Talk of the Town: What the Dickens? It’s Dalek disguises

THEY are among television’s scariest characters, although it is hard to take a Dalek dressed as Miss Havisham seriously.

But that’s the scene that has been greeting visitors to the city’s Central Library recently.

The cross-dressing cyborg, who has become a hit on Flickr, has paid tribute to a host of literary characters and national events with his outlandish outfits.

His latest guise as the Great Expectations spinster marks the bicentenary of Charles Dickens.

All well and good, but we can only wonder what Davros would think?

Foulkes is a hostage to history with nomination

AS far as debates in the House of Lords go, it is likely to be regarded as among the oddest this year – rival politicians taken as hostages and pitched against one another on horseback.

But the proposals to mark 800 years since the Magna Carta took an even more surreal turn when Edinburgh peer Lord Foulkes found himself nominated the “perfect hostage” for the event.

A pageant in 1215 had been preceded by the “ceremonial exchange of hostages” between England and Scotland – and Labour peer Lord Lea suggested his colourful colleague take on the role for an anniversary celebration.

Other bids included a “series of ceremonial jousts”.

Scrum of comfort

THE performance of Scotland in the opening Six Nations match against England left a lot to be desired. So it will be a small crumb of comfort to learn that at least one team is keeping alive our hopes at the tournament – at least at schools level.

The Loretto School 1st rugby team are keeping Scottish dreams alive by winning the National Qualifier for the Schools 6 Nations Tournament hosted by London Scottish FC in Richmond in March.

The talented team won all of their matches to secure their spot representing Scotland against teams from England, Wales, Ireland, France and Italy.

A nation will no doubt be hoping they manage to avoid the kind of passing and kicking which did for their senior counterparts.

Crockart on red alert

EDINBURGH West Liberal Democrat MP Mike Crockart announced to his Twitter followers that he had worn red yesterday.

This was not a signal of political defection, though. He was doing it in support of the British Heart Foundation’s National Heart Month, which culminates in National Wear Red Day on February 24.