Clue carried in column

IT sounds like the start of a sketch: “Do you know who owns this parrot?”

But the appeal was genuine enough, at least in an early edition of last Tuesday’s Evening Express newspaper, which even printed a telephone number as part of the investigation.

And by the later edition, the owner of the African Grey – which had been spotted on the roof of an Aberdeen house wolf-whistling passers by – had been tracked down.

Perhaps even by scouring the paper’s own Lost and Found column, which all along had carried something of clue: “African Grey Parrot… Answers to… Reward if found…”