Rewind to the year 2006, the year that Donald Trump arrived in Scotland to inspect land he had purchased north of Aberdeen to build a golf resort.

In music, Scots performer Sandi Thom knocked Gnarls Barkley off No.1 with I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker, and aged just 18, Paolo Nutini reached No.3 on the UK chart with his debut solo album These Streets. The last regular episode of Top of the Pops aired after 42 years and more than 2,000 episodes. Snow Patrol were the last band to play. At the Melbourne Commonwealth Games, Scotland scooped 29 medals, almost half of them in swimming, including six golds, and in football, Manchester United midfielder Roy Keane signed for Celtic.

MSP Tommy Sheridan won a famous defamation case against the publishers of the News of the World, and Scotland became the first country in the UK to ban smoking in public places. Scotland’s first Gaelic-language secondary school opened in Glasgow. Rosslyn Chapel in Midlothian was a star of the movie adaptation of the Dan Brown blockbuster The Da Vinci Code. In the movie, Tom Hanks plays symbologist Robert Langdon in one of the year’s biggest box office hits.

There was good news for Take That fans when, ten years after splitting up, they made a spectacular return. The band’s Beautiful World album entered the UK chart at No.1 and remained there for six weeks, though Robbie Williams didn’t join the comeback.

The year ended with disappointment for Hogmanay revellers when a howling gale brought Scotland’s traditional Hogmanay celebrations to a premature end, making it a New Year to remember. Show less