A SCOTTISH legend traduced! The just published Third QI Book of General Knowledge claims that the story of Greyfriars Bobby in Edinburgh, who sat by his owner's grave, was just a publicity stunt. It claims the original dog was a mongrel dumped over the churchyard's wall by a gardener who wanted rid of it, and it stuck around because the graveyard keeper fed it - there was no buried master.
Goodness they'll be claiming next that the Loch Ness Monster doesn't exist.
READER John Cochrane passes on the Paisley Daily Express headline that police are launching a campaign against "rouge tradesmen." Yes, the young ladies in Paisley can plaster on the make-up a bit too much on a night out, we concede, but surely the police have got better things to do?
OUR story about the late Labour politician Denis Healey reminds Foster Evans of one of Denis's cutting remarks aimed at Margaret Thatcher in the House of Commons. "I often compare Mrs Thatcher to Florence Nightingale", Dennis told his fellow MPS before adding after a suitable pause: "She stalks through the wards of our hospitals as a lady with a lamp - unfortunately in her case it's a blowlamp."
HILARIOUS to see the media in England getting excitable about the 5p plastic bag charge being introduced yesterday with one major tabloid warning of "chaos" in the supermarkets, despite its introduction in Scotland passing remarkably without any fuss at all. So we check with Charles Lawley down south about the first day of the 5p charge who tells us: "Just nipped into Tesco Express in Ruislip Manor and everyone is calm despite the plastic bag tax. Spirit of the blitz."
SAD to hear of the death of crime author Henning Mankell, author of the great Wallander series set in Sweden. We remember when Henning was invited to the Edinburgh Book Festival and he explained that in his early writing days he was so poor that he lived in an abandoned apartment with no lightbulbs and he was obliged to open the oven door and write on it as a small bulb came on when the oven door was open.
He did however make lots of money since, and spent millions on orphanages and other charities in Mozambique. It was a sign of his modesty that he deflected questions about his largesse by dismissing it as "I need to spend my money on something.”
THE National Theatre of Scotland's new £6m headquarters to be built at Speirs Wharf in Glasgow is to be called Rockvilla, resurrecting an old local name. There in fact was a Rockvilla School there, known locally as The Rock, which burned down after its closure and was demolished in the 90s. A former local resident on the Hidden Glasgow Forum once revealed: "I watched it burn down... I believe it was the anniversary of VE day and the fire brigade stopped for the minute's silence."
Don't really believe that, but what an image it conjures up.
GREAT Scottish Run in Glasgow at the weekend and perhaps the organisers were caught out by the numbers taking part. Reader Alistair Moss in Doune looked closely at his son's medal for finishing and read that it was for the "Great South Run" in Portsmouth. Bit of a mix-up - unless his son really had gone that extra mile and finished well beyond Glasgow.
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