Talk of the Town: Tourism and culture staff take the strain

WORKING for Scotland's cultural and tourism bodies might not sound like a job fraught with danger, but it seems there are plenty of hazards facing staff of Historic Scotland and VisitScotland.

Newly-released files on accidents since early last year show that two staff members at Historic Scotland suffered burns and blisters as a result of coming into contact with "Giant Hogweed", an ornamental plant.

The cultural body's compliment of ancient cannons also accounted for four injuries.

But neither were a match for VisitScotland's injury reports, which revealed: "Staff member working at Len Lothian removed pop-up display material from case didn't realise it would pop up so quickly. Hit eyebrow, no bruising."

Restaurant numbers game leaves Self all Thai-d up

COMEDIAN Will Self has got himself all tied up in knots over the increasing popularity of Thai cuisine in Britain.

One of the latest additions to the canon is Passorn, in Tollcross, run by Self's mate Cindy Srisotorn.

The author said: "At least Cindy is Thai, unlike a lot of the folk who run such establishments. Nowadays there are approximately 1700 Thai - or possibly Thai - restaurants in the UK.

"It's difficult to see how this many authentic Thai restaurants could be staffed, given that there are only 36,000 people of Thai descent in the country."

Addie's bear necessity

IT took a Forth Radio appeal by Grant Stott and a nationwide search by The White Company, but one local youngster has finally been reunited with her lost teddy.

Addie Handley, six, mislaid Oscar the teddy on trip to a seaside hotel. Unbeknown to Addie, her mum searched high and low for the discontinued bear, e-mailing the firm's founder.

A single unsold Oscar was eventually found, reuniting one lucky girl with her bear necessity.

E-mail causes tension

WHILE the benefits have been immense, not all e-mails are particularly welcome. As well as spam, junk and viral mail, there are also the round-robin mails, prank e-mails and other people's e-mails which someone thought you might enjoy.

So it's probably no surprise that, according to survey received by the Evening News, unnecessary e-mails are now the bane of the modern office with seven out of ten workers complaining about being sent irrelevant e-mails or being copied into e-mails of no interest.

What was surprising was that the unwanted and irrelevant survey was sent out in a mass e-mail.