John Gibson: Gaelic guff that's costing us plenty

EVEN the deer don't watch this! A wee bit like the pre-kick off huddle at football matches. Easy to imagine the Gaelic Mafia, as they've become known, who run BBC Scotland (or BBC Glasgow, as that's become known), shoulder to shoulder, heads down in a circular guddle at their Weegie headquarters whenever the what's-its-name hits the fan.

Feverish, frantic embarrassment there when Freedom of Information inquiries revealed the Beeb squandered close on 31 million since the launch of BBC Alba (the Gaels' own service) when, allegedly, it had 600,000 viewers, its audience decimated to a paltry 200,000 last year.

For every one Scot who speaks Gaelic, 99 don't. Even the deer have stopped speaking it – and that was only during the rutting season.

Clearly 30m – of our money, mind you – has gone down the peat bog.

Work of art

Stray bawl . . . passed by my favourite English Premiership manager, Arsne Wenger, boss of my favourite English Premiership team, Arsenal: "I believe a big club must have the ambition to win with style. There is a famous saying that the only way to deal with your life is to transform it into art, every minute of your life.

"Football is an art, like dancing is an art. But only when it's well done does it become an art."

It's all wrong

With her 40th looming, the born-again Naomi Campbell says: "I've worked very hard on correcting my previous wrongdoings and I won't be held hostage by my past behaviour. I always try to treat people with respect. I'm pleased the misunderstanding's behind me. I've moved on."

Okay, we always knew you didn't mean any of your wrongdoings, Naomi. You've been misunderstood all along.

Afterwords . .

. . . Who can forget him from The Sound of Music? Here's Christopher Plummer, still kicking at 80: "A lot of people want to retire. I couldn't. You don't retire in our business because there's not that many old actors. They all died. I'm one of the last men standing. I think there's maybe four of us. I hope those other b******s die first."