SO CHEERIO, Michael Crichton, one of those unfortunate souls who, as Martin Amis said, was "tall beyond utility".

Though he was a bestselling author, earned $100 million a year and was scarily attractive to women, he was terribly self-conscious about his height. Well, so you would be if you were 9ft 6in.

Among Mr Crichton's novels was Jurassic Park, in which dinosaurs like Dick Cheney and George Bush roamed the earth.

Mr Crichton was also the creator of ER. Perhaps there was an episode in which a man had an imperial foot lopped off each leg in order to live a normal life. If so, you know where the idea came from.

Au revoir to girl who shot from the hip
A tube, writing in the Hootsmon, made a pig's ear of catching Mr Bananarama's transformation from candidate to president-elect. "When the moment came," we learned at the top of page one, "it swept across Chicago's Grant Park like a tsunami." In the name of the wee man, nobody even got wet.

Nevertheless, it brought back fond memories of the Hootsmon's coverage of 9/11, when the lead article opened: "We have seen this sort of thing before, in King Kong, in Godzilla, in Independence Day. But this was not the popcorn logic of Hollywood. This horror was real."

More worrying, though, was the reaction of a pundit in the Grauniad who spread doom and gloom across the globe with the news that Mr Bananarama "will soon be campaigning for re-election." Please, no!

Sarah Palindrone, meanwhile, has returned to Alaska, where she will be kept in a deep freeze until the Republicans can figure out what went wrong. Top of their list is her conversation with a Canadian DJ who fooled her into thinking he was Nicolas Sarkozy, Carla Bruni's latest squeeze.

"Sarkozy" told her his special adviser, Johnny Hallyday, had briefed him on her. "We should go hunting together," added "Sarkozy". "We can kill two birds with one stone," replied Ms Palindrone. "I love to kill birds," said the Frenchman. "I just love to kill." Whereupon Ms Palindrone twittered. We have four years of sleeping easy before she comes back to haunt us.

Too much of the Vidal spark
WE saw too little of my dear friend, Gore Vidal, throughout the election. Now 83, and somewhat unsteady on his pins, he doesn't get out as much as he used to, more's the pity. However, viewers following the BBC's coverage in the wee sma' hours caught a rare sighting of him, speaking from Los Angeles.

The host was David Dimpledcheeks, who made the mistake of approaching his chat rather too chirpily. Had he expected a Bananarama win? "Yes, I did," said Mr Vidal, as only a prophet can. He then followed up by giving what he called "the facts of life" about the Republican Party.

"They like war, they like money." Asked if he was happy about Mr Bananarama's success, he said he was "thrilled", sounding as one does when told that an enema is unavoidable. Mr Dimpledcheeks intervened and tried to explain what Mr Vidal was saying to himself.

"I don't know what you're saying that I'm saying," said Mr Vidal. "Would you say it again?" Which Mr Dimpledcheeks did, only for Mr Vidal to add: "I know too much about the subject. You like to get people who don't know much about the subject." Whereupon the plug was pulled.

"Well, that was fun," said Mr Dimpledcheeks, in the manner of a man who'd been to hell and back.

Weathering the political storm
WHO better to turn to at this historic hour than Susan Dalgety-Bay, the Boadicea of the blogosphere? Ms Dalgety-Bay, in another existence aide-de-camp to erstwhile First Meenister, Jack Malawi, has been in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where she's been campaigning on behalf of Barack Bananarama.

It may yet emerge that it was her contribution that finally swung things Mr O's way. Or mibbe not. "The world changed yesterday - for good," Ms Dalgety-Bay chuntered on Wednesday. "Barack Obama is not superman. Peace will not reign across the world by Christmas." Talk about getting your excuses in first!

Ms Dalgety-Bay found herself in the Hellertown part of Bethlehem, "a socially mixed community, just like Edinburgh Pentlands where I cut my political teeth". The previous week she attended a Bananarama rally where "young black teenagers in hoodies chatted, probably for the first time in their lives, to middle-aged, middle-class women in North Face jackets."

While Mr O spoke through a bone-chilling downpour, John "He's had his chips" McCain called off because he was worried about getting his pate wet. "Think about it," concluded Ms Dalgety-Bay. "Who would you vote for?" In the end, as Confucius may have said, everything is about the weather.

On by-election day, listen to nobody
TO Glenrothes and yet another by-election. To universal amazement, the Gnats lost, as one always felt they would. Not that you would have got that impression from reading the political pundits, who, as one, fell for my dear friend Alexei Salmonella's insistence that the result was a foregone conclusion.

In the event, Laybore won with a majority of 6737, a victory which their candidate, Lindsay Roy, said was "stunning", albeit with almost 4000 fewer votes than his predecessor had. The Gnats were chastened but claimed that they, too, had won, because their share of the vote had increased by 13%. That they'd still finished second seemed, well, of secondary concern. Oddly, I note it was the Dodos and the DumbLibs who first guessed predictions of a Gnat success had been premature. It was about all they got right. Both parties lost their deposits.

Be that as it may, the Dodos also acted as if they'd won, because they had finished in the bronze medal position. At least their candidate, Maurice Golden, had acknowledged that winning the seat was an "uphill battle". Bringing up the rear were the DumbLibs, who secured just 947 votes. How, one wondered, would my new dear friend, Tavish McTumshie, right, a Viking, find something positive to say about that? "Alex Salmond," he harrumphed, "predicted the SNP would win on day one. He got it spectacularly wrong. Scottish politics has changed again. The honeymoon is over." As, one assumes, is Mr McTumshie's with his DumbLib chums.

Which brings me to another dear chum, Brian Taylor of BBC Teuchter, who returned to the studio sodden after another glorious day in Fife and broadcast to the nation on Holyrood Live in his socks. What a trouper!

Some twitterings about Chic
BILLY Connolly has kindly provided a foreword to Just Daft: The Chic Murray Story by Robbie Grigor. In it, Mr Connolly writes of the greatest-ever Scottish comedian: "His popularity shows no sign of diminishing, whether he is alive or not." Lest there be any doubt, Mr Murray "passed" - dread word! - in 1985.

Among the many gems in Mr Grigor's book is Mr Chic's consideration of the question "What is a Scot?", in the course of which he recalled wearing a kilt in "enemy-held territory", where he was asked by a young woman what was worn under it. "Madam," he replied, "Nothing is worn. Everything is in fine working order!"

He then turned to the subject of drink. How, he asked a friend who'd had a skinful the night before, did he manage to get home? "I was getting home fine," the friend replied, "when a big policeman tramped over my fingers." Eneuch! Eneuch!