Talk of the Town: Two hours' drinking enough for Rankin

HIS famous detective was renowned for hard-drinking but it seems Rebus author Ian Rankin can't handle his liquor.

The author told the Wall Street Journal: "There is a ritual on Friday night. I go to a bar in Edinburgh, where I've been going for years, and meet up with five to six guys, and we just sit for a couple of hours, catching up.

"They're a mixed bunch of guys. One is a retired cop, one is a bookseller, one is an engineer, one is a TV cameraman and so on.

"I usually drink gin and tonic. The guys are seasoned professionals when it comes to drinking. It's like four alcoholic drinks an hour. So, I need something I can cope with. I usually go there about 6pm, and I'm back by about 8pm to have dinner with the family."

Bad talk of the 'town'

SHE lived amongst some of the most unpleasant and unstable people in Britain - so when Big Brother runner-up Anna Nolan says your home is populated by violent, drug-addicted criminals you might feel a little insulted.

Nolan, who came second in the original show, is now a star in Ireland and used a local newspaper to criticise a plan to evict beggars from the Dublin city centre by warning that outlying areas could end up like . . . Wester Hailes.

She said: "When I lived in Edinburgh, in the nineties, the council shipped the homeless and drug addicts out to the suburban towns like Wester Hailes. Edinburgh became ugly-free. But Wester Hailes became like something out of a Western, with crime, attacks and drugs."

She will undoubtedly never be welcome in the "town" of Wester Hailes ever again.

No escape from kiss and fly

Gordon Dewar, the former managing director of Edinburgh Airport whose leaving present to the Capital was to introduce the much reviled 1 drop-off charge dubbed the "kiss-and-fly scheme", has revealed a similar scheme may be on the table at Bahrain Airport.

Dewar, who took up the post of managing director of the Gulf state's airport seven weeks ago, said: "All options are open."

Sibling squabbles

While the Millibands put on a show of unity, brotherly love has taken on a different hue at Edinburgh Rugby.

Interviewed on television fresh from scoring the try which helped Edinburgh defeat Leinster at Murrayfield last weekend, stand-off David Blair claimed it was thanks to his urging that brother Mike, the Scotland and Lions scrum half, took a tapped penalty that set up his try.

Standing alongside his sibling Mike insisted: "I remember things differently. I gave him (David) a wink and said 'you're in here'. I certainly didn't hear any call!"