TO Glass and Thompson, fabled coffee shop in the heart of the sink estate that is Edinburgh's Noo Toon, where I find my dear friend Duncan Thomson, erstwhile supremo of the National Portrait Gallery.

Mr Thomson, who recently became an octogenarian, spends his spare hours translating Robert Henryson's Testament Of Cresseid from ancient Scots into modern argot and posing for sundry artists. Naturally, I ask if he is clothed at all times and he reassures me he is. Last year a portrait of him by Jennifer McRae won the £10,000 Ondaatje Prize for Portraiture and was subsequently bought by an anonymous buyer for megabucks. It's called Conversations With Duncan and captures Mr Thomson in his raffish pomp. Another portrait of him, also by the talented Ms McRae, is in gestation. As readers of this throbbing organ are only too well aware I myself have been immortalised on canvas on many occasions, rarely flatteringly. My theory is that artists are drawn to subjects who look a tad weird. Of course, this is no reflection on my dear friend. Another dear friend who was often portrayed was Norman MacCaig, who once reluctantly showed me a picture of himself. I thought it was OK but he was not enamoured of it. "Which is why," he said, "I keep it under the bed."

MY dear friend Duncan is keen that I make mention of the fact that Hassan Rouhani, President of Iran, learned everything he knows in Glasgow. Though this information has previously been in the public domain, little has been revealed about Mr Rouhani's time among us. He had two spells here. The first was in the 1970s when he studied at Glasgow College of Technology, the second in the 1990s when he gained a PhD at Glasgow Caledonian University. At the latter he studied Sharia law, but what did he do at the former? What do you think I am? A super sleuth? I can, however, confirm that he did not study hairdressing or golf course design at Glasgow Tech, neither of which figured on the curriculum back then. Mr Rouhani, who is regarded as a moderate, is currently negotiating with the US over Iran's nuclear capability. His years in Glasgow, it is believed in some quarters, may have helped him hone his diplomatic skills. We know, for instance, that he liked of an evening to stroll turban-less in a suit through the dear green place observing at close quarters Western civilisation as it evolved.

JEREMIAH Clarkson, an old banger, has been given the boot - technical term! - by the Beeb. According to my old chum, Ken MacQuarrie, heidbummer of Beebicus Scoticus, who conducted the investigation into the hoo-hah, Mr Clarkson went bananas when he was denied a burger and took out his ire on a producer with an unpronounceable name, calling him expletive things which cannot be repeated in a respectable rag and bashing him until he bled. Lovers of Top Gear, which is to car lovers what Countryfile is to manure, are gutted. A million of them have signed a petition in support of the tumshie and a few have threatened to murder the hapless producer who has been in hiding ever since the incident occurred. One can't help but feel that this all rather encapsulates the dire state of our dung heap. A bully who looks like a vegetable that any self-respecting supermarket would reject is revered by a cadre of online clickers while the victim is viciously insulted. You could make it up but who would believe you?

IN preparation for a talk at the National Library on my old comrade, Alastair Reid, who expired last year, I have been rereading his essays. While some writers' prose grows furry with age, Mr Reid's matures magnificently, like well-oiled leather. In one essay, written for the New Yorker half a century ago, he reflects on Scotland, with which for many moons he had an ambivalent relationship, loving and loathing it in equal measure. Who doesn't! He was born in Whithorn, he recalls, where his childhood was full of characters. One such was a fellow called Robert John Conning, who paraded up and down the street singing hymns. Another was Willie Erskine, who once a year walked the 120 miles to Edinburgh and back, "just to remind himself how lucky he was not to have to do it all the time". And why not?

POSH Dave says he does not intend to stand for a third term as PeeEm should he win a second one. In so doing he draws an analogy with shredded wheat; one of which is not enough, three are too many and two are just enough to satisfy a growing person's hunger pangs. As a dedicated muesli eater I haven't the foggiest clue what he's banging on about.

SO faretheweel to me! I have had eneuch and will no longer be occupying this damned spot. There is, I am told, to be a day of national mourning which will be organised by the Anent Preservation Society whose membership recently eclipsed even that of the Gnats. Weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth are encouraged and there will be counselling available for all those sad folk who are unable to cope with life with a weekly fix of chuntering. A book of remembrance will also be opened and kept behind the bar at Staggs though only those of youse who can prove you can read and write will have access to it. Thereafter there will be a farewell tour, encompassing places where the citizens still bridle when a stranger rides into town. There is also talk of a musical, possibly directed by Andrew Lloyd-Webbedfeet, focusing on the diary's highlights, which will have the virtue of being brief. As ever, my aim is to bring peace and harmony to my dear friends in every corner of this dysfunctional planet. Good day and good luck and be of good cheer.