae really blame George Clancy for failing to deliver

Fair's fair, I think the baldie man with the ginger beard (pictured left), just about nailed it there. The question now is, what will Dave Rennie do to get the Warriors' wagon back on the rails?

January will be a big month for both clubs, Warriors in particular, so they need to find some form, and fast, before their current little local difficulties become major issues to be dealt with.

Back-to-back losses to Edinburgh, coupled with Munster's defeat of 14-man Leinster yesterday has seen Glasgow's lead at the top of Conference A cut to just two points, and, with a visit to in-form Benetton to start the New Year, they cannot afford any further slip-ups.

THE ENGLISH Gallacher Premiership grows more like it's round-ball cousin with every passing week. The big story this week-end was, apparently that Sale's Director of Rugby, Steve Diamond, invited a journalist from the independent to step outside and discuss a disputed point.

I have only met Mr Diamond twice, and I wasn't impressed – a Poundland Alex Ferguson was my impression. Mind you, when it comes to confrontation between stroppy managers and journalists who have upset them, I think the English Premierships are still some way behind Scottish football.

I was punched by Jock Wallace – playfully but it still stung - and once on the wrong end of what is known as: “the hair dryer treatment,” from the late Kilmarnock legend Walter McRae – I don't think anything David Beckham ever got from Fergie could have been worse. But, compared to the punch which BBC Shortbread's John Barnes had to take from wee Jim McLean at Dundee United, or the fact big Gerry McNee collected the football-writing equivalent of a VC and bar – whacked by both Graeme Souness and Billy McNeill, I got off lightly.

The relationship between a Head Coach/Team Manager and the press is a complex one. On reflection, even considering the likes of Mr Diamond, I feel things are much-more adult in rugby.

Or, maybe we rugby writers do self censorship and personal preservation better, when you consider the number of former forwards who switch to coaching.

Bragging Rights - Part Two

WELL, WE KEN NOO: the teams for tonight's second leg, 1872 Cup match at Scotstoun have been announced. As expected, Warriors gaffer Dave Rennie has rung the changes, making no less than six to his starting XV. Richard Cockerill, across at Murrayfield has been much-more conservative, bringing back the fit-again Jamie Ritchie for Luke Hamilton being his only change – well, why change a winning team?

The recall of co-captain Ryan Wilson is one of six Glasgow changes

This second leg will naturally be a whole different ball game from last week's part one – and in writing that, old Aristotle is not merely clutching at sporting cliché straws. For a start, a wounded Weegie is a very dangerous animal, while Edinburgh, for all the advances they have made since Cockerill took charge, still travel with only slightly more assurance than Belgian wine.

The teams, as announced yesterday, are, as always in 1-23 order:

GLASGOW WARRIORS: Oli Kebble, Grant Stewart, D’Arcy Rae, Tim Swinson, Jonny Gray, Ryan Wilson (Co-Captain), Callum Gibbins (Co-Captain), Matt Fagerson; Ali Price, Adam Hastings; Niko Matawalu, Pete Horne, Alex Dunbar, Tommy Seymour; Stuart Hogg.

Replacements: Kevin Bryce, Jamie Bhatti, Siua Halanukonuka, Rob Harley, Chris Fusaro; George Horne, Sam Johnson, DTH van der Merwe.

EDNBURGH: Pierre Schoeman, Stuart McInally (Captain), WP Nel, Ben Toolis, Grant Gilchrist, Jamie Ritchie, Hamish Watson, Viliame Mata; Henry Pyrgos, Jaco van der Walt; Duhan van der Merwe, Chris Dean, James Johnstone, Darcy Graham; Blair Kinghorn.

Replacements: David Cherry, Allan Dell, Simon Berghan, Callum Hunter-Hill, Luke Crosbie; Nathan Fowles, Simon Hickey, Juan Pablo Socino.

MATCH OFFICIALS: Referee: George Clancy; Assistant Referee 1: Stuart Gaffikin; Assistant Referee 2: David Sutherland; TMO: Neil Paterson.

Watching the highlights on Free Sports (well, if you were a Glasgow supporter, there weren't many of these), it was fairly clear, Edinburgh won the battle up front, and denied the dangerous Glasgow backs the front foot ball then needed to get, in order to play their normal high-tempo game.

