Edinburgh readers will recognise this as a bus tracker. They have been sprouting up beside our bus stops over the last couple of years and tell you how long it will be until the next bus arrives.

They are a lot more useful than a printed timetable displayed in an awkward corner of an unlit bus shelter. But bus trackers have not reached all parts of the city.

I was out at the Western General the other day getting a yellow fever jag and arrived at the stop for my return journey. No tracker, so I peered at the timetable. According to that I had arrived one minute before the single solitary bus that passes that stop was due.

After eight minutes shivering in the wind and rain, the shelter was against vertical weather only - my bald head would have been protected from sunstroke , I gave up and set off on foot. You've guessed the rest; I had not gone 50 yards when the 42 swept past.

Now that was annoying but less so than the recurrence of lift lunatic activity. Here is yesterday's
find. What is to be done?

And much less annoying than having a mouse run up your leg inside your jeans as you sit peacefully at the table. But it won't do it again. I just hope that's a warning to any of its little friends who may be lurking around. Photographs of the corpse are available on request.