LEARNING all the time. Thought I knew a thing or two about Ming Campbell. There's more to him than red socks and the suspenders he reputedly uses to keep them up. I've just discovered he's a joiner's son. In reality, one of us.
I'd add that anybody who can claim to have been a firm friend of the late, lamented Sir Nicholas Fairbairn (Nicky was a fellow QC) is a friend of mine. Nicky introduced Ming to Elspeth Grant-Suttie, who was soon to become Ming's wife.
So happens I
've got red socks on today, you'll be enthralled to know, for this too-much-information edition of the column. And there's more . . .
Mighty Ming is MP for North East Fife and, in a gesture that will shock even Lib Dem leader Nick Jack-the-Lad Clegg, the idle gossip from the terracing is that he has invited to a champagne party in his Edinburgh West End flat the newly-promoted East Fife Football Club's playing staff. Charlie Kennedy on the guest list?
Shake, rattle, smell A right old banger. No, boneshaker's better. The First Bus I caught on its way to Rosewell not only shook the bones – it positively smelled. Stank's better. Let's see, what did that smell remind me of? Old gumboots drying out by the Aga (an unforgettable aroma for Jilly Goolden)?
Weren't the oft-criticised First Bus people going to invest in a new fleet? That "vintage" model shouldn't be on the road. Instead of alighting in Princes Street, I should have stayed on to the terminus for a reviving breath of Rosewell's clean, crisp air.
Drives me nitsA Government-funded career advice poll concludes that well over half of us wish we'd chosen a different career.
While the survey of adults comes a tad late for me, it finds that those in publishing are among the most settled.
Newspapers prolong one's active life, once claimed an old hack. He was last seen being bundled, sedated, into an unmarked van.
When the going gets tough, often wannabe journos morph into public relations (PR). Human resources (HR) has become another convenient way out. Not the ideal career move. Didn't Michael Winner opine: "PR is the headlice of civilisation"? Was old Michael meaning nits or nuts?
The full article contains 386 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
