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.

They've done it - taken away the conker as well as the advert. How am I going to stop foaming?

Maybe I can track it down. It would look lovely in the garden at Barbansais.

I've been mildly following the case of The Hand of Frog in the French media. Opinions are split but a great many, including politicians, admit to being ashamed of qualifying for the World Cup in this manner. Raymond Domenech, the manager, comes in for a lot of stick; what football manager doesn't? But this time as well as being castigated for poor management he's accused of teaching his players that a win at any cost is what counts.

I've heard players (not just in France) say that of course they would do something similar but in the expectation of being sanctioned by the referee. So it's his fault for not spotting the infringement. Other commentators lay the blame on football's move from sport to big money business.

I commend them all to take a lesson or two from professional golf. That's a big money business if ever there was but the players don't rely on being spotted by a referee for an infringement of the rules. They don't deliberately break the rules in the first place of course but a golfer who accidentally moves his ball in a situation in which a penalty would be imposed acts as his own referee and reports the fact, even if it makes a difference of a million dollars or so.

I thought Health and Safety had been up to their mollycoddling tricks when I noticed that a barrier had been erected around the giant conker that I had caught sight of recently from my passing bus.

So today I got off to investigate, foaming at the mouth at the stupidity of what I presumed to be over-protection of the public.
It turns out that it's an advertisement. So now I'm foaming at the mouth at the desecration of the newly public space in St Andrew's Square by the forces of Mammon who are already well represented in the surrounding buildings.

I will only cease to foam if they take the advertising fence away and leave the lovely conker.

I'm not sure if Friday 13th has really been unlucky for me. After all I came across the beard trimmer that I was sure I must have left in France. There it was wrapped in a facecloth and tucked neatly into a little corner of the bookcase in the hall. Why there for God's sake?

Maybe Thursday 5th is the new Friday 13th because that's when I bought a replacement.

Where today was definitely not unlucky was at the Traverse lunchtime show - The Moira Monologues written and performed by Alan Bisset. It was sheer dead brilliant. In the first story he played two dogs, two women and a man - effortlessly, convincingly and hilariously. And unbelievably the show got better and better.

The public face of the National Library of Scotland has changed out of all recognition since I used to occasionally broach its forbidding portals as a student. I expect the staff were just as nice people in those days as they are today, but the atmosphere of serious and silent scholarship that was, with its overtones of exclusion, has since been lightened. They have welcomed the general public with open arms to their exhibitions and talks for some years now and they have a super website but they have topped it all with the installation of a bright and cheerful visitor reception point cum cafe cum shop. There is even a pavement section to their cafe.

Perhaps the reading room maintains a more dour tradition but I am unlikely ever to find myself poring over a dusty volume therein in place of watching the world go by on George IVth Bridge while sipping a coffee.

Last night the Scottish Government's Chief Scientific Adviser, Anne Glover was at the NLS delivering an entertaining and stimulating talk about what had inspired her to become a scientist in the first place and had kept her at it. From stories of prodding earthworms as a toddler, seeing The Fantastic Voyage at ten (I remember the trailer though I never saw the film) and watching a school mate have his trousers whipped off his hurdies when they burst into flames as a result of his having pocketed some sodium in a science class, to being captivated by bio-luminescence during a midnight swim, her enthusiasm for science was catching.

I left the talk thinking that if I were 50 years younger and a girl there would be no stopping me.

It was gratifying to see a Kirkcaldy man doing well on University Challenge last night. One of the subjects he knew all about was Machiavelli. Perhaps he should offer some advice to that other Langtonian who is struggling down south.

If you ever have occasion to be looking for Glasgow University Concert Hall be aware that's it's a wee bit tricky.

I went over a few days ago to attend a lunchtime concert and when I got to the university I dutifully followed the signs that led me round a few corners, up a stair, round a few more corners, through their pretty cloisters (you've probably seen them on the telly cos it's a great academic location) and through an opening where a grand staircase carpeted in royal blue led upwards.

On the landing to the right was the entrance to the Hunterian museum (I'm not sure if that's Hunter author of The anatomy of the human gravid uterus or his wee brother, but one day I'll find out). Opposite was an imposing set of double doors that I breeched. Within stood a trio of chaps and chapesses of whom I enquired whether this was the Concert Hall. They replied to a (wo)man that indeed twere so but that it was in use for a function. They expressed astonishment at my belief that there was a concert scheduled for ten past one. Was there another concert hall I asked. They shook their heads in acknowledgement of their lack of knowledge and suggested I try reception.

Well the man at the gatehouse knew nothing and in the way of janitors everywhere was short on customer service skills so I found my own way to the music department where after some battering on doors I roused the staff. They were helpfulness personified and after some discussion realised that the hall that I had been informed was the Concert Hall by the chap(ess) trio was not. It was they believed a hall called the Bute Hall which sits atop the Concert Hall.

So I scurried back and found that if you duck behind the imposing, blue-carpeted staircase there is a hidden hall: a very gracious hall: a concert hall: in fact THE Concert Hall.

And the concert? Well it was splendid. Bill Clinton loved Sax Ecosse and so did I.

My Amazon tale is now on Caramel's website in both English and French. You can also read the accounts written by other crew members of earlier stages in the rally or just look at their pictures if your French is a bit shaky.

Your French is probably not as shaky as the newsreader's English who in reporting yesterday the death of a soldier in Afghanistan announced that he was from the Royal Logistical Corps and pronounced the last word as corpse. A bit ghoulish I thought.