Drew Cochrane on Climate Coalition warning over chips

However, the zealots of an organisation called Climate Coalition say the changing weather means that we are going to run out of chips - which, admittedly, would bring the Largs tourist trade sliding to a greasy halt.

You see, according to the coalition of "environmental and social groups", because we apparently had real summer weather - it was hot for a few weeks - we did not produce as many potatoes and carrots last year as we usually do. 

Ah well, at least there won't be so much food going to waste.

Of course, to make their bonkers case, the Climate Coalition described last summer as "extreme weather".

I suppose after six successive years of relentless soggy summers they are entitled to some hyperbole but many of us, of a certain vintage, remember Junes, Julys and Augusts when the sun shone with some consistency.

As a boy I was never away from the shores of Stevenston and Saltcoats collecting empty lemonade bottles for the money back (I was always enterprising). I was also a tattie howker, meaning that I was one of a squad which picked the potatoes out in the fields in, invariably, high temperatures....and that was more than half a century ago.

The Coalition also claim that our chips are smaller because the tatties are "mis-shapen" but, obviously, they haven't shopped at places like Fishworks and Gino's in Tron Place (others are available). You still get big beauties there.

Climate Coalition director Clara Goldsmith said: "Losing an inch off our chips is no laughing matter."

No, Clara, but you and your cronies certainly are.

Oh, and you'd better watch out because, according to a Scottish newspaper headline recently, "global warming is making the sea look more blue or green."  Well, did you ever...

American scientists warn that, by the end of the century, climate change will make the blue and green of the world's oceans bluer and greener. Aye, but will goldfish be golder or red snappers redder? It's a worry, ain't it?

As a former editor I wonder what today's daily papers and media would do if they didn't have nutty professors and university researchers to fall back on.

Some boffins at Edinburgh University have found that one in six of us will develop depression "during our lifetime" because of our DNA.  In my case, it is usually when Largs Thistle lose or my Saturday horse-betting line goes down at the first hurdle.

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My Thought for the Week: The richest person is the one who is contented with what he or she has.

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While snoozing on the train journey from Malaga to Arroyo de la Miel I was suddenly awakened by loud classical music.

You might have half expected it in a recorded sound loop, but no, the operatic singer was right beside me, belting out big time (a musical term) some high pitched aria or other.

Turned out he was a Mexican opera tenor who makes money by jumping on and off the Malaga trains to serenade the captive passengers.

It’s a funny old place, Spain. In one town, A Mezquita, they hold an annual lottery with a difference. Organisers lay out grids in a field, with numbered rectangles per grid. A cow is then released into the field, and where it decides to ‘deliver’ its cowpat determines the lucky winner.

Is that what you call a poop scoop?

Then, at Christmas, the figure of a baby Jesus was stolen from a nativity scene in Alicante. Thieves demanded a ransom of 2000 euros for its return to the manger or Jesus would “get it”.

After a furious reaction on social media the thieves, wearing black balaclavas, abandoned the figure in a street. Certainly, not three wise men.

The Spaniards get their money’s worth out of Christmas. They finally hand out their presents on January 6, after the traditional and spectacular Tres Reyes (Three Kings) processions in every town where thousands of sweets are thrown out to the kids. I got two jellies.

I’m back in Baltic Largs now, but don’t worry, I'll have more Spanish reflections next week.

What’s that you say? Haud me back. Ole!