Its good to back to a decent local newspaper after 3 weeks of Mourne Observer and Down Recorder. It is also good to be back to the nicer sorts of crime made familiar by the court reports on the Sheriff of Duns. Last week for example his offenders included egg throwers, men wrestling in a flower bed in Duns, a drunk and angry workman who punched a hotel window in Coldstream (rather than a human), vandalising beach huts in a productive kind of way in that the wooden shutters were used for firewood, and a Reston woman who has been driving for 25 years without a licence-she passed her driving test-‘nae bother’-but never got round to taking out a full licence. And one heart warming case of a reformed persistent offender, prone to acts of violence, who so impressed Sheriff Kevin with his efforts to reform himself that he was let off a serious sentence for assault in exchange for 100 hours community service. How different, how very different to the catalogue of heinous crimes recorded in the Norn Iron local press many of them springing from a deep rooted bigotry which is more or less unknown in this part of Scotland. Not of course in Glascow where Orange and Green is still a factor even having their own football teams: Celtic-Catholic and Green and Rangers : Protestant and Orange.
Mouse no 2 found deceased in our 'nipper' trap this morning. A big one and hopefully the
meister maus. The gang are still studiously avoiding the humane trap. They may of course be of a fanatical nature, sort of fundamental mice who prefer death to dishonour.
