Another week of excellent snooker has unfortunately seen Stephen Hendry bite the dust but my second favourite, Ronnie O'Sullivan, shows every sign of making it to the final.

I've not spent all my time glued to the telly though.  I popped into the art college to do some oohing, ahing, grunting and muttering for the soundtrack of Matinee Idol and spent an afternoon in the sunshine grunting and muttering my way around the golf course.

Amongst the many good works of the European Union are the various agreements that have been reached on the mutual recognition of qualifications.  These cover varied fields as this little extract from Eur-lex shows

• 31996L0026
  Council Directive 96/26/EC of 29 April 1996 on admission to the occupation of road haulage operator and road passenger transport operator and mutual recognition of diplomas, certificates and other evidence of formal qualifications intended to facilitate for these operators the right to freedom of establishment in national and international transport operations
  Official Journal L 124 , 23/05/1996 P. 0001 - 0010
• 32005L0045
  Directive 2005/45/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 7 September 2005 on the mutual recognition of seafarers' certificates issued by the Member States and amending Directive 2001/25/EC (Text with EEA relevance)
  Official Journal L 255 , 30/09/2005 P. 0160 - 0163
• 31991L0670
  Council Directive 91/670/EEC of 16 December 1991 on mutual acceptance of personnel licences for the exercise of functions in civil aviation
  Official Journal L 373 , 31/12/1991 P. 0021 - 0025

But golf has so far resisted mutual recognition to the extent that the handicap awarded me by the Féderation Française de Golf is not worth the plastic it's stamped on in Scottish eyes.  So I am muttering and grunting my way through a specified series of trials to prove that I am as incompetent a player as the FFG says I am.