No, since you ask, I don’t do selfies! But enough folk now take self portraits on their own phone for the word to have become the most popular new entry to the latest edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Jings and crivvens as its editors probably didn’t say.

And these techno snaps are taken in the strangest places. The pic of the Danish Prime Minister and Barack Obama, (with David Cameron leaning in like mad), at Nelson Mandela’s memorial is only the most famous of a raft of funeral selfies, which even have their own website. Which just goes to show the drop in contemporary attention spans; if you can’t manage a 40-minute appreciation of a lost friend or relative without fiddling with the phone, then please stay home.

However the latest selfie saga has a novel twist which has caused handbags at dawn amongst the chattering classes and the twitterati.

It started with a model posting a selfie of herself in the bath – just from the neck up please note. The idea was to show what those celebrated features looked like nude. (Depressingly gorgeous as it happens.) Anyway this spawned a rash of imitators, with each nominating/daring a friend to do the same and post the results.

But, and here’s the fresh angle, all these posts also included the hash tag for supporting a breast cancer charity. As a result the startled charity found itself in receipt of a remarkable £8 million windfall in just six days. Startled not just by the handsome amount, but by the fact when they had tried an appeal via social media themselves, it hadn’t produced particularly good results. What seems to have swung it was the novelty value and the speed with which these self generated twitter campaigns take flight.

Anyway, cue much sniffing from some outraged feminists furious that taking a photograph without make up should be called brave compared with the courage required to deal with cancer, and wondering if such gimmickry was really appropriate for charity campaign.

Well here’s the thing. I’ve been a fully paid up feminist since God was a girl, and what I thought when the story broke was BRILLIANT!

A really worthwhile charity finds itself hitting the jackpot without having to spend any of its own hard-earned marketing budget.

It demonstrates not the dippiness of female tweeters, but the range of imagination now deployed by social media and how its power can be harnessed for the general benefit.

Twitter has been lambasted – quite properly – for not finding ways to rein in people who use their accounts to fire off anonymous hate filled tweets. It’s a depressing fact of modern life that some sad souls think it smart to say things on twitter they would never have the bottle to were they talking to their target face-to-face.

But here is the counterpoint. Smart usage by savvy folks with a social conscience. Good on them.

PS If you have any thoughts on the subject, I’m @ruth_wishart.

When you get right down to it there are at least fifty shades of grey; real life is rarely a black and white sort of deal.

The proposed submarine museum in the former St Columba church hall building is a classic example of where ‘on the one hand, on the other’ doesn’t really cut it.

Originally conceived as a submarine centre lauding the nautical and engineering skills of the Clyde-built vessels and the sacrifices of those who served and too often died in them, the project has sailed into some choppy waters of late.

As the chair of Visit Helensburgh, and the submarine trust, Brian Keating explains it, the original and preferred site on the pier was a £6m development which, because of other urgent work needed done there, wouldn’t have been able to get under way for another four years. And nobody was in the market to chuck in serious money for a temporary construction there.

But Mr Keating with his URTV hat on was also involved in The Tower, the purchase and relaunch of St Columba’s former church as a film and digital training centre and new base for ArtsQwest music tuition and concert venue. All of the above is located within the main church building, leaving the small hall available as an exhibition space. And so was born Plan B, to refurbish the smaller space and locate the submarine museum within it for the intervening three or four years, leaving a legacy thereafter of a custom build exhibition centre for other users.

There are of course special sensitivities involved which is presumably why the steering committee, rather unwisely, kept so many of the plans under wraps for the last couple of years. Only two councillors, two community councillors, naval representatives and Visit Scotland were fully aware of what Project October contained.

And you might well imagine why an A and B council paper talking about ‘celebrating’ the anniversary of World War I might sound distasteful to anyone aware of the carnage occasioned by that conflict. Not even to mention raising the hackles of some church members at the notion of giving houseroom to weaponry when assorted Kirk Moderators had picketed Faslane over the years.

But, contemplate the grey. The submarine proposed for the exhibition space is a mini sub built on Clydeside in the fifties.

Not unaware of the potential for local civil wars, the centre will focus strictly on history and not feature the current nuclear fleet. Keating, an Aussie who comes from a nation which makes a very big deal of Anzac Day where the antipodean fallen are commemorated, thinks we shouldn’t be shy about acknowledging the role of our submariners – 5,300 of whom died over two world wars.

Speaking as a paid up peacenik, I can’t quibble with that. I’d be the first outside the door with a demo if there was a sniff of glorifying war, but if they stick, pardon the expression, to their guns, and find a way to let visitors come to our patch to understand more about our maritime heritage then I’m happy to keep my powder dry.

Opened my local community mag to find Elaine C Smith’s gig on April 13 duly mentioned. Sadly she’d been accidentally moved from Cove Burgh Hall to the Victoria Halls in Helensburgh. Murphy’s law rules. As many of you know Elaine (pictured) has already wowed them in the Burgh.

But this show, part of the new Sunday lunchtime strand at CBH, is definitely at Cove, though, of course, we will welcome as always many friends and fans from the Burgh.

It is after all one of the bargains of the year. A tenner a ticket for one of the best-loved acts in Scotland which includes soup and sandwiches.

And let me tell you, folks, as a member of the Amalgamated Union of Peninsula Soupmakers you will be not be shortchanged for choice or flavour. Though, as it’s all a touch competitive, you might find yourself targeted by five very determined chefs/servers at once. But if your nerves need calmed, the bar is also open.

We also have something a little different this coming Saturday with hot contemporary dance from the Errol White Company who have built a serious reputation after just five years.

We may be a wee village, but we know how to show you a good time!

Intro Text Handbags at dawn were predicted. Jackie Baillie representing the No Camp and myself waving the flag for Yes at the National Women’s Convention in Glasgow last weekend.

But since this was an all-female gathering it was, natch, conducted in an entirely sisterly fashion.

In truth the four panellists, Scottish Government minister Angela Constance, Disability Rights campaigner Pam Duncan and the two Argyll and Bute wimmin would probably have found very little to disagree about outside of a referendum debate.

I suspect we’d all sign up for much the same kind of Scotland, we just profoundly disagree about how to go about getting there.

At any rate the event was a highly civilised affair short on speechifying and long on questions and answers with a full house (so many women wanted to debate the referendum this was the second event following the sold out original) Just the same I’d like to know how come Jackie Baillie appeared wearing the exactly toning colours of the SWC banner behind the mike. I suspect a mole giving her inside info. It’s been that kind of week after all.