Talk of the Town: Tamara's dancing her way to fame

SHE has already earned the nickname mini-Lady Gaga for her eye-catching costumes and dance moves which have impressed the judges on Sky TV's hit show Got To Dance.

Now 10-year-old Tamara Robertson from Musselburgh appears to have taken another step on the road to being a celebrity herself.

The Newcraighall Primary School pupil has not one but two Facebook fan pages dedicated to supporting her bid to reach the talent show final. You can also see a video of her in action by typing her name and Got To Dance into Google. Her next appearance is expected to be this Sunday, so if you've been won over by Tamara, don't forget to vote.

Squeaking up about the importance of oil

KATE, 6, a pupil at St Peters Primary, Morningside, returned home from school last week and enthusiastically recounted how her class were examining the topic of "energy".

"It's about oil, Daddy" she explained, and, pressed on what, exactly, oil did, then replied: "oil stops things going squeak".

If only all politicians thought in the same simplistic way might the world not be a safer place?

Jumping round the issue

SOMETIMES councillors can provide too much information.

Economic development leader Tom Buchanan was at it at a recent council meeting.

When proposing a motion to start a 30-day consultation on closing down disabled bed-maker Blindcraft, he felt the need to show his own strong emotional attachment to the Craigmillar firm.

"My brother and I had a Blindcraft bed when we were growing up," reminisced Cllr Buchanan. "It made an excellent trampoline and was very well constructed."

Watch this space

BOFFINS in the Capital have joined an international search for new Earth-like planets which could eventually lead to the discovery of life elsewhere in our galaxy.

Experts at Edinburgh and St Andrews Universities are building a new instrument able to analyse the light of more than 1200 candidates identified from Nasa's Kepler space probe. The instrument, called HARPS-N, will be based at an observatory in the Canary Islands.

Dr Ken Rice of Edinburgh University's Institute for Astronomy, said the development could be a "first step" to establishing whether there were civilisations on other planets orbiting other stars in the galaxy.

We'll keep you informed, of course.