John Gibson: Down the pan with these pipes

Published on Tuesday 30 June 2009 09:43

HOW do they get away with it, the pan-piping mob in fancy dress (from Peru, or is it Prestonpans?) cluttering the junction of Hunter Square and the High Street, hogging the music scene for well over an hour the other lunchtime.

Amped up (where were the noise police?), there was no escaping the conversation-killing racket in what, remember, is Edinburgh's Royal Mile, supposedly redolent of everything unadulterated about Scotland.

Embarrassing enough shops flogging tartan tat (what's old Salmond doing about that for his Homecoming?) and here we have Peruvians (your credentials, please) peddling the same old Peruvian pap, as they do annually in central Edinburgh at various times of year.

Pick of their repertoire on this specific lunchtime was their personalised version of Highland Cathedral, would you believe. Let's not be cruel. They'd be playing it straight from the heart. And, you've guessed, No 1 in the charts in Lima this week, Sunshine on Leith.

Speaker's motion

What chance have we got? We have newly installed at the very heart of the UK's politics somebody who's been at the ham with his tax returns. He is, too, stinging us for cleaning his blocked lavvy.

Fine example to us all, the new Speaker. Still he grovelled for the top job. Still the gigantic salary. Cheeky wee chappie, John Bercow.

They've all been at it. They'll still all be at it when Bercow's run out of paper in his choked lavvy.

When he's reached for the last piece of quartered newspaper off the nail.

He'll be charging us the full whack for toilet rolls from his supermarket

Right little twit. One of the diminutive dodgy blokes at five feet odd. Feet hardly touch the floor when he's propped up in the Speaker's chair.

He'll be billing us for lifts next.

Laughterwords...

I've just read somewhere that the legendary lyricist of many of the world's most popular songs, the late Johnny Mercer's real claim to fame was that his grandad fought with Bonnie Prince Charlie at Culloden. Funny, I always thought it was Moon River.