AM saddened by the death of leading Scots lawyer Joe Beltrami. 

 

I still remember the first time I met him even though it was nearly 40 years ago. As a young reporter on the Evening Times I was at Glasgow Sheriff Court where the tall figure of Joe loomed over me and he asked who I was.

In a subtle way of showing he was not averse to appearing in print, Joe's reply when I told him I was with the Times was: "I'm Joe Beltrami. Beltrami - one 'l', one 'm'."

Joe's reputation was of defending the better known amongst the criminal fraternity. At one court hearing the fiscal declared that when the accused was cautioned and charged, he replied: "Get me Beltrami". The sheriff leaned forward and asked: "Was that an admission of guilt, Mr Fiscal?"

JOE took great pride in being one of the first solicitors to become a solicitor-advocate, allowing them to appear in the High Court. When Joe sat the examination he answered all five questions then noticed he only had to answer four of his choice. Joe magisterially pinned a note to the paper saying the examiners could just take their pick.

GLASGOW businessman Stephen O'Neill was in Vietnam visiting his daughter where he took a shopping trip to Tokyo. He tells us: "I'm sitting looking proudly at my new coat and shirt from the hippest part of trendy Aoyama, Tokyo, and I have to admit to being somewhat crestfallen. Hidden deeply away in the coat is a tiny label saying it's made by Mackintosh in Cumbernauld, and my rather unique shirt is made by Traditional Weatherwear, again in Cumbernauld. Instead of spending a king's ransom and 20 hours on a flight I should have walked along the Forth and Clyde Canal from Maryhill and bought this gear direct."

AS Fifa gets closer to moving the Qatar World Cup to dates in the winter, fans' site Pie and Bovril optimistically declares: "World Cup Final 2022 to be held on 23rd December in Qatar. Going to be tight for Scotland fans to make it back in time for Christmas Day."

SO former Edinburgh MP Malcolm Rifkind is stepping down from Parliament after his embarrassing attempts to earn dosh from a fictitious Chinese company. A lawyer tells us of a very much earlier embarrassing event for Malcolm when he was still an advocate in Edinburgh and appealed a client's 10-year prison sentence for serious assault. Malcolm became a member of the faculty's unofficial Hole-in-the-Head Club for the appeal leading to the client's sentence being increased to 12 years.

STILL, on a happier note, Malcolm once recalled the British minister speaking in Moscow who used the phrase: "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." He was surprised to learn later that it was translated into Russian as: "We have lots of vodka, but we're rather short of meat."

SINGER Michelle McManus tells us she is delighted that her favourite wine bar in London, Gordon's Wine Bar has a Twitter account. So we check it out and we learn from Gordon's: "Cheesy joke to cheer up your week - did you hear about the explosion at the cheese factory? There was de brie everywhere." Not sure who should apologise for that - us or the wine bar.

A COLLEAGUE wanders over to make the point: "I've heard people argue that technology is destroying childhood, but I can remember a time when kids were so bored they'd turn their eyelids inside out for amusement."