I've just had Mossie in-bye.
He's furious about an article in the once-proud Sunday Times, the sister paper of the more widely-read Sun. This seeks to whip-up support for the burgeoning price of agricultural land.
And Mossie's even more furious with one our neighbours, Andrew Booth, who has been conned into speaking to the writer about his i n t e g r a t e d f a r m s h o p s enterprise.
Very enterprising it is too, but Andrew is being held responsible for the headline, "We're living in fields of gold". Pictured along with Andrew are fields of straw bales and the implication that farmers who have always made a fortune have really hit a goldmine these days.
We farmers don't like that.
We prefer the image of the poor farmer struggling to feed the nation and to keep the bankers off our backs. We don't like the glossy Sundays to call us "gentlemen of the land", considering the fact that we do most of the work on the farms ourselves these days.
And we certainly don't like our few paternal acres called "fields of gold".
In truth, poor Andrew should not be blamed. "Fields of Gold" didn't come from him but from estate agents Savills and Knight Frank, which have an interest in talking the price of land even further up and which are also credited with the phrase "gentlemen of the land".
However, Savills and its friends, which were mentioned nine times in the article, can't possibly be as bad as this writer makes them look.
They advise land buyers to let them manage their estates - leave it to the experts.
Those would-be financial advisers like those experts in the pensions funds who bought land from farmers for £1000 an acre in the early 1980s and sold it back to them 10 years later for £500. The same people who have decided that, now that agricultural land is £6000 an acre, it is time to get back in.
Savills is now looking for business from investors who want to "live in a nice farmhouse and rent your fields to a local farmer.With rents rising all the time you could be able to pay off your mortgage in about 10 years."
What absolute innumerate rubbish. They might manage to justify a 100-year pay-back - but 10 years?
T h e e s t a t e a g e n t s a r e accused of saying that the "farms are literally (sic) fields of gold". So they stand condemned as illiterate as well.
Either the Sunday Times owes Savills et al an apology, or farmers are due an apology from Savills.
It is all very sad, but I fear that Andrew will be an old man before he lives down his reputation as the man who lives in fields of gold.
And the Farmer is furious about somebody else saying whatever suits his argument without bothering to get it right. I refer to the American Trump organisation, which is hoping to get planning permission for 1450 houses, a hotel and two golf courses on a precious wilderness site, including a site of special scientific interest, just north of Aberdeen.
Trump's people, led by their charismatically-challenged Scottish front man George Sorial, got in the local paper last week to impress the world about the amount of money they have spent on the project.
It is to cost a billion, bring to the north-east a championship golf course fit for The Open, and they say they have already spent "tens of millions".
But don't feel too sorry for Mr Trump.
Okay, the Menie estate cost them £6.5m, but that money is well invested. The 1400 acres of agricultural land alone is now worth at least £8.5m.
They could sell that, keep the house and still show a profit on that part of the deal.
And there was no development potential in the price that Trump paid for Menie.
No-one ever dreamt that planning permission could be had there. The planners had protected the pristine area all the way from Bridge of Don to Newburgh without exception.
But afterTrump it is worth a fortune. It is pretty clear that planning permission would have been given if Trump's people hadn't been so truculent.
If they had been willing to amend their plans.
If Trump gets his way we will be giving him a present of at least £250m. And if he doesn't, the local builders will be in there with plans which will meet planners' requirements.
The Menie Estate is now worth a far, far bigger fortune.
Mr Trump has a triumph on his hands, whether Trumpton gets the go-ahead or not.
And, finally, I am grateful to Ted Veitch, who has picked up my little rant last week about coming-of-age ceremonies and the government's ideas about introducing an oath of allegiance for Brits.
He points out that the Luos in East Africa, who bash out their teenagers' front teeth to mark their majority, have a precedent in Scotland, as he r e m e m b e r s f r o m h i s upbringing in the Kingdom.
He writes: "Maybe you've forgotten the trend after the NHS came into effect. At least in Fife, thereafter, every 21- year-old got their teeth and glasses' en route to the altar - a coming of age of sorts, would you not say?"
