Alan Carr has paid £3.5million for a baronial pile in the borders. Neil Mackay says it smacks of the Gilded Age when the rich played and the poor suffered.

I’ve often feared early-onset curmudgeonliness since I crashed-landed into my 50s. 

When I summon the courage to engage in a little introspection, it never fails to shock me that someone who tripped their way through the Second Summer of Love in 1988 now shouts at the TV like a poorly-rehearsed Victor Meldrew tribute act. C’est la vie, I guess, or c’est la mort.

Aside from the varied assortment of extremists, racists and psychopaths who people politics, the targets of my Meldrewian rages tend to be the super-rich vapid idiots who have somehow come to represent the pinnacle of modern culture. 

Let me deploy two words which should be treated as so dangerous they may summon Satan: ‘influencers’ and ‘celebrities’.

When I hear those words, I picture a fresh turd in the gutter sprinkled with glitter. I told you I was becoming curmudgeonly.

Keir Starmer refuses to negotiate on indy. That makes me happy

Murrell Memo: why should Swinney know more about the case than us?

A colleague just called Sarwar a “f**kwit”, what does that say about Labour?

Row over arming the Scottish police shows we’ve forgotten how to debate

Until recently, I had no problem with the comedian Alan Carr. His humour isn’t for me. I’m not a fan of that Mr Saturday Night Showbiz schtick. But he’s welcome to what passes for fame and wealth these days for his talents.

However, he has nudged himself towards the category of super-rich vapidity with his purchase of a Scottish castle. 

Unlike my curmudgeonliness, I’ve no fear of........

© Herald Scotland