DEAR READERS, please feel free to cut out this page and place it in a prominent position among your Christmas cards as an expression of goodwill from me to all men, women and graduates of the University of Asbo. May I also take this opportunity to thank those readers who have kindly sent cards, some of which can't even be described as abusive. In particular, I am grateful to Mary Kalugerovich, who chides me for describing Nigella Lawson as the thinking whatnot's "panini". As all Italophiles know, that should have read "panino", which is the singular of "panini". Surely there must be easier ways to learn a language?

Waiting for Gonzo
HALLELUJAH! I refer, of course, not to my dear friend Leonardo Cohen's suddenly popular ditty, but the appearance on the Today prog of another dear friend, Rudolpho Steadman, wine buff, musician and artist.

Mr Steadman was called upon to witter about Dr Hunter S Thompson, above, who blew out his brains in 2005 and about whom a film, featuring Johnny Depp, has just been released. Mr Steadman and I have form. Once, in the Doric Tavern in Edinburgh, we had an impromptu wrestling match in an attempt to settle once and for all who is the greater writer between Mark Twain and Robert Louis Stevenson. For the life of me I cannot remember whose side I took.

Mr Steadman was a chum of Dr Thompson, having been his partner in crime on various japes, as described in Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas and other fruity adventures. Needless to say, drugs were part of the equation. He was also an incontinent drinker, serial philanderer and trigger-happy. He also dispensed good, if cruel, advice, telling Mr Steadman to stick to his day job as an artist. "Don't write, Ralph," he shrieked. "You'll bring shame on your family."

Not having seen the film, Gonzo: The Life And Work Of Dr Hunter S Thompson, I cannot confirm whether mention is made of Dr Thompson's abortive trip to the Edinburgh Book Festival in 1987. It is, I confess, an oft-told story, not least by me, but this is Christmas, season of satsumas, chipolatas and repeats. However, I recently read Mr Steadman's account for the first time.

To entice Dr Thompson east we - the Bookfest - offered to arrange a weekend of grouse-shooting, golf at St Andrews and other perks. To these, Mr Steadman adds a royal audience at Balmoral. Be that as it may, Dr Thompson, alas, never made it beyond Denver, having fallen victim to a drunken taxi driver who made him miss his flight. Meanwhile, recollects Mr Steadman, we gnawed our nails in the Roxburghe Hotel opposite the tented village in Charlotte Square, which looked "like a Trafalgar Square peace rally preparing for war". Many were the Hells Angels in attendance.

When it was clear that Dr Thompson was going to be a no-show, Mr Steadman says he was ready to relay the bad news: "Hey, you guys. It's great of you to turn up, but instead of him, here is a spot of light relief in the form of nine wayward nuns in black, skin-tight rubber habits singing Walk On The Wild Side." In a just world he would have been torn limb from limb. As it was, we all repaired to the Oxford Bar and toasted the absent delinquent and the greatest non-event in Edinburgh's miserable history.

Sober new look for Balamory's boozer
TO Tobermory, into which I once sailed on the Golden Hind, or some such tub, with Jason, an Argonaut, at the helm.

Was it in the Mishnish I first heard the dulcet tones of The Proclaimers belt out Sunshine On Leith and I Would Walk 5000 Millimetres (Just To Gie Ye A Glesca Kiss)? I rather think it may have been. Now I note that the owner of the Mishnish, Robert MacLeod, has caused a stushie in Teuchterland because he has painted his hostelry Stornoway black, where previously it was sunflower yellow.

This has caused much consternation because in another existence Tobermory is Balamory, where the weans' TV series of the same name is located. Some locals now believe that Tobermory/Balamory will be less attractive to tourists. Others, however, obviously ungrateful wretches, are concerned that Tobermory is slowly but surely morphing into Balamory.

I, on the other hand, prefer to adopt a LibDumb stance and can see good and bad on both sides of the argument, and will agree to disagree with no-one and everyone with the honourable exception of Gordon Chalmers, a councillor, who said of the Mishnish: "This is one of Scotland's most iconic buildings." Another tumshie with a heid in dire need of examination.

