Talk of the Town: Ace Ventura was bad venture for Callow

THESPIAN Simon Callow has learned a lot during his years in the business, not least the maxim "Always leave 'em wanting more."

After reading from his book, My Life in Pieces, at St George's West on Wednesday evening, he was asked which of his roles he'd liked best. He'd loved most of them, he said, although he added with a hint of sadness: "I can't honestly say I enjoyed my role in Ace Ventura Pet Detective II, but that was because people were so badly behaved on set."

They were, he said, dreadfully behaved. But before he could divulge the intriguing details, he had moved on to anecdotes new. Oh, go on, Simon, tell us . . .

Art Festival in the frame as one of Dawe's top tips

IT seems that council leader Jenny Dawe enjoys the chance to put together her thoughts and musings on a monthly basis in her leader's report. Indeed, a regular topic of conversation at meetings of the full council is the huge number of pages that she often produces.

In this month's edition, she turns into something of an art critic, giving her top tips for what to see at the Festival.

So what tickles her fancy? Her top Fringe tip was Reel To Reel at the Pleasance, which contains a series of Broadway hits.

But it seems that it is the Art Festival that she enjoys most, in particular Impressionist Gardens at the National Galleries and Rosita McKenzie's Edinburgh People at the Central Library. However, Cllr Dawe warns: "Walk quickly past the one of the leader of the council."

Lost puppet on wrong track

SPARE a thought for one poor finger puppet bunny who got lost coming off the train at Waverley.

There he was, on the 9.45 from Inverness last Sunday, when his young owner set him down on the chair to rest . . . and then walked off. He was rescued by fellow passenger Caroline Henderson who now wants to see him returned home. If you've lost your finger bunny, get in touch.

Chefs in wild grouse chase

IT was a race against time for chefs Tom Kitchin and Dominic Jack as they became two of the first in the country to serve up this season's grouse.

While the rest of the Capital was going Festival crazy, they dashed to the Borders to meet gamekeeper Ronnie Grigor on the Glorious Twelfth and collected around 80 newly-shot birds themselves.

Then it was straight back to the The Kitchin and Castle Terrace restaurants, respectively, to prepare the birds and get them straight on to the plate for last night's service.