Changing things around will be Dave Rennie's principal concern and the return of co-captain Ryan Wilson and switching Tim Swinson for Rob Harley in the starting line-up will, hopefully for the Warrior Nation, make a difference. There is also a lot of pressure on the relatively unsung D'Arcy Rae, to anchor the Glasgow scrum better than Siua Halanukonuka did at Murrayfield.

I believe, having had a kick up the bahookie last week, and with home advantage, Glasgow can win this one, but, perhaps not by enough to overturn Edinburgh's positive points advantage from last week.

And Adam Hastings also has to demonstrate his two catastrophic errors of last week, which each cost his side a try, will not prevent him from being positive and attacking. It ought to be quite a game.

ONE MAN who will be missing from Scotstoun today is big Greg Peterson. The Australian-born USA Eagles lock has left Warriors to join Bordeaux Begles in the French Top 14, after making 33 appearances for the Scotstoun outfit since joining-up in 2015.

 Greg Peterson - wapping Garden Shed Gin for a fine Bordeaux

To be fair, big Greg was never more than a squad player with the club, while he missed a lot of potential game time to injury. However, he did make a huge contribution when drafted to various Premiership clubs.

Last season, with Marr, the other drafted Warriors would shoot the craw back to Glasgow as quickly as they could after each game. Greg, however, admitted, being at Marr was like being back playing in his native Sydney. He loved the social ambiance of the Fullarton club room – and the Marr boys loved him back.

It was the same when he played for Ayr, and, I gather has been the same this year with Currie. Perhaps not a great Warrior, but, still a great rugby man – he will be missed.

Greg's departure does leave Warriors somewhat lacking in the boiler-house department. Yes, they still have first-choice pairing Tim Swinson and Jonny Gray, and the regular second choices: Scott Cummings and Kieran McDonald-Seran, while of course Rob Harley can switch easily between the boiler-house and the flank.

Still, Greg's departure creates a space, hopefully for a young and promising Scottish lock. Good luck in France big man.

YESTERDAY, I mentioned the New Zealand Herald's series of “Big Read” sports stories. Well, today they put up a cracker – the story of 1956 All Black's half-back and captain Pat Vincent, a man whose legacy is the wonderful effect he had in promoting rugby in San Francisco during many years in the city by the bay, work which got him into the US Rugby Hall of Fame.

Pat Vincent

It's a terrific, albeit tragic story. However, it might well cause ructions back in the Land of the Long White Cloud, since it alludes to the presumption, fairly well-known, but rarely if ever discussed, either in California or back in Canterbury, the province he captained as well as the All Blacks – that Vincent was Gay.

I mean, the All Blacks are widely-recognised as the epitome of macho masculinity – a gay All Black, far-less a gay AB's captain – unthinkable - there will be a few ABs birlin' in their graves. While none has yet done a Gareth Thomas or a Nigel Owens and come out openly, there must have been more than one gay All Black. Certainly, the way one or two have pranced around during the production number which the haka has become, was camper than a Boy Scouts Jamboree.

LIKE a lot of people within the Independence movement, I have grave reservations about the UK's Honours system. Of course, particular excellence in any field deserves recognition, but, it's the whole apartheid part of the UK's system which gets to me.

The 2019 New Year Honours recipients have just been announced. I have no complaint about Bill Beaumont getting his “K” and becoming Sir Bill – well-deserved. However, that Willie-John McBride, ridiculously late, only gets a CBE, is a disgrace – but not quite as bad as Jim Telfer still being Mr, he should have had the tap on the shoulders with the big sword years ago. Well done too, to Louise Martin, the “Queen” of Commonwealth Games sport, on her Damehood.

However, that it is now Sir Alistair Cook, Essex boy, former chorister, but still only Mr Geoffrey Boycott professional Yorkshireman, rather grates. And poor Gareth Southgate, manages England to fourth in football's World Cup, had they won it, he too would have got his K. And, penultimately in my list of gripes, Dame Twiggy – FFS!!!

 A richly-deserved OBE - well done Big Yin

But finally, well done Doddie Weir, for getting an OBE for his marvellous efforts to raise awareness of and cash for research into MND, the dreadful illness which has afflicted him. But, for me, he, like Willie-John, should have been up alongside Bill Beaumont in the ranks of the newly knighted.

A Plea For The Publishing Of Big Reads In Scotland

WITH THE television jammed on BBC1, (unresponsive remote) last night, I was forced to browsing the internet in search of entertainment. I found myself checking out the New Zealand Herald's website, where I struck gold.

