Huntin', shootin' and fishin'....

This is Buchan's second most famous novel. Three eminent, successful but bored friends in their mid-forties decide to turn to poaching.

They issue a challenge to three landowners in the Scottish Highlands. They are forewarned that 'John Macnab' (which is their collective pseudonym) will poach a salmon or a stag from their land and return it to them undetected.

It's a gentle and gripping tale - amusing too.

I'm not a hunter myself (although I have a brother-in-law in New Zealand who does it professionally from helicopters). But I do know that this is the Glorious Twelfth - the day when grouse shooting begins for the season.

In memoriam ABM - who was a friend, dedicated surgeon and keen hunter, shooter and fisherman. And who a number of years since died suddenly while fishing in the Scottish Hills on the Glorious Twelfth.