Spare us! The scunner is back again

There is, in my recall, nobody, but nobody, I’ve scribbled about more disaffectionately more often than that right wee scunner who over the years has rejoiced in the moniker Lulu. We know where she’s from. She’s taken us there often. Either in Weegiespeak or in a diluted Cockney.

Apparently BBC2 screened a documentary about her on Saturday, thankfully at 10.30, when a lot of kids were tucked up in bed, out of harm’s way. You wouldn’t have wanted your siblings to be regaled about her celeb marriages. Two failed.

Ahead of the show she was chirruping gaily: “If you’re going to do a documentary let’s get to a bit of the real stuff.”

Aye, right. “Let’s get to the real me,” she twittered, “that I’ve always been so cautious and careful not to show.”

You mean to say, without a blush, you’ve been holding something of yourself back?

Born Marie McDonald, dad a butcher, grew up tending her brother and sister. If Bruce can do it, she can do it. Arise, Dame Lulu . . .

I nearly forgot. Surely the album or the gig or the book will be out in good time for Christmas. If you can’t get a copy of Oor Wullie’s annual, do ask your bookseller for a copy of The Man Who Loathed Lulu before stocks run out.

Now tell us, John, and lighten up. Did you watch the show on Saturday? No way. Saturday nights I have my Mandarin classes.

Olé for the chef

So happened that Spain’s National Day fell the morning after Scotland had been humbled by the Spaniards in Alicante. Much banter at the Barcelo Carlton Hotel where Spanish Consul Javier Jimenez-Ugarta hosted a lunch, pronouncing chef Matt Parker’s paella the best he’d tasted outside Spain.

Among the guests smacking their lips, Edinburgh University Principal Timothy O’Shea and a representative of “Hiberdrola”. Do Hiberdrola play in the same league as Barcelona?

Anyway, paella is now a house speciality at the Spanish-owned Barcelo and chef Parker has won a seat in the directors’ box for himself and family for life.