It's no joke

[This is the heading over a letter from Tom Minogue in today's edition of The Scotsman. It reads as follows:]

Andy Parsons' show on BBC2 last Sunday night was hilarious. He had the audience rolling in the aisles as he drily dissected the quirks of British life: bankers, the teaching profession, politicians, the environment and traffic wardens, they all got it in the neck.

There was also a gag about the possibility the Lockerbie bomber was innocent, because, said Andy, the chief prosecution witness was paid $2 million by the FBI to testify, was then shown a photo of the suspect Megrahi, and was able to identify him at an identity parade in order to collect his millions.

This, said Andy, "was not justice, but more like a high-stakes version of the board game Guess Who?" Oh, how we laughed. But hold on: this was not scripted comedy material, this was fact.

So the Lockerbie trial, which until very recently took pride of place on the Crown Office website, is now right up there with the mother-in-law, traffic wardens and bankers as material for a stand-up comedian. World famous in a way, I suppose.