Hoots & Havers with James Irvine Robertson January 2005

The first time, although I would be delighted to stand corrected, the link between Pilate and Fortingall appears in print is 1880 in Marshall's 'Historic Scenes of Perthshire'. He writes 'with a smile of incredulity' that 'Fortingall was the birthplace of Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor of Judea in the days of our Saviour!' Note the exclamation mark which indicates that, even though he put it down, the writer thought it was nonsense. Marshall also mildly misquotes Holinshed, the passage where the chronicler writes that Roman 'ambassadors went also unto Metellanus the K. of the Scotishmen' and this sentence is the root of the entire legend. It doesn't say, nor do his sources Hector Boece, Andrew of Wyntoun or Walter Bower, where Metellanus had his court, nor do they mention Pilate. At the time the Scotishmen were all living in Ireland and would continue to stay there for half a millennium so they were unlikely to have a king anywhere near Highland Perthshire.

So the legend was likely dreamed up by someone to take the mickey out of a gullible Victorian antiquarian. And it's not true. The story is baseless. If you pass it on you're a prat. Did you know that Princess Di survived the car crash in Paris and escaped to live as a shepherdess in a cottage beneath Schiehallion? Since then she's had a sex change, moved to Coatbridge and works in an abbatoir. There's another legend for you. It must be true because now it's appeared in print. And even without an exclamation mark.

I READ LAST WEEK that Jordan possesses the most googled body on the internet and, whilst collecting someone from Edinburgh airport just before Xmas, we spotted it. She and her body were with her boyfriend and offspring, both of whom have appeared on TV and are therefore also mildly famous.

One could tell they were celebrities since they were all wearing pale pastel clothing and displayed flesh which is unusual in Scotland in December. They also had a little bubble of empty space surrounding them and their eyes surfed their surroundings, noting who had clocked them but skating on before they established contact.

The Edinburgh crowd behaved with admirable restraint. There was the odd double-take but nothing beyond that as a brace of twittering female greeters proudly fielded them, collected their luggage and ushered them towards the exit. I confess we chose the same way out in order to have a closer look. We had no shame since the only point of the lady is to have her body parts googled or goggled at. Jordan is famous for the immensity of her breasts but this did not seem her most obvious physical characteristic. Perhaps she deflates them for pressurised air travel in case of an explosion. But what struck us both was the hassle it must have given her to put her hair into a myriad of little plaits and the tininess of her bum.

THE REMARKABLE blackbird pictured here turned up last month. I'm told by an expert that it probably flapped its way across the North Sea from Scandanavia as we normally get an influx from there when the weather turns nasty. It certainly wasn't bred here as it would have been impossible to miss. It seems to live in the gardens just east of Breadalbane Academy but other people may know better.

Initially it was so wary as to be unidentifiable &, on first glimpse, I thought it was a woodpecker since the white on its wings is beautifully balanced. It's becoming tamer & now is prepared to visit out window cill for crumbs. I should have a better picture of it but I don't own a camera and so depend on passing visitors who come so armed. I hope it hangs around since it adds a bizarrely exotic touch to the locality.