John Gibson: Feline right at home on the buses

On the buses. Good to see Maisie the Morningside cat up to scratch on the side of Lothian's No 5s. Her creator, Aileen Paterson, knew another bus would be along in a minute.

From her Abbeyhill home Aileen tells me: "You know, I could draw all day and all night. I just love drawing, I get a lot of private commissions.and inevitably Maisie's in most. I've now got a woman asking me to do a 23 bus that serves Morningside Road.

"I'm a Fifer, so it was a pleasure to draw one of Kirk Wynd, an attractive wee street in Kirkcaldy. But I consider myself an Edinburgh native, from the days when I was an art student here, and I'm all for the finer aspects of the New Town.

"You've got to be protective. Some city fathers did their damnedest to sabotage it, when they wanted to have shops in Princes Street Gardens."

Pity Maisie wasn't around then. I'd have urged her to scratch their eyes out. A purrfect demise for them.

Chips are down

Thinking of Paddy Pantsdown Ashdown as I write. You'd never seen a redder-faced or rosier-cheeked Cameron, or a more boot-faced pre-resignation Rebekah - her glass full - than in one of their togetherness snaps for the papers the other day.

The pop-eyed Call Me Dave hardly seemed best pleased with the cameraman.

Thought about chucking it all in, Dave? The great British public, your Big Society, are becoming more scunnered by the day, by the revelation.

Then we had the brass-necked Brown chipping in. Now lawyers for the Royal Family reportedly are mired in it all.

I tell you, it's a jungle out there. Perhaps a stiff sherry and a cucumber sandwich - loads left over from the Garden Party - is what we all need.

Afterwords ...

What Max Clifford said of Rebekah Brooks: "I have always found her to be a straight-up person. That is very, very rare in journalism."

Max, of course, found me a rarity. We knew each other before Brooks was on the planet.