What you’re seeing here is the weekend edition - named The Party Line in an attempt to convey its mission to be a little more eclectic and focused on fun than is possible in a Monday-Friday breakfast briefing. This Saturday edition will, from next week, only go to premium subscribers as a thank you for their support of The Early Line. If you’d like to sign up for only £6.99 a month (or £69/year), click here.

MISCELLANY
It’s my party, and I’ll miss it if I want to

🍸 First up, we salute this recycling of an old Glasgow Subway seat. (Full story in The Scotsman)

🍸 Now, we’re all exhausted after the festive social whirl. But is “flaking” out of social invites (and, it seems, almost any sort of engagement, from drinks to a job interview) really becoming a trend, in the name of self-care? The Guardian has a very earnest piece about it all: Tim, a solicitor from Canberra, Australia, told them: “Most social events are planned for the evening or weekend, which is the precise time you just want a break from people. I definitely have stronger feelings of not wanting to do things when the time comes.” Isn’t this just called “deciding to stay in this weekend”? Maybe. And certainly don’t call people who don’t show up “flaky”. Tabitha, from Canada, says the concept of flakiness is “ableist”. “People aren’t ‘flaky’ for prioritising their mental and physical health instead of ‘roughing it out’ to attend inconsequential things.” Indeed so. (The Guardian)

🍸 If all those people at another party is beyond you, here’s your job from hell: one of several testers ready to be cooped up for months in a new high-tech underwater habitat, being tried out in a flooded quarry in England. The project isn’t an attempt to escape modern politics: it’s a multiyear quest to make it possible for scientists to live on the seafloor at depths up to 200 meters for long periods without the distractions (and risks) of having to surface regularly. It looks like something straight out of a 1950s sci-fi comic. (IEEE Spectrum)

🍸 Scotland’s (other) big media launch this week was BBC Scotland Channel’s new show, Reporting Scotland: News at Seven. Unfortunately, early feedback was not good. In The Scotsman, Martyn McLaughlin called the new effort a “muddled, atrophied offering.” The Herald’s Barry Didcock said it “feels like a rushed edition of The Nine but with not enough to differentiate it from Reporting Scotland.” And the Daily Mail’s Gavin Madeley invoked memories of Nationwide in the 1970s, and not in a good way. “Bring back the skateboarding duck – this one is goosed,” he said. Oh dear.

🍸 The Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour will be hoping for better reviews (and is likely to get them): it’s the first big Scottish art exhibition of the year, and had its private viewing last night. It opens to the public today at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh, alongside an annual exhibition of Turner watercolours. Free to enter, it features more than 200 works from members of the Scottish society and a selection of work from painters further afield. There are gems to be found. (The Herald)

🍸 And finally… if the cost of getting a burger delivered leaves you breathing into a bag, and you live in Glasgow, there may be good news: “priced to please” South London burger chain Smacks Hamburgers opened in town yesterday. And they do as they say: The Party Line’s strictly looking-not-buying research on Deliveroo found a basic burger at Five Guys costs £12.45, while Smacks charges £5 for its equivalent. Regular fries at Five Guys: £5.95. Smacks: £2.49. Aficionados will argue for an entire meal about who is best… but if it’s your charge card on the Deliveroo account, you may already have decided. (The Sun)

NEW & POPULAR AT THE MOVIES

🎬 “Masterpiece” is the word being bandied around for A Real Pain (★★★★★), starring Jesse Eisenberg as writer, director and actor alongside - in the latter role - Kieran Culkin, who Eisenberg “generously allows” to dominate, according to Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian. He hails “an effortlessly witty, fluent and astringent comedy with a very serious overcurrent”. Alistair Harkness in The Scotsman also enjoys this “witty and wise road movie”. Culkin has already won a Golden Globe for his performance.

🎬 The notices are less warm for Maria (★★★☆☆), starring Angelina Jolie as an opera diva in decline. Alissa Wilkinson in the New York Times said the film was “a bit of a slog, even for an opera lover (like me)”. But Danny Leigh in the FT thought Jolie played her role with “magnetic splendour” in a movie that’s “a marvel to look at”. Place your bets.

📽️ Also in your local multiplex this weekend, ranked by last week’s box office in the UK & Ireland with a critical verdict out of five:

1. Nosferatu (★★★★★) Rave reviews, star-studded cast, utterly terrifying.

2. Mufasa: The Lion King (★★★☆☆) Family favourite had solid reviews.

3. We Live In Time (★★★☆☆) watchable, not wholly convincing, love story.

4. Sonic The Hedgehog 3 (★★☆☆☆) Holiday fun reviewers hated.

5. Moana 2 (★★★☆☆) Musical sequel divided critics, but not audiences.

TV HIGHLIGHTS THIS WEEKEND

📺 Britain’s Most Beautiful Road (Saturday, Channel 4, 7pm) starts a four-part journey along Scotland’s own North Coast 500. Jon and Sue head off in their motorhome: we’ll see if the cameras linger much on the grimacing faces of locals stuck behind.

📺 Spielberg’s West Side Story (Saturday, Channel 4, 9pm) bombed at the box office, but was regarded as one of the greatest musical films of all time. Here’s a chance to be reminded why.

📺 If The King is more your thing, then Sky Arts is having an Elvis weekend: a veritable Vegas buffet of programming about Presley’s life, marking what would have been his 90th birthday. It kicks off with a doc - When Elvis Met Priscilla (Saturday, Sky Arts, 6pm) before movies Viva Las Vegas (7pm) and Elvis on Tour (8.45pm) and another doc - The Searcher (10.30). Then, on Sunday, he’s on the channel pretty much all day: four films and two docs, including a new one - Elvis: Tortured Soul (Sunday, Sky Arts, 10.40pm).

📺 The Great Pottery Throwdown enters week two (Sunday, Channel 4, 7.45pm), spraying around clay, creativity and vast amount of emotion to make it an hour-and-a-bit of surprisingly compelling TV.

THE ARMCHAIR FAN
Seeking the magic of the cup

⚽️ It’s FA Cup Third Round weekend which - for the armchair fan - means the delight of finding lots of faintly unexpected ties in unexpected places on the programme guide.

• I suppose we’re expected to view Arsenal v Manchester United (Sunday, 2.35pm, BBC1 / iPlayer) the big game of the weekend: certainly, a huge name is going to tumble out the cup. But, really… it’s the cup.

• Romantics will have their eyes drawn to Manchester City vs Salford - an alternative Manchester derby - the previous day (Saturday, 5.30pm, BBC1 / iPlayer). City have been getting a little better after their mid-season slump… but you never know in the cup, even if it’s a home tie.

• Tamworth v Spurs (Sunday, 12.30pm, STV) looks like another potential banana skin for a big side struggling for league form.

⚽️ Absent Premier League football, it falls to the Scottish game to fill the Sky Sports schedules.

• Ross County welcome Celtic to Dingwall (Saturday, 12.30pm, Sky Sports Main Event)

• Aberdeen look to find some form against Hearts (Sunday, 3pm, Sky Sports Main Event).

🎱 And if none of that catches your fancy, BBC2 surrenders its schedules to the Masters Snooker from Sunday (1pm, BBC2 & iPlayer).