When Tim Berners-Lee invented the Internet, this may not be exactly what he had in mind.

View from the Midden – Agricultural affairs with Jock Alexander

Fit like ab’dy? It’s been an ophthalmological wik in the village. Ye see, a photie of a certain Oban wifie’s frock has caused a fair stooshie on the interwebs. Even here in Meiklewartle we have been at loggerheads aboot ‘The Dress’. Some fowk see it as fite and gold, but others, looking at the self-same picter, see blue and black. ‘Eh?’, the cry has gone oot, ‘Fit wye?’ How can some eens een nae see fit ither eens een see? Fa’s richt? Or is naeb’dy? Weel, the village’s own fashion icon, Feel Moira, his the answer. Moira is blessed wi’ a large disposable income, on account of the fact that she niver peys for nithin. Additionally, she attends a large number of weddings. She’s nae invited, you understand, but fan Moira arrives at your function in full sail, resistance is futile. She’ll neck a pint o’ kir royal, kick aff her sheen and lead even the maist refined company in a slosh afore ye can say ‘excuse me, madam, may I see your invitation?’. Onywye, as a result, Moira owns a staggering number of funcy outfits, including the dress in question. So in the sprirt o’ scientific discovery she’s been weering it roon the village for aa tae see, and since spring has sprung, she’s been delivering calfies in it aa wik. And I must say, efter a close study in various lighting conditions, I can confirm Moira’s is neither fite & gold nor blue & black. It’s mair a kind o’ sharny broon. Cheerio!

Shelley Shingles, Showbiz correspondent and Miss Fetteresso 1983

OMG!  I am totes exhausted after a mega-busy awards season. I love seeing the rich and famous in designer outfits, guzzling champagne while they are gawped at by the masses.  It’s just like Friday night in The Albyn!

Sadly, I couldn’t attend the BAFTAs or the Oscars this year. I had a totes important commitment to fulfil, calling the Sunday night bingo at Bressay Brae retirement home (It’s so rewarding, but it can be very sad. Some of the old dears are so dottled they don’t even know who I am!).   I would have loved to see Eddie Redmayne getting his gongs for his portrayal of Professor Steven Hawkwind.  Mind you, Benylin Cummerbund will have been disappointed not to win for playing Enigma code-breaker Alan Turing. He’ll probably just want to draw a veil over that now; I suppose that’s what they mean by a Turing shroud!

I did make it to the fab-u-lous BRITs though, and the big talking point was the Queen of pop, her Madge herself, taking a tumble thanks to a wardrobe malfunction with her cape!  We’d never officially met, but our careers started at about the same time so I’m sure Madonna’s kept the same eye on my progress as I have hers. I tried to get a quick interview with her after the show, but she had to regretfully decline. ‘Get out of my way’, she said, warmly, ‘I need to get to the airport, I don’t want to miss another flight!”

Wise words, from a great lady.

Ron Cluny, Official Council Spokesman

In these cynical, embittered and antagonistic times, we must seek succour and inspiration where we can find it.  This week, I found it in a remarkable photograph which spread like wildfire on the internet.  Happily, on this occasion, Kim Kardashian’s buttocks were not involved.  This was an image of a primal struggle between unmatched foes.  No, not Donald Trump’s barnet and a high wind; but a woodpecker in flight with a weasel clinging to its back like a hairy jockey.  The steely determination in the woodpecker’s eyes as it perseveres in the face of apparently overwhelming adversity reminded me of nothing more than the look on Willie Young’s fizzog when he had to face the accounts committee about Marischal Square.  And like the woodpecker, Willie has come through that stern test and is airborne still, albeit it with some chunks having been bit out of him.

It is a strange life, a woodpecker’s: endlessly drumming your head against a solid object in the hope of some small reward.  Sometimes I think we are all woodpeckers now.

But believe it or not, it’s not the most remarkable photograph I have ever seen of a panic-stricken creature giving somebody a coalie-back.  That’s the one taken in the Kirkgate Bar after the Christmas party, when Len Ironside dropped into a wrestling crouch and challenged all-comers – just as the University rugby team came in through the door.