Talk of the Town: We're a bit slow on the Holmes front

THERE are apparently more than 400 Sherlock Holmes appreciation societies scattered around the world, including 28 in Japan, but not a single one in author Arthur Conan Doyle's home city or country.

Bookshop owner Barry Young is now aiming to put that right by setting up Scotland's first, but where was last night's launch meeting? The Boswell pub in Mansionhouse Road . . . no, not Edinburgh, but Glasgow.

Fans of the great detective across Scotland will applaud the move, but it does seem to point to a tardiness in Edinburgh when it comes to embracing one of our most famous sons.

Are we just too keen to hide our lights under our bushels?

Books make McCall Smith the No 1 for Botswanans

ON the subject of the city's authors, congratulations are due to Alexander McCall Smith, who is set to pick up a top award.

The author, who has penned a string of novels set in Botswana, has been given one of the country's most prestigious awards.

McCall Smith will be presented with Botswana's Presidential Order of Meritorious Service next year.

He said: "I am delighted to have received this honour. I had not expected it and I am very touched by this gesture from the government of Botswana.

"I have the highest respect for the country and its people. If my books have helped to correct a negative image of Africa then I am very happy that this is the case."

Grey man of politics

IT'S often said the main problem Labour's Iain Gray faces in his quest to become Scotland's First Minister after next year's Holyrood elections is that no-one has heard of him. The East Lothian MSP must feel gratified, therefore, that new Labour leader Ed Miliband frequently mentions his name in speeches and interviews.

What a pity then that in the party's official conference magazine he was billed as Iain Grey.

A stick with a twist

AS walking sticks go it certainly has some history.

An intricately carved stick which once belonged to William Gill, a British spy and multi-millionaire explorer, who was bludgeoned to death by Bedouin tribesmen in the Sinai desert in 1883, went under the hammer in the Capital this week.

A private collector of sticks bought it for 550.

It is thought he was on his way to cut the telegraph lines between Constantinople and Alexandria when he was killed.

Gill of course, not the buyer.