A brief scam, combatting the drone attack,the curse of Darwin and old Christmas present favourites

On the face of it Logan Cameron Solicitors looks like a reputable and well-established firm, boasting that is provides "exceptional service to clients around the world" on complex legal matters like corporate and tax, intellectual property, it's staff of 200 lawyers also handling criminal work and legal aid. The company website is highly-professional and convincing. There's a photograph of the principal, Logan Cameron, and those of other staff. It's Glasgow office is given as 283 Bath Street, where many legal firms are located, and there's an email address and local telephone number.

Except, there is no 283 Bath Street. At 281, Premier Suites, which rents out short-term apartments, hadn't been heard of them. It was the same story next door at 285, Beresford House, where the building manager pointed to the list of companies on the information board. When I showed him the company website and the postcode he noted that it was the same as Thompsons solicitors, who have been tenants there for years and are highly reputable.

But the killing fact is that there is no Logan Cameron listed with either the Scottish Law Society or the English body. This is a scam which has been well-thought out and must involve local knowledge. How else would they come up with a business address in an expensive street which doesn't exist? The telephone number is real, but the number rings out. The scammers may well have flown.

There's an interesting, if rather ghoulish, twist on the company name. If the two words of the principal are reversed, to Cameron Logan, it's the same name as that of the 23-year-old burned to death by his brother Blair at his parents' house in Milngavie on New Year's Day 2017. His sister was badly burned and has only recently returned to work after several operations.

The Law Society of Scotland is now sending out an alert about the scam to all his members. Readers beware too. It's also a criminal offence to pass yourself off as a solicitor. McPlod you know what to do.

DRONING ON

We spend more on defence than any other country in Europe, we are spending tens of billions on renewing Trident, yet we can’t stop one small drone bringing the country’s second largest airport to a standstill, with hundreds of thousands of people stranded. Alastair Campbell's wife blames the Russians. Transport Secretary Chris Grayling, the man who brought us the rail timetable chaos, doesn’t know who is behind it and what to do about it. Of course. Fortunately his colleague Liz Truss, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, has the answer. She tells parliament that she’s been at Pentonville recently and they’re using barking dogs to successfully deter drones. Oh yes she did! Just don’t call her a stupid woman. She’s wrong, naturally, she named the wrong species – as a quick scan of YouTube would confirm, there are dozens of clips of hawks successfully bringing down drones. Forget your sharpshooters and ground-to-air missiles, where’s Kes when you need him?

IT'S DARWIN TIME AGAIN

The annual Darwin Awards commemorate those who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it, usually in the most side-splittingly hideous manner. Voting is going on just now for the 2018 winner. The leader by a long way, in what’s dubbed The Missionary Position, is the late John Allen Chau, missionary, explorer and certifiable maddie, who bribed fishermen to take him to the off-limits Andaman Islands in November, bearing gifts of scissors, a football and, of course, Jesus. The islanders have a zero tolerance approach since they were almost wiped out in the 1800s under British occupation. Understandably they reached for their bows and quivers and perforated him. Talk about slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune, or stupidity.

It may be a late entrY, but I’m submitting my own. It’s this utterly chaotic and incompetent government for austerity, homelessness and piloting us over the Brexit cliff.

THIS BOOK'S FOR BURNING

The serial wife-beater and former SNP MSP Bill Walker has issued an apology. Not over the 23 separate instances of abuse for which he was sentenced to 12 months in prison, but for the delaying of his self-published book – no, not a manual of chops and choke holds – but the second instalment of his autobiography. I understand it comes in a sick bag.

GALLOWS HUMOUR

Climbing back on my hobby horse about nominative determinism, the theory that your name can predict your career path, a few years back a US professor came up with the questionable statistic that white men were 30 per cent more likely to work in occupations that matched there surname than purely by coincidence. So can there ever have been someone more destined to be a crime writer than Jim Gallows, whose first book was The Christmas Killer? I don’t know if he’s white. Tennys Sandgren certainly is. No prizes for divining what his sport is.

LAST MINUTE CHRISTMAS PRESENTS…OR NOT?

I had thought that Airfix kits, the object of which is to stick your fingers together with glue while grappling with grey pieces of plastic, and Painting By Numbers, knocking up your own masterpiece at home on Boxing Day, had gone the way of the gird and cleek and Askit powders for the hangover. Not so. They exist in many varieties. If you don’t want to become affixed to your mini warplane Airfix even do quick assembly ones where you just click the components together, which surely spoils the fun. If you want to go full-on hideous on your wall, you can go for the Modern Lion kit, in glow-in-the-dark primary colours and which it could have been done by Steven Brown, he of Hielan Coo infamy. And for a penny less than a tenner you can paint your own Jack Vettriano. A company called Golden Maple is selling a do-your-own copy of one of Vettriano’s most famous canvases, The Singing Butler, although they are calling it Dancing In The Rain without crediting Jack, on the website at least. I don’t know if he’s getting a cut of this or not but if he isn’t, and he pursues this, then a finders’ fee would be appreciated.