 New Zealand rugby writer Chris "England and Wales are rubbish" Rattue

The Herald gets something of a bum rap from the movers and shakers in the London-based UK media machine. Yes, it is perhaps a greater cheer-leader for the All Blacks than even the Daily Mirror or the Sun are for the England football team. Of course, sports writer Chris Rattue knows instinctively which button to press to upset the English and Welsh rugby media, but, their continuing battle of minds with my old mate Steve Jones is a constant joy.

But, as I had confirmed last night – the Herald treats sport far-more seriously than even our own broadsheets do, and, in as sports-mad a nation as New Zealand, that sells.

For instance, they currently have up on their website a round-up of the “50 most-influential women in New Zealand sport.” This is a list onto which the wonderful Portia Woodman only just scrapes at number 50, one of the few rugby players to make it. I might try a similar Scottish list, but, there would be Judy Murray, Liz McColgan, Winnie Wooldridge, Rhona Martin, Eve Muirhead and Julie Fleeting apart, very few household names on it – such is the cavalier manner in which our msm treats the distaff side of sport in Scotland.

They also in New Zealand, regularly do something which even our “serious” newspapers do infrequently, if at all: “the Big Read,” (this is an article sometimes running to over 2000 words – twice the length of the average Aristotle blog post) and, so-engrossed in one or two that I found did I become, that before I knew it, it was 2am and I was still reading.

Two wonderful athletes in the all black of New Zealand, Sir Peter Snell, left, and Sir Murray Halberg

There was a cracking piece on Sir Peter Snell, New Zealand's three times Olympic gold medallist (800 metres in 1960 and 1964, 1500 metres also in '64); now there's a hat-trick which eluded even Coe and Ovett. They even, with the help of Air New Zealand, sent the writer to Texas to interview Sir Peter, who has lived there for many years and who turned 80 last month.

Then there was a piece of the kind I used to do rather well out of, back in the days when the Glasgow office of the Sunday Times had a bit more freedom to locally source stories: the “Where are they now” piece. Such articles used to be a summer staple – I still recall the fun I had tracking down: “The Lost Boys,” the members of the legendary Scotland Under-16 team who lost a Hampden Junior World Cup Final to the “Saudi Arabia Under-23s”, but who failed to match Brian O'Neil and Paul Dickov, to name but two and go on to win a full cap.

I still laugh at one proud father's explanation for his son's failure to train-on to greatness: “He fell among rogues and vagabonds at Dundee United, sharing a flat with Duncan Ferguson and becoming his 'gofer'.”

But, I digress. I was fascinated by one long read, topped-off with a picture of New Zealand's “Boys of '92” - the legendary New Zealand Schools XV of 1992. Everyone has heard of Carlos Spencer, Jeff Wilson and Jonah Lomu,three of the ten All Blacks to emerge from that team. Or future Samoan internationalists Trevor Leota and Ngapaku Ngapaku, but, this Big Read concentrated on the guys who didn't make it. Guys like captain Jamie Haynes, already being tipped as a future All Black, but, who gave up rugby because of his Jehovah's Witness beliefs, or Matthew Grace, who, on the day Lomu's autobiography was published, arrived at work to find a photocopied picture of the '92 team stuck to his computer terminal with the message: “What the fuck happened to you?” scrawled across it.

What the fuck happened to Matthew Grace? asked a work-mate

Then there is Heath McDonnell, the one who has disappeared completely – not even the Herald, with all its resources, could track him down.

I just love these types of articles and it is a crying shame that, thanks to the current obsession with “personality-type” pieces about sport today, not forgetting the increasingly-tight departmental budgets and the lack of space, our home-grown media does not do them.

Rugby is particularly well-suited to Big Reads, there is so much happening below the PRO14, which is about as deeply into rugby's hinterland as the mainstream media digs.

Frazier Climo - by Taranaki standards, urbane and sophisticated

The Herald did a wonderful Big Read piece on the Dean Cup – a little local competition played between three clubs in the backwoods of Taranaki, between teams containing players who make Ayr's Frazier Climo – another Taranaki boy – appear urbane and sophisticated.

It gives the impression the background music to the matches is duelling banjos, or a third XV Border League – wonderful stuff, illustrated with some marvellous photographs.

The likes of Big Barney, across at The Offside Line, the guys on Scottish Rugby Blog, or Weegie R Ugby, even me, I dare say we could do such pieces online, but, they could never have the impact, or the circulation, of a Big Read, copiously illustrated with good pictures, across two pages.

