X FACTOR contestants The Macdonald Brothers from Ayrshire, are currently doing in-store signings all over Scotland for their number one album - in Scotland only - entitled The Macdonald Bros. Confirmation of the lengths they are going to comes from their fan site, where an overjoyed fan posts: "Inverurie! God, you guys are seriously the best! No-one EVER goes to that music shop in Inverurie!"

Another devotee proclaims: "Craig Macdonald in Asda and £1 chocolate eggs. What more could you want for Easter?"

Date with destiny
PITY the poor leafleter for the Scottish Socialist Party going around the doors with copies of the party's Central Scotland Voice yesterday which urges on the back page to get out and vote on the fifth of May.

The election is, of course, on May 3.

  • Reader David Brownlee ponders: "Is the nation safe with a Ministry of Defence which, according to the BBC radio news, has shot itself in the foot'?"

From mouths of babes
AUTHOR Brian King's new book, Walking in on Mum and Dad, investigates embarrassing situations. We note from it that the innocence of youth is often the cause. Such as the Bishop of Armagh who was preaching one Sunday at the first service after a new stained-glass window had been installed.

Turning to the children in the congregation he asked if they could see anything different in the church from the previous Sunday. Eventually a lone hand went up and a little voice declared: "Please, sir. There aren't as many people here as last Sunday."

Or poet Glyn Maxwell, doing a reading at a school where he explained in some detail what he had been trying to convey in his poem, Seventh Day. When he finished a child asked: "Why didn't you just write that then?"

Dishing it out
A COUPLE on holiday in France visit the local market where horse meat is on sale for a variety of suggested dishes. "Is that," said the wife, "what they mean by the phrase, horses for courses?"

Just an illusion
OUR story about the Tron Theatre show Cyprus, which a theatregoer mistakenly thought was where the show was taking place, reminds Peter Pringle at Reid Kerr College in Paisley of a group of students performing the stage version of Dickens's David Copperfield at the little Spanish town of Sergorbe, 20 miles north of Valencia. The trip had been arranged by Scot Bob McLarty who had settled there, and he enthusiastically contacted the college beforehand to say the show had sold out within days. It was only when the students arrived that they realised the Spanish locals had all bought tickets thinking it was a performance by the American magician of the same name.

Nevertheless, the locals did the decent thing, hid their disappointment and stayed to enjoy the show.

Perfectly cast
ALICE Sheridan, the redoubtable mother of MSP Tommy, had a setback in her own campaign to be elected for Solidarity in Glasgow City Council's Greater Pollok ward at the weekend when she tripped and fell, breaking a bone in her foot. Curiously, she tripped over one of those brass spheres the council sets in concrete around pedestrian crossings to let blind people know where they are.

Anyway, she was explaining to the staff at casualty what she was doing at the election, standing for one of the more left-wing parties. So the staff did their bit by putting her foot in a red plastercast.

Bare-faced cheek
THE National Galleries leaflet on its summer exhibitions lists The Naked Portrait taking place at the National Portrait Gallery.

It adds the warning in bold type: "Please note this show has works containing nudity."

Thanks, but we kind of think it wouldn't have needed Sherlock Holmes to work that one out.

Zest for language
THE problems of English phrases reminds Lindsay French, now in Seattle, of a French visitor in Glasgow who arrived out of breath for a meeting and apologised for his tardiness by explaining he had been "caught in a traffic marmalade".