It’s still a mystery to me why anyone should be bothered about the colour of anybody’s hair, but there you go – they are for some reason. People seem to think that his hair might be regarded as being red, and maybe I’m being a wee bit paranoid here, but I don’t think the possibility of him having red hair is being seen as a plus. I think there are still a lot of people out there looking for reasons to dislike him.

So, again for the record – Andy Murray has brown hair, in fact it’s really dark brown hair. Like all Europeans with brown hair the tiny amount of red hairs show up in the sunshine, but that doesn’t mean that their hair is red. It’s the difference between European and Asiatic hair.

Maybe if he did have red hair he would win a tennis major! I certainly regard it as a positive rather than a liability. Discuss!

So much for all those people who say that kids are able to get work easily if they want it, and they are all too lazy or snooty to start flipping burgers, they obviously haven’t been to Fife, where they can’t flip burgers even if they want to. I feel really sorry for the people who have lost their jobs there because the town is such an unemployment blackspot and it’s going to be so difficult for them to get another job. Kirkcaldy always has been an area of high unemployment thanks to the Labour Party stranglehold on the area and having Gordon Brown as our MP who did absolutely nothing for Kirkcaldy except poke his nose in things which had nothing to do with him, and overruled the council.

McDonald’s isn’t everyone’s cup of tea or meal of choice, certainly not mine anyway but it’s a shame that yet another business has disappeared from the High Street. The only growth area shop-wise is charity shops and by all accounts it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

And if you fancy a bit of a laugh have a look at this puppet version. I think they’re great and the scenery behind them isn’t too bad either.

Boris Johnson said that David Cameron ‘played a blinder’ at the summit yesterday and Tories seem to be queuing up to agree with him.

Have I wandered into some sort of hospital for the mentally infirm?!

David Cameron has poked himself and the whole of Britain in the eye with a pointed stick. Definitely a blinder!

I don’t see that it’s necessary for them to have a meal at all, and certainly not a big fancy beanfeast which they seem to be setting the scene for. The most they should be having is tap water, beans on toast then some instant coffee and a digestive biscuit. It’s more than some poor souls will be able to afford.

You would think that given the circumstances they would be embarrassed to be spending any money on this summit. I’m sure they could communicate with each other just as well via the internet.

Of course we are the people who will be paying for it all through taxes, it’s about time they realised that things are too serious to be spending anything on expensive fripperies – it dawned on the rest of us ages ago.

I must say that I’m not one of those nutcases who think we should not be in the European Union, it would cost us more to be outside it anyway but that doesn’t mean that I think it’s perfect, there’s an awful lot of room for improvement.

For me it was quite an annoying and uncomfortable read at times and that was due entirely to the character of Charity Lang whom I really, really disliked intensely so it wasn’t a book which I was desperate to get back to whenever I put it down.

It’s the story of two marriages from the 1930s when they were almost newly weds and the two couples become friends when they meet at the University of Wisconsin where the husbands are working. University politics hasn’t changed over the years, it was still a murky, distasteful business when I was in almost exactly the same situation with my husband in the late 1970s.

Anyway Charity and Sid Lang cling to the new arrivals Sally and Larry Morgan like they’re a life raft, almost as soon as they meet and from my experience that’s always a sign of an unhealthy marriage so it rang alarm bells. There’s always a problem in a relationship when they want to spend a lot of time with other people rather than just being happy in their own compmany. Obviously you have to have give and take in any marriage but Charity was only interested in taking – and the only things she gave were orders. Oh and Sid’s money of course. Charity really wasn’t interested in Sid until she realised that he was ‘as rich as Croesus.‘

Sally is bedazzled by Charity mainly because Charity comes from an old, large, well-heeled American family which is the opposite from Sally’s situation as a young woman from a poor Greek family who are all dead. Charity fills Sally’s need for friends and family and so she overlooks the fact that Charity is a truly ghastly woman who has to be right about everything, even although she’s invariably wrong, she won’t ever admit to it and just about all the bad things which happen in the book are caused by Charity.

The absolutely worst thing though is the way Charity treats Sid. He was never going to set the heather on fire but Charity had great expectations for him and when things didn’t go to her plan, which was entirely her fault for being arrogant and directing what Sid should write papers on to get tenure, and of course she was wrong – she didn’t dust herself down and get on with life the way the rest of us would. Charity ended up having a nervous break-down and spent two months in hospital. Those so-called strong women usually can’t cope with life when they don’t get their own way as it happens to them so seldom.

In the end it’s Larry who saves Sid by getting him a job at another university. The book is written from Larry’s perspective but long before it becomes clear that Larry isn’t a fan of Charity I was gnashing my teeth as she was praised to the sky while she was embarking on her mission of festooning herself with loads of kids which she thought it was a good idea to neglect. Just think, all those other lives for her to control, bully and dominate.

I’m sure you’ll realise that I have had close contact with just such a woman in the past and it isn’t fun having to stand by and watch someone humiliate and emasculate her husband in public, hen-pecked doesn’t come close to describing it. The damage done to family members by such a mother is never healed.

