Christmas has come early in this house with the unexpected, joyful arrival through the door the other day of the tome Peter Alliss was working on when he died.  For me, that was the end of all meaningful accomplishment for a few days as I nestled down to enjoy PETER ALLISS:  REFLECTIONS ON A LIFE WELL LIVED.

I don’t know quite what I was expecting.  In truth, I hadn’t given it much thought but Jackie, Peter’s wife, had confessed to me that it was a difficult project to bring to a close and that the family was keen that it should be done as a lasting testament to Peter.  On opening the first pages I discovered that Peter had enlisted the talents of fellow Norn Irish person Bill Elliott in this, his final project.

I whooped with delight.  This must surely be a marriage made in heaven.  Bill is as skilful with the pen and keyboard as Peter was with his impeccable timing and mastery of the spoken word.  The irreverent, observational Elliott humour has been capable of holding court in a multitude of media centres around the world and when you add this to an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of golf it is a delightful mix.  And as Patricia drily reminded me, “Bill has been around for a very, very long time!”

The book only very loosely follows some semblance of a chronological timescale but, rather like its author, it rambles hither and thither, just exactly the way good conversation does with an old friend.  There’s nothing wishy-washy about Peter’s opinions, however, and in a wonderful chapter near the end of the book he discourses on a range of subjects from Brexit to modern day education to Gary Player to Love Island.  Where else would you come across such a range of diverse topics, all in a clump?  No punches pulled, but a gentle questioning wonderment as to how on earth did we arrive at this point?  Peter always left you with food for thought.

I was privileged to spend quite a bit of time with Peter over the years and be in his company when he was in full flow.  A number of my favourite stories are absent from this book, which just goes to show the extent of the treasure trove of yarns at his disposal.  How Bill and Peter corralled their collaborations inside the covers of a manageable book is a mystery.  No worries about lack of material here, I’d venture to suggest, so ruthless censorship must have been the order of the day.

One of my own favourites is the tale of Peter going to the Dublin area for a tournament after which he decided he’d stay an extra day with some friends.  When he did get home he had somehow “misplaced” a whole four days of which he had zero memory.  Four weeks later an important looking envelope arrived in the post – the deeds to a tract of land he seemed to have purchased in Wicklow.  When he did get round to visiting it some years later he discovered it was situated on an almost vertical hill and was neither use nor ornament to anyone.  He assured me, however, that he was positive he’d had a wonderful time while acquiring this useless field!

Censorship notwithstanding, the book bounces merrily along discoursing on such topics as the Masters, the Ryder Cup, television and rubbing shoulders with the stars of stage and screen.  Underpinning it all, however, is a great sense of the support of family and especially Jackie, Peter’s wife of many years.  The closing chapter is a touching epilogue on “My Peter.” by Jackie, an enabler of the highest order.  She kept everything running so Peter could go off and do what he did best and when mobility became an issue for him in later years she was his constant companion, waiting in our BBC production office for the day’s commentary to come to an end when we could all be released back into civilisation and, with a bit of luck, to a nice evening dinner.

The book is a wonderful read, thought-provoking, funny, poignant and beautifully written.  Enjoyable for those who never knew Peter personally and enjoyable for those of us who did.  It’s hard not to delight in his obvious zest for life itself and his disarming acknowledgment that things came rather easily to him down the years amazingly never seemed to produce rancour or envy in others.

Jackie states that she was “so very blessed to have shared over fifty years with such a unique and special man”.  I feel that we are the lucky ones – lucky that the family so generously shared Peter with the rest of us down the years.  They have done so again with this book.  Buy it, read it, treasure it.

And now that I have taken care of all your Christmas shopping, what are you going to do with all this free time?

