Why is Valentine’s Day so expensive? I’m trying to fire off Cupid’s dart, not launch a Trident missile.

TANYA SOUTER, lifestyle guru

Valentine’s day is a cracking idea, is it?  It’s great a chunce tae express your admiration, affection and lust for someb’dy anonymously. That wye they need never ken your true identity and your ither half need niver ken you’re fantasizing aboot that hottie fa bides across i’ street.  It must be like Christmas for all you stalkers oot there!  You ken fa you are! Even if your victims dinnae.

But fit a rip off the prices in the shops is! So here’s some tips for an affordable Valentine’s Day, withoot looking like a minker. Ken fit I mean?

First is the Valentine’s caird itsel.  Hame made is obviously the maist heartfelt, but it’s nae eese if your trying tae remain a “secret” admirer.  Cos yer fingerprints and DNA and athin will get awye.  Fit I prefer tae dae is tae ging intae a branch of ony high-street newsagent fit used tae be cried John Menzies.  Fan naeb’dy’s lookin’ jist slip a pucklie cairds in yer bag and waltz oot wi’ yer heid held high.  I’ve niver seen a security tag on a caird yet. And it’s nae shoplifting; it’s a protest against the homogenization of wir toon centres.

Let’s face it, quines like a bonny bunch o’ floors.  Mind oot though lads, if ye ging tae ony of that funcy florists you’ll get fleeced!  Fit my ex, Dykers, used tae dae wis tak a detour through the Duthie Park with his stanley knife.  I got some right bonny stuff; roses, orchids, and this one time a massive cactus!

Chocolates is the shortcut to ony girl’s hairt but even the titchiest poke of Belgian soft-centres will set ye back the guts of a tenner.  My solution lies in the generosity of your local supermarket.  They’ll knock money aff onything that’s damaged, so just pick up a big box o’ Black Magic, run your trolley ower it and get haggling!

View from the Midden with MTv (Meikle Wartle Television) personality JOCK ALEXANDER

It’s been a serendipitous wik in the village. There wiz an affa stramash fan mony fowk failed tae secure tickets for Emeli Sandé’s Hamecoming gig at the Music Hall in Aiberdeen. It selt oot in 70 minutes, and the Box Office couldnae doonsize their interwebs fast enough. The upshot wiz that a hale load of music fans got redirected tae wir local ticketing ootlet here in Meikle Wartle. And it went doon. Or, tae be mair accurate, fell asleep. Weel, Feel Moira canna sit in front of that Zx Spectrum for mair nor twinty mintees afore she tries to load her aul copy of Jet Set Willie, and then she gets lulled to sleep by the hum of the cassette deck. Onywye, the practical upshot wiz that a hale load of fowk that thocht they were buying tickets for Alford’s ain international singing sensation, Emili Sandé hiv in fact bought tickets for Meikle Wartle’s worst bothy-balladeer, Sandy Emslie.

He’s been singing the auld Scots sangs unaccompanied through his nose for 40 year, and has attracted quite a following, particularly among the hearing impaired. Sandy is an artist fa can fill a room in record time, provided it’s immediately adjacent tae the one in which he’s performing.  In ony event, we’re all very much looking forward to his gig on the 19th of April, though it will be a bit of challenge getting siven thoosand folk intae the Village Hall. Cheerio!

DODDIE ESSLEMONT, Radical Independence Campaigner

Other lesser Kingdoms lying to the south may, in recent times, have confirmed a humphy-backed archaeological find of minor importance: but it is here, in the People’s Democratic Republic of 39G Seaton Drive, where has been made the discovery of the age.

Two months ago, an interested member of the public (me) made a startling discovery whilst combing through his neighbours’ bins. It’s amazing fit some folk throw oot.  There, carefully scribed in purple crayon, was a document confirming that Robert the Bruce had been buried “in the North, not far from a Branch of Ross’s, 50 paces seawards from the bookies and curry-house.”  The Principal of the University of 39G Seaton Drive (myself) gave permission for a team led by and comprising the professor of Ologies (me again) to excavate the enclosed area of open space which most clearly fitted the ancient description (my backie).

The results were beyond my wildest imaginings.  Not only was Robert the Bruce buried aneth my azaleas, so too were William Wallace, and Kenneth MacAlpin, King of the Picts.

This find can only strengthen 39G Seaton Drive’s claims for both sovereign independence and UNESCO World Heritage status (apparently having an original Cooncil fireplace from the 1950s “does not, in and of itself” coont).

And that’s not the half of it. History books will have to be rewritten.  The most remarkable aspect of it all is that Scotland’s greatest heroes achieved all that they did while labouring under the disability of being a dog, a hamster and two legs of lamb.