On October 9 last year, the Commonwealth Games baton set off on a journey that will eventually take it to every one of the 70 nations taking part in the games.
On June 14, it will enter the final straight when it arrives in Scotland.
Today, we discover exactly where the baton will go in those final 40 days and it truly represents the whole of Scotland: highland and lowland, town and country, ancient and modern. In all, the baton will visit 400 communities and offer thousands of Scots the chance to take part as baton-bearers or spectators.
Speaking in The Herald today, Frank Cottrell-Boyce, who wrote the opening ceremony for the London Olympic Games, says such events always attract some cynics, but his message is: get involved. And one way Scots can do that is to turn out to see the baton as they did in their thousands when the Olympic flame came to Scotland in summer 2012.
As Mr Cottrell-Boyce says, the only alternative is to look back at a missed opportunity. "The saddest thing I heard about the Olympics," he says, "was people saying 'if I knew if it was going to be this good, I would have got involved'."
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