In the book Charity decides to continue to control her childrens’ lives from the grave via her will and even draws up a list of women which Sid has to choose a new wife from as apparently he can’t cope on his own!

Happily I can tell you exactly what happens in such a case. The widower takes up a new pastime, such as bowls. Meets up with all the old boys that he went to school with. Joins a club for local businessmen and goes on holiday abroad with them three or four times a year and really enjoys himself. Has two more grandsons presented to him by the members of the family who had watched the older grandchildren being scarred by Granny’s bad behaviour.

Thinks for himself for the first time in years!

Well I did tell you that I was unable to be detached from it, but it is a good book!

I’ve always been a Monty Python fan and The Meaning of Life is on at the moment. Unfortunately it’s on a channel with adverts, which I hate, so between the adverts I switched over to BBC News 24 and what did I see shooting across the bottom of the screen?

The Education Secretary Michael Gove has warned teachers that if they go on strike on Thursday they risk damaging their reputations.

At this rate I’ll have to stop watching the news because I’m just about apoplectic. How can a man (and I use that word very loosely) who behaved as he has in the past even think of warning anybody about their reputation. Being an absolute swine seems to have done him no harm in life, maybe the rest of us have just been too damn decent for our own good!

Speaking of dodgy characters, in my opinion Michael Gove should be sitting in a prison cell at the moment as he was one of the worst MPs involved in the expenses scandal. He flipped his home and was gleefully getting the tax payer to pay for things which he had no right to do. Very interestingly he was keen to give our Prime Minister’s mother-in-law’s shop the business. Also he was quite happy to take his family off to a high class spa and chalked the whole thing up on expenses to be paid by the tax payer. How he can sit and pontificate on the rights of people who work so much harder than he does for so little pay is just beyond me. The man has no shame obviously.

The government seems to think that all teachers and local government workers, including people on very low pay, should quite happily agree to having to work a lot longer for much less of a pension. Apparently, it’s our fault because we are all living longer and the pensions are no longer affordable. That just makes me scream, I don’t know about you but I know absolutely loads of people who have died recently and most of them weren’t lucky enough even to reach pension age as it is now. It may be that people living in the affluent south of England are living longer but in the north things are very different. It’s because of a combination of genetics, poverty and the cold, damp climate.

Would it not be sensible to concentrate on the unemployment problem. If there were more people in work and paying tax and fewer people on unemployment benefit then that would go a long way to solving the problem of a black hole in the pension budget. At the moment, people are being educated only to end up in a dole queue, no matter how many degrees they have.

Better still, the government should tell the banks, who let’s not forget started this whole problem with their stupidity and greed, to stump up money to plug the hole instead of awarding themselves massive tax-free bonuses.

Please take a look at this link, from the Daily Telegraph, but be warned, you may need a sick bag/high blood pressure tablets!

There are still too many miserable people who refuse to support him though. Shame on them. Their excuses are so feeble too.

He’s too grumpy and he never smiles, apparently. But the one that really gets me is – His hair is a bit red!

His hair is dark brown and I think anyone who thinks it’s a bit red must be colour blind. In common with all Europeans his hair has tiny bits of red in it which show up in very bright light, but if he’s supposed to be a redhead, then so is everyone else. Being prejudiced against redheads is the only prejudice which hasn’t been made illegal. If you say anything nasty about the colour of a person’s skin rather than their hair colour you will obviously find yourself in deep trouble. The same goes for nationality.

So what all these people who claim that they don’t like Andy Murray because his hair is a bit red are really saying is that they don’t like him because he’s a big bit Scottish!

It’s a bit much really because we were all supporting Tim Henman and any other British/English tennis players for years, and let’s face it, most of the time Tim was a big bit rubbish.

Gon yersel’ Andy!

Still, it could have been a lot worse and let’s face it, it often has been a lot worse. The only way the UK could be placed any higher nowadays would be if we got enormous tow ropes and dragged this island of ours over to mainland Europe so that we would have some borders with them. The rest of the countries always give their neighbours the highest points.

I call it ungrateful, especially when you think that if it wasn’t for us (and the Americans and Russians) they would all be speaking German, the ones that survived anyway. I suppose there must be a statute of limitations on gratitude and I’m just holding on to a grudge too long!

Have a look/listen if you haven’t a clue what I’m talking about. I think London looks quite good in it but you wouldn’t have got me on top of that building for anything.

I suppose it did mean that there wasn’t much for tourists to spend their money on when they got there but I don’t think that’s a bad thing when you think of the tourist tat that most similar attractions are selling. After all the best things in life are free. The scenery,wildlife and atmosphere is the main attraction. It doesn’t exist when you stick blots on the landscape in the shape of massive man-made constructions.

When Loch Lomond was made a ‘national park’ some years ago I knew it spelled a death sentence to the place that I grew up with. Sure enough, what had been a completely unspoiled place due mainly to the fact that the local council refused planning permission for most things, has sprouted shopping centres and golf courses and is quickly losing its special charm.

It’s not what I call progress. The theme park which is being planned for Balmaha is a nightmarish thought and I really hope that it doesn’t come to fruition. But money talks so I suppose it’s a done deal already. It’s sacrilege!

If you want to read more about it have a look here.