UNIVERSITY FEES BREAK IS A LESSON FOR OTHERS

SCOTTISH-NESS is on the up and up, according to the latest spin from Holyrood. Scotland is getting better, albeit slowly.

Look at the latest news that university fees will be abolished for Scottish students.

Fiona Hyslop, Scotland's education minister, said fees were a barrier preventing young people from poor backgrounds going on to university.

I heartily agree. People like me from Shettleston in Glasgow never went to university. I opted to work as soon as I left school at 16. It was 1977. Britain was about to go through its winter of discontent. People couldn't get their dead buried and rats were crawling through the piling rubbish that lay in the streets throughout the binmen strikes.

I worked during the day and paid for night classes to achieve my O-levels. That's how it was. No-one assumed I would go to university; my mammy couldn't pay the electric bill, never mind fees or books.

This latest news is great for our young people in Scotland entering university. Class should never be a barrier to education. But it has left many English and Welsh students ready to spit in anger at our wee country as they will not benefit from the scheme.

Undergraduate degrees will be free for Scottish students and Europeans at universities in Scotland, but students from England and Wales will pay £1,700 a year to study in Scotland, or £2,700 for medical courses.

European law allows variation within nations but not between them, which means Europeans will get in for free but the English won't.

I find this appalling, though Scottish students have to pay the full £3,000 if they choose to study in England. It makes the UK more divisive and gives English people who call us Scots leeches on their economy more to whine about.

We receive £1,500 more per head in public spending every year than people living south of the Border.

"Yes, but remember we shared our oil," I often feel like heckling.

They feel Gordon Brown is being soft to "his ain kind", as people think he is the first Scottish prime minister in recent times. (They forget Tony Blair is a Scot, although that's something I prefer to forget, too.)

However, this latest announcement will be welcome in the rest of the European Union, which can take full advantage of the free courses.

Students from abroad add to our economy, and many Europeans prefer our Scottish welcome and benefit from our world-class education system. It is cheaper to live in Scotland all round. People aged 16 to 18 are entitled to a third off all bus and train travel and property is still marginally cheaper than in England.

Students get a great deal in our wee country - and to think we in Scotland came in at the bottom of a recent report on small countries.

Last month's report of the Federation of Small Businesses found Scotland to be the worst-performing small country in Europe.

"The reason why Scotland is stuck at the bottom of the pile is largely due to our poor health and our low life expectancy," said John McLaren, honorary research fellow at the University of Glasgow, who compiled the report.

Where I come from in Shettleston, average life expectancy is 55. In Iraq, life expectancy is 65. That says everything, and the gap between rich and poor in Scotland is widening. We still have a long way to go. We still have to find ways of tackling the three Ds - drugs, drink and diet.

We need to educate our people on the benefits of healthier eating and curb our national obsession with alcohol.

Heroin will only be tackled when we realise we can't stop people taking it, and acknowledge that prescribed heroin for hard-core users would have a direct impact on the crime that goes hand in hand with the drug. Prostitution would drop and the dealers would be left standing at corners, wondering why their clients preferred the doctor's advice to theirs.

We have a long way to go, but we are making progress and this latest initiative regarding student fees is a welcome break given to the next generation of people who love our small, but slightly broken, country.

PARIS'S PLAN FOR HUNGER STRIKE GIVES INDIGESTION

I AM sick to death reading about this whiny rich girl. In my opinion, anyone who gets jail time has to do their sentence - but it seems the rules are different for that super-dumb skinny star. Apparently, Paris Hilton has declared she will go on a hunger strike to protest against her internment.

This is a woman who already eats so little she makes Victoria Beckham look like Bessie Bunter. Starving herself isn't something that will kill her, this is her daily reality.

If she loses more than a half a kilo, other famous skinny girls will demand prison time as a new diet.

I am pleased she got incarcerated - the prison service has declared wearing knickers is mandatory, and that alone will confuse our famous heiress.

So maybe one lesson will be learnt and I will never have to see pictures of her naked bits ever again.

SCOTLAND'S BIG PROBLEM - WE'RE ALL TOO FAT

STANDING in the street on Saturday night in Glasgow's city centre, I watched hundreds of young people pass by.

It dawned on me that I had never seen so many very overweight young people in my life.

Well, not since I last went to Florida.

I was quite shocked. It was mostly young girls and they were obese. The guys were pot-bellied, but the majority of the plump people were females.

According to recent statistics, this is the first time in history that the older generation are fitter and slimmer than their youngsters.

The Scottish diet is renowned for its emphasis towards fats and sugar - and we are famous for the deep fried Mars bar.

Yes, I am no Kate Moss and I certainly need to lose some weight, but this parade of fat young women really did make me aware how unfit, unhealthy and downright heavy the Scots are as a nation.

I threw away my after-show chocolate treat and walked home. Every little helps.

NO NEED TO MAKE A BOOB WHEN YOU DON'T KNOW THE ANSWER

THERE is a mobile phone text service called AQA - "Any Question Answered". You send a question by text to their number and the answer comes back to your phone.

My daughter Ashley explained this new (to me) phenomenon with a few examples. But some of the questions she asked were just bizarre - such as "is it sorer to get punched in the testicles or boobs?" Students have too much time on their hands. (Apparently testicles are more sensitive.)

She then asked: "Who is Janey Godley?"

It came back: "Janey Godley is a stand-up comic and writer and her bestselling book is called Handstands in the Dark."

Ashley then told me it cost £1 to ask each question, so I screamed and she quickly found out that getting shouted at and being made to pay my mobile phone bill is more painful than being punched in the boobs.