Gosh, I thought I got it tough, when as a 11/12 year old one of my Saturday jobs was to remove really dirty tatties covered in mud and grit from large hessian sacks and weigh them on a balance into 7 and 14 pound brown paper bags for sale in my Dad and Mum's Grocery shop in Swanbourne, Western Australia. I hated the feel of the tatties on my hands --- it was like scrubbing my hands with a dry floor scrubbing brush. Somehow I stalled on the job and caused the work to last for ages, when, if I had had any wisdom at all at the time, I would have gie'in the job laldy and got it over and done with. I did this in a building clad and roofed with rusty flat-iron in century and above century temperatures --- in contrast to you poor folk trudging around freezing fields. Janet and I are off to Albany (Southern West Aust) for the Caledonian Society Burns Supper on 23rd January. Got the honour of delivering The Immortal Speech, which is a bit daunting. St George's Cathedral in Perth (West Australia) is having a Burns Supper, too, which I will miss and which is a bit of a turn-up for the English/Aussie Church. Robbie Burns would be delighted to hear of this I reckon, gi'en his stance on that issue! Cheers ... David Murray,