Parting shot

Parting shot

IT was an embarrassment of riches at Donald Trump's press conference at Turnberry as the US billionaire's flyaway haircut met that of SNP MSP Chic Brodie, whose slick black helmet has earned him the nickname Elvis. While they are on different sides of the windfarm debate, it seems Chic has struck up an unlikely friendship with the tycoon. The question: did they swap hair tips? "No," reports Chic. "Although we both prefer the first nine at Turnberry, as that's when the wind's in your face."

Funding row

IN a newspaper column, Yes-friendly commentator Lesley Riddoch suggested bodies backing a No vote were "almost guaranteed" public funding as the Scottish Government bent over backwards to "prove its even-handedness". She wrote: "He who shouts loudest and has least intention of voting Yes on September 18 currently wins funding wrangles." It has raised a few eyebrows, not least as Ms Riddoch is co-founder and director of a think tank called Nordic Horizons - awarded £22,000 by the Scottish Government last month. The cash was "to extend its work facilitating policy exchange between Scotland and the Nordic area," the Government said.

Blue sky thinking

WITH the Yes camp trailing in the polls, what could turn the tide? Surely activists are not pinning their hopes on the Scottish weather? Yes Scotland's chief strategist Stephen Noon said in a podcast with Derek Bateman: "Today is a lovely sunny day. That's part of the mood ­creation for ­Scotland. I hope there's a sunny Games, a successful Games, and there's a ­building of ­confidence, a building of happiness in the country. That's the sort ... of mood we need to be in as we go into these final few weeks."

l Unspun will return from a summer break on August 9.