Newsflash!

After a thrilling race not a fortnight ago, it was the East Pacific maneki neko team which pipped the West Pacific runner, but only by a scant few days. The East Pacific team supplied two MK specimens plus a build-your-own Stonehenge model kit, but the West Pacific courier just may have trumped them on quality (if not speed) by hand-delivering three MKs, two with keyring functionality. That wee wan is a fortunate creature indeed.

There's been a friend staying the last week, which has been pleasant and reparative (literally). Friend sealed up the neglected window with masking tape, identified the problem in the DVD remote controller (fritzed by battery acid), hooked up the surround-sound speakers so they worked and functioned as cooking, washing up and tidying fairy. A veritable rival to H.-who-is-very-good-to-me, and all for nothing but a tour of favourite local sites including the Botanics, Museum, Braidburn and Calton Hill and exposure to some high winds and a little sleet. It makes the turistas feel like Scotland is the far north.

Peter Ballocks was allegedly on best behaviour but quite bad at the luscious veggie feast cooked for H. and R. There were home-fried pakora, salsa, a tofu tart, stuffing balls, tabbouleh salad and an apple cake. He dampened his dreaded come-on phrase ('ballocks') since outnumbered by the feminista, but despite explicit prospective warning deliberately baited the vegetarian and failed to share the small lump of hash donated to him for sedative purposes. It's all about him and his ballocks, making his dog so much better-mannered and better company than he.