THE TROUBLE WITH ADRIENNE*

Meant to have the article I have been meaning to write ready for you by now. But it's proved to be a much more complex affair than I had reckoned on.

Better that it's right than quick, though. I want to be absolutely fair to the party involved and I would like to obtain the maximum cathartic effect for myself. I'll try not to keep you waiting longer than I have to.

If that doesn't have you dry mouthed with suspense nothing will!!!!!!!!!!

*Not her real name but its close enough.

John R. Nicoll, Dundee (The Hospitable Scots Bachelor)

P.C. OR NOT P.C. PART 4

If you've been following the P.C. or not P.C. strand you may well be glad to know that, for once, the machinery of bureaucracy has coughed and spluttered and lurched in the right direction.

That's my ham fisted way of saying that I have once again been assigned as a school escort to the same little Asian boy that I was escorting last year.

I picked him up the other day and he was ready, face washed, hair combed to within an inch of its life and ready for his new school - or at least as ready as any school boy ever is for anything to do with school!

I'm glad it worked out this way. I'm glad for him. I'm even more glad for me. I'm sure that he will appreciate a little continuity in his life. I know that I do.

I'm a big fan of continuity myself. I know that nothing stays the same for very long in this life but, lately, change has seemed to become a religion in certain quarters. Often it is change for changes sake - or, as we used to call it, FIDGETING!

How nice if things can continue in the same way - at least for a while.How nice if you can bask a little longer in the warmth of a friendship or enjoy a comfortable situation. Why must this world insist on dragging us along by the scruff of the neck? What's the hurry?

My young friend shows me his new toy car. He grins. He giggles when I call him a twit. Then he looks out of the car window to see the world roll relentlessly by.

Again, I ask, what's the hurry?