Having been interviewed for a local TV news feature recently, I’ve been receiving feedback. The people that care about me most had two main questions: what’s with the Rupert-the-Bear scarf and why was your hair brushed forward like that?

A recent report by the National Audit Office has indicated that banknotes worth £50 billion appear to have gone missing. It said that there is little reliable information regarding the whereabouts of the notes which are not used in transactions or held as savings.

It could be that they’ve been taken overseas, tucked away in homes or that they are being used in the ‘shadow economy’. I’ve checked under my mattress and they are not there.

The chances of a healthy white male of my age dying in the next year is roughly 300/1. Whether you think those odds are high or low may depend on whether you work with me (in which case it’s possible you think the odds should be much shorter) or upon your attitude to risk and your experience of gambling…

They say that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, but that’s not strictly true. The grass on the track at Kelso has been lovingly tended so that it is now a dark shade of ‘ICI’ green…

It’s been a week of revelations: finger-lickin’ is no longer good, EastEnders isn’t real and racecourses don’t make any money…

Nineteen horses completed the computer generated Virtual Grand National in April this year, ten fell, seven refused and four jockeys were unseated. You could argue that the proportion of completions was about right and that the algorithm used was a good one.

But then I’m sure that John Swinney and Gavin Williamson thought that the algorithms developed for awarding exam grades this month were equally as effective…

There really are people that possess extrasensory perception and it won’t surprise you to learn that they are almost exclusively female.

Tetrachromacy probably isn’t quite so useful as telepathy, clairvoyance or precognition. Technically it isn’t even a sixth sense; it’s an extension of one of the five more readily accessible senses commonly known as sight, but it does enable some people to perceive things in a way that others will simply never experience.

The vast majority of tasks that we fulfil successfully every day, we do with no conscious thought. Climbing out of bed, making coffee, driving to work, getting dressed (yes – sometimes in that order): all of them accomplished without any real consciousness.

My Borders borders barely bear any colour before May and will be botanically boring by September…

Is there anything quite so satisfying as French onion soup?

When cooked slowly it’s like a three course meal, the hors d’oeuvre being the delicious aroma that emanates from the saucepan while you caramelise the onions and then reduce the beef stock over an hour or so on a simmering heat…