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This year's Championships get underway in Aberdeen, Scotland, on Saturday 14 October to Saturday 21 October. Aberdeen was the birthplace of many famous people, notably Henry Cecil, racehorse trainer (I could hardly believe that either), Graham Garden of The Goodies (equally unbelievable), Denis Law and Paul Lawrie (now that's more like it!).

The participating teams are Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chinese Taipei, Czechia, England, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Scotland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, United States and Wales.

The Home Nations are -

England - 4th: Ben Fowler (Vice-Skip), 3rd: Anna Fowler (Skip), 2nd: Scott Gibson, 1st: Annabelle Martin

Ireland - Brian Mathews (Skip), Clare McCormick (Vice-Skip), Jason Medhurst (2nd), Stephanie McDonald (Lead)

Scotland - Jack Strawhorn (Skip), Amy Mitchell (Vice-Skip), Kaleb Johnston (2nd), Kirsty Gallacher (Lead)

Wales - Adrian Meikle (Skip), Dawn Watson (Vice-Skip), Andrew Tanner (2nd), Judith Glazier (Lead)
I've named all the right players, but not necessarily in the right order - now, where have I heard that before!

The 34 teams are split into 4 groups, most notably Group A which contains the 4 Home Nations plus Belgium, Israel, Japan, Netherlands and Sweden. More details to come later in the week.

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Just a few words of explanation to the above post. England's Anna and Ben are definitely on the right, so by a process of Holmes'-like deduction (that's Eamonn Holmes by the way) it must be Scott and Annabelle on the left. Ireland, Scotland and Wales are much easier. The correct names are in a mirror image of the players in the photos.

Now, for the extras. Scotland have a habit of younger teams getting international experience in the Mixed competitions. Their Gold Medal in 2017 was won by skip Grant Hardie, who is currently Bruce Mouat's 3rd player. In 2016, skip Cameron Bryce's Bronze Medal team included Bobby Lammie, Mouat's 2nd player. Cameron Bryce also won Silver in Aberdeen in 2019. England have been represented regularly for over 10 years by the Fowler siblings. Andrew Meikle of Wales has represented his country most years since 1982 and has won the European Mixed Championships in 2007 in Madrid, with Andrew Tanner playing 2nd. Ireland's Clare McCormick is their most experienced player with over 50 caps to her name and is a regular in their Senior team.

At the end of the round robin on Thursday, all teams qualified for the play-offs are ranked 1 to 12 in a merged group ranking system. The four group winners advance directly to the quarter-final games. Teams placed second and third in each group will play qualification games on Friday 20 October at 10.00 to determine the last four teams in the play-offs. The quarter-finals will take place on Friday at 18.00. The winners of the quarter-finals will play in the semi-finals on Saturday at 9.30. The medal games will take place on Saturday afternoon at 14.30. Of course, this means that at least one of the Home Nations will not qualify for the latter stages.

Saturday's games are
08.00 - Ireland v Israel (whose curlers probably left Israel before the Hamas attacks), England v Wales, Belgium v Scotland.
16.00 - Scotland v Wales.
Sunday's games are
08.00 - Wales v Belgium.
16.00 - Ireland v Belgium, Scotland v England.

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The first sessions finished in mixed fortunes for the Home Nations. The first session saw Ireland beat Israel by 10-7, after the Irish team scored 4 shots in the last end, having already lost 4 shots in the 1st end. England cruised through 7-3 after 7 ends against Wales, restricting the Welsh to 3 scoring ends with a single shot each time. Scotland got off to a poor start against Belgium, losing 3-6 after 7 ends, with much the same outcome as the previous game, only scoring 3 single shots.

In the third session, Scotland trounced Wales 11-0 after only 6 ends to redeem their poor start and leave the Welsh team shell-shocked.

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The morning session ended in another loss for Wales, this time 3-8 to Belgium. The Welsh did better overall, scoring in 3 of the 7 ends played, but lost 3 shots in each of the 5th and 7th ends.

In the afternoon, England won the Auld Enemy battle against Scotland by 8-3. The English were never behind and also scored two counts of 3 shots in the 3rd and 8th ends.

Ireland were thumped 1-10 by Belgium, who must be wishing they could play the Home Nations every week, with 3 wins out of 3.

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Scotland play Japan tomorrow morning at 08.00 with England meeting joint leaders Sweden and Ireland playing Wales at the same time.

At 16.00 Ireland play Netherlands with England playing the other joint leaders Belgium.

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Today's games saw more defeats for the Home Nations with only two wins for Ireland to be upbeat about.

England opened their morning with a 3-7 defeat to Sweden after being level at 3-3 with 2 ends to go. Then this evening saw them go down 3-6 against Belgium, only scoring in 1 end. However they have now played the top two teams in the Group and play Israel at 12.00 tomorrow and Ireland at 20.00 later.

Scotland suffered a narrow 7-8 defeat against Japan, after scoring 5 shots in 2 ends to tie the game with one end to play. They are now getting close to needing to win all their remaining games to secure a quarter-final spot. Tomorrow's game is against unbeaten Sweden at 20.00.

