THE feathers were flying yesterday when Hetty the Giant Battery Hen joined the election campaign. Hetty, a human-sized hen, was protesting with sundry Glasgow candidates against intensive farming. One bright photographer brought along a dozen eggs (free range naturally) for a picture. But when he suggested the candidates stand with the eggs between their legs, the women candidates said it was too sexist, and declined. He then suggested a picture of the various party rosettes in a sack of organic seed. But the Green Party candidate objected, saying he had brought the seed, and didn't see why the other rosettes should go in it. The photographer then suggested swopping his eggs for the seed, so that it would be his seed, but the Green declined. Makes you think that Animal Farm was more realistic than you realised.

An outbreak of honesty in the Scottish election. Many Ayrshire lamp posts have been adorned with posters stating: ''Scottish Conservatives - Tosh''. Actually, the Tories just want folk to vote for Murray Tosh, candidate in Cunninghame South.

YOUNG people, thankfully, do not always treat politicians with the respect the politicians believe they deserve. We commend The Crack, a magazine produced by under-25s in Motherwell and Bellshill. In profiling its local candidates, it says of Tory Motherwell & Wishaw candidate William Gibson, under the heading ''Interest in Youth Issues'' - ''Only if there are votes in it, like all the other candidates''.

Tory Bellshill candidate Stuart Thompson is listed under ''Links with Motherwell'' - ''Has seen Motherwell Football Club playing on Sportscene''.

Labour's Motherwell & Wishaw candidate, Jack McConnell, fares little better. Under the heading ''Why you shouldn't vote for him'' the magazine lists: ''He is a spokesperson on agriculture, fisheries, and rural affairs. Hmm, ever been to Motherwell or Wishaw, Jack?''

They also get right down to the nitty gritty with SNP candidate Jim McGuigan. Under ''Why you shouldn't vote for him'' is ''Dodgy beard, dodgy haircut''. One of the few to pass muster is flame-haired Liberal Democrat press officer Jayne Struthers, who is also standing in Bellshill. The fact that she is female, comes from North Lanarkshire, and is 23, is shrewdly listed both under why you should vote for her and why you shouldn't.

LABOUR'S candidate in Dumbarton, Jackie Baillie, says in her election literature that Labour wants to see improvements in education, including improved O-grade results. Not an easy task, of course, as O-grades were abolished a few years ago, but perhaps Labour is secretly planning to bring them back, along with the

11-plus and sending boys up chimneys.

Some plain speaking on the local election front. Jenny Watson, aspiring to be returned as an Independent on Aberdeenshire Council, says she has canvassed 78% of her electorate. They all say they'll vote for her. With one disgruntled exception, who outside Safeway in Banchory, murmured his dissent: ''If ye were on fire, I wadna p*** on ye.''

Glasgow is becoming quite the place for lovely old buildings turned into interesting hotels. The latest is the Arthouse Hotel at 129 Bath Street. Teachers will know 129 as the former HQ of the Glasgow education department. In fact, there were many former dominies at the launch party of the Arthouse Hotel on Friday night. Including one lady who said: ''I've just been to the toilet. The last time I was in that loo was 15 years ago when I spent 20 nervous minutes in it before an interview for a promoted post.''

THE normally douce Smith Art Gallery in Stirling has rather surprisingly put the following admonition on its application form for a one-day conference on Stirling's past. ''Warning. This paper contains strong language and could give offence. Certificate 18.'' It refers to a talk by respected historian John Harrison on Stirling's sharp-tongued women in the seventeenth century. As director Elspeth King told us: ''They swore some very sweary words in those days, and we thought we had better alert people as this is a genteel part of the world.'' John is on holiday so we don't know which curses he will be using, but a paper he wrote for Scottish Economic & Social History refers to accounts of one woman being put in a scold's bridle for calling another woman ''a brazen-faced slut'' and a ''clarty-arsed bitch''. Wouldn't happen today, would it?

GIL Shaw from Rutherglen was reassured by the prompt reply from Spar's director of laboratory services after he wrote complaining about a dodgy tub of cream - until he noticed the director's name was Dr Kill.

AN apocryphal story, we hope, from Lanarkshire, where neighbours have fallen out in a dispute over a boundary wall. Eventually one of them goes to his lawyer, which prompts his neighbour to do likewise, but inadvertently chooses the same lawyer. The solicitor patiently explains that he cannot act for both, but gives him a letter of recommendation to another lawyer. Although the letter is sealed, the neighbour opens it out of curiosity, and reads an account of the dispute with the added paragraph: ''These two are turkeys. You pluck one, and I'll pluck the other.''

THE Gods of comedy are fickle and often cruel. Mark Bratchpiece, a colleague of The Diary, makes an extra crust or two as a stand-up comic. His gigs are all local and his long-time ambition is to play the Comedy Store in London. At long last the name Bratchpiece will feature at this famous venue. Not Mark but his son, Neil.

Bratchpiece fils, a 15-year-old pupil at Dalziel High School in Motherwell, attended a comedy masterclass organised by Fanta in Strathclyde Arts Centre. The culmination of the class was a competition that Neil and his mate, Martin Smith, won, doing their very first double-act.

The prize is a gig at the Comedy Store, compered by Jonathan

Woss and competing against youngsters from Manchester, Birmingham, and London.

Says Mark: ''Honest, he didn't use any of my material.'' Which is probably why the boy done good.