My Best of the Year 2015: Bad denim, Scottish rainstorms and a drop of the white nectar

Donald MacInnes reveals the final part of his review of 2015's In the Reds

In July, Donald took his wife and baby son to Cromlix to find out whether it could be afforded by people without hedge funds

A very happy 2016 to you all. You'll be jubilant to read that this week marks the final part of my review of 2015's In the Reds.

I shall kick off in July, when I had a moan about hardcore TV pawn...

Channels with names like Bing-Bong, UK Leapfrog and Omelette +1 churn out decrepit old tat in the hope that someone somewhere will be able to find a use for their second-hand programming. It is apt that so many of these channels seem to offer docusoaps featuring badly denimed Americans either rooting through Louisiana backyards for crap they can sell on or getting into bidding wars at what can only be described as car boot sales with concealed weaponry.

In July, we paid a visit to Andy Murray's new hotel in Scotland...

In fairness to Murray, he has insisted that while the 15 ornate bedrooms on offer may well be beyond the sporrans of most locals (the cheapest are around £200), he is intent on keeping the restaurant side of the operation affordable. "Affordable", of course, is relative. So I took my wife and baby son to Cromlix to find out if Murray's choice of kitchen overlord, Albert Roux, meant the eaterie could be afforded by people without hedge funds. Or, indeed, hedges.

We arrived in the kind of rainstorm that provides high-velocity water at a horizontal angle. Thanks, then, must go to the concierge who, before I had even switched off the car's ignition, was dancing towards us sporting a quite enormous umbrella. Indeed, the whole tableau reminded me of The Singing Butler, the shelter-from-the-storm painting by the Scottish artist Jack Vettriano, and I remain unconvinced that this wasn't entirely deliberate. Me? Well, I squelched into reception, as the umbrella wouldn't take us all, but heroism is never bought cheaply.

In August I paid tribute to my favourite beverage...

Dairy farmers are up in udders about the pittance they get for each pint of the white stuff. It's nothing like enough, if you ask me. I find milk to be just the loveliest libation on the face of the Earth. I even like it customised. Have you ever tried it banana-flavoured? O to the M to the G. It's divine. Like skiing down a big banana.

To illustrate the point, I was halfway through a large glass of banana Nesquik the other day and it occurred to me that if milk was alcoholic, I would definitely be dependent. In fact, I would be more than that. I would be addicted; a wet-the-bed, growl-at-strangers, dog-on-a-string drunk, rooting through bins for the dregs of some discarded carton of semi-skimmed; just enough to see me off to sleep.

I would be found in fields by farmers, prone and utterly stupefied, spreadeagled under his prize milker, the dregs of the previous night's pasteurised gorging staining my stubble white and the poor bovine staring down at me, violation in her eyes. It's a sad image to conjure up, to be sure. I just pray it never happens to you.

Twitter.com/DonaldAMacInnes