In brief: Paxman attacks Robbie Burns

BBC Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman is in trouble with the Scots after describing the work of Robbie Burns, Scotland's national poet, as "sentimental doggerel" in the foreword to the latest Chambers Dictionary. Paxman, who once complained that Britain was run by "a sort of Scottish Raj", has said that he enjoys teasing Scots because it is "so easy". Murdo Morrison of the Robert Burns Foundation, says: "Wherever you go there is a love for Burns. He will long be remembered after Jeremy Paxman has long been forgotten"... Heston Blumenthal, the man who researches many of his recipes in the science lab, has become the first chef for four years to win a perfect 10 out of 10 from the Good Food Guide for his restaurant, The Fat Duck at Bray, Berkshire. Blumenthal's exotic creations include cauliflower and chocolate jelly, bacon and egg ice cream and snail porridge... Joan Rivers, the chat show host and mistress of the putdown, was on the receiving end after she kept her audience waiting on a hot night at the Edinburgh Festival. By way of explanation, she told the 100-strong audience: "On the way to Edinburgh I stopped off in London to cremate my mother-in-law." From the auditorium, someone shouted back: "Was she dead?"... Is Barbara Amiel, the wife of Conrad Black, who has written several self-pitying articles painting herself as a sad, ostracised figure, failing to tell us everything? David Tang, the Hong Kong businessman, writes in this week’s Spectator about a trip to the Olympics: "I had invited a few friends to the Games (the Weinbergs, Vivien Duffield, Tessa Keswick, Julia Peyton-Jones and Barbara Black), and I was keen for them to see some of the extraordinary developments in the capital. So we saw restaurants and galleries which none of us had seen the like of anywhere else in the world"... David Beckham has spoken of his sadness over the closure of the Walthamstow dog track in East London, where he worked as a teenager. "I am broken hearted it's closing," he said. "It shouldn't. It's a landmark." The legendary venue will hold its last night of greyhound races on August 16 before shutting its doors for the last time...