Talk of the Town: Daredevil Danny dreams of disasters

The 24 year-old, who took the internet by storm last year with a video of his dazzling bike skills around the Capital, found his blossoming career hit the brakes in October when he fell and smashed his neck, but now he's been given the all-clear by doctors.

Asked what has he been doing with his time, he tells us: "All I have been doing is dreaming up new exciting ways to hurt myself on my bike. 2010 is going to be awesome."

No cover-up in the case of ill-fitting swine flu masks

IT'S just as well swine flu didn't hamper the work of health workers to the extent some warned it might.

NHS Lothian ordered a load of masks for its staff ahead of the feared second wave, after worst-case scenario reports stated as many as half of all NHS staff could be off sick or looking after family.

Now it has emerged that many of the masks did not fit, and had to be sent back.

The details, documented in minutes from a clinical forum, didn't reveal whether the fault lay with the masks themselves, or the workers for having faces too big to accommodate them.

Scots butch bad weather out

IT'S surely no surprise that people living north of the Border can cope better in the most extreme and frosty conditions, but now it's official.

According to a new survey, Scotland has been better at coping with the recent big freeze than the rest of the UK despite being one of the worst affected areas with temperatures plummeting to -22 degrees.

Researchers at YouGov found 16 per cent of Scots said the snow and bad weather meant that they couldn't get to work at least once over the cold snap, compared to 36 per cent in England and 40 per cent in Wales.

Hats off to speedy medics

PARAMEDICS and hospital staff in the Capital are being thanked today by one of their colleagues from south of the border.

Lynne Harrison, an ultrasound nurse in Preston, was in the city with her father, Maurice Swinney, when he suffered a heart attack on the Royal Mile. A passing GP helped to resuscitate him until paramedics arrived to take him to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary for treatment, and Ms Harrison would like to thank them all for their help.

She said: "Four paramedics attended and all were absolutely brilliant, very professional, caring people who worked very well as a team. They managed to shock his heart back into action. The paramedics on the push bike and motorbike were there so quickly I feel this made all the difference to the outcome for my father."