BB FANS

No problem at all Christine - when editor-in-chief is away and busy with things like watching panto (oh yes she is), I have to be the stand in. (or should that be understudy...)

rofl at editor-in-chief, i'm going to put that on my CV Anyhow, here goes the last summary of 2007 (yes on Hogmanay Cameron, I hope I'll get double time seen as I never somewhere else eh ).

The main bit is about the travelling he has done this year which helped him fulfill his resolution to have as much fun as in 2006. Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Zambia are all given a mention then goes on to say that he is hoping fo fun this year too. With trips to New York and Chicago, the 2008 National Trust cruises and the charity drive from Scotland to China already scheduled think it's fair to say he'll manage that one!

Having his mum with him for Christmas making it a lot better and not just because of her good cooking! Says he got some great presents too.

Daniel Radcliffe who plays Harry Potter buying a flat in SoHo New York which cost £2.1 million! Sounds very nice and you can rent it for a cool £10,000 a month....!

Hoping Big Brother's Celebrity Hijack works better than the previous celebrity series.

Having to decide whether to buy tickets to a Kylie concert next year which also fits in with a wedding he's playing at in July, he's wondering whether to ask her if she'd like to duet with him....!!

oooh take me to the Kylie gig purleeese

Another Kylie fan

A concert would be fantastic !
I have 6 concert DVDs amongst other stuff. I think the early Japan concert is the hardest one to find which came via America.

Some good news for the New Year, if you’re planning to treat yourself to a new car in 2008. According to statistics recently released, some new cars are up to a third cheaper than they were this time ten years ago. The overall average drop in price is 17.3%, and three of the top ten sellers are over a fifth cheaper than in 1998. The most astonishing figure is for a base model Renault Megane, which is nearly 36% less costly than its equivalent model, and even ignoring inflation, would still cost less. So if you do have any money left after Christmas, there are worse ways to spend it.



There’s been an outcry at the fees being charged to book young Scot Leon Jackson to sing at events. It might not seem like a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work, but it comes down to supply and demand. If ‘his people’ are charging too much, he won’t get the bookings. If they’re not, he will. Simple as.




Those Spice Girls have been offered £2m each to perform a twelve-date tour in Australia. Not a bad wage you might think. But Geri Halliwell has claimed that they’ll be lucky to make a profit from the current tour because the extravaganza has cost nearly £20m to stage. I’d say they should get to Oz, and grab the cash.



I had decided to steer well clear of the January Big Brother incarnation this year. After last year’s uninspiring mix of “slebs” and slops in the Celebrity Big Brother House and the ridiculously over-hyped furore that surrounded it, all I wanted to do this time round was ignore it.
The warmed-over concept this time has been dubbed “Celebrity Hijack” where various celebs (of varying degrees of celeb-ness) take on the role of Big Brother, and use their powers to dole out orders and tasks to the housemates. The arguably refreshing side to it this time is that the householders are Britain’s cream of the crop, picked from the ripe harvest of talented 18-25 year olds that our nation has to offer. So is it a recipe for success?
The initial mix seems decent enough, with hotshots from sporting, political, business and arts backgrounds. There’s also a beauty queen called Jade – but don’t worry, apparently this one has been a member of MENSA since the tender age of four. So at least she’ll be able to spell MENSA.
I must admit that my interest was mainly sparked by 20-year-old John Loughton from Edinburgh, who was the first teenage Chairman of the Scottish Youth Parliament. I met John at the Youngedinburgh Awards a couple of years ago, where he received the top honour in the Community Involvement category. Awarded for his tireless work with the elderly and on youth issues, John has been a volunteer on the Edinburgh Youth Council and given presentations on youth issues at the City Chambers. His twist in Big Brother’s Celebrity Hijack is that he wants to reverse people’s negative attitudes to people with red hair! I think he made a good start on the programme’s opening night, determinedly plugging through Matt Lucas’s mire of mad instructions. A raw deal, dealt with like a typical politician! Well done John.
I thought that the celebrities’ involvement in this new version of the early spring series was an unnecessary burden on the programme, but in actual fact it might turn out to be the element that keeps it light and watchable. Teen Big Brother in October 2003 was a straightforward experiment, staged as part of Channel 4’s “4learning” season of programming. I think the current crop of young talents, plus the celeb input (if played correctly) will make this a very entertaining series. You can only hope!

Erm was just coming on to do this but don't need to bother it seems... apologies for delay but am a bit busy at the moment.

Speaking about healthy (or not so!) eating and some observation's he's made while in Glasgow. Such as seeing a bairn ("wean" or however you spell it in Glasgow surely? ) sitting in a buggy eating something then realising it was a piece of square sausage. And going out for lunch and coming across "Glasgow salad" on the menu for £2, after asking the waitress he was informed that this was chips...! He says he's glad he never took the Glasgow "salad" after hearing results of the study he participated in by the Rowett Institute (Aberdeen) where it shows that with low intake of carbohydrates it seems that the body uses something called ketone bodies rather than glucose as fuel. Meaning that the body can take in less energy yet not become hungry and he found this very important while particpating in the study as it was harder to diet while feeling hungry.

