POLITICIANS are notoriously cagey about putting a foot wrong in any way shape or form.

However, a visit by The SF’s reporting team to interview Labour rural spokesman, Colin Smyth, seems to have discombobulated him to the extent that he fell over his heels while being filmed at the grand Shambellie House, near Dumfries.

He jokingly welcomed our team in to his ‘second home’ – saying public money was being well spent and then, after giving us a tour of the grounds to find a good filming spot, fell flat on his face on the lawn – suit and all.

Sadly, our filmstress, Zoë Wilson, was too busy ‘guttin’ hersel’ to capture the moment for our readers and viewers. Maybe, the venue could be renamed Shambolic House just for him ... and as it is now Scotland’s National Museum of Costume, there should really have been plenty of replacement ‘outfits’ for him!

Tatties in fake news scandal!

NO VEG is as versatile as the humble tattie – what would we do without them?

However, The Raider heard rumours that South Lanarkshire Cooncil was set to do just that ... take spuds off school lunch menus on health grounds.

But The SF can reveal that it was just another example of fake news and tatties haven’t had their chips! A council spokesman said a new school menu which was just out featured tatties of every description – boiled, mashed, baked and, of course, chips, especially on Friday’s to go with fish.

So tattie growers and others, no need to worry, it seems that spuds are here to stay.

Such a move would, too, fly in the face of Scottish Government aims to increase the amount of vegetables in the nation’s diet. It would also go against the stated ambition to source local produce – pasta and rice just ain’t local!

Hi-tech hoo-ha for the weary lamber

IT’S WELL-KNOWN that some farmers have an aversion to what is known as ‘new technology’ and I heard this week of one Renfrewshire farmer (who shall remain nameless) who was embarrassingly caught out by it.

The farmer in question was indoors and shivering from the cold after a spell in the lambing shed – it was at the beginning of this week – and he had recently fitted a new boiler.

This new heating system also had that up-to-date Hive control system which allows you to control your heating using a mobile phone. However, the problem for this farmer was that he hadn’t fully mastered the intricacies of said system.

And so it was that he phoned his wife to ask her to put the heating on from her office desk many miles away as he was feeling the cold and she hadn’t given him the app on his phone so that it didn’t confuse him. It never occurred to him that a simple press of a button on the new boiler would suffice! “D’oh” as Homer Simpson might have said.