THE QUEEN OF THE CASTLE AND THE DIRTY WEE RASCALS

If you live in a 15th century castle your views about the surrounding serfs and their progeny might seem somewhat harsh, punitive and reactionary. Sally Cogley lives in one, Cessnock Castle in Galston, she’s a councillor on East Ayrshire Council and the representative, indeed the sole member, of the Rubbish Party, elected on a ticket – biodegradable obviously – to clean up the environment. I’ll let the reader pass judgment on her grand initiative, which involves the potential criminalisation of children, some of whom will be primary kids, and whether or not it’s a rubbish one.

Sally is passionate about litter, and stopping people discarding it, and rightly. It particularly annoyed her to see pupils from nearby Loudoun Academy dropping their sweet wrappers, crisp bags, fag ends, betting slips and the like as they came and went from the school. When she was elected in the Irvine Valley ward – don’t ask me why anyone would vote for a Rubbish Party, although obviously millions do for the alternatives – she persuaded the council to back her cunning plan, which was to have litter enforcement officers patrolling around the school, swooping on litterers.

Now littering is a criminal offence. If a pupil is caught “they’ll get an £80 fixed penalty notice along with a cover letter which will go to home to parents or their guardians” Cogley says. However, if the kid attends a litter pick at the school then the penalty notice is torn up.

More than 10,000 fixed penalty notices a year are issued in Scotland, but less than half pay the £80. That should lead to a miscreant’s referral to the Procurator Fiscal, court and a potential penalty of up to £2500, but in practice there are rarely prosecutions. Any conviction, however, stays on the record. “As a council we don’t really want our kids to have criminal records,” Cogley assures.

The Cogley rubbish plan is now to be rolled out to Loudoun’s six feeder primary schools. You can imagine the conversation as a five-year-old comes through the door after school. “Hi darling, any homework?” “Nah, just another of those eighty quid fines.”

CLUDGING THE AWARD

International Women’s Day may have passed but I still want to give a shout out to the inestimable Suki, aka the Cumbrae Cludgie Cleaner. When North Ayrshire Council decided to close the six public conveniences in Millport and around the island because budgets had gone down the toilet, the local development company took it on and advertised for a seasonal cleaner. Islander Suki McGregor, who had been a theatre manager, answered the call (not just of nature).

“I have added a number of quirky touches, such as flowers in the women’s toilet and hand cream in the gents,” Suki says. Locals and businesses have also donated air fresheners, planter, bins and stuff. Suki, given her theatrical background, even has her own YouTube channel and promotes Cumbrae through her videos, or Vlogs from the Bog. She’s now up for an award, from the very people who closed the toilets, North Ayrshire Council, as Citizen of the Year. The voting has closed and the result will be announced at a charity dinner on Friday. Here’s hoping Suki cleans up.

BREN'S IN THE MONEY

Brendan Rodgers’ house in Drymen Road, Bearsden was broken into at 2am on Wednesday while his wife and stepdaughter were in bed. Thieves would have known he was not there, having done an overnight flit to his new job as coach at Leicester. Celtic medals and other valuables were taken in what was clearly a targeted burglary. Whether or not there was any personal motivation behind the break-in isn't, of course, known, but it was clearly traumatic for Charlotte Searle and her six-year-old daughter who ended up locking themselves in the toilet.

Rodgers is now reviled by the majority of Celtic supporters, but both he and the club have come out of it well financially, exceedingly well in the former manager’s case. My impeccable sources tell me that he was on £45,000 a week at Celtic – £2.3 million plus bonuses – and that has been tripled at Leicester to over £7m a year,

He was almost a year into a four-year contract at Parkhead but it contained an each-way break clause of £6m, so Leicester, as part of the severance deal I understand, agreed to stump this up for Rodgers. Which perhaps explains why there were no great grouses, recriminations or wailings coming out of the Celtic boardroom about the departure.

He’s done rather well out of goings, has Bren, when he was sacked by Liverpool in 2015 he walked out with a severance cheque for £9m. You can be sure that when he gets sacked/leaves the Foxes he’ll do at least as well.

SCOTT'S A BAWHEID

There is pretty stout scientific evidence that the repeated heading of a football can lead to dementia later in life. An inquest into the death of former England striker Jeff Astle concluded that smacking the napper to a heavy leather ball contributed to brain trauma, and the Celtic legend Bily McNeill may have suffered the same way. But there have been no indications that it might set in to younger players, used to habitually nutting a blootered, modern ball. Until now.

I submit as evidence Scott McKenna, the highly-rated Aberdeen centre-back. How else do you explain his announcement during the week that he is ‘privileged to have been appointed club ambassador @TrumpScotland.', which presumably involves cash, free rounds of golf and all the protected species on the dunes he can knock down with a niblick. Oh, and representing the principal, the man who thinks it’s ok to grab women by the ‘pussy’, thinks Mexicans are drug-dealing rapists and instituted the separation of children from their refugee parents at the border and then locking them up. I urge young Scott to see a brain doctor urgently.

PASS THE SICK BAG

Who on earth would want to develop, never mind play, a video game called Rape Day? Here’s its self-description. ”You can verbally harass, kill people and rape women as you choose to progress the story,” as the player acts as a sociopath during a zombie apocalypse. Oh, and there’s added incest too.

Following protests, including by SNP MSP Shona Robison, the sick game has now been dropped by the online distributor Steam, but that isn’t the end of it. The developer – someone with the moniker Desk Plant (and he has all the brains and sensitivity of one!) – responded by promising, "If both my game is banned and I am banned, then I will ensure that a content platform for all kinds of legal, quality porn games exists”. Pass the glyphosate someone.

THE ELEVATED AMBITIONS OF MS A

Sadly I was unable to attend the Elevate Festival in Graz, Austria, at the end of last month and the enlightening conversation between Croatian-born philosopher Srećko Horvat and Pamela Anderson. Yes, that Pamela, the one from Baywatch who clearly had more to offer above that tight red swimsuit and is now intent on saving the planet and is available, if called, to bail out Theresa May.

It took place shortly after the thirtieth anniversary of the show which made Anderson’s name, and which led, she recounted, to her deciding to do something “more meaningful” with her life because “I am sick of talking about my boyfriends and my boobs”. Activism, she added, is “sexier and I want to create that image.”

Prior to Elevate she told Horvat that she had a crush on Jeremy Corbyn – no, honest – and she supported Brexit, that Britain should get out and create some kind of reformed, alternative EU. ”The current deal proposed by Theresa May does not offer such an alternative.," she said. "I joked that I’m sure I could have negotiated better conditions than this dumb deal. I have been negotiating with Hollywood for decades. I could handle Mr Michel Barnier.”

Better no doubt than that Mr Davis, Mr DRaab, or the latest one, who was a banker and is named after one, a Mr Barclay.

Or as Pamela so cogently put it, “There is no Planet B.”