Yesterday I found myself (there I was!) watching a bit of a Highland Dance competition, for the first time in about forty years. Nothing much had changed, as far as I could see - except that, when the girls - they were all girls - would do their stylized bow at the beginning and end of a dance, they would suddenly force a big ear-to-ear grin - before reverting to the default countenance of sobriety if not gloom that one has grown to know and love.

Question: Has this become the norm? Has someone been telling these somber innocents that the judges award points for idiot grins - and do the judges now do so?