Iron resolve
A DESPAIRING Bearsden mother tells us: “When I do my teenage son’s ironing I put it at the bottom of the stairs for him to take to his bedroom. For days he seems quite happy to step over the pile as if I had simply created an obstacle course to make his trips upstairs more interesting.”

Going bananas
DOMENICO Crolla is renaming Bella Napoli, his Shawlands restaurant, as Oro as there are too many restaurants named Bella Napoli across the country. We are not sure what he thinks of the education system as he says: “In a world where everyone is media savvy, but can’t always spell, Oro works.”
Anyway, we remember our fellow Motherwell fan and presenter Tam Cowan once saying that Bella Napoli catered specially for pregnant women. As Tam put it: “Well, how else do you explain the chocolate and banana pizza on the dessert menu?”

First things first
OUR hospital story reminded John Crawford: “A friend who was due 
to have an endoscopy and a colonoscopy at the same time in hospital was asked by the doctor if he had any questions. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘If ye need tae use the same tube, can ye dae the endoscopy first please?’”

Light verse
GOODNESS, that’s a name from the past. A letter in The Herald yesterday recalled the late Walter McCorrisken who amiably tried to claim the title as Scotland’s worst poet. Was it not Walter who wrote: “If it wisnae for Venetian blinds
A great tragedy would befall.
If it wisnae for Venetian blinds
It wid be curtains for us all.”

Driving home the point
TELEVISION show Blind Date is to be resurrected on Channel 5, it has been announced. It reminds us of the Glasgow woman who told her pals that her blind date the previous weekend had been a disaster. 
“He picked me up in a vintage 
Rolls-Royce,” she said. “What’s wrong with that?” asked her mate.
“He was the original owner,” 
she replied.

Out of Africa
THE BBC reports that singer Madonna is adopting a further two children from Malawi. A reader once told us years ago that he was in the Post Office when the assistant told him that he had offered a customer the choice of two Christmas stamps 
– either reindeer or Madonna with Child. “Aw, gie us Rudolf,” the customer replied, “Ah cannae staun’ that Madonna wumman, takin’ thae weans away frae Africa.”

Harry and the goblet of wine
COLLEAGUE walks over and ignores the fact I’m trying to look very busy. He bellows: “The actor Daniel Radcliffe revealed he was ‘dependent on alcohol’ to make it through the final Harry Potter films.
“Makes two of us.”

End of the world
WE bring down the curtain on songs if they ever make Trump The Musical with the  final suggestions:
l REM’s It’s the End of the World as We Know It (Jim White)
l Searchers’ Tweets for My Tweet (Barrie Crawford)
l Harry Secombe’s If I Ruled the World (Rab Henderson).