Such pieces raise the game's profile, get people talking about rugby and, in these days of wall-to-wall football coverage, mostly banal in the extreme, I would reckon any paper brave enough to start publishing Big Reads, would win, win.

Aye Son, We Have All Made Bad Mistakes At Murrayfield

REFLECTING on Saturday night's result in the first leg of the 1872 Cup, I, as a Glasgow supporter, was naturally disappointed at the result. Listening to the excellent BBC Radio Shortbread commentary, it was clear, Edinburgh was the better side, and deservedly won.

 Adam Hastings, made two bad mistakes at Murrayfield, but, on reflection, not as bad as the kick from in front of the posts, which his Dad missed against England

By the way, well done Peter Wright, for bringing “grannied” back into popular culture. But, the mighty Wrighty apart, what might I talk about. Well, in modern rugby, some defences certainly play for interceptions. To be caught-out once is bad enough; but, to be caught twice – as Adam Hastings was – is carelessness in the extreme.

What did strike me, however, was the crowd. OK, last-minute Christmas Shopping might have caught-out one or two, but, I was disappointed that only 21,000 turned up. I don't know what the split was: does the SRU even know, or have a means of telling us?

However, a man can speculate. Glasgow has a “core” home support of 7000; Edinburgh's core support is around 4000 – these are the people who will turn-up regardless. I don't think all 7000 Scotstoun regulars made the trip along the M8. Let's be generous and say half of the regulars made the trip – that's 3500 Glasgow fans.

Take them out of the equation, that leaves 17,500 fans. Take out the 4000 Edinburgh regulars and that leaves us with 13,500 casual fans. So, that appears to be the Edinburgh/South rugby congregation. If we assume (perhaps optimistically) that most of these fans are regular attenders at club games – of which there were none on Saturday – that means the potential audience for the three Edinburgh S6 franchises is not at all large.

Some of those 13,500 “floating” fans will probably have come up from the Borders, or from elsewhere. Say somewhere around one-third of our 13,500 come into this category, that takes the “floating” figure down to around the 9000 mark.

You might reasonably take another 1000 out of that figure, as rugby people whose first allegiance is to the Regional League clubs within easy travelling distance of BT Murrayfield. Split that remaining 8000 figure up among Edinburgh's ten Premiership and National League clubs, and you get an average interested figure of 800 or so per club.

These figures, I admit, are a tad optimistic in some cases, but, I would suggest, assuming they are going well, each of the three S6 franchises will be very happy to have a 1000-strong core home support they can rely on.

To be honest, I see starting S6 with those numbers will be problematic for the financial viability of the franchise level of rugby in Edinburgh. We are also told, Edinburgh rugby fans will stick with their club teams rather than the franchises.

The three franchises will, therefore, have to find – from somewhere – a whole raft of new fans, and, given the lack of media interest we are likely to see in S6, that's going to be a hugely-difficult task.

Yesterday, I was chatting to a rugby man who has access to some of the rugby places which are off-limits to the fans and the press, and he was telling me: the Glasgow squad – almost to a man, HATE the 1872 Cup matches, whereas the Edinburgh lads, by and large, love them.

Dave Rennie - should maybe bring in a sports psychoogist this week

This may be why, in recent times, Edinburgh has tended to own Glasgow when the Christmas/New Year games come along. It might also have Dave Rennie thinking of bringing-in a sports psychologist. As we all know, the hardest part of an athlete to train is that six inch or so space between their ears, maybe Rennie should be putting a bit more work into that area in the time he has with his squad this week.

As a Glasgow fan, with long exposure to rugby at this time of year, I am kind of hoping we see something like a return to the good old days of Scottish Trials. When we had two, the first was usually a sort-out, allowing the selectors to decide who were the in-form players, who would be put into the Blues for the Final Trial.

This occasionally meant, established caps were given a required boot up the back side, by being dropped to the Whites, who, more often than not blew the Blues away in the first half, got promoted at the interval and, voila, the Scotland team to play France in the opening Five Nations match got at least 40 minutes together.

Well, the sides cannot be swapped round for Saturday, but, Glasgow, as supposedly the top side, will know, they have a very big job on their hands at Scotstoun.

Finally, with the social programme I have on my hands this week – I do not expect to be blogging much between now and 2019. Apologies for what will be a patchy service, but, I will not be totally silent.

Meantime, have yourselves a Merry little Christmas, and I will be back on the other side of the turkey, stuffing and sprouts.