Growing up playing golf in Ireland, you got used to playing in the rain  because if you didn’t, you didn’t play.  Nowadays, I’m much more of a wimp and if it’s chucking it down and I don’t have to play, I don’t.  Mind you, I know my waterproofs still work, so do my shoes and so does my brolly.  It’s just that, without a caddy to do all the hard drying, golfing in a deluge is a bit of a faff, when you could do with extra hands.  For me, now, golf is to be enjoyed, not endured.  Coffee please!  And bridge.  Or Cluedo.  Or any indoor game you care to mention.

Not that I’m much of a hand at games – bridge is fun but frustrating; crib is still a bit of a mystery; and as for Cluedo – I didn’t realise you could move Miss Scarlett from the drawing room (or was it the conservatory) to stop someone else from revealing her as the murderer in the right room with the right weapon.

I suppose that’s what most of the LIV golfers have signed up to – more fun, less grind.  Golf lite.  Who am I to criticise them?  But, really, I have no desire to watch them – or write about them.  Plenty of other people know a lot more about it all and once again, I particularly recommend Eamon Lynch, of Golfweek/USA Today, who’s implacable in his opposition to the whole concept.

It’s the time of year when the game’s best (or a fair number of them anyway) are swinging in the sunshine, attempting to put the icing on the cake.  In Dubai, at the Jumeirah Golf Estates, Europe’s finest are fighting it out to be the continent’s No 1, still a worthy ambition.  Rory McIlroy, the world No 1, had an up-and-down first round of 71, one under par and found himself six shots behind US Open champion Matt Fitzpatrick, who started with five birdies and the mercurial Tyrrell Hatton, who is a law onto himself.

Elsewhere, players are battling away to get a card somewhere or other and Alastair Tait (alastairtaitgolf.com) wrote about the trials and tribulations of those fighting it out at the European Tour Qualifying School at the Infinitum Club in Tarragona, Spain.  I’d been mulling over my own memories of Q-School and despite the wonderful stories at every turn, I hated it.  It was brutal, six rounds of hell – or heaven, at least for a while, if you made it through.

All I saw were friends (or lovely, long-standing, a lot-more-than acquaintances) standing in front of scoreboards watching their lives drain away….That’s a bit melodramatic and most of them survived well enough one way and another but that’s what it felt like at the time.  It was hideous and one year we were somewhere near Montpellier and the weather was grim and everywhere was shut, which didn’t help the mood of gloom and despondency.

I can’t remember the year and I can’t remember if that was the one that Retief Goosen won, a lad so shy and quiet that it was just as well that we at least knew his name and his nationality (South African) and what he’d scored because we learned very little else from him.  At least he went on to have a heck of a career (two US Open titles and a lot else besides) and is still starring on the Legends Tour in America.  Not every Q-School winner does so well but at least the card holders head out with hope in their hearts.  Good luck to them all.

Alastair wrote about experienced, battle-hardened veterans – Ryder Cup players – losing their nerve at Q-School, double bogeying the last to miss out on regaining their card.  At least they kept giving it a go; I didn’t even have the bottle to cover more than a couple of the marathons; I wimped out, snuffling into my hanky.

The football world cup starts in Qatar on Sunday, so that’s the end of my trips to N17 for a while.  Fortunately – very fortunately – Spurs ended on a high note with a 4-3 win at home to Leeds.  We were behind three times and at the end, the Leeds manager, a passionate American called Jesse Marsch, said he felt as though his heart had been ripped out of his chest.  I’m not surprised.  It was a bonkers game, a manager’s nightmare.  As the sainted Sir Alex once said, “Football, bloody hell.”

I travelled down from Lichfield with Essie, a Tottenham fan who grew up in the area, a lot closer to White Hart Lane than Portstewart is.  She’d been to the old White Hart Lane but this was her first visit to the swanky new stadium and she loved every minute of it.  Now we regulars want her to come to every game because she’s obviously a lucky mascot.  Even better, despite hordes of people pouring into London – and back out – for rugby, Remembrance events, football, theatre, whatever, the journey could scarcely have been smoother.  Thank you Essie for a wonderful day.