I thought that the long awaited day of handicap improvement had arrived when I carded 46 for the front nine on Saturday. That's my second best score ever for those nine holes. But I couldn't keep up the pace and returned a miserable 56 for the back nine leaving me stuck just where I was before I started. Today looked even worse after nine holes although I rallied and scored 48 for the back nine.

If only these two halves could have been played in the same competition.

But I enjoyed both rounds despite my inability to play well consistently and despite the heat. When I got into my car at ten to six this afternoon to leave the golf club the thermometer registered the outside temperature at 40.5 degrees centigrade. Admittedly the car was standing in full sun but even when I got home and parked in the shade it was showing 33.5. Compare that with 13 degrees and raining reported for central Scotland the other day and you have the answer to the question often asked of me - why do you come here in the summer.

I don’t nearly often enough share French political or cultural developments with my readers but an item on the news this morning caught my attention. Actually two items caught my attention. One was the promotion of Andy Murray to number two in the world tennis rankings. Hats off to the young man.

The other was the news that the fashion for emphasising and exposing the breasts has run its course. Apparently the girls of the present generation are more modest than their mothers. Nor do they see burning their bras and their boobs as a mark of liberation. I don’t suppose one runs much risk of burning one’s boobs at 13 degrees so perhaps it will be a while till this fashion change reaches Scotland.

Now clearly if there is a change in fashion there has to be a change from A to B. B in this case according to the commentators (all of them supremely well qualified in one way or another to divine such shifts) is an emphasis on the buttocks and even a revelation thereof.

I shall keep a watchful eye.