I’m one of the lucky 300 what has been selected to go to the petal dish Pittodrie

Cava Kenny Cordiner, the football pundit who doesn’t wait for a second spike

We are not allowed to chant, shout or sing

If there’s 300 fans spread around all four stands – “that’s Codona’s”. The King of Cruel, Dean “Deano” Martin could not have not put it any better. I can’t wait to see the Dandies taking on Killie today – because I’m one of the lucky 300 what has been selected to go to the petal dish what will be Pittodrie.

I have to admit I’m on tender hooks. To be honest, I’m a bit surprised that we’re still being allowed to take part in this test tube event, now that Nicolas Surgeon has said we is only allowed to meet in groups of six.

Mind you, when you see the rules we have got to a bye-bye, maybe it’s no wonder.

Uno – we’ve got to avoid face contact with any other fans. Really? So what is I supposed to do when Logan’s caught in possession on the halfway line following a botched corner? That brief moment of mutual eye-rolling with a total stranger is what gets you through the bad times.

Punto – We are not allowed to chant, shout or sing. In fairness, for half the Pittodrie faithful that’s not an issue, but for a dialled in the wool Top Red like me, that’s like playing darts with one arm tied behind your back. Resisting the urge to bellow “Come on Hugh Reeeh-edz!” is going to be unbearable!

There’s not been a “Stand Free” sung in hunger at the theatre of dreams for nearly six months. I just hope that when singing is allowed again the fans can find their inner Pannacotta and fill the stadium with noise.

Clio – Apparently, when Mikey Devlin skies the match ball over the bar, and one of us 300 winds up catching it, we’ve got to take it to a ball boy, who will give it a dicht with a sanitary towel before giving it back to the players.

Then we has got to fanatise our hands. That’s all very well, but what if old Kenny get’s the ball played in to feet, or worser still – what if it’s heading straight for my napper?

There’s no way I’m going to be able to fight my footballer’s instincts. As Fergie his self famously says to me back in my playing days, “Kenny,” he says “you are the biggest ‘heid the ba’ I has ever met”.

Away from Pittodrie, the Codona’s virus continues to take its troll on football. On the good foot, Scotland scored an away win against the Cheque Republicans third team after their entire first team had to self oscillate – just the sort of banana split we usually slip up on.

But on the bad side of the tracks, two young England players got sent home from Iceland with their nuggets trapped after getting a bit too congenital with a couple of lassies what they shouldn’t not have done.

I feel sorrow for the lads. I once made a real mess when I dropped a prawn ring in the Iceland on Holburn Street. It skited clean across the floor and under a big freezer full of fish fingers, but they were as nice as nine pins to me. Mental.

Ron Cluny, official council spokesman

This is not an easy time for those of us toiling on the frontline of managing public perception of politicians.

It’s not as arduous work as that of health care professionals, of course, but neither is it the total scoosh of being, say, Jacob Rees-Mogg.

It has been a week of uncertainty in which national Covid infection rates are up, leading to worries that we may end up in lockdown again, leading to my worry that I may have to persuade certain unruly councillors to keep the heid and refrain from having a pop at Holyrood for no particular reason.

We all felt pretty smug not to be in England on Wednesday as the new “rule of six” was announced.

That feeling evaporated quickly, of course, as Scotland followed suit, making things pretty tricky around here. Not least as it required the reorganisation of the annual council five-a-side football tournament into a new format – keepyuppies.

But in spite of all this negativity, there has been some news for us to be genuinely proud about from our lord provost, who is taking one for the team and doing his bit by signing up for the clinical trials to find a Covid-19 vaccine.

By selflessly putting himself forward on to a big database of names, he is now 100% absolutely on the list of those who may potentially be taking part in the trial if picked at random.

Though selection is not guaranteed, I am already planning the photo op.

If I can pull back the curtain a little here, the provost’s appearances in the press invariably show him illustrating the story being covered in a fairly literal way – sawing wood at a community build, holding a film reel outside the Belmont, kicking a ball for Street Sport. The bottom line is, Barney loves a prop.

So for this one it’s a toss-up between a giant hypodermic needle or giving him a pair of boxing gloves and seeing if Dougie Lumsden will dress up as the coronavirus.

The rules for the test ‘crowd’ at today’s match at Pittodrie have Cava Kenny nervous. No singing ‘Stand Free’, no mutual exchanging of eye-rolls with your neighbouring fan when the game takes a frustrating turn – and don’t even think about touching a ball coming right at you