P&J Column 9.7.15

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The Open without Rory McIlroy? It’s like Polmuir Road – a complete wash-out.

Cava Kenny Cordiner, the football pundit who kicks back

I’ve always liked watching golf and I can’t wait to see all the big names at St Andrews next week competing for the Clarinet Jug. But it looks like there will be one big name what will not be featuring on them giant sideboards, and that name is Rory McIlroy. Rory’s been having a kickabout with his pals and he’s knackered his ankle liniments – total shocker. It’s always a shame when a sporting champion does not get the chance to defend his title, and I know just how Rory feels after I was involved in a similar incident back when I was just a cookie.

It was when I was playing for Kincorth Academy. We’d gone on a tremendous run and gotten ourselves into the final of the Robert Rae Sports Cup against our swarm enemy, Torry. The night before the game our coach says to us, he says, “Quiet night in tonight, lads – I don’t want any of you showing up injured tomorrow.” I never thought golf could be dangerous, so me and my pal Smudger went to Balnagask for a swift 18 holes. It was a tight match, and I had to hole a tricky putt on the 18th to avoid losing. Now, it might surprise some of my regulatory readers to learn that when things don’t go my way, Old Kenny has got a bit of a temper. When the putt slipped by the hole I threw my ball up in the air and swung my putter at it. I’d done that heaps of times before and never connected with the ball but this time I caught it flush. The ball flew towards the wall, hut it and rebounded square in the eye! Talk about an unlucky Rick O’Shea!

The next morning my eye was swollen up like I’d gone 10 rounds with Mike Dyson. Our coach was fizzing. He says to me, he says “Trust you Kenny! I asked you to do one thing and you couldn’t do it right!” That was a big improvement for me, though. Usually the coach asked me to do heaps of things and I never managed to not do none of them right!

View from the Midden – rural affairs with Jock Alexander

Weel, it’s been a precipitous wik here in the village. Weather the like of which we’ve nae seen in, oooh, wiks has been assailing wir hames. Rain so heavy that it’s fair sent the local slurry on the move again, washin doon the main street and pittin paid tae a’ the mysterious stuff that we were left wi efter last wik’s unseasonable het weather. We hid niver seen the like afore but, efter extensive research, we learned fit it wiz ca’ed: “dry ground”.

So at least we ken far we are noo it’s back tae the usual dreich misery. Meikle Wartle may hae six feet o weet sharn flowin’ through the square, but at least we noo hiv another three new ponds fer the local kiddies tae swim in, thanks tae the potholes that we didnae fill in efter last year’s torrential rain.

But it’s nae jist rain, we’ve also had thunder and lightnin’ tae contend wi, which I must say is afa unusual. Some in the village hiv been gan aboot blamin’ this freak weather on Feel Moira and the pagan duncin she was accused of daein last wikend. Noo, she did hae siven bottles o’ hame brew and wiz in perty mood, but I da believe she has ony powers o’er the weather.

Mind you, though, we’ve nae seen much of her since the weekend’s lightning strikes. In fact, nae since midnight on Seterday jist efter it hit some transmitters pokin oot of her roof, and she wiz hoppin’ aboot in a lang white coat shoutin’ “It’s alive! It’s alive!” Those who hiv drawn some correlation between these events and the large mute farmhard twi the flat heed and the bolts in his neck that sterted work wi Moira on Monday hiv clearly been oot in the rain too long. Cheerio!

Ron Cluny, Official Council Spokesman

In the Council Chamber, we have been watching events in Greece very closely this week. Partly this is because it behoves us to keep abreast with political events elsewhere, but mainly because we’re hoping that if Greece gets the dunt out of the Euro-zone, the price of 2 weeks in Kefalonia will drop like a stone.

It is sobering to see Greece – the country, let us never forget of Aristotole, Plato and Nana Mouskouri – in such a pickle. But it is inspiring, too, to see people power so much to the fore in the cradle of democracy. A referendum campaign that lasted only a week? What wouldn’t we have given for such a thing in 2014?