Get a grip ...

Yes we are off on a sporting theme again, namely the European Athletics Championships - what do you mean "are they on?" You obviously don't live with men in the same house. On any given Saturday we can move from,

Grand Prix (here's an idea organisers, just go round twice and see who wins instead of 47 times!!!) and do those cars have to be so LOUD.

Ladies golf - who knew that Korean women were really good at golf - must be a nation of golfing widowers.

Athletics and this is where I must make my point - why is it so blooming difficult to pass a baton from one person to the other while running at the same time? We are absolutely hopeless at it , both the men and the women managed to make a complete hash of it. I would have thought if you were picked to take part in the relay race that the two things you must be able to do are run (obviously!) and pass a wee stick to the next person round the track.

Unfortunately , our athletes are not the most articulate and so when asked why they can't do this simplest of tasks they come up with all kinds of excuses and keep saying that they are really "disappointed".

No, the word you are looking for is clumsy - get a grip!! Can I suggest that you adopt the training methods employed by Primary 7 Commercial Primary School relay team in 1962(yours truly was the final leg - huge responsibility!) Our coach was the indomitable Miss Halpern whose parting advice was ,

"Run as fast as you can and don't drop the baton" - enough said! (Yes reader, we won, of course!)

Culross

Can I recommend , dear reader (that's you Louise!) a trip across the Forth to Culross, a pretty wee village on the shores of the Forth. Cobbled streets lead up to an old Abbey and gabled houses crowd into twisting wee streets.

Many of the buildings are owned by the National Trust for Scotland and so are painted in sandy and ochre colours which give the place a faintly foreign feel.

Well worth a visit and I can recommend the Gallery/ Coffee Shop for a nice wee scone and cup of tea.

Words Fail Me ( ...well almost!)

You know how sometimes you read something in the paper which stops you in your tracks and has you thinking "No, that can't possibly be right? Someone, somewhere is having a laugh, surely??"

Well, I had one of those moments yesterday when I read that Joe Cole ,footballer, had been signed by Liverpool for a wage of ........£90,000 A WEEK !!!!!!!!!

Reader (are there any of you out there?) I make no apology for the capitals or the liberal use of exclamation marks.If there was a symbol for rapid shaking of the head while throwing hands up in the air, I would have used that too.

Just to put that into some kind of perspective I have some other "wages" for comparison - all this information has been supplied by Google, if it's wrong, write to them!

David Cameron, Prime Minister of the UK - £143,000 PER YEAR

Barbara Stocking, Chief Executive Officer of Oxfam - £90,000 PER YEAR

Newly qualified nurse in the NHS - £20,000 PER YEAR

So in a fortnight, Joe Cole is going to earn more than the Prime Minister of a European country earns in a year??? I think you can see where I am going with this dear reader, and I apologise now but I am going to do some internet shouting;

HE KICKS A BALL FOR GOODNESS SAKE !!!

Raindrops keep falling on my head. ...

Not that I am complaining, although everything in my garden is now completely flattened.Flowers which should be standing a foot tall and stretching their heads gracefully to catch the warmth of the sun are lying horizontal along the ground in a kind of stunned "what is going on here?" kind of way!

Golfers in St Andrews have abandoned their pastel coloured Pringles and sunshades and wrapped themselves in their cagoules and woolly hats. The wind is blowing the flags almost out of their holes and is threatening to blow any wayward golf balls into the North Sea. But hey - you are professionals, this will test how good you are!

As on so many occasions in life the last words must be given to Dolly Parton,

"The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain"

Spot on again, Dolly!

Viva Espana!

Well done Spain for winning the World Cup- and thank you for making me a fiver!

Boo to Holland for trying to permanently maim every one of the Spanish team by hacking into their legs (and stomachs!) every time they got the ball.

And well done , of course, to Psychic Paul the octopus who got all his predictions right - would have liked to have seen him brought to the podium and presented with a medal.

Harper Lee - Tweeters take note.

The following extract is from The Times newspaper;

"Could Harper Lee, the author of To Kill A Mockingbird, be any cooler? First she writes one of the finest and most popular novels in the history of English literature and has the tenacity to resist demands for a follow up. Then she resists pressure to appear in public, despite endless pressure for her to do so.
And then when, the other week a tabloid reported harasses her for an interview in her home town of Monroeville, Alabama, she responds with the following words; "Thank you so much, you are most kind. We are just going to feed the ducks, but call me the next time you are here"

Do you notice something about these words Lee's first publicity quoted comment in years? They contain almost precisely the number of characters that would count as a tweet on Twitter. And in doing so she draws a contrast between her dignity and the thousands of less talented, less classy contemporary writers degrading themselves on an hourly basis on social networking sites"

Couldn't have put it better myself!!