Bowled over

AUTHOR Ian Rankin, presented with the Walpole Medal of Excellence last week, said it had been a great day, as Scotland had already, despite gloomy predictions, drawn with Australia's cricketers. Ian was too nice to mention that the game had been rained off. Rupert Hambro, chairman of Walpole, which promotes Britain's luxury goods, was equally gallant, noting that Scotland had managed to draw with Australia in one day while it had taken England five.

When asked if he'd received a medal before, Ian said: "My dad did once take me to a Cowdenbeath-Dundee reserve match. I should have got a medal for that."

Worlds apart

POP singer-turned-actress Jessica Simpson has admitted her dizzy reputation is justified. Before last night's glittering London premiere of her latest film, The Dukes of Hazzard, Jessica recalled her first day of high school. A nervous Jessica was in a class in which the teacher asked students to raise their hand if they knew the continents. Jessica is still embarrassed about having eagerly raised her hand while blurting out: "A, E, I, O, U!"

Hair-raising

THE Ken Loach movie, Tickets, which premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival, is set on a train heading for Rome with three linked stories told by three different directors. Each section is sub-titled, including Loach's effort in which three Celtic fans are travelling from Glasgow to a match.

At one point an Albanian character tries to steal a Celtic fan's ticket, leading to his being threatened that he'll get skelped.

This is unfortunately sub-titled "scalped", suggesting that Celtic fans are unusually blood-thirsty.

Circling the square

TAKING part in Gourmet Glasgow, French chef JeanChristophe Novelli was delighting his audience at an open-air demonstration in George Square when he realised that he had no blue cheese. "I must have blue cheese! Where is my blue cheese, mon dieu! Does anyone have blue cheese?" At that, a woman in the audience delved into her shopping bags and produced a portion so that the show could go on.

Elsewhere in George Square, fellow chef Nick Nairn was seen putting cash into the meter at which he was parked, as Jean Christophe was over-running and Nick was next on. Feeding a meter can sometimes be more sensible than feeding George Square's huddled masses.

Identity crisis

FRINGE organisers were intrigued by ticket requests from TV channel Playboy Russia for a Korean theatre show featuring drumming and masked dance. All Playboy Russia's other Fringe choices had involved Russian dialogue or instances of female nudity, or - if possible - both. The Korean show features neither. After they'd seen the show, entitled The Tatto, Playboy's Russian correspondents expressed disgust.

They'd been expecting lesbian Russian popsters Tatu.

Star struck

COACH tour firm Dodds of Troon received a letter from a family-run village hotel looking for business from them for 2006.

Phoning to check room rates, the Dodds representative was told by the enthusiastic hotel owner that his establishment had a four star rating.

Somewhat surprised, the Dodds rep observed that he'd checked with the tourist board who said the hotel had only two stars. "No, it's a four-star, " replied the owner, "two from the AA and two from the RAC."

Speaking volumes

THE RE-RELEASE of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds album reminds Frank de Pellette that he worked on a radio station in England at the time when the record first came out. The host of the show preceding Frank's asked who'd be on his programme that morning, with Frank proudly announcing that he'd be interviewing Jeff Wayne. The other DJ then blithely continued: "Great album and some good songs.

He's done a book as well, hasn't he?"

Frank hurriedly explained that no, Jeff hadn't written the book, having left that to some chap called H G Wells.

Where to get off

FEAR and Lothian buses, continued. Kenny Reid has a South African workmate in Edinburgh who initially struggled with the local accent's nuances.

Boarding the bus on his first journey to the office, he asked how much the fare would be.

"It depends, " he heard the driver reply.

The Afrikaner explained he wanted a full fare and repeated his destination, only for the driver to re-state: "It depends".

With a queue now building up, Kenny's f lustered colleague repeated his question for a third time, aware of glares from fellow passengers. "Eighty pence!" the driver screamed.