OC Richard

[OC Richard]

Ah, a piper friend sent me the link!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T9wH5CQfQs

It wasn't filmed on Saturday (17 August) when the Worlds proper took place, but on the day before, when our band and many other bands, in ordinary clothes, were rehearsing on Glasgow Green.

A 2:03 you can see our piper Dan and his Long Beach Pipe Band bag-cover. At 2:12 you can see me.

Only the Grade One bands compete on Friday, a system begun when there were too many Grade One bands to play in a single Saturday contest.

So preliminary heats were held on Friday for the Grade One bands who didn't pre-qualify from their previous year's placings.

Oddly, after Covid when fewer bands attended making a preliminary heat unnecessary, the Friday contest wasn't abolished.

Thus Glasgow Green has kitted-out Grade One bands competing and mufti-clad pipe bands rehearsing on Friday.

[Jock Scot]

Many underestimate the Scottish sun! Whilst we don’t get the oppressive heat that some of you chaps get on a fairly regular basis, it is apparently the lack of air pollution———-not all of Scotland believe this!————that makes our sun so powerful.

If it is of any comfort to you we are at present , as I type, in the midst of yet another pretty powerful storm system with strong winds and heavy rain. The weather has this year been dogged by storm after storm and those of us in the agricultural world here would dearly love to see the back of this year!

[OC Richard]

If it is of any comfort to you we are at present , as I type, in the midst of yet another pretty powerful storm system with strong winds and heavy rain.

We were watching the weather forecasts and it seemed we were leaving just in time! (We all flew out of Glasgow Airport on Sunday.)

It looked like rain all week, and maybe the week after that.

When I arrived at John Wayne Airport (Orange County, California) at 10pm it was 24c and it will get up to 34c today. I'm piping for a funeral at the hottest part of the day.