John Gibson: Burials at sea not in their book

You might say he had led a sheltered life. He was 26 before he settled in Edinburgh in 1968. An under-privileged life? Well, Gus Ferguson’s a Dundonian and he blew his earliest notes there.

They do say it’s the city of four Js . . . jute, jam, journalism and jeesus, who’d want to live in a place like this! Anyway he has always blown his own trumpet and he’s still at it.

Hadn’t seen him in ages before we met by chance the other afternoon in Cassis, a recently-created bistro at Salisbury. The semi-professional Gus Ferguson Jazzmen are still hot and gigging . . . jazz clubs, golf clubs, weddings and, as you’d gather from the pic, funerals.

“Also, we’ve played once a month on the Forth Belle during the summer,’’ Gus adds. You name it, they’ll play it but they stop short of burials at sea.

Pointless drivel

What’s the point? The the shameless BBC, bereft of ideas, keep Pointless running forever as a prelude to the Six o’Clock News.

Do we need a quiz – and we’ve seen hundreds similar – at this time? The prat of a presenter and the deadly dull scorekeeper waffling in the wings guarantee this is a drag night after night.

Cheap and dreadful. Churned out for a nerdy audience in the studio and, one imagines, at home.

Afterwords . .

where there’s life, specifically when she gets the merest hint of a photo-op, there’s Lulu. Still game at 62, up for Strictly Come Dancing, straps straining now to discipline the matronly bosoms. Like Bruce, doesn’t know when to give up.