It's no use. The Old Buffer sprung his retirement on us on 9 November 2013 and I'm still opening my copy of the Herald wondering: Is this a Tom Shields day?
The golden days were when Tom was writing the Herald Diary and his columns at the same time. I still have the books published using the best bits of the Herald Diary and I have his collection of columns from 2012: 57 Varieties of Tomato. Both treasures. (All available at good bookshops. Buy them there - not from Amazon. Please.) He had some kind of meltdown early in the 2000s and reduced his workload. Good for him but sad for us. He started splitting his time between the West End and the community allotment in Barcelona, and that brought a wee gleam back to his eye. Then he cut back to 3 columns a week and it's been downhill ever since.
I've nothing against any of the people now occupying his slot (left centre page, bottom right). They're just not Tom Shields. They write a lot about themselves. Frankly, who cares about them? Tom Shields rarely wrote about his life but had plenty of insights into life in the west of Scotland and Barcelona and, well, life in general.
So, if you don't mind, Herald editor, could you get him back, please? He said on retirement he'd be doing occasional pieces for the Sunday Herald but I haven't seen any. So lean on him or offer him money or loose women, but find some way to let us celebrate Ne'erday in style, with a Tom Shields column.
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