As Gordon Reid finishes his build-up in London prior to joining the brilliant Team GB in Rio (doesn’t it make you proud to be British), he goes with the best wishes of all the people of Argyll and Bute. What a terrific year he has had with Australian and Wimbledon success. He is a genuine ambassador for our area and UK in sport in general, and having met him, he is also a nice guy too.

Visit Scotland: With recent news that the Scottish economy is flat-lining, literacy and numeracy are declining, Scotland’s NHS budget is increasing slower than England’s and our roads are literally falling apart, is there any chance that our First Minister will turn her attention to the job in hand? Having racked up many air miles, hotel points and met an assortment of low ranking European bods for no benefit other than the cursory photo-call, would it not be better if Nippy Sweetie set aside her obsession with indyref2 and concentrated on the domestic agenda for once with a wee visit to Scotland? After all is what she and her SNP colleagues are elected and paid to do.

Named Person: Ruth Davidson’s team has done a great job in keeping up the pressure on the SNP over the Named Person law. The so-called snoopers charter has not only failed in practice in the Fife pilot to protect those most vulnerable and at risk, it has been holed below the water line with a further court defeat. Time to abandon this politically motivated scheme entirely and leave our professionals and parents to perform their respective roles.

Successor: Good news that the UK Parliament voted to start work on the replacement of Trident, securing the future and jobs of the thousands that live and work in this area. A real shame however that our current MP put party diktat before local people and voted against.

Summer Festival: After a damp start to the day, the sun made a rare but welcome appearance at the festival last Saturday. Good range of stalls in the square, plus lots of representation from those at the Base. The Neptune band playing some jazz were great and will surely be welcomed back to the Winter Festival. Well done to all the organisers but an especially big thank-you to those that were there at 7am, stalwarts John Clark and Graham Barr.