RETAIL news. Diary reader Norman receives a tweet from Tesco saying they are installing 900 defibrillators in their stores. "This seems a good idea," he says, "but you have to wonder why. Are they putting their prices up?"

SOMEHOW, with all those lithe, suntanned bodies on display over there, it's hard to associate Australia's Bondi Beach with something as peculiarly calorific as the deep-fried Mars Bars. Ronald H Oliver, however, having read Rosemary Goring's article yesterday, says they're on sale at the Bondi Surf Seafoods shop. "The owner, George Dimitrios says he sells about 50 per day and that he has the support of the Mars company. So it is not a Scotland-only fad."

Sure enough, the shop's website quotes George as saying: "We had banana fritters and pineapple fritters but wanted something exotic, so we experimented with deep frying different types of chocolate bars and the Mars bar was the best."

And for those of you who have yet to sample the delicacy, George says: "So what does a battered and fried Mars bar taste like? It tastes like a battered and fried Mars bar."

FIRST Minister Nicola Sturgeon won't forget her encounter with freelance photographer Robert Perry in a hurry.

The FM and two MSPs were walking towards a clutch of photographers on Govan Road on Monday. Robert was just about to ask if he could photograph her on her own when his new but inferior-quality camera strap chose that moment to snap. His camera rolled down his arm and leg and landed on the pavement, though he was able to break its fall with his foot.

"Nicola later came up to me and ask me how my camera was," said Robert. He told her it was fine but that it was all her fault. "She looked at me and asked, with some justification, 'How is my fault?'

"I had to blame someone other than myself, didn't I?" Robert tells the Diary. "But at least she was good-humoured about it."

NOT every perk is worth the paper it is written on. One reader who has just switched to a new phone-and-mobile supplier was offered priority booking of Wembley England football tickets. "Fat lot of good to a Scottish football fan," he sniffs.

GLASGOW has the Squinty Bridge and the Armadillo but, as yet, no definitive nickname for the nearby SSE Hydro. The omission has not gone un-noticed by author Michael Meighan who, in his new book, Glasgow in 50 Buildings, says pointedly: "Strangely, I don't think that Glaswegians have come up with a nickname yet, but it is only a matter of time." Can Diary readers oblige him?

MARITAL arguments, more of. An anonymous reader emails us to say: "I can't believe I'm the only husband to blurt out, 'Don't talk to me about not communicating!'"

A COLLEAGUE wanders over to Ken Smith's desk and, seeing that Ken has escaped on holiday, wanders over to my desk instead and talks about how much he'd love to realise his lifelong ambition and work with NASA. "How hard it can be to get a job there?" he muses. "After all, it's not rocket science."