Talk of the town: Bill loses X factor with tram forecast

MORE comfortable in his role as judge and jury, it’s Simon Cowell who has been in the dock recently.

A series of tabloid newspaper headlines have “revealed” startling insights into the music mogul’s life.

But, it turns out, the stories were far from news to one Capital writer.

Bill Coles published his tongue-in-cheek memoir Simon Cowell: The Sex Factor last year and predicted the talent cherry- picker’s affair with Dannii Minogue and breakdown of his engagement to Mezhgan Hussainy.

Bill’s next book’s a bit more outlandish – it predicts trams will be running in Edinburgh by 2014.

Now that’s a tonic

FESTIVAL time is mere months away and snippets are beginning to drip through ahead of the inevitable flood.

Catching this column’s eye at this early stage was the announcement that Edinburgh Gin has been named official gin of the Book Festival.

Well, that’s the plug . . . Talk of the Town looks forward to settling down to a good book with its, erm, “complimentary” bottle of the good stuff.

Kick it with your ticket

DESPITE claims this week that Britons aren’t that bothered, for many the Olympic Games remains the hottest ticket going.

However, those from Edinburgh lucky enough to get their hands on briefs for the big events in London have been slow off the mark arranging their travel south.

According to the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA), Edinburgh is one of the areas with a high concentration of ticket holders who have so far failed to book seats on trains or coaches.

So now the ODA has offered tours of the Olympic Park and London 2012 backpacks as prizes to persuade spectators to make arrangements.

And, who knows, there might be a chance of a place as the token Scot in the Team GB football side.

Bathroom blitz

A VISIT from the mother-in-law can be enough to strike fear into the hearts of the bravest of men. But, according to a recent survey, Scots are no longer bothered about trying to impress them. Not with their bathrooms anyway.

Just ten per cent make the effort to clean up before a visit from the mother-in-law – they are almost twice as likely to clean up for their friends, while 30 per cent of men will tidy and scrub the bathroom to impress a potential partner.

We’d love to offer some toilet humour as a punchline – but we’d only get panned.