Battling birdy

WORD reaches us that a scrap-happy ruffian has been causing havoc in Paisley town centre. For purposes of clarification we should add that this tough guy isn’t a guy at all, but is in fact a local swan, which for obvious reasons we’ve decided to call Attila the Swan.

Photos have been passed to us showing Attila battling two local bobbies. As yet we’ve been unable to confirm who won this particular fracas, boys in blue or bird in white.

Apparently the winged warrior refuses to wind his neck in, and has been causing havoc for some time. Rather appropriately, Attila reigns over an area close to a pub called the Old Swan.

We are now asking, is this the toughest bird in Scotland? Or is there a budgerigar somewhere, perhaps named Genghis, willing to challenge for the title?

Watch this space for answers, fight fans.

Time for twee

ROLLING Stone Magazine has revealed its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The prestigious music publication includes few Scottish entries. Though Glasgow’s Belle and Sebastian squeeze into the 481st spot with their If You’re Feeling Sinister release. Even so, Rolling Stone describes this classic recording in curious terms. The mag says: “Being a self-pitying shut-in has never sounded better than it does on the Scottish twee icons breakthrough.”

Self-pitying? Twee?

Perhaps a certain long-running music mag should change its name. ‘Lobbing Stone (With Ferocious Intent)’ appears to be the brand identity now.

Questionable behaviour

BOB Wallace from Pollokshields received an email from the Rhetorical Society asking if he wanted to join. “Good news is I don't need to reply,” he says.

Dictionary corner

WE’RE collecting words for our updated version of the dictionary. Reader Gordon Stewart suggests: Coffee, n. The person on whom one coughs.

Northern likes

HAVING recently moved back to Glasgow after a lengthy sojourn in London, reader Alan Evans admits he has noticed a slight difference in the levels of nightlife sophistication. “Down south it’s a soiree. Here it’s a swallie,” he says. “Quite frankly, I prefer the latter.”

Ringing endorsement

HEARING that editors advised novelist Chris Brookmyre to tone down his material, we’ve been imagining how such a request would have affected authors from the past.

Russell Smith from Kilbirnie suggests that Ernest Hemingway might have written For Whom the Bell Tinkles.

Deep (th)inking

THOUGHTFUL Ian Noble from Carstairs Village has been puzzling over life’s great mysteries. He asks us: “How do you tell when you’ve run out of invisible ink?”