CRAIG Bryson is hoping to earn a chance to go head-to-head with world champions Germany on Sunday.
The Derby County midfielder is in the Scotland squad to face the Germans at Borussia Dortmund's BVB Stadion (7.45pm) – along with Rams team-mates Craig Forsyth and Chris Martin.
The Euro 2016 qualifying opener will be Germany's first competitive match since they won the World Cup final against Argentina in Brazil.
Bryson is looking to add to his two international caps so far and, with the likes of Scott Brown, James Forrest, Robert Snodgrass and Graham Dorrans ruled out by injury, he has a chance.
"It's excellent to be in the squad again and it doesn't get any better than having the chance to face the world champions," said the 27-year-old, who could come up against the likes of Thomas Muller, Toni Kroos, Andre Schurrle, Marco Reus and Mario Gotze.
"There's been a few injuries but you never know what the gaffer (Gordon Strachan) is thinking in terms of his team selection, so I'll just do what I can to force my way into his plans.
"If the gaffer picks me for Sunday, I'll be ready to play and if I'm on the bench, then I'll be ready to come on and do a job if he needs me.
"It would be great to be involved because it's such a big occasion for Scotland and the opportunity to play the World Cup winners doesn't come around every day.
"But whatever happens, we are not going there to make up the numbers. We want to pick up points and get our campaign off to a good start.
"We are under no illusions how difficult that will be, though, and when you look at the players they have we know it's going to be a very tough match."
Forsyth, who won his first cap in a friendly against Nigeria in May, is vying for a start at left-back with Norwich City's Steven Whittaker.
Martin, who also made his international bow against the Nigerians, is one of three strikers battling for, most likely, one spot up front, along with Everton's Steven Naismith and Steven Fletcher of Sunderland.
Scotland are unbeaten in six matches going into this weekend's Group D encounter – dating back to September of last year.
"I don't see why we can't give a good account of ourselves in Dortmund," said Martin. "Our run has given us confidence and we need to fear anybody.
"Yes, they're a very good side but we've built up our belief over the last 18 months or so.
"It's a mouth-watering prospect – a massive game.
"This is a good stage for us to show everyone how far we've come."
Elsewhere in Scotland's group, the Republic of Ireland take on Georgia in Tblisi (5pm UK time).
Derby skipper Richard Keogh will be aiming to add to his four caps.
Rams forward Jamie Ward is in the Northern Ireland squad for their Group F qualifier against Hungary in Budapest tomorrow (5pm).

Arsonists are believed to have set fire to a car in Alvaston last night. Firefighters extinguished the vehicle after they arrived to find it well alight in Field Lane at 11.15pm.

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A spokeswoman from the Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service said: "The car was well alight and it was believed to been ignited deliberately."

The fire was controlled and extinguished and police were notified. 

CHILDREN have been much in the news of late – and for all the wrong reasons.

The scandal of child abuse in Rotherham has been pored over throughout the national media and it has reminded us to our shame of past abuse issues here in Derby.

A small boy, Ashya King, has been in the eye of the news because, tragically, he has a brain tumour and his parents and doctors did not agree what treatment was best for him.

And children throughout the Middle East and Central West Africa have been prominent among those dying because of continuing war and disease.

Every image and report will have stirred our hearts and saddened us – won't it?

It was not always so. People haven't always cared about children.

They were once seen as a commodity with no rights of their own – to be used or disposed of as their families or owners saw fit.

But 2,000 years ago, Jesus challenged that widespread attitude when 'He took a child and had him stand in front of them.

'He put his arms around him and said to them: "Whoever welcomes in my name one of these children welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes not only me but also God who sent me."'(Mark 9:36 GNB)

The message was simple. It was about humility.

Most of us are hard-wired to protect the vulnerable, but an evil minority prey on them for their own ends, turning children into soldiers, slaves or even sex-toys.

Using power for your own sake, abusing others who are weaker than you for pleasure, profit or political advantage is wrong and God hates it when we do that.

If you really want to be someone important, Jesus said, be glad to serve others – especially those the world calls unimportant – and learn to look out for them instead of yourself.

For the rest he reserved his harshest condemnation, saying: "Hard trials and temptations are bound to come, but too bad for whoever brings them on!

"Better to wear a millstone necklace and take a swim in the deep blue sea than give even one of these dear little ones a hard time!" (Luke 17: 1 – 2. "The Message")

JULIE Louise Hoddinott, 30, of Nottingham Road, Ilkeston, was jailed for four weeks for stealing hydronourishing cream from Manor Pharmacy in Ilkeston on August 14.

