IN the strange-but-true department, have you seen the lovely new shiny car sitting outside Dicksons’ premises in the Carse? From the road it looks like a normal display car, but from the showroom it is clearly sporting the number plate DE 51 RED. “That plate must be worth a fortune,” said one customer, only to be told that it was a marketing wheeze and not a real number plate.

A reader in Telford Road was surprised to find a rare visitor in his garden one afternoon recently. Strong winds and rain had no doubt blown the grouse off course, away from the killing fields of the countryside. It is not the first time this part of Merkinch has been visited by wild game - a couple of years back, one summer dawn, a young deer was found disporting itself in the same garden.