Academics Cyrus Tata and Fergus McNeill are unlikely to be on Justice Secretary Michael Matheson's Christmas card list.

Over recent months, in a string of appearances before Holyrood's Justice Committee, they have relentlessly criticised the SNP's bid to scrap automatic early release for long term criminals, which would deliver on a manifesto commitment and provide a handy riposte to arguments the Nats are soft on crime.

Their analysis proved so effective that the Government came back with watered down proposals, that didn't actually end automatic early release at all. Was it enough to satisfy the boffins, who made a return appearance to the committee this week to discuss the revised proposals?

As they took their seats, convenor Christine Grahame had their measure.

"I've got a feeling there's fight in these gentlemen, I can see it in their faces," the Holyrood veteran observed, before the pair spent the next 45 minutes gleefully tearing apart Matheson's plan.

Observers noted Nicola Sturgeon's regular visits to London ahead of the General Election. Some remarked that she may as well buy a house in the UK capital.

Not that it did her any harm, with her party winning a historic landslide in the subsequent vote. Following a few photo-ops in the wake of the election, the jetsetting rather dried up.

Her next big trip though, it has emerged, will be to the US. The FM will travel to the United States next month to promote Scotland as "a great place to live, visit, do business, study and invest". Much of her time will be spent in Washington DC.

Should a certain Hillary Rodham Clinton be worried?

There was an unusual "embarrassing dads" moment at Tuesday's education committee when Dr Alasdair Allan, the Learning Minister, was quizzed by MSPs about this year's Higher maths exam.

Thousands of pupils have signed a petition complaining it was too difficult and committee convener Stewart Maxwell took up the issue.

"Being a father of a daughter who has just sat Higher maths and who feels exactly the same as many pupils did that it seemed to be, in some questions at least, a test of English interpretation before it was a test of Higher maths knowledge," he began, before beating a hasty retreat after noticing a mortified look from a teenager sitting in the public gallery.

"We are straying slightly from the point so I will move on given that that was a very personal intervention on my part and she is sitting behind you minister... I can see her face now."

The SNP's environmental credentials took a hit this week, after their MPs decided to wear while roses to Scotland in the Commons.

The flower, the party explained, were worn in tribute to Hugh McDiarmid, who wrote a poem called The Little White Rose of Scotland.

So which part of Scotland did they come from? None, it emerged.

Apparently, they were flown in (by a local florist) from Africa.