You are what you eat. Or drink. Or inhale. The diarist has an auld colleague who actually smokes between mouthfuls let alone courses during a meal. There’s another who went for a blood test at the doctors recently and the sample had a head on it.

Here at The Open, those handwringing, healthy eating zealots, who seem to exist on a diet of twigs and steam, wouldn’t last long in the media centre canteen.

As the diarist gazed at the sizzling sundries of the breakfast buffet, my esteemed compadre, the tabloid doyen Jim Black, was confronted by a truly appalling situation.

“There’s no black pudding left, sir, but I can offer you vegetarian black pudding,” said the waitress. It was a well-intentioned yet spectacularly ill-judged offer. You could’ve sizzled bacon on meat-loving Jim’s seething fizzog.   

*There have been some long days and late nights for the golf writers this week. Dan Brown nabbed the lead at 9:35pm on Thursday as deadline loomed. On Saturday, the leaders didn’t tee-off until 3:45pm.

Amid this frenzy, the diarist disappeared for a moment of soothing reflection. I just happened to glance at Troon’s night sky and marvelled at the millions of stars glistening like pieces of quicksilver on black velvet.

In awe, the diarist watched the waxen moon ride across the zenith of the heavens like an amber chariot towards the void of infinite space wherein the tethered bolts of Jupiter and Mars hang forever in their orbital majesty.

And as I absorbed all this, I thought to myself, “I wish they’d put a bloody roof on this media centre toilet.”

*This week’s showpiece is the diarist’s 25th consecutive Open. I was reminded of this longevity when I overheard someone say, “look, there’s that bastion of The Herald.” Well, I think they said bastion?