I'VE been trying to cheer Mossie up, or at least get him to snap out of it. He really seems to think his pigs are hard done by. He has a most efficient outfit.

Charlie Allan Farmer's Diary I'VE been trying to cheer Mossie up, or at least get him to snap out of it. He really seems to think his pigs are hard done by. He has a most efficient outfit.

He grows all his own grain, so he is not spending a fortune hauling grain to market and pigfeed from market. Herding Mossie's pigs just means opening one gate and shutting another. There is no need for the wife and bairns, or lots of pigmen at £30,000 a year, to scramble about the close waving their arms to get pigs through small doorways.

Last year, he complained that he would have to stop the pigs unless he got 25p a kilo extra and now he is getting that and more.

So what's he complaining about?

Well, you wouldn't know from asking him, so I spoke to Gordon McKen, who has run Scottish Pig Producers, which has marketed the majority of Scotland's pigs since it was the co-op which handled the Farmer's pigs in the bad old days when there were pigs at Little Ardo.

Then the Farmer understood how easy it was to produce pork at a loss.

McKen told me: "The boys are aye girnin, but there's jist nae a lot to girn about at the moment, with pork at 130p a kilo."

I suppose Mossie knows that really but he can't understand why things aren't even better.

The euro has risen against sterling by more than 20% in the last year, so surely we are able to see off European competition? The Polish, Dutch and Danish herds are all down. The British herd is less than half of its peak. Pork must be scarce.

"So why am I nae makin a fortune?"

Well, according to McKen all that is needed is time.

It takes a lot of time for the supermarkets to adjust their habits from sourcing their pigmeat on the European markets at will. Then, there are a lot of old contracts which have to be run through before new prices take hold.

But the strength of the euro is really critical. It gives Scottish farmers a huge competitive advantage over the "Europeans". In fact, McKen says now must be the time to get our beef back into its pre-eminent position in the restaurants of Paris and Milan.

"Anyway," he says, "The message to Mossie is, Stick in. There's a good time coming'."

Mind you, I think maybe it's his little finger that is the real cause of Mossie's gloom. Only a few weeks after being threatened with the loss of an arm over an infection acquired in the piggery, he's been in the wars again.

When he prepares a pig for barbecuing he ties its belly up with wire. It was when he was then greasing the carcase with his miracle potion and rubbing it well in that a shard of wire punctured his crannie and unleashed a string of expletives worthy of a television chef.

Well, well. He was busy so the injury got the usual treatment - it was ignored until it started to swell.

The barbecue was in Aberdeen so, mindful of his previous minor accident and how far wrong it had gone, he reckoned there would be time after installing his mobile rotisserie to nip down to Casualty.

That was no use. There were 34 people in front of him in the queue and most had more impressive injuries than a swollen pinkie. He would come back after the party. Then things would have gone quiet.

That was what he did but they hadn't gone at all quiet. The nurse explained that it was the ice. Ever so many people had slipped and hurt themselves. But, as long as there wasn't another Piper Alpha disaster he would be taken by five o'clock in the morning. No use.

He went home, "opened it up a bitty wi a razor blade and held in the Dettol", and took the swollen and throbbing finger to bed.

He woke about six. Was glad to note it wasn't throbbing and had a gentle feel of it. Well, joy and relief! It wasn't swollen at all. Mossie went back to sleep.

But all was not well. When he woke at eight the finger was swollen again and throbbing. It was a mystery - until he saw his Alison smiling at him that way he doesn't see as often nowadays. Then he realised. The unswollen finger he had checked out in the night had been the wife's, and, right enough, her's wasn't swollen.

His doctor soon sorted him out with antibiotics.

And on a lighter note, I was down this week at Montrose signing books at Hoggs the newsagent and bookshop in the High Street.

My host, Alister Hogg, is a tax commissioner. He adjudicates in cases where people have disputes with the Inland Revenue. It is an interesting job though he says it is unpaid. It is a labour of love/hate. Not everyone believes he would do such a time-consuming job free of charge, certainly not the hero of this story he told me.

In 1945, a farmer came at last to a settlement with the commissioners and agreed to pay £10,000, a huge sum, but not an unrealistic one, to cover five years of the war for a farmer who had a large number of hens.

He took out a wad of fivers that would have choked a horse, paid cash and made for the door.

"But you'll need a receipt," said the commissioner.

The farmer was astonished, "You're surely nae pittin this through the books?"

porc@charlieallan.com