TO the literary event of the year, aka the Muriel Spark Annual Lecture, at the National Library of Scotland.

Its deliverer was my dear amigo, Candia McWilliam, writer extraordinaire. As all who witnessed it will attest, her lecture was a wonder to behold. It is normal on such occasions to present the lecturer with a gift. Ms McWilliam, however, bucked convention and presented me with a book by one Brian Tracy - "a leading authority on the development of human potential and personal effectiveness" - called Eat That Frog!, sub-titled Get More Of The Important Things Done Today. She explained that she had ordered online a copy of Ms Spark's late gem, The Finishing School, but had been sent Eat That Frog! instead. It may very well change my life. For example, in a chapter entitled Maximize Your Personal Powers, Mr Tracy says: "Feed yourself as you would feed a world-class athlete before a competition because in many respects, that's what you are before starting work each day." He's right. I've just eaten a steak the size of Texas and can already run faster than Oscar Pistorius.

ABERDEEN-born Norman Baker, a LibDumb underling of the Home Secretary, has resigned in high dudgeon, saying that working for Theresa May was like "walking through mud". Other clichés may be in the pipeline. The Home Secretary says she sympathises with Mr Baker and that she would never make anyone who worked for her walk through mud. I cannot tell you how reassuring this is on a personal level. Mr Baker says that he now intends to spend more time with his rock band, The Reform Club. Is this good news? Go to YouTube and you will see The Reform Club perform their song Piccadilly Circus in, of all places, Piccadilly Circus. In it, Mr Baker sings his heart out and possibly also a couple of other organs. Reaction from the site's "visitors" may best be described as mixed. One, perhaps a bricklayer by profession, opined: "Crikey, I've seen more charisma in a bag of sand." Another, however, purred: "You can't hate a song with a ukulele." On which contentious point, I'll move on.

BONFIRE Nicht. Twa effigies of Alexei Salmonella, Czar of the Gnats (for now), are to be burned by bampots in the East Sussex hovel of Lewes. It is a reminder that the much-vaunted "fair play" of our neighbours is as much of a myth as Nessie, an effigy of whom is also to be burned. We were repeatedly told throughout the reeferendum campaign that the Yes camp was inherently anti-English and that the drive towards freedom was prompted by nothing more than anglophobia, evidence of which appeared to be in short supply. That there might be a scintilla of Scotophobia was routinely pooh-poohed.

Now Ingerland is ­becoming Angerland, what with its ­antipathy to immigrants and its adoration of Nigella Farrago, a tube. Witness a TV programme called Made In Leicester, in which the participants appear to be at each other's throats. Then one turns to The Apprentice where one contestant is as nasty as another and everyone bows and scrapes to Sir Alan. How is it possible to be so thick? Such ugliness is unedifying and puts one off one's slumbers.

Breaking news! The Waterloo Bonfire Society - I jest not! - which produced one of the effigies of Mr Salmonella, says it will no longer be burning it. There was "no wish or intention to offend", says one of the incendiarists. There is no mention in dispatches of the fate of Nessie.

MY dear chum, Sir Edward Linden, phones from Maida Vale to remind me that he knew well the two Roberts - Colquhoun and MacBryde - who are the subject of a John Byrne play and whose paintings will soon go on show at Auld Reekie's Gallery of Modern Art. The ever-hospitable Sir Edward used, when one of the Roberts was on his uppers, to provide him with a floor to kip on. Those were the days when Soho pubs were awash with inebriated poets and painters all trying to sponge off each other. For further enlightenment, Sir Edward points me in the direction of Anthony Cronin's classic memoir of the 1950s and 1960s, Dead As Doornails, which contains several pages devoted to Colquhoun and MacBryde. In drink, recalls Mr Cronin, MacBryde would cast off his Ayrshire reticence and enquire of a female drinking companion: "What colour are yer bloomers?" What he intended to do with this information is, alas, unclear.

ANENT - aha! - Richard Branson, I shall be sorry if the explosion of one of his rockets delays his own launch into outer space. I note that this enterprise is called Virgin Galactic. It is one of innumerable Virgins. To date we have had Virgin Cola (horrible), Virgin Balloon Flights (full of hot air) and Virgin Limobike, which is what they call a rickshaw in London. There is, it would appear, virtually nothing to which Mr Branson is not inclined to prefix the word "Virgin". I say "virtually" because he is yet to offer us Virgin Birth. If those with more dosh than sense are prepared to cough up £150,000 a pop to be catapulted into thin air, then what wouldn't they be prepared to spend to avoid labour pains?

THE boiler has gone on the blink. The gas man cometh promptly. While he's mid-fix, he informs the Home Secretary of an app which, for £199, allows punters when out and about to learn what the temperature is back at base and adjust it accordingly. On a recent trip abroad, Mr Gasman did so, and was horrified to discover that the temperature in his living room was 28C. He immediately contacted his son who was house-sitting and asked if he was trying to grow tropical plants. The explanation was simple; there were 42 people in the room, generating the kind of heat most commonly associated with parties.