17th place at Eurovision for the U.K.? Fair enough, we weren’t the Wurst.

View From the Midden – rural affairs with MTV (Meikle Wartle Television) presenter JOCK ALEXANDER

It hiz been an international wikend in the village. On Setterday nicht, a’bdy got thegither in Skittery Wullie’s Byre to watch the Eurovision Song Contest. We crackit open Shaky Tam’s vegetable wine, (or the Beetroot nouveau, as he likes to cry it), and settled doon ameen the nowt. A sleeping Aberdeen Angus maks a surprisingly comfy, if flatulent, footstool. I ken fit you’re thinking – fit aboot the smell? Well let me tell ye, the cows didna seem to mind it of aa.

Fit an amazing spectacle it wiz; flashing lights, smoke, and high-pitched screching. And eence we untangled Feel Moira fae the electric fence, we got to watching Eurovision, and losh, it wiz nearly as enertaining. I hid a lot of sympathy for the twa Russian quinies, fa not only hid to suffer some ill-nat’erd booing, but hid somehow managed to get their hair tangled thegither. If only Sheepie Henderson hid been there in Copenhagen, with his shears, he’d hiv freed them in nae time. Interestingly, the Polish entry divided the company alang the lines of sex. Folk fa like it thought they were magic. Although we were aa agreed that yon quine wizna ga’an to get much butter churned working the plunger like yon. There wiz a lot of support in the room for the British candidate, Molly Smitten-Downes, fa we thought wiz under marked. Mebbe she’d hiv got on better if she didna hae a surname that sounds like a disease of the udder.

But of course the surprise of the night wiz the runaway success of Conchita Wurst, the Austrian quine fa won the hale thing. Fit a performance she gave. I’ve nae seen onything so heart-felt and convincing since Tam tried to persuade the Sheriff nae to ban him for drink driving. Conchita’s victory wiz a triumph for bearded wifies awye. It left Feel Moira with tears streaming doon her face, not all of which could be attributed to the Byre’s methane-rich atmosphere. In a spontaneous display of unity and fellow feeling, we hoisted Feel Moira in the air. Which proved to be a mistake, cos she wiz still carrying a positive charge efter yon business with the electric fence. Athegither, an explosive night’s entertainment. Cheerio!

CAVA KENNY CORDINER, the footballer columnists’ football columnist.

I have had a week full of blitz and glamour this week, what has seen me barging shoulders with some real big wigs, not to mention Stewartie Milne. Not only was I at the AECC on Thursday for the Dons’ player of the year dinner, but I also got invited out of my comfy zone to Mannofield on Friday for the One Day International.

The AFC do was a most suspicious occasion. I’ve been at more dinners than I’ve had hot dinners, but this year’s event had a special atmosphere seeing as the Dandies has had such a magic season. Needles to say, there was all sorts of awards being handed out. Jonny Hayes got Goal of the Season, Mark Reynolds was the fans’ Player of the Year but I think the specialist prize of the night went to Peter Pawlett, who was named Players’ Players’ Player of the Year.

There is all sorts of players in football, but you can only be one of them. You can be a fans’ player; a manager’s player, or best of all – a players’ player. Of course, back in my extinguished playing career, I was sometimes always all of them. Down at Brechin I was a fans’ player, because they loved seeing someone who wore his sleeve on his heart. At Locos I was a players’ player because after every home game I used to take the whole team back to my cocktail bar, Enforcers, for a lock-in. But in my glory days at the Dons I was a manager’s player, because Fergie relied on me to lift the team. ‘Cordiner’, he would scream, cheerfully, his chuddy going mental: ‘I can always tell when you’re on the pitch – the other ten lads all have to raise their game’.

As regulation readers will know, football is very much my matinee, so it was an aftershock to the system when I went to Mannofield on Friday to watch Scotland stick England at croquet. I’ve never understood the game, to be honest. All these silly-leg-ons, yorkies and made-in-dovers is way over my head, and some of the guys in the corpulent hospitality suite was taking the mickey out of me; but after six solid hours in the beer tent waiting for the rain to stop, it all started to make sense.

Eventually the skies cleared and they was able to get the ball rolling, but because there was not much time left, England won using the Duck-faced Selfie method. I says to my companions I says, “If only Scotland had thought of that and done it first, they’d have wiped the floor with them!” They didn’t have no answer to that.