Let's hope joy is contagious.

The usual cast of dog walking characters on the beach. We greet them all with a hearty 'Good morning'. The ageing poodle with four arthritic paws is off to see the vet about new and more powerful painkillers. Todays big local news is something that Angus and President Trump find themselves wholly in agreement on :https://www.seabird.org/press-releases/devastating-news-for-scotland-s-seabirds-as-berwick-bank-is-consented

We detour back to Starbucks via the club house.

An ultra-competitive group of Californians are playing each stroke of the Old Course as if their lives depended on it. This is golf as performative art. 

The caddies and the locals look on in mute amazement. One gentleman lands on the green and then takes three putts to sink the ball. The others cheer him on.

Off to the side a sound recordist and a cameraman are capturing the impressions of four gentlemen who have been on a golf tour. We listen as they describe their experiences of the three Trump courses ( awesome ) , Carnoustie ( unforgiving ), Royal Dornoch ( God damn difficult ) and now here ( truly humbling ). They have paid the camera crew to follow them as they played each course and captured the drama of every hole they've played. Providing posterity with a weeks worth of their insights and memories can't have been cheap.

The Royal and Ancient have new garden plantings. They seem to have gone for the Mediterranean garden approach. How this will stand up to the rain and wind of the Scottish coast will be interesting to monitor.

Two fresh faced American college kids have discovered they're on the ballot and are going to be allowed to play the sacred turf.  They share their unexpected good news with anyone that will listen. Last night they had been told that there was no chance. This morning they've struck gold and have been told by the lady in the pavillion that they're on in half an hour. Luck favours the fresh faced and audacious. One youngster dances a jig. The other wipes his eyes. Parents in Cleveland are called with the good news. It's two thirty in the morning there so let's hope joy is contagious. 

By the corner shop a young gull is displaying the glory of its juvenile feathers. The young gulls are fearless. So, sadly, are the cars that seem to have finished off half a dozen of them on the stretch of road that leads from the cinema to the roundabout.

Blast from the past : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEhS9Y9HYjU

Breakfast table discussion point :https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insight-therapy/202507/women-are-more-competitive-with-each-other-than-are-men

Americans spend 4 hours a day on average thinking about money :https://www.empower.com/the-currency/money/money-on-the-mind-research?stream=business

AI :https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/making-sense-of-the-ai-revolution/

Plus ca change :https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/los-angeles-1936-bum-blockade-targeted-american-migrants-fleeing-poverty-and-drought-during-the-great-depression-180987022/