The first Bell wedding: Charlotte and Doctor Dave

" Charlotte's mum's lovely, but where's her dad? Oh, that'll be him walking her down the aisle."
horse's bum

Amster: city of fat crosses

the coolest thing we saw in I Amsterdam

OK - so some of these are on their side and I don't know how to fix them. Please just crane your neck.

The Pics (mainly for Lorraine)

Oh, we can cafe

kids in a bucket, although not a great example

overcoming jet lag in sunny Amsterdam

Wow, uploading pictures takes like a really long time and now I have to go and do a pre-show speech. More to come.

l Rest My Case About Sin City

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/sin-city-nosebiting-victim-denies-assault/2005/09/27/1127586845135.htm

Done Up Like a Fish Supper

The bride's father explained that although they live close to the church they'd hired Glasgow cabs because they didn't want to walk the distance down Great Western Road "done up like a fish supper". We liked the turn of phrase and adopted it for the week.

At the first wedding at Ardross we were done up like the proverbial but the only other people were also guests. The horses weren't paying attention. And fish supper attire somehow seems appropriate when drinking champagne on the terrace in front of the castle. The notoriously late piper missed the church and most of the reception but he was there by the end of the night to lead them to their Charlotte-green car in the mist beneath the fir trees. We went back to our digs above the stables and drank gin and tonics with the lovely far flung cousins from Bristol and London and Barcelona and Cologne.

In the morning Ali was there on the couch still in his kilt.

Shieldaig Lodge Hotel

The final line disclaimer on the dinner menu: Although we take the greatest care our game birds may contain lead shot.

Tim Latham, published author

While Tim took the Bruce Springsteen bag to the other side of the room to show it around, I sat down next to The Greyhound. It was a book launch; and he was sitting on his own reading the book. I thought it an unnecessarily immediate show of enthusiasm. At some point in the conversation he said he was perplexed by his feelings for John Brogden. I agreed that it was confronting to find oneself having sympathy for a Lib. He said he could relate to behaving abominably when drunk. I wanted to say that we'd all heard the things he'd done and they were kind of sweetly needy and just made him more endearing. Anyway no-one could be a more abominable drunk than his old flatmate.

We looked at the pictures in the middle of Tim's book. The Greyhound said that he recently read 400 pages of an 800 page Bill Clinton biography but stopped when he'd reached the photos in the middle because that was all he wanted to do. I said that if this was a publishing focus group they'd be moving to the photos to the end. The real reason was because he wanted to start the new Harry Potter. He said JK Rowling gets what it's like to be a young boy. He didn't elaborate.

The sign on the door at the hairdresser says: "Sorry, We're Open" and on the other side: "Come In, We're Closed". Steve the straight, married colourist says some people point out that the sign is wrong. We laugh uproariously and I say that it seems we have a similar sense of humour. Steve agrees and to test the point says that he thought the violence in Sin City was funny. I stop laughing immediately.