No offence to colleagues, but my first port of call in the morning is The Herald’s letters section. Reading it is like dipping into one of those round robins that arrive at Christmas, with the saving grace that this one is never dull.

All Scottish life is here, more often than not having a barney, as families do. To apply the George HW Bush rule, sometimes they’re The Waltons, sometimes The Simpsons. Always they are good company.

One topic currently bubbling away is bad news and how there seems to be so much more of it around. Brian Watt of Edinburgh started the ball rolling when he wrote: “I’ve noticed in recent months how depressing our national news is. We hear about Gaza, Ukraine, a potential Third World War, NHS performance and lack of hospital beds, prisons and lack of cells, risks from early-release prisoners, murders, rape cases, knife crime among the young, domestic violence, people trafficking, the drug crisis, Channel boat deaths, housing shortages, XL bully dog attacks, storms, floods, inflation, power bill capping, public service funding, council tax increases and basically anything to do with Donald Trump. It all then contributes towards another problem – our mental health.”

In Mr Watt’s house they now record the news and view it later, winding past the items they don’t wish to watch. I do a similar kind of filtering, but with the remote control. Anything to do with cruelty to........

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