John Gibson: A wee bit of therapy’s what I need

Spirits. I used to indulge. To excess, probably. When my constitution could tolerate them. Now, a whiff of the barman’s apron and I’m anybody’s.

What I need, I’m told by somebody who cares, is a stint in India where in Bangalore’s Holistic Health Centre two female therapists pour warm oil on your forehead. Same as Camilla experienced there a few days ago.

Good for the mind, body and spirit, it’s said. Ah, yes, but does it restore thatch to a barren heid?

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The therapists invoke healing by reciting an ancient prayer. Can they recite the football results at teatime on Saturdays?

Tongue twister

Could it happen here? Bet your sweet life. All Australian schools, by command of their Prime Minister, are to teach their children pupils with Mandarin, Hindi, Japanese and Indonesian.

Pushing the four priority languages is a 13-year plan to get in on the booming Asian economy. Was that Hindi I heard at a bus stop in Lothian Road last night?

’Pool over

You don’t see coaches from Edinburgh streaming down in convoy to Blackpool, Lancashire’s Las Vegas, in September any more for the illuminations – “the lights”. It was the annual pilgrimage.

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Old hat, the punters’ habit of communing the candy floss, the donkeys, the Tower ballroom and, in person, with Doddy and Lulu.

Blackpool, a local Labour councillor is admitting, has become a “refuge for the dispossessed”. Try Morecambe, it’s just along the road. Or stay put in Edinburgh. Seeing the hard hats slaving on the trams is an entertainment in itself.