Talk of the Town: Would it be so odd for Pope to pucker?

GAMBLING and religion may make uneasy bedfellows, but the first Papal visit to Scotland in more than 20 years is surely as good a reason as any for a bet.

Obliging bookie Paddy Power is offering odds of 10/1 that Pope Benedict XVI will kiss the tarmac when he arrives at Edinburgh Airport tomorrow for the first papal visit to the UK since 1982.

The kiss has long been performed by Pontiffs, but Pope Benedict has not carried out the signature smooch as frequently as previous Popes.

If that isn't enough to encourage the faithful to have a flutter, the bookie is also offering 10/1 that the Popemobile will sustain a flat tyre during the visit and 80/1 that it runs out of petrol with the Pontiff inside.

Film hunt proves that Diamonds are Forever

SNOOPING through the US corridors of power in search of early images of the world's greatest spy sounds like a feat for 007 himself.

But a long-lost film featuring the original James Bond - Fountainbridge's favourite former milkman Sean Connery - was recently discovered by some less glamorous British detectives.

Researchers working for the British Film Institute's 'Missing Presumed Wiped' campaign uncovered a tape of Connery's 1960 BBC drama Columbe in the unlikely location of the US Library of Congress.

Knox is left polls apart

IT can't be easy standing for election - all those angry comments on the doorsteps on wet and windy evenings and doors slammed in your face.

The Liberal Democrat candidate in last week's by-election for the Liberton/Gilmerton ward, John Knox, seemed to still be carrying the battle scars after saying he came "limping in" in fourth place.

Can I just have a half-glass?

THERE'S nothing quite like a glass of fine wine to bring a good meal to life - but the price tag on one restaurant's primo vino might just leave a sour taste.

Well-heeled Capital diners are being given the chance to wash down their meal with what they claim is Scotland's most expensive Italian wine at a tasty 146 per glass.

The 1997 vintage Toscan Masetto will add a mouth-watering 850 to the bill of anyone with a wallet large enough to splash out on the juicy red at Divino Enoteca on Merchant Street.

It may seem extravagant, but it is still a far cry from the most expensive wine in the world, thought to be a 1787 Bordeaux called Chateau Lafite bearing the initials of the third US President Thomas Jefferson, TH.J, which fetched 104,000 at auction in 1985.