Golly goth

GOTHS. You must have seen them. Young folk with white faces, heavily made-up eyes, and dressed all in black. Garth Marenghi's Fright Knight at The Pleasance in Edinburgh would be an ideal night out for them, so the show at the Fringe was advertised as two tickets for the price of one for all Goths. And just so there would be no ordinary folk trying to take advantage, the poster added: ''No chancers in black T-shirts.'' Alas, one Edinburgh pensioner had not read it properly, and turned up in a black T-shirt claiming his two tickets for the price of one. The Pleasance ticket lady gently explained no, it was for Goths. ''What's a Goth?'' the old chap asked. She explained about the white faces and black eyes, and just to be helpful, got the old fella to take a seat and she took out her make-up bag and gave his eyes a Goth makeover, so he could qualify for his two tickets.

''But there's four of us,'' he told her and, sure enough, patiently waiting at the door were three female senior citizens he had brought along for the night out. Again the make-up bag came out, which was why Mr Marenghi, a best-selling horror writer, came on stage to find four Goth pensioners in the front row. Or perhaps he just thought that was normal for Edinburgh.

Are you being swerved?

VISITORS to the Edinburgh Book Festival are certainly spoiled for choice. In one tent at the Charlotte Square venue the other night could be found that big panty woman, Andrea Dworkin (you won't catch us new men at the Diary calling her a fat feminist), advocating that men should be castrated then shot, and next door a chap was talking about Mrs Slocombe's pussy.

Pepys the Elder readily admits that Ms Dworkin's application of a feminist critique to Middle East politics (further reading: her book Scapegoat: Jews, Israel and Women's Liberation) got lost in the sheer fear of being a man, or rapists as she calls us, in her presence. We declined her publisher's kind offer to share with Ms Dworkin a sofa in the book festival yurt.

The yurt is the exotic tent where authors retire for a wee refreshment and a chat after their performances. The yurt is a central Asian kind of structure. Like two bell tents together. Like Andrea Dworkin's brassiere, if she wore one.

Anyway, we were in the yurt with Stuart Jeffries, an engaging chap who started his career as editor of the children's pages of the Walsall Observer and has cornered a niche market with his book Mrs Slocombe's Pussy: Growing Up in Front of the Telly. Quite a few Edinburgh women turned out for his talk on Mrs Slocombe's pussy, including one who said her mother still thinks the references on Are You being Served? are to the character's pet cat.

Green with envy

THE good folk of the West End of Greenock have certain pretensions about their lifestyles, which is why we told you some time ago about the woman from the West End who complained to the Greenock Telegraph about reporting a chip-pan fire at her address. ''It was a deep-fat fryer,'' she told them in exasperation. Now a lady in a nearby West End address has complained to the Telegraph about a story which referred to her back green, rather than her garden. ''Do you know what a back green is?'' she remonstrated with the reporter. ''It's a place with four clothes poles, like you get at the back of a council flat.''

Ha ha, ferry funny

THE tourist season often brings strange phone calls to the police station at Oban. We are told of a recent call there by a woman in Ireland who wanted to take visitors from America to Iona, and wondered how to get there.

The policeman, being in helpful mode, explained that there was no direct route from Ireland, and she would need to take a ferry from Larne to Stranraer, drive up to Oban, take the ferry to Mull, drive down the island, and take the small ferry to Iona.

This did not cheer up the woman who, clearly wearying at the thought of it, remarked: ''I don't know why she wants to go to Iona anyway.''

The ever helpful officer told her it was probably because of the historic interest in that Columba had sailed from Ireland to Iona in order to bring Christianity to Scotland.

''Well,'' says the caller, ''why can't we take the ferry he used?''

Beyond the pale

There will be a special bit of theatrical make-up required when Tommy Sheridan, leader of the Scottish socialist revolution, makes his stage debut at the Citizens' Theatre next month. Tommy has two cameo roles in Fallen Women, a play put on by the Lone Rangers single parents' group.

The MSP plays the parts of a sympathetic school jannie and of Tom Johnston, a 1930s socialist hero. The first part is no bother since there are many school jannies who have been on foreign holidays but how is the legendarily-tanned Mr Sheridan going to be

convincing as a pasty-faced Labour politician during the hungry thirties?

READER Lachie Munro of Middlesex is wondering whether this Portobello hostelry, known affectionately locally as The Glassthrower, is trying to attract a different type of customer during the Festival, after losing a letter or two.