Brechin braced for off-the-wall bishop

His most controversial church decoration was that of a cow hanging on the cross in place of Christ. With the picture went the words: ''My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?''

BSE was behind it while beneath it was a daub stating ''This is Blasphemy''. Only a fine line divides the slaughter of four million cows and the Holocaust, Canon Chamberlain tells critics.

The Diocese of Brechin

can expect to continue in the

public eye.

Texan star

Despite monsoon conditions Edinburgh's tourist hordes are once again on the march across the windswept steppe of the capital's pavements, grazing on ready-to-go polystyrene and breathing deeply of distilled diesel reek.

Citizens are being taxed with the usual dumbed-down conundrums: what is in haggis, what is missing under the kilt, and where does the shell go when the One O'Clock Gun signals a change of underwear?

But locals are entertained in return. The driver of a fast black tells the Diary of an encounter with a brace of elderly Texan passengers who were puzzled by a loud bleeping sound heard as the taxi paused at a pedestrian crossing.

What, they asked, was the noise?

The cabbie explained that the pulsating ululation - not necessarily in those words - was to allow blind people to know when the lights had turned to red.

The couple from the Lone Star State, used to Texan biggest and best, were impressed. Said one, enviously: ''We don't allow blind people to drive in Dallas.''

Pussycat

James Gordon Brown, the Iron Chancellor who was 10 years a shadowy figure on government finance before yesterday's release of distilled wisdom, has been keeping more than fiscal secrets.

He is, the Diary can reveal, a cat person. So keen on cats is James, as his parents named him, that he has been sending food parcels from Downing Street to California, tin upon tin of fish-flavoured custard parcelled up at the Chancellor's residence and popped in the mail for two pampered pussycats.

These favoured felines live with Sean Macaulay, brother of Sarah, who is currently a paparazzi pestered chum of the bachelor Rt Hon Member for Dunfermline East.

The epicurean delight now being posted through cat flaps on America's west coast was taste-tested by Sarah's friend Felix, an animal to which James Gordon Brown is said to be deeply attached. In fact, it was he who gave Felix fish-flavoured custard in the first place.

Ecstatic or not with James's budget it is nice to know that beneath that lounge suit lurks a pussycat.

Healthy interest

With the hunt on throughout Scotland for hotel and bar staff to service the busy summer tourist trade one firm is handing out job application forms that owe much to the wards at Scutari.

The conditions laid down by Whitbread Inns are tough. Have you, they ask applicants, a discharging ear, recurring gastro-intestinal disorder, skin trouble affecting hands, arms and face, or boils, styes or septic fingers, and, perhaps, discharges from the eye, gums or mouth.

Anxious applicants are stumped. Does the brewing giant want to see ticks in the ''yes'' or the ''no'' box?

Ring master

Tony Wilkie-Millar, the one-time journalist who used to keep an eye on night-time Edinburgh from a newspaper staff car which had the colour co-ordination of a Knickerbocker glory, is likely to get the citizens' undivided attention against this summer.

Now a showbiz entrepreneur Tony is bringing the Bolshoi Circus to the capital during this summer's culture fest, a worthy successor, he assures the Diary, to last year's knock-out Chinese State Circus. He is also putting on another entertainment in an adjoining big top: Master of the Mysterious, featuring Lawrence Leyton, who stages table-shifting exhibitions without moving his muscles.

According to Tony W-M this tented diversion will be called the F*** Show. What can it all mean? Is Edinburgh ready for this? Will it involve a car in primary colours with a cherry on top?

Making a splash

The Oban Times reports that CalMac has appointed its first ever woman pier mistress. Initially, says the paper, she will operate in tandem with the present pier master at Oban who was formerly, according to the paper, a successful fish buyer.

As for the new girl, the Oban Times says she has had ''extensive experience afloat and was for a time involved in charter work''.

Parking mad

Seventy-something Joan Scott from Edinburgh's Stockbridge district is refusing to pay #60 in parking tickets stuck to her car windscreen despite the fact that she already pays for a resident's parking permit.

Snag is there are never enough spaces available and she has had to park where traffic wardens roam.

At the bottom of it all is the fact that the city authorities have sold 1000 permits but provided only 700 parking spaces.

Now councillors are considering charging #2 a ticket for this year's Hogmanay bash in the city centre. Only around 2000 revellers will be allowed past the barrier.

Ask Joan Scott how many tickets she thinks they intend to sell.

Tibetan twin

The view from the stand at Easter Road has been called many things but not even the most ardent Hibs fan has ever watched the play and been transported to Tibet.

However, according to Charlotte Edwards, who is staging a pop concert at the ground to raise funds for jailed Buddhist nuns, the home of Hibs, overlooked by Arthur's Seat, is the closest thing to Tibet to be found in Britain.

Edinburgh, she tells the Diary, is a spiritual city. Which is well known. Only thing is the Hibs ground is in Leith, a yuppy fun spot about which the word spiritual does not readily spring to mind.

All read-me's

Headlines culled from American newspapers for your delectation:

Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Spacecraft;

New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group;

Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half;

Typhoon Rips Through Cemetery - Hundreds Dead.

George Hume