Got it licked

GOOD weather at the weekend saw Glasgow's parks crowded. A reader swears to us he heard a wee lad in a park ask his dad: "Can I get an ice cream?" "If you're good," said the dad. "Good at what?" asked the boy. "Buying your own ice cream," he was told.

Bit of a blow

OUR soldiers' tales can't stop the irrepressible Andy Cameron from claiming: "My late grandfather was the piper in the Black Watch and was first out of the trenches when an attack was launched. On his first day he was blowing away on his pipes when the bombs, bullets and mortars came flying overhead, prompting a comrade to demand, 'Andra’ can you no’ play something the Germans like?'”

Playing around

MEETING someone famous, continued. Recalls Gordon Casely: "On Aberdeen's Evening Express in 1970, I was despatched to St Andrews, to write a colour piece on the Open, and the great players attending. In the Open car park, photographer Charlie Flett and I drew up alongside a Daimler from whence stepped a golf-ish looking figure (I was and remain the original complete non-gowfer). 'Aye aye, fit like?' I cheerily greeted him. 'Here for the golf?' He nodded. 'Hey Charlie', I called, 'here’s a boy who’s in the Open'.

"I turned round, and here’s Charlie almost prostrate in worship at said gowfer. How was I to know that I was speaking to Gary Player?"

Stepping up

AND musician Roy Gullane tells us: "While I never actually met the great man, I once saw Bill Munroe - the man who came up with the word 'Bluegrass' to describe his music - having his photograph taken with his band. 'Could you all take one step back please?' asked the photographer. 'You take one step back', replied Bill."

What the?

MORE on older folk and technology, as Shauna Wright declares: "I'd like to thank whomever told my mom that WTF means 'wow that's fantastic.' Her texts are so much more fun now."

Crocked

THE wit of our sheriffs in Scotland is often overlooked. Lawyer Brian Chrystal was reading a case report and tells us: “Just to show that the spirit of P.G. Wodehouse and Rumpole has not completely died in our legal system, the Sheriff, required to assess the reliability of an expert witness, wrote that ‘the witness treated cross-examination in the manner a man might hold a crocodile’.” Snappy.

Status update

A WEST end reader realises that women can, quite rightly, be a bit defensive when they are being chatted up. He heard one middle-aged chap tell a woman at a bar in Ashton Lane that he was divorced, and she replied: "And does your wife know that you’re divorced?"

What's in a name

THE Rangers era under new manager Steven Gerrard, the former Liverpool captain, has begun with the signing of Burnley midfielder Scott Arfield. Many Gers fans think it's a good signing, although other observers admit they don't actually know who Scott is. A reader phones to muse: "Gerrard's such a Liverpool man that you half wonder if he signed Scott because he thought his surname was Anfield."