LOUISE Britt, 28, of Station Road, Ilkeston, was handed a 12-month conditional discharge, ordered to pay £85 costs and a £15 victim surcharge for stealing a bicycle in Ilkeston on March 7 and damaging a police car.

JASPAL Mann, 30, of Horwood Avenue, Derby, was fined £155, ordered to pay £35 costs and a £20 victim surcharge for urinating in public in St James' Street, Derby, on July 5.

RYAN Ian Poole, 27, of HMP Stocken, was jailed for four weeks for stealing £50 of goods from Yankee Candles in Derby and three packets of chicken, worth £14, from Spar in Derby, both on March 29.

SHONA Sowersby, 19, of Cook Drive, Ilkeston, was committed to a young persons' institute for two weeks for assault on May 14 and failing to surrender to custody on June 4.

ANJAY Singh Dol, 19, of Sutherland Road, Derby, was handed a 12-month conditional discharge, ordered to pay £85 costs and a £15 victim surcharge for possessing cannabis in Balfour Road, Derby, on April 24.

WHEN June Gange watched the killers of her loving husband, Raymond, jailed for their brutal attack in 2005 she probably took some comfort from the length of sentences handed out at the end of the trial.

Two teenagers were given life for his murder and a third defendant, Calvin Grant, who was just 17, was sentenced to eight years for manslaughter.

Yet, just four years later, Grant was back out on the streets, having being released on licence.

In our criminal justice system, much store is put by rehabilitating offenders. But, clearly, Grant did not change his ways and he was back inside in 2012 for drugs offences, receiving a sentence of 18 months.

In January this year he was freed again but, within a month, was arrested for drug dealing. Yesterday, he was jailed for 33 months.

We can assume, under parole rules, he will be back on the streets in about a year and a half.

Given his history, it also seems just as likely that he will repeat his offending and be back in jail not long after.

His case calls into question both our prison parole system and our ability to rehabilitate habitual offenders. How can it be right that someone with a long history of offending can still be granted parole half way through his sentence?

And does anyone spare a thought for the victims in this offending/prison merry-go-round?

People like the Gange family continue to suffer every time they hear about Grant's latest offending.

They believe, and who can blame them, that Grant will never change and that prison is the best place for him.

While it can be argued that everyone deserves a second chance, is it right to give them a third, fourth and fifth chance?

Daoyi Xia, a dessert chef at Derby's Cosmo restaurant, talks about the increasing popularity of baking – and how to make macarons that even Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood would be proud of.

WITH food shows on at every click of the television buttons, and the Great British Bake Off back on our screens, baking has never been so "in".

And little pastel-coloured bite-size macarons are the perfect way to impress.

They might be small but, the more you make, the better, because they won't last very long once they're out of the oven.

Try Cosmo Derby's easy-to-follow recipe – and make them all the colours of the rainbow! The brighter the better.

All you'll need is a piping bag with a small nozzle to pipe the mixture into perfect circles.

Once they're all cooked – be careful, they don't take long – and cooled, you can fill them with whatever you want – buttercream, jam (or both), or chocolate ganache.

Or you can leave them as single biscuits – but they're even better with a little bit of filling.

These little biscuits are popular the world over – with Japan giving their own twist on the sweet confectionery: wasabi paste.

In South Korea, they are commonly flavoured with green tea powder, taking influence from their own kitchens, what's available to them and what their taste buds enjoy.

Ingredients

Makes 24 (12 if sandwiched together)

125g icing sugar

125g ground almonds

90g free-range egg whites – 3 eggs' worth

2 tbsp water

110g caster sugar

Food colouring (optional)

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 170°C/325°F/Gas 3 and line a large baking tray with baking paper.

2. Put the icing sugar, ground almonds and 40g egg whites together in a large bowl and mix into a paste.

3. Put the water and caster sugar in a small pan and heat gently to melt the sugar, then turn up the heat and boil until the mixture starts to go syrupy and thickens.

4. Whisk the remaining 50g egg whites in a small bowl until medium-stiff peaks form when the whisk is removed from the bowl. An electric whisk makes this much easier.

5. Pour in the sugar syrup, whisking until the mixture becomes stiff and shiny. If you want to colour them, add a few drops of food colouring – any colour – in at this stage.

