Talk of the Town: Calculations on the road to nowhere

ANYONE who has travelled the winding country roads around the Capital will know as soon as it comes to a stretch of single track road, drivers inevitably get stuck behind a tractor, leading to cries of: "What are the chances of that?"

Well, according to some researchers at University College London, the chances are high - in fact, their calculation suggests any driver spending 80 minutes on a rural road is almost guaranteed to get stuck behind a tractor.

The actual equation used to calculate this resembles something from a NASA handbook on time travel, and no doubt required the same sort of mental effort. It's just a pity as much time couldn't have been put in to asking why anyone would want to know that in the first place.

Capital is streets ahead of Europe's city of love

AS the Athens of the North, Edinburgh has been a magnet for UK travellers staying on home turf for decades,

But a new survey has revealed the Capital is losing out to holidaymakers who want to get an "Eiffel" of the city of love.

The survey, by Southern Railway, revealed one in ten had never visited another part of the UK - preferring instead to explore international cities because they are "more interesting".

But if there's one thing we have on Paris, its our famously pristine pavements and walkways, which poop all over the French capital's famously stray-dog-fouled boulevards.

A vote of little confidence?

NEW Lothians Labour MSP Kezia Dugdale was elected to the Scottish Parliament despite her own best efforts, as she acknowledged in her maiden speech yesterday.

Ms Dugdale, elected as a list MSP, was campaign manager in Edinburgh Eastern where Labour hoped to oust Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill. And she told fellow MSPs: "I am very pleased to be here, although I did not expect to be elected. In fact, I did my very best to avoid it by spending the last 18 months campaigning for Ewan Aitken."

Don't be a stranger, Andy

ANDY Murray's bid to win a first tennis grand slam is up and running at the French Open.

But an irony attached to his first round victory could be easily overlooked. Back in 2007 his initial opponent, Frenchman Eric Prodon, won the Scottish Open title at Craiglockhart. And that makes Prodon a more recent visitor to Scottish competitive tennis than Murray, whose last appearance came in Aberdeen in 2006.