Talk of the Town: Dook into pub for a New Year drink

NEWS reaches Talk of the Town of plans to warm up the famous Loony Dook in South Queensferry.

The annual dip in the Forth on New Year’s Day takes place first thing in the morning as the perfect – if slightly extreme – cure to the excesses of the previous night. Anyone mad enough to take part deserves a drink afterwards so the town’s publicans are banding together to apply to open early on the day for the first time.

All good fun, hopefully ... just as long as we don’t get any loony drunks.

Former PM’s wife Sarah pandas to Twitter fans

IT can’t be easy being uprooted from your home, shipped across the world and then dumped in the middle of a rudely named hurricane.

But Edinburgh’s new giant pandas can at least take comfort from knowing they have some very high-profile people worrying about their welfare.

Sarah Brown – campaigning wife of former PM Gordon – is one. She tweeted her followers: “Woke up this morning wondering how the pandas are settling in at Edinburgh Zoo. Seriously.” The zoo quickly confirmed that Tian Tian and Yang Guang were safely curled up inside their enclosure. Phew.

The bets Christmas ever

THERE has already been a flurry of flutters on the chances of a white Christmas this year, apparently.

We do not advocate betting – especially not on something as unpredictable as the weather in Edinburgh – but (for dreaming only) Aberdeen is currently the 5/2 favourite to have a White Christmas, with the Capital at 11/4 and Glasgow 4/1.

You can also now bet on the Christmas Day temperature, with 20/1 odds on the mercury not making it past zero the entire day. If you are prepared to drag yourself away from turkey and the Queen to keep a check on the weather, you deserve the money.