We've been on a family holiday to Fuerteventura, where we shared a lovely week with several families of cockroaches and an even greater congregation of ants. I walked up and down the seafront with my postbox red "Brims Ness" surf T-shirt glaring at the surfer dudes riding the puny waves. Huh! I live in Thurso - I scoff at your semi-tropic surfy action! Come to where the real men and women surf!

Landing at Edinburgh we drove north through the night and nearly crashed whilst watching the stars spread out above us. Wee glimmerings of aurora borealis as we headed up the coast. As my eyes became heavier and heaveier I came up with a new use for those annoying electronic roadside sign boards that UK trunk roads have grown like cancers - instead of the turgid instructional nonsense such as "tiredness kills - take a break" (what, in Drumochtar at 11.55pm?)or "don't take drugs and drive" (take them where? over the border?) why don't we ask for a more uplifting set of messages? I'm thinking that simple ones might be "don't worry - be happy" or "a stitch in time saves nine". But going further we might even have the odd line of poetry or song, or perhaps some short philosophical maxim.

So I'm picturing the A9 road at night, with its electronic scoreboard-type screens saying "we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars".

I think it would catch on....