John Gibson: Our man in Milan lost it – bad pass!

An authority on rugby. Well, he thinks he is and few would pick an argument with former Boroughmuir and Scotland stalwart Norrie Rowan.

But he got himself into a right pickle at the weekend. On an Italian escapade he lost his passport in Bologna and he was calling me from Milan. He had to go there to pick up a new one.

“If you’re to be stranded anywhere, make it Milan,” he insists. Back in Edinburgh now, Norrie will still be up for the cup. “I want France to win but I take New Zealand to do it. The refereeing ruined the tournament last weekend. I don’t know whether it was a bit bent or simply incompetence. Anyway the outcome was the same.”

At the airport, possibly they held up the flight while he had his say.

“The reason I was such a good rugby player, if I may say so in all modesty, is that when the opposition got the ball my team chased it, and when my team got the ball the opposition chased it. But when I got the ball, everybody chased me.”

Who’d dare argue with him?

Eye like it, Lulu

Crows’ feet. Don’t let them get you down. Even the ultra-precious Lulu has them, painfully apparent in posing for press pics this week with her Woman of the Year Award.

She didn’t go running to the nearest plastic engineer. We’re all relieved.

“When women roll up their sleeves there is no end to what we can achieve,” she spouts.

Let me echo that and allow me to be among the first to congratulate the 62-year-old granny.

Afterwords . .

. . . Scotland’s Greatest Album. STV at their most inventive. An hour-long dollop at a time. Turgid telly. You’re telling me you’ve spent a pleasanter, more enthralling hour in your dentist’s chair.