Amongst the Christmas cards that have fallen on my hall carpet this week was a billet doux from the NHS that may have been 17 years en route. For it says that having passed my 50th birthday I have become entitled to have my bowel screened for cancer.

This free offer will lapse when I am 74 so let's hope that when I've popped the clever little sampling kit in the post it covers the road and the miles to Dundee rather more quickly than it got here.

No sign of irritable bowel syndrome from this happy chappie who was brightening up Princes Street yesterday.

Season's Greetings

I was most impressed this afternoon by a lady who, making instant judgements as one does, I would have stigmatised as probably belonging to the littering classes.

But not only did she walk 25 yards down the road in sleet and rain to put her paper cup into a wheelie bin but she picked up other people's discarded junk and disposed of that too.

I was so impressed that I almost forgave her for smoking in a bus shelter.

You may not have noticed that Johnny Hallyday is unwell although it has been in the papers a little. Googling "Johnny Hallyday health" produces 88,100 hits in English in the past week but the equivalent French search produces 726,000 references.

Not only that but the English reports are very restrained in dealing with the doctor whose alleged errors in a recent slipped disc operation on the star in Paris have led to his hospitalisation this week in Los Angeles. The French press on the other hand list numerous events in the doctor's chequered past from insurance fraud to judicial condemnations for medical malpractice.

Johnny's fans were not so restrained either. Two of them beat the doctor up a couple of nights ago.

I don't believe that in the UK he would still be practising medicine, so if that's the much vaunted French health system I don't want it thanks. And you have to ask yourself why a rock star with millions at his disposal would place himself in the hands of someone with such a record.

A couple of snaps from this afternoon. I would not want to be in either the crane basket or the wheel. Would Sir Walter?

What did I say about low energy light bulbs?

Farming Today is often informative and entertaining.

The information I gleaned from them this morning is that a single malt whisky has now emerged in Norfolk from its qualifying three years in oak casks.

The distiller surely hopes that Norfolk whisky will replace the morning cuppa by describing its taste and qualities as more characteristic of a "breakfast whisky" than an "end of the day whisky".

Perhaps NHS Lothian has had an early sample. This might explain why a letter confirming an appointment at the dental hospital was swiftly followed by another bearing the same date, the same reference number and the same signature threatening to pull all my teeth out for not having made an appointment.

When I'm up early these dark morning I have to switch on so many energy saving bulbs to get a decent level of illumination that I can't be saving any energy at all.

Despite, or maybe because of having all the time in the world this morning I missed the bus I was aiming to catch. But I caught a more interesting one.

Halfway along Princes St the 25 I was on stopped and a little old lady stepped aboard. I missed the first few lines of dialogue and then heard a stentorian voice declare "X25! If you're no the X25 what the hell are ye stoppin here fur?" The driver's more muted tones explained that the plain 25 was also enjoined to stop here.

This did not satify the old lady so the driver got out of his cab, stepped onto the pavement and pointing to the bus-stop indicated politely that both the 25 and the X25 were listed. He then got back into the bus and said "I will accept your apology". More than once he said it but no apology was forthcoming. The old lady screamed and shouted again to the driver's "I will not take this."

She then stormed off fuming quietly to herself. Before pulling away from the stop the driver addressed the passengers roughly in these terms - "If you think I am being hard just take a look at that bus-stop. It's for the 25. It's always the same. Every time she gets on a bus she starts shouting at someone. I will not take it."

I found it quite amusing but I suppose if you are abused day after day it must get a bit much and clearly that was the case for our driver because when he stopped in Shandwick Place he spent some time bending the ear of a controller about it via his radio.

Round about this time every year a pile of Yellow Pages directories appears in the stair. Almost no-one picks one up, although I always take one. They lie there for a few weeks until some busybody like me decides that their hour has come and consigns them to the re-cycling bin.

Putting the new one in its place I noticed that it was somewhat thinner than last years. Indeed it is 220 pages thinner. Now one might surmise that this is an effect of the recession, that 220 pages worth of businesses have gone to the wall in the Edinburgh area over the last twelve months.

But although Zinc & Zinc Alloy Products, Consultant Actuaries and Quad Bikes & All Terrain Vehicles have bitten the dust the explanation seems to lie in a decrease in the size and weight of the font used. Entries which were difficult to read last year are now verging on the impossible for those with less than 20/20 vision.

I think Yellow Pages are shooting themselves in the foot with this move. It is already much more convenient to do a quick Google rather than plough through their directory. If in addition you can't actually read the damn thing it must surely go bust.

My theory that the best before date is not synonymous with the toxic after date was put to the test this evening when I uncorked a bottle of best before May 2008 soda to add to my pre-dinner Campari.

Some hours later all is well.

So if best before does not equal toxic after does theatre equal fun and games. Check out Allotment.

Princes Street has been clear of tramworks since early on Sunday morning. I had determined to be there at 5 am, the time scheduled for the re-opening, but fortunately didn't make it because the re-opening was delayed a couple of hours by leaves on the line or heavy rain or another reason selected from the list of the usually suspected excuses.

But it looks great and if I had not been closeted at home working on a script this afternoon I would have taken advantage of the lovely bright frosty weather to bring you a sharply focussed, beautifully composed photograph of the street stripped of her protective wire fences.

I am slightly perturbed by the over-sized lamp-posts that you would be able to see on my pics if I had taken them. I assume these are part of the tram power supply. They look as though they will be as aesthetically unacceptable as the line of pylons that it is planned should stretch from Beauly to Denny.

But can we turn back the tide? No chance. The next campaign must be to waken the Council up to the sensible suggestion that the tramline be replaced or augmented by an underground railway system stretching to the outermost bounds of Fife.