Jeremy’s secret

POLITICAL interrogator Jeremy Paxman let the audience at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in on one of his Newsnight interviewing secrets. “One of the things that a lot of politicians didn’t realise was, when we sent a car to pick them up, the driver would always say afterwards, ‘He’s s**t scared you know, he’s not going to talk about X or Y.’ , which was very foolish on their part, and very useful for me.”

Leader of the pack

INCIDENTALLY, our old chum Ruth Wishart, chairing Jeremy’s book festival event, declared that Paxman’s gladiatorial style of interviewing has seen him throw more Christians to the lions than most people. Jeremy smiled and responded: “Well, I hope they weren’t all Christians.”

Manager pipes up

OUR Deep Purple hotel rumpus story reminds Paul O’Sullivan: “The Scottish/Irish folk band The Boy of the Lough played their first prestige concert hall gig at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank in the seventies when the promoter put them up in a posh London hotel where all the other guests were rich American tourists or businessmen.

“After the concert a crowd of traditional musicians went back to the hotel with them and took over the bar for a session.

“At three in the morning the manager had a quiet word. He didn’t mind the music but if perhaps the four pipers could stop playing to allow the guests to get to sleep.”

Paints a picture

PARENTING continued. A Shawlands reader explains: “The writing’s on the wall - because I have a four-year-old.”

Picture this

OUR mention of Kenny Dalglish being a man of few words reminds Frank Gilfeather: “When he was at the height of his fame, Mark McManus - Taggart - was invited to officially open a new cinema complex in the Lochee area of Dundee. He rolled up in a limo to be greeted by a sizeable crowd, stood outside the building and said, ‘Good evening Dundee. Let’s go to the pictures.’

“He then turned and went inside.”

On the money

HOW apt is it, wonders reader John Scott, that the financial advice magazine Money Marketing has just appointed Justin Cash as their new editor.

Gunning for him

CAN’T believe Glasgow’s Sub Club in Jamaica Street is 30 years old. Resident DJ Harri showed impressive sangfroid in an interview with a London-based newspaper when he recalled: “The club closed one night, and then some guys showed up with sawn-off shotguns. These guys bounced in doing really rubbish fake Irish accents saying they were the IRA. They said, ‘Look, he’s the DJ, go into his pockets and see if he’s got any money’. Luckily I had it in my front pocket, so they went into the office and took the money out of the safe instead.”

Shining example

A NEWS story this week reminded theatre critic Ian Shuttleworth: “In 1999, when I was in Edinburgh, I phoned my 81-year-old mum back in Belfast. She told me she’d gone down to the shops, but it had got overcast awful quickly and looked thundery so she’d hurried home. I said, ‘Mum, that was the eclipse’.”

What’s he driving at?

A MILNGAVIE reader emails: “Just bought a beautiful Rolls Royce, but my budget didn’t cover hiring a driver.

“So I spent all that money and I’ve got nothing to chauffeur it.”