I have previously written about my disbelief in the renaming of the Old Tom Morris Shop as ‘The Open’ by the Links Trust.
This morning I was wandering down by there and I saw Old Tom’s great, great, grand daughter (sweeping outside the shop as she owns the flat above and indeed the shop). At least I think she’s direct lineage or maybe she is just his great, great niece or whatever.
Anyway, I asked her what she thought of the renaming of their historic shop and she most politely said ‘I really can’t comment. It’s been sub-let to the R&A’.
Well I said. I can comment.
‘It’s an absolute shocker’
And she carried on her sweeping and made no comment.
While I’m on this theme, I may add that we have finally come up with a name for our bistrot in Edinburgh. It’s to be called ‘Leopardo’
This has been a painstaking process. In fact, it’s taken two years to get to Leopardo, via Old Flower Shop, Wild, Gardner and Costa, Leftbank, The Crazy Duck, The White Duck, The Blind Duck, Riverside Cafe, Sika, Idiom, Air Cafe, Ulysses, Velvet, Untitled, Little Sicily, Palermo, Aeolian and many, many more.
I finally settled on Bang, Bang, Bang. But no one was overly enthusiastic, apart from moi of course.
For I thought it was kind of memorable and had some latent, nuanced, obscure, underlying humour, given Alessandro’s Sicilian heritage.
But it was not to be.
We ultimately had a vote and Leopardo won handsomely.
Let’s say a slightly more conservative choice.