THERE are times when I think that Brian Wilson, the barking Labour poodle, behaves as though he has come into contact with the same mind-altering substances as turned his namesake, the Beach Boy, into a mashed tattie.

Mr Wilson, foaming in Mayday! Mayday!

(Scotland on Sunday), applauded that rag's editor, Iain Martin, for ratting on Brian Monteith, the erstwhile Tory MSP, who in a confidential e-mail had encouraged Mr Martin to call on David McLetchie to resign. Bemoaning the use of unnamed sources and berating hacks who protect them, Mr Wilson wrote: "Politicians who brief against colleagues rarely do it once.

It is, for some low-life, their modus operandi."

Elsewhere in the same organ Alphonso Cochrane, capo of the Cosa Scotia, said much the same, (as if one would expect otherwise). Of course Mr Wilson would never brief against anyone else. Nor, I dare say, has he ever given information to a hack "off the record". Heaven forfend!

Among politicians he is a saint and no doubt will be canonised in due course.

In the meantime, and in a spirit of goodwill to all men, however numpty their tendencies, I offer the freedom of this space to anyone who has had an e-mail from Mr Martin, Mr Wilson or Mr Cochrane that they would like to share with the great unwashed. Needless to say, requests for anonymity will be religiously respected.

Career advice for Sir Timorous

ALAS, a prior engagement meant I was unable to attend the Scottish Politician Of The Year award, at which the aforementioned Mr Monteith was named Free Spirit Of The Year, graciously thanking his nemesis, Mr Martin, in his Oscar-style speech. That glittering event, however, was eclipsed by a private view and supper for civilised hacks at the National Galleries of Choice: 21 Years of Collecting for Scotland, Sir Timorous Cliffhanger's valedictory show.

The great man himself presided, positively salivating [Is there any other way to salivate? Ed] at the fabulous works he has bought with our dosh.

According to one critic, he has spent GBP50 million on paintings, sculptures and whatnot which if sold today would fetch double that.

In an after-dinner spiel he turned the temperature up. "I'm fed up, " he said, "with Scotland being seen as a provincial capital." He may have meant Edinburgh.

Be that as it may, he then went on to say more laws were being made "than you can shake your fist at". All of which leads me to the conclusion that Sir Timorous should perhaps consider a career in politics. I see him as a Gnat, dressed resplendently in the trews he decreed the attendants of the National Galleries should wear. He would be an adornment to any chamber.

Let Glasgow take Scotland's pictures

AS the days pass, I grow ever more fearful that the inspired idea to locate the proposed Scottish National Photography Centre (SNPC) at the old Royal High School on Edinburgh's Calton Hill may be doomed.

The vibes I am receiving are not positive. In particular, the capital's civic panjandrums seem determined to stand by and do nothing, while civil servants in the cultural department of the Executive appear unaware of the First Meenister's enthusiasm for an idea whose moment has surely come.

It is time to pull out a few fingernails and extract some binding promises, otherwise the National Lottery will have no alternative but to reject the SNPC's application.

Dear Sir Timorous remains firmly behind the SNPC, which he mentions in the catalogue to Choice. Ditto Shir Sean, who is not a man to trifle with when roused. If it was up to me, I would offer the new gallery forthwith to Glasgow and Bridget McConnell, its head of galleries, libraries and museums. Despite urging from the Evening Phews, Edinburgh has dithered so long it should be ashamed of itself. It deserves to be snubbed.

Goldie defies the cosy consensus

TO Holyrood, where I catch the eye of enemies too numerous to mention. I have an audience with Annabel Goldie who, to my amazement, has nothing to do with the London nightclub that bears her name.

Contrary to much of the twaddle written by the hacks, Ms Goldie is just the person to sort out the dodos who, under the previous regime, were heading towards extinction. They may still be heading in that direction, but my guess is that now it will take them a wee bit longer to get there.

Ms Goldie's first act on becoming leader was to write a feisty article for the Herald about drugs, though I doubt she indulges in anything stronger than aspirin herself. Her specific target was methadone, which is used to wean addicts off heroin. "The Scottish Executive is spending GBP11 million a year on publicly funded drug addiction, " she wrote, going on to argue that methadone is not the solution to the country's horrendous drug problem.

From where I was sitting it seemed a timely and courageous intervention.

Courageous, because when anyone in this peedie part of the planet raises their head above the parapet and criticises received wisdom or a cosy consensus or publicly funded bodies they are derided, accused of being "negative", "unhelpful" and "naive".

Nothing, apparently, from funding the arts to dealing with drugs, can possibly be simple. Some things, however, are. In the deluge of mail following Ms Goldie's piece, no-one, including members of the medical profession and drug workers, dared to put a figure on how many addicts have been weaned off heroin via methadone.

The same is not true of the Maxie Richards Foundation, whose inspiration fuelled Ms Goldie's remarks. Nor is it true of Calton Athletic, which claims to have helped 3500 people come off heroin and which lost government support when its cold-turkey approach was deemed to be at odds with the "harm reduction" regime.

There is a moral here: Bite your tongue or lose your grant. It really is that simple.

But pairs of what, for heavens' sake?

NOBODY is a greater fan than me of Franz Ferdinand, the Glasgow pop combo who continue to take the world by storm.

Which is obviously brilliant. One day I must get an earful of them.

Meanwhile I am amazed to discover that Alex Kapranos, FF's lead singer, and I have something in common: we have both dined at the Buttery, the legendary eatery whose miraculous survival in the 1960s, when much of Glasgow was being torn down, Mr Kapranos suggests may be due to the Masons. I cannot possibly comment.

Mr Kapranos ate recently at the Buttery and wrote glowingly of the experience in The Grauniad, whose predilection for error never ceases to amaze one. After a good dollop of haggis, described as ?this bag of sheep bits and oatmeal?, Mr Kapranos and his companion moved on to the dessert.

"Poached pairs [sic] and whisky ice cream conclude one of the best meals I've had in around 6000 miles of travelling, " he wrote.

CAFE CLOWNS

AWESTRUCK by the Glasgow University boffins who spent GBP140,000 of our dosh to discover that cafes are congenial places to hang out. The revelation that people will stop going to cafes which sell rancid coffee is potentially Earth-shattering.

Whaur's your Bertie Einstein noo? Apparently the researchers "viewed the ordinary and often skilful organisation of the visit as a sequential object with a beginning, ordering, seatselection, occupying the table and leaving." Who among us has not?

I note that one of the researchers, Dr Eric Laurier, has since been poached by Edinburgh University. I hereby dub him Professor Espresso.

Scraping one last meal from our big can of beans

A FINAL word - honest - on the subject of baked beans, courtesy of Rob in Stagg's bar in Musselburgh, who reminds me of Johnny Cash's anthem Beans for Breakfast, of which the following is merely one short verse:

"Wish you'd come back and wash the dishes, I'm a hungry nasty lonesome man.

"Caught a cold with the window open, crow droppings on my window sill.

"Probably got histoplasmosis, got no gun or I would kill them crows "Beans for breakfast once again, hard to eat 'em from the can."

Two thoughts occur. First, a prize to any reader who can find another song with the word "histoplasmosis" in it.

Secondly, this correspondence is most emphatically closed. You could call it a has-bean.

afttaylor2000@aol. com