Figures showing that Big Brother's Celebrity Hijack seems to be going strong but not quite understanding them choosing John McCririck.

Michelle McManus being worried about singing for the president of Singapore. She is there at the moment performing in a non-singing role but has been invited to perform for him.

Some of his friends going to spend 2 nights in Berlin, 3 nights in Budapest and 1 each in Rome and Madrid, he expected this to be expensive but flights and accommodation are just costing £180.

The new car in India costing just £1250 but not thinking they'll end up in the UK.

Glasgow Salad - my kind of town.

Had one last night, but don't tell the Rowett!

Not doing much shopping in the sales and that in general trading revenue is apparently down 5% from this time last year. He was laughing at all the chemists etc having deals on things to help people stop smoking yet at the same time lots of food shops have deals on sandwiches, sausage rolls and burgers so even if you give up smoking they are drawing you to fatty foods!

Speaking about the troops in Iraq and how a friend of his recently back from there says it is one of the most difficult times he's had. Although Scarlett Johansson is heading there soon he still admires them rather than feeling envy.

Advertising a local show.

Thinking it would be good if the council in Glasgow would follow the example of one of Aberdeen's councillors who has got lighting improved in Aberdeen with a hope it'll help fight anti-social behaviour.

Phoning the gas board to get a final bill sorted out before he moves out the flat he's been renting and when the lady asked for a meter reading finding that there was nothing that he could see a reading on. When the lady asked what he could see he said a wee window with a flame... the lady then asked if he was maybe looking at the boiler instead

Panto coming to an end and feeling disappointed. How it'll be odd not having it as such a major part of his life anymore and that he enjoyed it a lot. He won't wish this year away though and doesn't even know yet if he'll be offered another.

A cargo ship taking BMWs breaking the ropes and tipping 400 new cars into the sea (And they say it isn't eco-friendly to do duck races as a fundraiser anymore...)

Copy and pasted this bit from thisisaberdeen...

Even with February being the month when love is in the air, I wouldn't have thought that Hollywood movie star Jake Gyllenhaal and I had much in common.

But in a recent survey of forty thousand British women, Jake fits the bill in almost every department.



You ladies want a man to be at least 5ft 10, have blue eyes, short dark brown hair (although 1 in 5 prefer a man with grey flecks!) and be clean shaven.

So far so good.

He must have a degree, like cinema and eating out, and never have been married.

Hey - not bad! But only relatively few want a "cuddly" companion.

OK lasses, point taken!


Jennifer Lopez and Giselle Bundchen dressing up and posing as their favourite disney character for the "Year of a Million Dreams".

And the launch of the rose thing.

Speed cameras and thinking the highly visible ones maybe aren't as useful in reducing accidents as they could be. The average-speed ones (like on the road to Ayr) seem to be more effective as it is a system similar to on the continent. He had just read a story about 5 American teenagers being killed in a car accident in a 500bhp BMW saloon.

Gordon Ramsay stripping a guy naked and wrapping him up in cling film as he'd allegedly stolen recipes

His mum listening to a lot of radio but not digital radio as they can't get that in Orkney however supermarkets had ordered lots to sell there!

Buying Darius' signed hanky for Children in Need a couple of years ago and wondering if it is worth digging it out now he's landed a role in Gone With The Wind on the West End.

Not many folk looking forward to the coming series of Big Brother but he's looking forward to seeing Davina.

3 years since the start of this thing in the paper you know I mind because it was the Saturday after the Golden rose competition finished the first time round that it was first done. Where has all that time gone? Weird!

May I just clarify that means 3 years since the column was first printed in the Evening Express as one person at least had no idea what I was on about.

Aaaaanyway!!

Valentine's day and folk deciding what to buy, moves onto the subject of a company developing an alternative to biofuels... chocolate. It used to be dumped in a landfill apparently but now using it for this purpose it is good for the environment. Speaking about guys buying presents and how the perfume counters will get a "hammering" on Weds. My favourite quote.... "not that us lads are haphazard or forgetful in our choices. No, we like to think of it as being spontaneous." (ha, that's one way of putting it.)

Madonna's Confessions tour grossing £131 million while Geri Halliwell has said that the Spice Girls will be lucky to break even.

Being shocked at Grange Hill getting the axe and mentioning about some of the topics the show has covered over the three decades. Says an up-to-date replacement is needed. (try Waterloo Road, not so much for kids mind you)

Have just had to read this bit twice but yes, basil. How apparently it used to be delivered to someone's enemy as a warning and he says no wonder as he doesn't mind some of the dry stuff but you'd better keep the fresh stuff away from him.

Having a great week with the Golden Rose fun!