EXPECT a strong whiff of nostalgia to blow through Holyrood’s local government committee next Wednesday as it discusses our parliament’s great obsession, dog poo.
The place was synonymous with the stuff in its early years, when MSPs passed a Dog Fouling bill imposing a £40 fine for every one of Fido’s loose cannons.
Now, a la Star Wars, ministers are recommending a bigger and better sequel - £80 fines.
The lucky minister handling the issue is Paul Wheelhouse. A safe pair of hands, we hope.
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DO politician’s take their own government’s advice?
And would they tell us if they did?
In the middle of #boozegate this week, No 10 was asked whether or not David Cameron sticks to new 14 units a week limit.
Alas, Downing Street said they did not have the PM’s "nutritional intake" to hand.
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ALEX Salmond is known to put a great deal of stock in bookmakers' odds.
The ex-First Minister even revealed in his referendum diaries that he checked the price of a Yes victory on the night of the vote and was disappointed to see it had not shortened.
We wonder if he noticed the latest market being offered by Betway this week - on who would win the political phone-in ratings war on London-based digital station LBC.
Boris Johnson is at 4/6, Nigel Farage is priced at 11/4. Will the ex-SNP leader turned radio host be tempted by a punt on himself at a distant 4/1?
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PITY the Speaker.
With just 650 members the Commons has a surprising number of MPs with almost the same name, not least the new SNP MPs Stuart McDonald and, er, Stewart McDonald.
John Bercow’s solution in the past has been to call out MPs middle initials as well.
But this week he went further with the use of nicknames. Step forward one David TC Davies, MP for Monmouth. Or, as the Speaker called him, as "Top Cat".
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MSPs - and particularly SNP MSPs - enthusiastically stuck the boot in to the BBC this week.
Chic Brodie optimistically claimed that if only Auntie would devolve power and budgets from London, BBC Scotland would start churning out the worldwide hits.
"If Denmark can do it with Borgen, I am sure that we can do it with our programmes," he told Holyrood's culture committee. It seems Nordic political dramas, rather than comedies, are more up Chick's street given his follow-up remark.
"Given the weather outside, I think that Frozen should have been produced in Scotland" he quipped, as tumbleweed blew across the committee room.
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