NOT long now until we are up to our oxters in Commonwealth Games stuff.
It kicks off in October when the Queen's baton goes on a 100,000-mile trip to 71 countries before coming to Glasgow for the opening ceremony in July next year.
Just to let the organisers know, if the Royal Family are otherwise engaged and Glasgow Lord Provost Sadie is still busy persuading Russia to be nicer to gay folk, I am available to accompany the 2014 baton on its travels. On a no-fee, expenses-only basis as my contribution to the games effort.
Pencil me in for Vanuatu, the Maldives, and Saint Lucia. In fact, anywhere nice in the Pacific or Indian oceans and the Caribbean. Maybe when the baton is on the beaches of Langkawi Island in Malaysia. Or that long street I can't remember the name of in Melbourne with all the restaurants. I am totally committed to the Commonwealth ethos.
It has to be said the Queen's baton, pictured, is not as iconic a device as the Olympic torch. It's not the same without the flame. The designers have done their best using granite from Ailsa Craig, Scottish elm, and some titanium lattice work with a screen displaying a personal message from the Queen calling athletes to the games. Sadly it does not have a microchip which plays I Belong to Glasgow.
The Queen's baton should stop and be given a jolly good loyal twirling at Bridgeton Cross, where the locals hold the monarchy in high regard. If the opening ceremony is to be honest about Glasgow's history (in the style of Danny Boyle at the London Olympics) the Bridgeton flute band should follow the baton into Celtic Park. Instead of the Queen in a helicopter, how about Prince William on a white horse.
The opening would feature tableaux of the Glasgow East End soup kitchens for the poor Irish, the ostentatious wealth of tobacco and slave trade merchants, and the fabulous art collections of shipping tycoons.
Missionary David Livingstone would get a mention. As would the Scottish soldiers who fashioned in blood the British Empire that became the Commonwealth. This is what a theatre and film man such as Boyle might have come up with. The ceremony has been put in the hands of Jack Morton Worldwide which is described as "a global brand experience agency". It may be more corporate in nature.
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