6. Tip this meringue mixture into the almond paste mixture and stir gently until the mix becomes stiff and shiny again.

7. Spoon into the piping bag. Pipe a little mixture under each corner of the baking paper to stop it sliding around.

8. With the bag held vertically, pipe 4cm flat circles onto the lined tray, about 2cm apart, twisting the bag after each one. The mixture needs to be quite loose to give a smooth finish. The piping will leave a small 'tip' on each circle so, when they're all piped, give the tray 2–3 slams on a flat surface to flatten them.

9. Leave to stand for 30 minutes to form a skin then bake in the oven for 12–15 minutes, with the door slightly ajar until firm. Remove from the oven, lift the paper off the baking tray and leave the macarons to cool on the paper.

Be adventurous with what you try in the fillings – buttercream and jam are great traditional ideas – and will go down well with all the family.

But what about peanut butter? Or Nutella? A coconut buttercream works well, too.

See what you like best – and then ready, set, bake!

VILLAGERS are preparing to light up a river with colour to continue a 110-year-old tradition.

The annual Matlock Bath Illuminations, which date back to Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897, start tonight and will be held every Saturday and Sunday until Saturday, October 25.

As part of this evening's launch party, nine boats will be assessed by a panel of judges and a winner will be selected.

Members of the Matlock Bath Venetian Boats Association will proudly show off their intricately-designed masterpieces, covered in various coloured light bulbs, on the River Derwent.

Fourteen-year-old Isabel Flavell, of Matlock Bath, has built her second boat after taking third prize last year. Her 2014 entry is called Alice's Misadventure, based on Lewis Carroll's classic tale.

"It is a twist on the story," she said. "We have involved both versions of the movie so it is a bit different."

Isabel began work in February and her creation includes a Queen of Hearts design, where the lights pulsate for extra effect.

Isabel, who attends Highfield School in Matlock, followed in the footsteps of her mum, Angela, when she was accepted into the boat club this year.

Sheila Harrison, 66, of Ashbourne, designs and makes costumes for dolls that are used as part of the boats' decorations. Her son, David, enters a boat every year.

She said: "This year I have dressed the characters that sit in the car in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Altogether it took me about four or five hours to make them."

The boats parade begins at 7.45pm tonight.

DURING a bike ride last week I indulged myself in a rare show of nostalgia.

As I rode over a railway bridge and took a right turn I suddenly realised that I'd come across the street where I was raised for the first 14 years of my life.

Not only that but as I rode down the street I stopped outside the house where I not only lived during that time but where I was born.

And it felt strangely comforting.

As you would expect the memories came flooding back of my childhood.

The corner shop where I would run to every morning on my way to school that in the 1970s seemed a mile long was, in reality, a two-minute walk.

The recreation ground opposite the house where my friends and I would scale the spike-topped bars to play football before being chased off by the petrifying park keeper.

And the wall where an eight-year-old Simon Readman cut his head as we chucked snowballs at each other.

I must have looked like some kind of weirdo as I parked the bike up and stared at the bedroom window where inside I was born back in 1968.

Stories I've heard tell how I was a late arrival by a week, the umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck and as soon as I appeared (all manner of colours I'm told) I was rushed to hospital in an ambulance where I stayed for three weeks.

Rather amusingly now, 40-plus years later, I can laugh at the tale I'm told about how my father was asking the ambulance driver to turn the volume of the football commentary up so he could hear how Manchester United were faring in their European Cup final against Benfica. The Red Devils, as I'm sure you all know, won in extra time, of course.

I remounted the saddle and wheeled away, passing my old primary school, a red-brick building that seemed the size of an ocean liner as a kid, but in reality only holds just a few classrooms.

I smiled across at the swimming baths where I tried, and failed miserably, to chat up girls every Friday night as a young teenager.

Fast forward all these years and I'm now in contact with old friends from this time through the marvels of social media.

Therefore I now know who is married, who is divorced, who has six kids and who has none.

I'm up to speed with former classmates who have settled on the other side of the world in Australia or New Zealand or have emigrated across the pond to the USA.

And, most sadly of all, I was struck this week by the sight on my Facebook feed of the news that one of those former friends, a girl I have not seen for more than 30 years but whom I used to run around a playground with as a youngster, has died.

At the age of 46, Jennifer, I've been told, passed away after contracting a kidney disease.

Thus, my nostalgic trip around the haunts of my childhood came to an end and, in a way, full circle.

RIP Jenny, I'll remember the long blonde hair you had as a youngster and your broad smile.

