AMERICAN rock legends Little Feat will be playing at the Queen's Hall, Edinburgh, and Inverness's Ironworks later this month.

Last year, two band members, Paul Barrere and Fred Tackett, visited the Highlands for the first time for a stripped-down acoustic gig at Strathpeffer Pavilion. The duo's journey to the venue from Inverness airport was abruptly halted by the upraised palm of a burly policewoman. She then leaned into their car, announcing: "We've a mad cow on the road and we're just waiting for someone to come and shoot it."

Tackett, who lives in the gun-happy backwoods of Arkansas, thanked the PC for the lengths she'd gone to in making him feel right at home, earning himself a look which came close to lethal.

What's in a name?
READERS Alan Anderson, of Glasgow, and Robert Forsyth, fae Uplawmoor, were impressed by the National Obesity Forum's spokesman during a BBC Breakfast interview about childhood obesity. The man decrying young chip addicts? Tam Fry.

Transcend dental
AS the NHS celebrates its 60th birthday, a football-playing Inverclyde resident recalls being admitted to hospital in Greenock with a broken leg.

The patient in the adjoining bed soon struck up conversation, explaining that he was in to get two teeth taken out. "Is that not unusual in a medical ward?" the wounded footballer asked, while thinking that the man's mouth looked remarkably free of swelling.

The chap then demonstrated a dental condition perhaps peculiar to Greenock, inclining his head forward to reveal two of someone else's teeth embedded in his scalp.

Second strip
EURO 2008 champions Spain suffered an unlikely defeat in the days immediately after the final: sales of their strip at Glasgow branches of Greaves Sports were beaten into second place by those of perennial under-achievers Partick Thistle.

The Jags have yet to achieve major success on Spanish football fields, with their last visit there in 2002 having taken the form of a players' end-of-season break on the Costa del Sol.

The trip's highlight was provided by then-captain Danny Lennon who conducted lengths of the hotel pool while wearing a crash helmet, asking: "Has anyone seen my moped?"

Unplatable
UNPALATABLE tales of food hygiene, continued. A serving-woman at the old executive canteen at publishers William Collins in Bishopbriggs once startled would-be diners when seen with her right arm deep inside a vat of custard, all the way up to the elbow.

"Ah've drapped a plate," she explained. Having retrieved the item of crockery, she prompted equal measures of alarm and admiration by deftly using her left hand to scrape the custard back into the container.

Skipping news
REPETITION is an everyday curse of the workplace, one which inspires its victims to develop unique coping strategies. So reckons Alan Donaldson of Kelvindale, having recently phoned a waste-removal firm, stating: "I need to have a skip at the back of my house."

A weary-sounding voice replied: "OK, sir, just don't expect me to join in."