A DEFINITE candidate for the top shelf in your local video shop is an

offering from the European Commission Directorate-general for

Agriculture's Veterinary and Psychosanitary office.

The Euro dung-fuhrers have produced a trilogy of video nasties

cheerily titled Slaughtering Cattle, Pigs, and Sheep. Since you dear

readers may still be breakfasting, we will not go into any great detail.

Well maybe just a bit. The sheep video includes shots of ''skinning of

the head using the appropriate machinery''. Hannibal Lecter and The

Silence of the Lambs haven't got a look-in.

High and mighty

FANS of the Rab C Nesbitt programme may recall a recent episode in

which Mary and Ella had a night out at a club where they were

entertained by an exotic male dancer described as a ''rhinestone heather

cowboy'' called Highlander.

This chap's agents, JT Entertainments of Dalgety Bay, Fife, have

circulated sundry pubs and clubs in Glasgow intimating that Highlander

is available for gigs.

Why is an upmarket operation like the Herald Diary telling you this?

Well, we were impressed by the sheer variety of Highlander's talents. As

well as his Highland dancing, he is an accomplished drag artist, it says

here. In ''his own notorious creation'' he appears as a transvestite

called Wilma Bumdoo.

We are sure Highlander is great fun and extremely talented and we're

not just saying that because he stands 6ft 4in tall and, it says here,

is very muscly.

Foiled again

A NAE Luck Award, this time to Hugh McMahon, the campaigning Euro-MP

against whom there will never be a cash-for-questions scandal. Like most

of the Scots MEPs our Hughie will happily raise an issue, especially if

it results in a wee mention in the papers.

This week he received a letter from a high-heid Eurocrat in the

Brussels Commission with which he had taken up the case of a foreign

national constituent who is illegally being prevented from working in

Scotland.

The Commission promised to investigate, pointing out that Hughie would

not have to pay for the case. Much as this gratified the Member for

Strathclyde West, he was disappointed to read: ''To protect your rights

the Commission will not reveal your identity when dealing with the

authorities of the member state against which your complaint is

directed.''

Under the weather

THE scene is a school in darkest Lanarkshire, where teacher has asked

her little charges to write a short story about the weather. To help

them, she has written a list of useful words, including windy. Thus one

of the offerings: ''The windy cleaner cums tae ma bit but it's too windy

tae wash the windys.''

Going bananas

IT has been brought to our attention that the Diary has been remiss in

offering prizes of ardent spirits and on the basis that any old excuse

will do, we offer the Great Langs Banana Rum competition.

This peculiarly Scottish drink is about to be launched at our English

chums. Ricky Agnew, the chap who used to run the chain of off-licence

shops where there was always change, is the man who plans to get them

going bananas for the drink south of the Border. ''Langs Banana Rum is

one of Scotland's favourite niche products. Everyone knows it,'' says

Ricky.

We have a quantity of bottles of the product to dispense and the first

will go to the first person who contacts the Diary with the answer to

the simple question: How many bananas does it make a bottle of Langs

Banana Rum: a. One dozen; b. One; c. None.

Answers to the usual address. Employees of Langs Banana Rum and Ffyfes

may not enter.

OUR thanks to Jane C Lang of Bridge of Weir who has brought back from

her travels not one but two photies. From West Berlin we have a Chinese

restaurant which appears to celebrate the breaching of a certain wall.

And from Cahors in France a street sign which proves that Alexander

Graham Bell had a separate secret identity.