"THE WORLDS"

A.K.A., "The World Pipe Band Championship". It's being held today in Glasgow. In fact, --{{checks watch; does mental time differential calculation}}-- it's over. And it looks like Ulster's own Field Marshal Montgomery PB is the winner of the Grade I. The P&D has the full results here.

The Scots have really come back into their own this year. For the past several years, Irish bands have largely owned the lower grades. Not this time; the Scots are placing well across the board. North America isn't getting much metal this time either. Canada's Robert Malcolm Memorial placed first in Grade II. The only other North American first is - as always - St Thomas Episcopal School's PB in the Juvenile Grade. St Thomas hails from Texas.

My personal favourite, Dublin's St Lawrence O'Toole: only 7th place, alas. And of course I'm not prejudiced. How can you even think such a thing.

Some of the overseas bands are going to have even more grief leaving the U.K. with the new travel restrictions. Putting 19th century silver and ivory Henderson pipes in the hold of an aeroplane is just not on. Even if the people who handle the baggage were not a bunch of thieves, which in my experience they are, the pipes may still be on the bottom of half-a-ton of luggage and subjected to 50° below zero in-flight temperatures.

According to this, two members of SFU's PB are already missing both uniforms and instruments.