MONDAY

AT the behest of the Beeb, my dear DJ friend Tom Morton has been examining this thistly patch’s relationship with drink. I do not, of course, mean Irn-Bru or Lucozade, both of which I have been known to sup in moderation. The programme was called When The Pubs Went Dry and, lest anyone think otherwise, Mister Tom felt it necessary to declare at the outset that he was not an alcoholic. “I just like a wee tincture now and again,” he added, as jaws dropped around the nation.

Sunny Wick was where he began and ended his tour because its citizens were so sozzled as they entered the 1920s that they voted to go teetotal. This parlous state of affairs lasted from 1922 to 1947 and resulted in the closure of 40-odd pubs. Not, needless to say, that Wickers – as Mister Tom cried them – were denied “a wee tincture”. Cafes sold booze in the guise of tea and coffee and one enterprising soul transformed himself into a “walking shebeen”, dispensing nips from a bottle which he kept in his back pocket. The son of a Wicker man recalled how his father, perhaps after going on a monster hike with the walking shebeen, arrived home stocious, whereupon his mother threw a cushion at him. Ouch!

Once I paid a state visit to Wick, simply to be able to say I’d travelled to the end of ScotRail’s line. I stayed in a hotel which was frequented by roustabouts. When I inquired what might be had by way of evening repast the barmaid chanted all the crisp flavours she had on offer. While I considered the options I took in my surroundings. There were about seven customers, of whom two may have been conscious. I say “may” because one of them seemed to think that the pool table was the bar and kept saying “a pint of lager” in the manner of the raven in Poe’s poem repeating “nevermore”. I decided to dine elsewhere. My old chum, Roberto Louis Stevenson, below, was not a fan of Wick. “The streets are full of the Highland fishers,” he recalled, albeit not to their faces, “lubberly, stupid, inconceivably lazy and heavy to move.” Well, that was his opinion.

TUESDAY

I have been reading Under The Dome, the latest novel by Stephen King, right, which apparently took him 25 years to write. Judging by its length – nearly 900 dense pages – it probably took him as long to type. It is not a book to be read in bed unless you like lying with a brick on your chest.

Just when you think you’ve reached the novel’s end Mr King, right, offers an “author’s note” in which he explains that he first began to write it in 1976 but, having battered out 75 pages, he put it aside and did not pick it up again until 2007. How this constitutes 25 years only his innumerate publisher can explain. In his note, Mr King credits his editor for whittling down “the original dinosaur to a beast of slightly more manageable size”. Say what you like about him – and believe me I will in Saturday’s Herald – he is not one to short-change his readers, especially if they like a liberal spattering of blood and guts. Few pages pass without something beastly happening. After 30 pages a marmot has been chopped in half, a deer has lost its head, a woman has been brutally murdered, another woman has lost her hand (“Whoops”, she says, when her husband asks her what’s happened) and body parts fall out of the sky as a plane disintegrates. One witness sees a severed hand and arm. “The hand,” writes Mr King, “seemed to be pointing at a head, as if to say That’s mine.” You may say things can only get better. I wouldn’t bank on it though.

WEDNESDAY

Reserve December 20 in your diary. This is the date on which Jimmy Carr, below, a self-professed “comedian”, is coming to perform in Edinburgh. Mr Carr swam into my consciousness with a “joke” about limbless soldiers. “Say what you like about those servicemen amputees from Iraq and Afghanistan, but we’re going to have a f***ing good Paralympic team in 2012.” Haud your sides lest they burst! Mr Carr specialises in such “humour”, the butts of which include fat Scots with ginger hair, who, I hope, will be out in bampot force in Edinburgh.

Typical of such hilarious tubes – eg, J Ross, R Brand – Mr Carr has since cravenly apologised, suggesting even that he told the joke to draw attention to the plight of the servicemen. Pull the one leg I’ve still got! Moreover, he added, his audiences aren’t offended. Neither, my dear chum, are Nick Griffin’s when he talks about repatriating immigrants. Looking at Mr Carr I am weirdly reminded of an over-barbecued sausage whose insides are uncooked. What better objects to pelt him with?

