How 94p can be worth more than £1

I WAS strolling home up the farm lane at dead of night, admiring a clear, cloudless sky full of stars. Orion the hunter was there in all his majesty, his belt brighter than ever. His companion, the dog star Sirius, was blazing at the horizon. Only one thing spoiled this spectacular light show. It was a swirl of vague colours like distant street lights reflecting off a cloud, except that there was no cloud. If I'd known it was the Northern Lights, I'd have paid more attention.

INCIDENTALLY, the Romans believed that during high summer the heat of Sirius was added to the heat of the sun, giving us the dog days (one day this may be useful in a pub quiz).

THE joys of online shopping. Every day, little bits arrive for my old boat. A bag of sail-ties, a length of rigging, a groundsheet. Bit by bit, a great adventure is taking shape without having to make a single trip to the chandlery or the camping shop. However did we manage before eBay?

ALLISTER Heath, editor of the City AM website, reckons that although salaries have slumped and we are on average six per cent worse off than 10 years ago, few of us would want to return to the life we had in 2004. We have less money but, so his theory goes, the digital revolution has produced "lots of free value." Our lives are better thanks to social networks, progress in health care and internet competition forcing down prices. Online shopping has also given us more of that most precious commodity – time. We no longer queue in the travel agents because we can book flights and hotel rooms in a matter of minutes online. Obviously, 94p is never going to be worth £1. But 94p plus half-an-hour is probably worth more than £1.

THE BBC World Service brings us the "Freedom Playlist" compiled by an Argentinian journalist to celebrate the restoration of democracy in Argentina 30 years ago. Oddly, there was not a mention of Rod Stewart. The unspeakably wicked, genocidal junta which ruled Argentina and brought so much agony to its people collapsed after its humiliating defeat by the UK Task Force in the 1982 Falklands War. This is not a popular view in South America but Maggie Thatcher liberated Argentina just as surely as she liberated the Falklands - and Rod Stewart provided the music. As the British sailed south into a perilously dangerous war zone 32 years ago, their war cry was an epic anthem about sea voyages. No "freedom playlist" for Argentina is complete without a chorus of a thousand Royal Marines belting out Rod's version of We Are Sailing.

MY great adventure for 2014? It is to boldly sail the length of Loch Lomond, from Balloch in the south to Ardlui at the north. You can do it easily in six hours in a powerboat but we "raggies," as the motor-cruiser brigade call people whose boats have sails, can spend a week getting there and back. I did part of the trip with a pal back in 1981, sailing and rowing by day, camping at night. It was a blissfully free voyage into an unspoiled wilderness. These days, after Scotland's experiment with "wild camping" degenerated into litter, drunkenness and the wrecking of some beauty spots, nine miles of the eastern shore, apart from designated sites, is now a no-camping zone, apart from in official sites. In paradise, as in the city, a few drunks spoil it for everyone.

IN PLANNING an outdoor holiday in Scotland, timing is everything. In Rab C Nesbitt (BBC2) Rab and his friends take to the Scottish greenwoods as latter-day Robin Hoods. It is Jamesie (Tony Roper) who points out the perils: "It'll be July soon – we could freeze tae death."