Talk of the Town: No emergency for Goran at the Lyceum

SCREEN hunk Goran Visnjic – best known for playing Dr Luka Kovac in US hospital drama ER – was spotted taking in a show at the Royal Lyceum Theatre.

The actor was filming in Glasgow and travelled through to Edinburgh to see the Arthur Miller play The Price.

A theatre spokeswoman said: "The audience were so distracted by seeing him, but eventually people settled down and enjoyed the performance."

He should count himself lucky that no-one took ill during the show as he would have been expected to dash over in a white coat clutching his stethoscope to perform open heart surgery right there in the auditorium.

Labour election candidate swaps London for Livingston

IT SEEMS the Labour Party had to cast its net very wide to fulfil its commitment to include at least one woman on the shortlist to find Livingston MP Jim Devine's replacement.

The underdog on the four-strong shortlist would have to be former Commons worker Adenike Abimbola-Akindele – from Hackney in London.

She has thrown her hat into the ring against former West Lothian Council leader Graeme Morrice, Gordon Connolly, a senior manager for the council's community facilities, and Bathgate councillor John McGinty.

Ms Abimbola-Akindele has previously put her name in for seats in Thurrock, Carlisle and Barrow.

Members of the Livingston Labour Local Constituency Party will vote on who they want to stand in the general election this Sunday.

Bard timing from Mary

CRITICS sometimes accuse the Tories of being a bit behind the times. Well, Conservative MSP Mary Scanlon seemed to prove them right at the Scottish Parliament on Tuesday when she urged fellow MSPs to show "compassion to our fellow man on this, Burns' birthday".

Nice sentiment, Mary. But Burns Day was on Monday.

Auf wiedersehen to German

LONG-serving Labour councillor Eric Milligan is used to hearing stories about a language dying out in Scotland from his SNP counterparts.

But he has recently learned that Gaelic is not the only language that is slowly becoming consigned to history around these parts.

During a meeting with Wolfgang Mssinger, the German consul general in Edinburgh, he was told that there are fears that too few pupils are learning German in the Capital's schools.

"He's obviously following the recent promotion of the Gaelic language in Scotland," said Cllr Milligan. "And the German consul has expressed his concern to me about the demise of German in schools.

"It was never as popular as French in our schools but it was always a close second."