OUR Mickleover and the Scouts will be operating a car park (with a nominal charge of £2 per vehicle) close to the event tomorrow.

Spaces are limited to a few hundred.

If you are able to walk or use public transport, please consider these options.

Public transport: If you're coming from Derby city centre, or from Burton, Stretton, Tutbury, Etwall etc, the organisers recommend taking Trent Barton LIVE buses.

From Derby, use either of the Mickleover services (Green or Blue) or jump aboard the V1 (bound for Burton).

From Burton, Stretton, Rolleston, Tutbury, Hatton, Hilton and Etwall, use the V1 headed for Derby.

The nearest stops to the action will be at The Vine (for the Mickleover Blue and V1 from Burton) on Uttoxeter Road, Tesco (on the Mickleover Green) at the top of Station Road or on the V1 from Derby on Uttoxeter Road.

To return home, the stops are located at: Vicarage Road for the Mickleover Red; The Vine for Mickleover Green or V1 to Derby; and The Square for the V1 in the direction of Burton.

For times and full details of all the routes, please see Trent Barton's website www.trentbarton.co.uk

All of these bus stops will drop you within sight of Tesco.

The water slide is located in Kipling Drive, down the hill from the supermarket.

The activities field is on the right-hand side beyond the slide. It can be accessed easily by walking across the grass.

How to find the car park:

From Hedingham Way: Turn right onto The Hollow (towards Littleover) – you will immediately see a bridge.

Pass under the bridge and, almost immediately, before you pass any houses, you will see a gateway to a single track on the left.

Take this track and it will lead to the parking area.

If approaching The Hollow from Staker Lane or Haven Baulk Lane, you will find the car park access on the right-hand side (before the overhead bridge) and after the last house on the right-hand side.

Once you have parked, you need to walk back towards the bridge, along the Hollow, turning right onto Brierfield Way.

Cross the road.

Walk past the children's centre to access the site.

You can also continue and take the left turn into Kipling Drive, which will take you to the slide itself.

The postcode of the car park, for those preferring to use Sat-Nav, is DE3 0DH.

A FOOTBALL match was held to raise money for a nine-year-old boy who died after falling into a weir in Derbyshire.

Kai Lambe died in hospital after falling into the River Dove at Tutbury.

His friends and family last night played a football match to raise money for a memorial for Kai in his hometown of Hatton.

Tome Lambe – Kai's older brother – and his friend Joe Bowley helped organise the match and were happy to over 100 people turn out to watch and donate.

Joe, 18, of Hilton, said: "There was more than 100 people there and we managed to raise about £380.

"Everyone who played donated at least £5 each and people watching contributed what they could."

BOSSES at the Royal Derby Hospital have been praised for making "significant improvements" to its waiting times – but told there is still concern about its finances.

Last October, national health regulator Monitor issued a warning in public to the city's hospital trust – demanding it took "urgent action" to fix its problems.

The Derby Telegraph has previously reported how the trust was failing to meet some of its targets – including seeing 95% of its A&E patients within four hours.

And hospital chiefs also admitted earlier this year how they were over-spending by £66,000 a day – and needed to make savings of £43 million.

When the trust received the warning, Derby hospitals' chief executive Sue James hit back at Monitor, saying the regulator had "ignored the reality of the situation" the hospital was facing.

She also said she was surprised by the sudden decision to call for action, as the trust had been having regular meetings with Monitor to explain how it planned to get back on track.

Now, Monitor has confirmed it is less concerned about the trust as it has been meeting its A&E targets. But Monitor said the trust still needed to address its financial problems.

And it said it had agreed with the trust it will develop a "comprehensive financial recovery plan" by the end of January next year.

Mrs James said: "We are delighted to have been able to reduce waiting times in our A&E department and this is a process we began as a priority before Monitor's latest intervention.

"Turning this situation around is a real achievement for us and it is testament to the efforts of all our staff, who have worked tirelessly to help us meet the A&E targets over a sustained period of more than a year.

"To put this in context, over the past financial year, only 13 out of 38 trusts in the East Midlands have managed to achieve this national target of seeing and treating more than 95% of patients in A&E in four hours or less."

Adam Cayley, regional director at Monitor said: "More patients are being seen quickly at the city's A&E department, which is really good news. The challenge is now to get on top of the trust's financial deficit, which is worrying.

"We want the trust to develop a financial recovery plan, demonstrating to us how it will solve its financial problems while safeguarding the quality services which local people expect."