Talk of the Town: Hole lot of anger at royal spending

Talk of the Town is eagerly awaiting the nupitals of Willie Windsor and Kate Middleton, but it seems some of our fellow Scots don't share the same enthusiasm.

When asked about the state of the country's roads, more than two-thirds came perilously close to treason by calling for public funding for the royals to be diverted into potholes.

See if your toy box is really a treasure chest

SOME kids' toys tend to be passed down through the generations. But sometimes old toys and dolls can be worth quite a considerable amount of money, without the lucky owner even realising. In one auction in Perthshire, an old dolls' house fetched 14,400 in 2009, and a family in Dunblane received 7400 for a toy car that turned out to be very rare.

Now an auctioneer is calling for people to take in their old toys and dolls to see if they are sitting on a potential windfall.

The Bonhams fine toys and dolls department will be holding a valuation day at its office on Queen Street on March 11 from 10am-4pm.

No small honour

HAVING a shrimp named after you might sound like an unlikely honour, but for a marine biologist it's about as good as it gets.

Edinburgh-born Dr Alan Jamieson has been honoured with the naming of the Princaxelia jamiesoni, which he discovered in the Japan Trench in 2008 using an unmanned submersible.

Shrimp fans everywhere will be delighted to know that, after spending two years under Dr Jamieson's desk until he met an expert who could confirm them as a new species, the samples are now safe in the hands of the National Science Museum of Tokyo.

Fuelling MSPs' ire

MSPs stayed late on Wednesday night to debate rising fuel prices and call on the UK Government to cancel the planned rise in duty.

But Lothians Labour MSP George Foulkes intervened as Lib Dem MSP Jim Hume was speaking, to suggest a more direct approach.

Lord Foulkes said: "Does he (Jim Hume] believe that keeping us all here for an extra two hours to debate an issue that is reserved to Westminster is worthwhile? Would he not be better going down to Westminster, grabbing hold of Danny Alexander by the collar and making sure that he does what Jim Hume is asking him to do?"