MUNGO McKAYWHAT a week! Jack's jovial mood, when he phoned to wish me a Happy New Year from the Alaro Karaoke Bar and Grill (fish and chips our speciality), disappeared when I told him that a picture of him and

CARMEN REIDHOW was my baby daughter named? Not exactly the way I'd planned. I'd imagined us holding her tenderly, whispering the name into her ears for the very first time; candlelight, starlight and magic - a naming ceremony.

MAGNUS LINKLATER'THE Scotland you've always imagined is closer than you think... " runs the slogan across the top of the Scottish Borders website. Then it adds: "Visit the real Scotland."

FRASER NELSONTHE Prime Minister strikes back against the Chancellor in attack of the TB-GBs.

HELEN Oyeyemi does not do happiness - "I don't trust it," sighs the 20-year-old, whose dazzling smile illuminates the dark January day. Despite her avowedly melancholic stance, Oyeyemi has a lot to smile about. She created a literary sensation a

JOHN LLOYDHADI Salih was killed on Tuesday last week. He had tried to get some independent trade union activity going in Iraq under Saddam - who had regarded trade unionists, as the good pupil of Stalin's that he was, as

FINAL preparations are being made for an unprecedented act of space vandalism: smashing a probe at 23,000mph into the nucleus of a comet.

IT WILL go down as the most extreme example of crying wolf in the history of mankind.

A PICTURE is worth a thousand words. The old adage has been confirmed by the fallout from the photograph that this newspaper published last week, showing First Minister Jack McConnell with BBC presenter Kirsty Wark and their families on holiday

AT FIRST glance it seems like an ordinary holiday snap of a typical family enjoying the fresh air on a country walk. Instead this is a picture of journalist Kirsty Wark and First Minister Jack McConnell and families.

A SPOKESMAN for Jack McConnell yesterday refused to say whether the First Minister and Kirsty Wark had discussed the thorny issue of whether key tapes should be handed over to an inquiry into the Holyrood parliament fiasco.

THE crusade against the Jerry Springer opera shows Christian campaigners are on the march, writes Michael Paterson.

THE most urgent aid is getting through to thousands of survivors of the tsunami disaster but it will take years, generations even, for a full recovery, write Dan McDougall in Sri Lanka and Brian Brady.

SUNDAY ESSAYAMERICAN might is our only protection from a global kleptocracy created by the UN and the European Union in the name of philanthropy.

THE questions over their holiday won't stop just because they ignore them, write Murdo MacLeod and Kate Foster.

JOHN Hunting has heard nothing from his son since December 23. John Jr was on holiday with his girlfriend in India when the tsunami struck on Boxing Day. Since then his father has sat by the phone, surfed websites and

STUNG by criticism, the US is now leading the worldwide aid effort for the tsunami's victims, writes Alex Massie in Washington.

ONE OF Scotland's foremost entertainers is backing the campaign to ensure that Robert Burns' birthplace is saved for the nation.

SECURITY guards are protecting senior BBC executives after phone threats were made by campaigners irate over last night's screening of the allegedly blasphemous Jerry Springer musical.

IN HOLLYWOOD a marriage is a success if it outlasts the milk, the comedian Rita Rudner once said.