political roles, have clear ideas.

Unfortunately, the first actor who became a cabinet minister in the Vajpayee government, Shatrughan Sinha, who has recently switched to the Congress, was a disaster as a minister. He refused to attend office or parliament. He was stripped of his health portfolio and given shipping. Sinha applied for special permission to act in a film during his tenure as a minister. The film was a forgettable as his performance as a minister.

Actors who get elected easily because of their glamour and exposure have no idea of public service and the nature of public life. They look upon political power as a safeguard or a retirement option. And then get dismal reviews and suffer disillusionment.THE Glasgow Boys exhibition on view in Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Museum — which features works painted around the Helensburgh area and by local artists — has been well attended and highly acclaimed. But the gender balance was redressed!

An exhibition of paintings, decorative and applied art by the Glasgow Girls (1890–1930) opened in Kirkcudbright Town Hall on Saturday July 3 and ran until the end of August.

This was the first major Glasgow Girls exhibition since one in the Kelvingrove Museum in 1990. Liz Arthur, formerly a Glasgow Museums curator, was involved with the 1990 exhibition and was curator for the exhibition in Kirkcudbright. Funding for the ambitious event came from the Kirkcudbright 2000 Group, supported by Dumfries and Galloway Council.

Visitors to the exhibition saw displayed together for the first time