John Gibson: Never met Gore and I feel sore

Regrets, I’ve had a few but then again, too few to mention. You won’t mind, though, if I mention, name-dropping all the while, John Huston, Alan Whicker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bette Davis, Walter Matthau, Mel Torme, David Frost, Bing Crosby and Rolf Harris.

Met them and broke bread with them. But I never did manage to meet Gore Vidal before his passing last week and that, for me, is a major regret. I just thought you’d want to share my grief.

Drives me mad

Shopped by her boss who told cops she drove off drunk and was nabbed at her local Livingston police station, she was twice the legal limit. The lady’s second driving conviction this year.

Her punishment – a year of supervision and 135 hours of unpaid work and banned from driving for 43 months. The 44-year-old office worker was told, while having her wrist slapped, another such charge could see her jailed.

Aye, that’ll teach her, I’m sure.

But hold on. How about that 53-year-old Glaswegian caught at her home over five times the limit, one of the highest ever recorded for a female motorist?.

The Crown wanted her car seized. The sheriff refused, agreeing instead to give the vehicle to her daughter. Drive you to distraction, drive you round the bend, would it not?

Afterwords . .

. . . the grapevine’s saying that you, ladies, shouldn’t be too proud, ashamed even, to buy that dress for that wedding for four quid from Age Concern. For those possible five weddings (but not the funeral) it’s okay to go vintage, if you believe Grazia, a mag I found in my dentist’s waiting room.