Always business. Always pleasure
I love this business.
That's why I have always measured my, some would say, excessively long time in journalism as being always a pleasure and never a chore.
And it is always business, never personal, when it comes to opinion giving. There are no guarantees, trust me.
When you are seventy years old the first, and only, priority is to be seventy-one years of age.
But it is currently open season on pundits where the professionals are concerned in our game.
St. Johnstone's manager, Tommy Wright, had a televised pop at Sky Sports’ Kris Boyd after the madness and mayhem that was his side's draw with Aberdeen on Sunday.
Hearts' Austin McPhee is currently embroiled in a media war with those who would question his credentials to hold any post at Tynecastle in the wake of a weekend mauling from Kilmarnock.
And even an old codger like me has been forced to mount a defence against excessively embellished allegations made in front of a theatre audience by Celtic's captain, Scott Brown.
I love all of this nonsense because we have a magnificently mad masterpiece of a game in this country.
Celtic could finish on top of a European qualifying group for the first time in their history on Thursday night if they beat Rennes in Glasgow and Lazio get anything out of FC Cluj.
Rangers could join them in the last 32 of the Europa League if they overcome Dick Advocaat's Feyenoord in the Netherlands.
Both clubs are a credit to themselves and to the country but it is unacceptable to acknowledge that if you are blinded by bias and unable to see beyond the partisan.
Your loss.
In Scotland we always know what we don't want long before we are able to declare what we do want.
That thought came to mind when my old friend Broony scored for Celtic in the win over Livingston on Saturday.
He is a long, long odds against being asked to re-join the Scotland fold for the Euro 20230 play-offs.
But even the utterly hypothetical question of whether he should, or should not, be re-integrated into the national squad has provoked prickly debate.
For me, it's quite simple.
Neil Lennon said after Celtic's win at the weekend that Jeremie Frimpong had made his team better.
An 18 year old had improved the side who have won the last nine domestic trophies on the bounce.
If a player makes any team better shouldn't he be welcomed rather than shunned?
Ryan Kent made Rangers much better at the weekend.
Florian Kamberi, Christian Doidge and Daryl Horgan made Hibs better on Jack Ross's first competitive day at work at Easter Road.
The trouble with all of the above is that none of them are Scottish.
Scotland are weak at the back and toothless up front. If Brown can fill a hole anywhere then why not?
On the other hand, if Steve Clarke doesn't want him then he only has to say and the subject becomes redundant.
Take as long as you like, though, Steve.
We've got the Europa League and two Old Firm games in the pipeline, one of them a cup final no less, to keep us going in the meantime.
The road goes on forever, the party never ends, as one of my favourite old warblers, Leonard Cohen, once sang.
There might even be time left for Broony and me to reach a compromise on the day we had our full and frank exchange of views at Loch Lomond.
Apparently, Scott told an audience at the launch of his new DVD last week he had me, or the "wee fool" as he called me for effect, "pinned against a wall" while we were involved in meaningful discussions.
This is simply incorrect, and for one reason.
If a person half my age had me pinned against a wall I would have done something about it once I had been freed from his grip.
Something legal, not physical.
But if it got you a laugh at the DVD promotion then good luck to you, Scott.
The road goes on for ever, the party never stops.