THURSDAY

To my utter amazement I am beginning to feel sorry for EmPees, many of whom, in the wake of the expenses palaver, now say that they’re seriously wondering whether they can afford to stay in Parliament, as if that were in their gift. Several venerable and revered dinosaurs, including Laybore’s Eeyore, Charles Clarke, above, argue that if we want to live in a democracy we must be prepared to pay for it.

Meanwhile David Blunketty-Blunk says that it is unreasonable when travelling hither and thither to expect one’s partner to travel second class – even if she or he or whatever is on one’s payroll – while one sits in first class. What Mr Blunketty-Blunk seems unable to countenance is himself travelling in council class where the commonweal is to be found munching and grunting. Yesterday, for example, I was travelling among the great unwashed when I overheard a gruff hack discuss on the phone the stories he intended to cover. Lo and behold, it turned out to be my old chum Shir Anguish MacLeod of The Times, bellowing to another dear chum, Sir Magnum Links-Sausage, about the dire state of the haggis economy. Or so, huffed Shir Anguish, shays a watchdog. Personally I’d rather listen to the guard apologising for a delay.

Talking of which, I was in Aberdeen last weekend joining the throng at Union Square, the new shopping mall which, optimists say, will stop Aberdonians pillaging south in search of designer semmits. Retail being one of the few areas in which I don’t have any expertise, I cannot possibly comment. What will stop them going anywhere, however, is GNER, which cancelled a timetabled train without a by-your-leave. Nor were the ScotRail staff on hand much help, preferring to rejoice over the fecklessness of a rival than help stranded punters. Evil, that’s what they are.

FRIDAY

According to a Grauniad headline, a “drunken student faces jail for urinating on war memorial”. However, the article below the headline says no such thing, stating merely that pokey is one of the possibilities facing Philip Laing, who was caught on CCTV peeing on a wreath of poppies in London. Mr Laing, who was studying “sports technology” at Sheffield Hallam University, said by way of excuse that he’d drunk a bottle of whisky and has no recollection of dipping into his boxers, wheeching out his whatnot and hosing the poppies. This did not wash with the judge who, like me, obviously believes that where wild toileting is concerned, eneuch is eneuch. Whether Mr Laing should be sent to jail is a moot point. I suspect he has suffered enough and would be better doing community service, ideally cleaning up after other notorious wild toileters, canine as well as human. By spooky coincidence I spotted a wild toileter outside Queen Street station the other morning. Lest one be taken for a pervert, one did not dally. The toileter was a young man, probably no older than Mr Laing, who did not look as if he’d consumed a bottle of whisky. Rather, he seemed oblivious to the idea that what he was doing was in any way out of order. It’s probably a Glasgow thing.

SATURDAY

I am grateful to my dear amigo John MacLeod, peerless columnist, for drawing my attention to the stupidity of Scotch weans. In particular, Dr John says their knowledge of history is woeful. Citing a survey of Fife kids, he notes that one 15-year-old thought that Wellington’s triumph over Napoleon was in the Falklands. On top of which, four out of five weans thought Dunkirk was the name a mischievous meenister had given to his manse. Quite why Dr John should be amazed by any of this amazes me.

Ignorance, once something to be ashamed of, is brazenly paraded. When anyone wants to know something all they have to do is contact Mr Google. Nor are things much better further up the educational beanpole. My university chums say that the prevailing trend is to outlaw the humanities in favour of the sciences because that’s where the dosh is. Soon nobody will know anything and will care less. Ach weel.

IN

John – now Jo – Clifford, a playwright, has written a play, Jesus, Queen Of Heaven, which she says she wrote to create greater understanding of transgender folk, like herself.

Out

Nay, nay, nay, thrice nay, say evangelical Christians, who in an exclusive interview with God quoted him as saying: “My son is not a pervert.”

Shake It All About

Says Ms Clifford, defensively, “even a man from the Daily Mail” found the play uplifting. Help ma boab!