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WATCH the thrilling third part of our special Britain’s Got Talent feature on the remarkable rise of Scotland’s fastest-rising star: Susan Boyle.
In the run-up to Saturday’s live final, Deadline Scotland is charting the life of Britain’s most amazing talent all this week – The Susan Boyle Story, Every Day, 6.30pm GMT.
By Michael MacLeod
A TEN-year-old girl stunned onlookers when she hit a hole in one at a Scots golf course yesterday.
Jaws dropped when tiny girl-golfer Seher Kaur Atwal, from New Dehli, thumped in her ace shot from 162-yards.
It was made all the more remarkable by the fact she had a strong swirling Scottish wind to contend with.
Her wonder drive put her firmly in the driving seat as she set the early pace in the first day of the US Kids Golf European Championship tournament in Gullane, East Lothian.
A LACK of players has forced Scotland’s Jewish football team to pull out of their own version of the Olympics.
Despite thousands of pounds in funding available to fly a team out to Israel next month, only a handful signed up.
It was due to be the first time athletes sported the Saltire at the Maccabiah Games, after Alex Salmond gave his backing to a Scottish Jewish Olympic team breaking away from Team GB.
Hopes were high that at least 50 fifty Jewish bravehearts would represent Scotland at what is touted as the third biggest sporting event on earth, with 10,000 participants expected.
THE original Robert Burns manuscript of Auld Lang Syne is going under the hammer – but the winner will be banned from taking it home.
As one of the world’s most famous songs, experts believe it will fetch over £50,000 at auction.
But instead of taking the treasured book home to keep, the winner will become the “patron” of the song.
All their money will buy is a plaque displaying their name, on show beside the manuscript in the new Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Ayrshire.
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SCOTLAND’S police have taken more than £12 million worth of cannabis off the country’s streets in the past three years as they battle against the rising phenomenon of large-scale cultivation.
Drugs cops have also busted at least 227 Scottish cannabis factories and arrested 445 people for the extensive growing of the recreational drug, since 2006.
The nation’s eight forces have also managed to confiscate over 73,000 plants in the past three years, an investigation using the Freedom of Information Act has revealed.
HUNDREDS of pounds of taxpayers’ money was literally poured down the drain when cheeky vandals drained a Highland swimming pool.
Furious staff arrived after the midnight prank to discover 45,000 gallons of water had disappeared from Forres Swimming Pool, near Inverness.
Swimmers were left high and dry as it took 48 hours to refill, heat up and chlorinate the three-metre-deep pool.
Police are now hunting two “mindless” suspects, who rampaged with fire extinguishers, covering the walls with foam.
By Cara Sulieman
THE Scottish Government was blowing its own trumpet yesterday unveiling an extra special line up for this year’s Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival to coincide with Homecoming 2009.
Funding of £100,000 has been given to the organizers to help pay for a raft of special events, including a specially commissioned arrangement celebrating Robert Burns by David Milligan.
There will also be an Edinburgh Jazz Festival Orchestra where musicians from Scotland, Europe and America will come together and play for the first time.
The 16 musicians will play two concerts to celebrate Scotland during the year of Homecoming.
Alexander Stoddart in his workshop
By Cara Sulieman
THE TABLES have turned on a Scottish sculptor in a new exhibition that is all about his work.
Alexander Stoddart has created some of the most memorable public monuments, including statues of David Hume, Adam Smith and the recently unveiled James Clerk Maxwell.
But instead of standing behind the scenes whilst people admire his handiwork, the artist is now fully in the spotlight with the Alexander Stoddart show at the Hunterian Art Gallery.
Shunning his finished product for sketches and terracotta models, the exhibtion focuses on the process of making a sculpture.
FORMER Hibernian FC goalkeeper David Grof is facing a drink-drive rap if he ever comes back to Scotland.
The 20-year-old stopper was released by the Easter Road Club earlier this year after falling out of favour with management.
Grof – who made just two appearances for the Hibees – was caught by police at an Asda car park in Edinburgh’s Sandpiper Drive on April 12 this year.
Prosecutors claim a breath test showed the Hungarian ‘keeper was more than one and a half times the legal limit with a reading of 56 microgrammes of booze per 100ml of blood.
He was due to appear at Edinburgh Sheriff Court but did not answer the charges.
Pictures by Stuart Cobley
By Cara Sulieman
EDINBURGH University students celebrated their degrees with a famous fellow graduate yesterday.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu received an honorary degree from the institution for his work in South Africa.
The anti-apartheid activist became a Doctor of Divinity for the sixth time when he collected his degree.
During the ceremony he praised the people of Edinburgh for their “outstanding” support in the long battle against apartheid in South Africa.
Deadline Press & Picture Agency 