We've all got a touch of the dooms
CHANGE and decay in everything around we see, as one old verity after another bites the dust. Who among us a year ago would have predicted the demise of Woolworths? Or would have thought that the Post Office would be relocated to the back of Poundstretcher? Or that Fred "The Shred" Goodwin, "the world's greatest banker" (rearrange first letters as you see fit), would himself have been shredded?

Daily we are bombarded with news of closures, cuts, redundancies and billion-dollar scams. Tectonic plates are shifting, ice caps melting, taps dripping, rones leaking. The world as we know it, according to Robert Pesto, the BBC's Bad News Editor, is doomed. In fact, we're all doomed, whether we can afford common repairs or not. I speak from personal experience.

Nor is anyone coming up with any inspired solutions. Apart, that is, from myself. My idea that we should deposit potatoes and other precious vegetables with the RBS is looking increasingly like one whose hour has come.

If you doubt it, name something else that's likely to appreciate in value in the near future. Otherwise there's nothing to inspire on the horizon. I ask you - a 2.5% cut in VAT.

I blame the war. Or rather the lack thereof. For 60-plus years, people have grown accustomed to the notion that life can only get better. Well, take it from me, that ain't necessarily so. The trouble is, we've had so little on which to stiffen our backbones and nourish our moral fibre. For many of the so-called Baby Boomer generation, the most they've had to worry about is whether or not Glastonbury will be a washout. Could they build an empire? They couldn't build an Ikea shoe rack!

Lack of vision brings derision
ANENT - irksome but useful Scots word - Creative Scotland. Aaaaaaaaargh! Don't blame me, it wasn't my idea. Nor is it my fault that the wearisome saga is going to drag on into the New Year without anyone having a clue as to what direction the proposed organisation is going in, what it aims to do and how, where it will be located and who will be running it.

Increasingly, however, the usually courin', timorous beasties in the arts are becoming restless. At a meeting over a week ago of bodies funded by the Scottish Arts Council which, together with Scottish Screen, will merge into Creative Scotland, the question was asked: "Where is the vision for Creative Scotland?" Like the whereabouts of the yeti, that is not easily answered.

A draft letter, to be sent to Linda Fabbydo, Meenister for Yoghurt, below, and various other panjandrums responsible for the pickle, says: "... we are still completely in the dark about fundamental aspects of the new body with which we will work in the near future. Information and communication have been extremely limited." Please, please and please again, plead the courin', timorous beasties, tell us something we can get our gnashers into.

Meanwhile, artists, as opposed to arts organisations, are also getting uppity. A letter which they have been invited to sign and send to their MSPs says: "The situation regarding Creative Scotland has now reached crisis point."

What effect, if any, the above will have remains to be seen. Personally, I fear the worst, ie nothing much will change and the Meenister for Yoghurt will press ahead with the creation of an organisation naebody wants. What Ms Fabbydo should realise is that if she had the courage to pull the plug on it, she could have the freedom of Auchtermuchty.

A final thought: over 20 civil servants are employed at Victoria Quay in Leith to oversee the arts sector. What are they all doing? Other, of course, that slowing the whole process down and designing forms to fill in.

Sir Bernard and the Scary Widow
MY dear friend Sir Bernard Crick has died in Edinburgh, aged 79. An old Leftie and generous dispenser of drams, Sir Bernard will perhaps best be remembered as George Orwell's biographer, a job he undertook with the blessing of Orwell's widow, Sonia.

That he produced the book he did is testimony to his talent, persistence and forbearing, "difficult" being one word to describe his comely sponsor. Another dear friend, publisher John Calder, recalled how Mrs Orwell once broke a bottle over his head at dinner. I always wanted to know if Sir Bernard had ever been similarly assaulted, but never got round to asking him, and now, alas, I never will.