It’s customary at this time of year to sing, dance, feast and make offerings to the gods. Just another day then, in the office at Kelso Racecourse…

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve told people to stop being so nesh about cold weather on racedays… “Sometimes they even race in the snow you know!”

According to the opening track on George Harrison’s final album, if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.

But that didn’t prove very helpful on Thursday when I was lost in Liverpool, trying to find my way to the RCA Showcase Awards at Aintree Racecourse.

You know that Winter is on the way when the woodland turns from red and gold to plain old sticky and bare.

But there are other signs too: Connor is moving the steeplechase fences sideways to provide fresh ground on the take-off and landing areas at Kelso, the British Toy Retailers Association has produced a list of the hottest toys for Christmas, and Frankie Dettori is about to dominate our TV screens for the latest series of “I’m A Celebrity” which starts on Sunday…

From local shops to Caramac Bars, and from cognitive abilities to prostate glands, the general advice is: use them or lose them.

According to Elon Musk, there will come a time when developments in artificial intelligence will make us all redundant. In conversation with Rishi Sunak he said, “You could have a job if you wanted to have a job for personal satisfaction, but the AI would be able to do everything.”

I’m not quite sure who he thinks is going to muck out the horses in trainers’ yards, but Musk touches on an important point – what is the point of life without work?

London is sticky, warm, and smells mainly of armpits. A strong contrast with the Scottish Borders which is chilly, damp and smells mainly of fresh, fruity, farmyard manure…

As Ken Dodd might have said, what a beautiful weekend for… sticking a cucumber through someone’s letterbox and shouting “Help, help, the Martians have landed…”

As if backing the winner of the Grand National wasn’t easy enough already (see the blog of 14th April, “Carved in Stone”), changes announced this week are about to narrow the number of potential selections by 15%.

Checking the weather forecast this morning, I noted that Kelso is set for a beautiful day on Sunday: unbroken sunshine from 7am until 6pm, a light breeze from the East and temperatures rising from a comfortable 18 degrees in the early hours to a slightly-too-hot 32 degrees by lunchtime…