So, you can rule out Sir Bob Geldof!

Published on Wednesday 6 February 2008 08:21

ALAN BENNETT is telling me that he is oft asked to present prizes and speak at school speech days. He always refuses.

A shame because I was about to ask him if he'd do the needful at Leith Academy this summer. Who knows, Leith's best-known son Tom Farmer might oblige. I must ask, always providing the school (motto "Persevere," it's on my blazer) hasn't already signed somebody up.

Whatever the date, Bob Geldof, who has a speech for every occasion, will be busy that day. Did you, perchance, see Sir Bob recently pictured in white tie and tails, with decorations on his chest enough to have put Idi Amin to shame had the crackpot not joined the great asylum in the sky?

Sir Tom, an alumnus of Holy Cross, is of a different faith but they wouldn't hold that against him.

I can already hear somebody ask "who's Alan Bennett?" and I'd have to inquire with "which school did you go to, if at all?"

A hearty meal

Tom has this rapport with today's school-leaver teens. Forgot to tell you that he, Cardinal Keith O'Brien and your trusty scribe lunched with Balmoral Hotel general manager Ivan Artolli the other day.

A private affair and an awesome one for Mr Artolli. In Italy (he's from Milan) everyday Italians never get that close to a cardinal. Awesome for me, too, a hopelessly lapsed protestant, seeing Mr Artolli lean reverentially across the table to kiss the cardinal's ring.

True romance. And none of my business. But Ewan Aitken, Edinburgh City Council's Labour leader, was dining on a healthy mid-morning fruit bun in Marina's Cockburn Street cafe when I wondered how he'd be marking Valentine's Day.

"As always, I'll treat my wife Hilary to dinner out. We've never missed it. One sure way to keep a marriage together."

Dusting the candelabra as I write.

A fishy tale

Crossed my mind. Mrs Burns, the Bard's mother, was courting a gent named Ebenezer Fish before she met Mr Burns.

Now, if she'd married Mr Fish instead, does that mean we'd have gone to Fish Suppers last week instead of Burns Suppers?

Battered haddock, neeps and tatties doesn't roll so easily off the tongue, come to think of it.