A sure bet
GREAT to see Scottish-trained One for Arthur winning the Grand National. An Ayr reader phones to declare: “I take it that’s one race that Nicola Sturgeon is not asking to be re-run.”
 
A strapping big lad
LETTERS in The Herald last week about the tawse being used in the old days reminds Andy Mitchell in Prestwick: “Our English teacher was a Miss McCabe who was barely five feet tall, and once was about to belt John who, even as a teenager, was over six feet. John was instructed to bring a chair over, and the class buzzed at the prospect of Miss McCabe standing on it to belt John.
“We were somewhat deflated when she made big John sit on it to be belted.”
 
Put that in your pipe
SINGER Jimmie Macgregor tells us after our story about sculptor Eduardo Paolozzi confronting John Prescott at a dinner party: “At a party in London I was introduced to actor Rupert Davies who was playing Maigret. ‘So. Are you still at the old?’ he asked me while making a guitar plonking mime. When I responded with ‘Yes. Are you still at the old?’ accompanied by a pipe-smoking mime, he looked decidedly miffed and went off to talk to someone else.”

That’s a Surprise Surprise
OUR story about auditions to play Cilla Black in a musical reminds Matt Vallance: “When Cilla had her own show on BBC TV, she had Frankie Howard as a guest and the bold Francis quippd about the host, ‘Her voice is as flat as her chest’. Cilla herself couldn’t stop giggling for five minutes.”

Going for a spin
SAYS Neil Dunn: “The mention of the Paisley-based commercial radio station Q96 calls to mind the ‘good old days’ of the nineties. The studios, situated at the bottom of Lady Lane and next door to the Cellar Bar, often witnessed a certain presenter put on a long record when it was quiet and nip next door for a ‘swift one’ before anyone was any the wiser.”

She cracked up
GROWING old continued. Says a west end reader: “A friend who only sees her seven-year-old granddaughter twice a year was earnestly informed last week. ‘Granny, your moisturiser isn’t working’.”

That will teach them
THE Herald news story about parents being fined for taking their children off school during term time reminds a retired teacher: “When I was teaching back in the 1970s there were pupils who you hoped would be taken on holiday during term time.”

A bit of a gas
A GLASGOW reader swears to us that he was in his local at the weekend where a fellow toper announced: “I was at the dentist’s the other day and he asked me if he could give me Helium. ‘Helium?’ I said. ‘Will it kill the pain?’ ‘No’, he replied. ‘But when you scream it will sound really funny’.”

Chippy remark
TODAY’S piece of whimsy comes from Neil who writes: “Our local chippy’s started using magazines instead of newspapers to wrap the suppers. I’m eating them out of House and Home.”