I'm not a massive fan of the summer.

Don't get me wrong, I like the dry, clear days, and I get on with the sun as long as the temperature stays below, say 20 degrees. Above that I have to seek refuge indoors. I go as red as a raspberry when I go outside in the baking heat, and sweat like Reichenbach Falls into the bargain. I come back from a foreign holiday whiter than the chalk on the cliffs of Dover and....well, you get the idea.

Another thing that grates me about summer is that there is no sport to be had. Not the kind that I enjoy anyway. We have just said goodbye to the football season for another two months, and although the fixtures will be released in a few weeks this will only make things 100 times worse. There will also be no English participation in Euro 2008, in case you didn’t know.

The shooting season, of course, doesn't start until August, and the gap in the diary between today's date and my first beating engagement is a canyon of white pages. Clays are a suitable substitute and I have already begun to get my eye-in, but I fear I will be all 'clayed out' by mid-July and gagging to wade into the birds.

What am I going to do? The closest I am getting to my new sport is the spent cartridge which sits in my kitchen's penny jar.

Elsewhere, Liz Jones' comments about shooting and the countryside continue to be wider of the mark than a Geoff Thomas long-range shot and provide the odd titter before the Sunday roast.

Still, it could worse; I could still be working in the shoe shop I was employed by while in school. Summer was always the worst time of the year, and not just because of our range of sandals.

During an afternoon's sport last season, someone asked me if I had a silencer on my shotgun because I was being too careful with my shot selection. Although it produced roars of laughter from the beaters and a cherry red face on my part, I knew it was only a bit of ribbing and it actually made me feel part of the day.

If you have any classic put-downs, fit ups or embarrassing comments that you've heard along the lines over the years, why not share it with us?

Richard Burton is one my favourite actors and, apart from shooting so well in Where Eagles Dare, one of the other main reasons he would be invited would be to explain a comment he once made about his fellow countrymen “Show a Welshman a million exits and he'll choose the one marked self-destruction.” I’ve always wanted know what he meant.

Phil Stant shooting skills cannot be underestimated, given that he was an ex-SAS soldier who fought in the Falklands and was a cult hero of mine when he played up front for Cardiff in the mid 1990s, so based on those two reasons alone he makes the list.

Gareth Edwards is someone who I’ve always wanted to meet, and his love for country sports is well documented, not least in the pages of our magazine. One thing I’d have to find out between drives is whether or not he thought he’d ever reach that ball in the game against Scotland at Cardiff in 1972 before going head over heels and covering his face in mud. I can never tell if he had two inches or one blade of grass before it went into touch!

As a massive Sherlock Holmes fan, Jeremy Brett would have to be in the list. Although it was Edward Hardwicke's Watson who was the more athletic of the duo during their time together on screen (he was a keen fisherman, golfer and even went rough shooting during the Musgrave Ritual episode) I sensed a longing in Jeremy’s eyes to get stuck in. The perfect English gentleman and one for the ladies in the beating line, not least my other half who has to put up with me quoting Holmes on a daily basis!

Tommy Cooper is a fellow native of Caerphilly, and although he was known as being a hard man to get on with sometimes, would be the perfect person to rib fellow guns about their shooting. Just to see him perform some of his famous gags would be worth his attendance. I’m not sure if the fez would be acceptable shooting attire – maybe Jeremy Brett could bring along a deerstalker as a substitute?

The third actor of the group would be Ray Winstone, someone who, like me, loves football, a few pints and a good laugh. As a skilled bowman in Robin of Sherwood he’s already well versed in taking quarry in the countryside and just to have 10 minutes with him to talk about Scum and Sexy Beast would make my year.

I’ve been itching to take my nephew James out into the countryside to teach him all about shooting and conservation, and he would make an excellent picker-up. He’d only be wasting time watching Leeds United with his dad and we can’t have that! The little grasshopper’s mother might have something to say about ear protection and safety given the fact he is not yet two years old, but a brace or two for the dinner table may soften the deal a little!

All of this would have to take place at the shoot in Ashby Folville, which has become a sporting home from home since I started on Shooting Gazette and I know we’d have a very testing yet enjoyable day with the team there.