Ireland dominated their game against Wales, winning 15-1 after 6 ends to leave the Welsh shell-shocked again. They repeated the 6-end dose in their second game, beating Netherlands 10-1. Tomorrow the Irish team take on Sweden at 12.00 tomorrow, then England at 20.00.

Wales play Netherlands at 12.00 noon in their only game tomorrow and are still looking for their first win.

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England scraped through their morning game by 6 shots to 5 against a spirited Israeli team, but got back on track tonight, beating Ireland 8-2, losing only 1 end in the process. Sweden have already qualified from Group A with 6 wins from 6 games. England on 4 wins might still need to win their 2 remaining games, against Japan tomorrow at 12 noon and Netherlands at 16.00 on Thursday. 1 win (against Japan) could be enough depending on other results.

At 12.00 noon today, Ireland lost 3-6 to Sweden and, allied to tonight's defeat, they have only a slim chance of progressing. They will need to win their final 2 games against Japan at 20.00 tomorrow and Scotland at 12.00 noon on Thursday.

Scotland will not qualify despite having 3 games still to play, following their 3-8 defeat to Sweden tonight. They play Netherlands at 20.00 tomorrow, then Ireland at 12.00 noon and finally Israel at 20.00 on Thursday. The Scots can only reach 4 wins, but each of the teams currently on 4 wins - Sweden, Japan and England - have already beaten us and will finish ahead of us.

As for Wales, they have still to win a game following their 3-5 defeat to Netherlands. Tomorrow they play Sweden at 20.00, then Israel at 12.00 noon and Japan at 20.00 on Thursday.

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Unfortunately, England lost 4-7 against Japan after 7 ends, which makes qualification very difficult for the English team. They were doing quite well until they lost 4 shots in the 5th end, putting the win out of reach.

Ireland gained a modicum of revenge over Japan, winning 8-6, after winning 4 of the last 5 ends. Their quest for 3rd place and qualification looks even harder now, but still theoretically possible.

Scotland had a brief resurgence with a convincing 8-1 win over Netherlands. It's all about playing for pride now for the Scots.

Wales suffered again tonight, losing 2-7 to a dominant Sweden.

Sweden and Belgium are definite qualifiers and Japan are certainly favourites to be the 3rd qualifier from Group A, with a game against Wales to come. BUT, and there's always a BUT and an IF, IF Japan lose that game and both England and Ireland win their final games, there will be a 3-way tie for the final slot. In that case, in the little triangular competition, each team would have 1 win each. Japan would still be favourites thanks to their superior Draw Shot Challenge record, but England are not that far behind and could cause an upset. Again IF only Ireland win, they would go through due to them beating Japan earlier today.

Now that's my interpretation of what should happen, as there is no help from the event website as to the agreed procedure.

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Scotland turned into party-poopers early this afternoon by beating Ireland by 7-3, with 3 shots in the final end. Not only did that result make sure that the Irish did not qualify for the later stages, it also put paid to English hopes as well.

Wales came good with a flourish in the same session, scoring 6 shots in the last 3 ends to defeat Israel 8-5.

In the evening session, England comfortably beat Netherlands 9-4 in a largely meaningless game. They finished with 5 wins and 3 losses to finish 4th in the Group, the best record of the Home Nations.

The final session saw Wales fall to a 5-7 defeat against Japan, solely due to the loss of 5 shots in the 4th end, meaning that they finish bottom of the Group. Scotland were in the lead for the first 7 ends, but lost 4 shots in the last end to Israel to go down 4-7. ISRAEL?!!!  The Scots finish 6th in the Group, just behind Ireland in 5th.

The draw for the final stages is as follows:-
Chinese Taipei v Belgium; winners play Sweden in the Quarter-final
United States v Australia; winners play Canada in the Quarter-final
Latvia v Switzerland; winners play Norway in the Quarter-final
Japan v Italy: winners play Spain in the Quarter-final
The ties are to be played tomorrow at 10.00, with the Quarter-finals at 18.00.

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Qualification Round Results
Chinese Taipei 4 v 6 Belgium
United States 7 v 8 Australia - after an extra end
Latvia 6 v 3 Switzerland
Japan 5 v 4 Italy

Quarter-final Results
Sweden 7 v 2 Belgium
Australia 3 v 7 Canada
Norway 8 v 5 Latvia
Japan 4 v 6 Spain

To be honest they could have given everybody a day off today as tomorrow's Semi-finals are between the 4 Group Winners. Although that would have deprived me of a laugh at the good ol' USofA who were 7-3 up after 5 ends, but never scored again. Pity it wasn't John Schuster! 

Anyway the Semi-finals are at 09.30 and are Sweden v Canada plus Norway v Spain. The Gold and Bronze matches are scheduled for 14.30.

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After a big Saturday night at our bowling club presentation night, here are the final curling results.

Semi-finals
Sweden 7 Canada 4
Spain 4 Norway 3

Finals
Gold - Sweden 8
Silver - Spain 2

Bronze - Canada 4
All that work for nothing - Norway 3

Now for my curling!