Talk of the Town: Grass is greener for volunteer Andy

But the good deed ended up winning the teenager an award – and landing him his dream job.

Oatridge College student Andy, from Winchburgh in West Lothian, received the John Kennie Award, given for “kind deeds”.

And the 17 year old got the shock of his life when bosses at Hopetoun Estate read about his work in the newspaper, and decided to offer him a job.

Andy said: “They saw the story in the newspaper and contacted me and, in the end, offered me a job. I never expected anything like this when I went along to Winchburgh Primary and volunteered to maintain the grounds, cut hedges and keep the place tidy.”

You’ll have to be a flyer to hurdle festival’s leftovers

THE festival may be over for another year, but as always it has left us with happy memories, bad hangovers and messy streets lined with leftover flyers.

Of course, bringing a mass gathering of the world’s most creative people to Edinburgh every year also ensures there are endlessly entertaining descriptions of our home city, and this year was no exception.

Top prize goes to Simon Callow, who, when asked how he likes to relax at the festival, replied: “By going for a walk. This city is basically like one big step aerobics class.”

A degree of difficulty

EVERY new student likes to make a good impression on their first day.

But thousands of students at Edinburgh Napier University faced missing lectures from the start after a computer glitch left them unable to access their timetables.

The system was down for nearly a week. Napier bosses say the fault was down to an IT problem at the Craiglockhart campus, and fortunately the gremlins in the system righted the problem before students returned.

Pupils face the future

WITH worries being raised over the number of Scottish students able to speak the native tongue, it seems that perhaps our pupils are simply more forward-thinking.

While there are very few schools left in the Capital that even teach Gaelic, figures have shown that studies of Mandarin, the official Chinese language, are growing fast.

The language is now taught in six of Edinburgh’s 23 secondary schools, meaning local students will be able to speak the language of the world’s biggest economic powerhouse – and that’s surely no bad thing.