Barking mad

HAVE you ever seen one of those little round robot vacuum cleaners that you leave to wander by itself around a room? Kenneth Gosnold tells us about his: "My dog doesn't like the robot vacuum, and proceeds to bark at it. Today though the robot vacuum presented the dog with an empty Coke bottle it found under the coffee table. The dog and the robot vacuum are now best friends, with the dog dutifully following it around the house hoping it finds more treats for him."

Congratulations

THE news that the BBC is to pay £850,000 in costs to Sir Cliff Richard after he sued them in a privacy case reminds us of the yarn our late lamented editor Arnold Kemp told of the Scotsman's extremely erudite drama critic Charles Graves once being sent to review a Cliff concert in Edinburgh. The disgruntled Graves devoted most of the review to the jugglers who were the warm-up act before Cliff, making many scholarly references to the history of their art. He only mentioned Cliff in the final paragraph, which was chopped off in the composing room in order to make the review fit the space, leaving confused Scotsman readers the next day wondering why Cliff Richard never actually featured in a review of his show.

Getting shirty

A GLASGOW reader passes on an observation he heard on the train yesterday by a woman whose pal asked what it was like now that she had moved in with her boyfriend. "It's adorable," she replied, "when men think they should get half the wardrobe."

Awesome

BUS tours continued. Kate Woods, now in America, tells us: "One of my male relatives was given a 'stag' bus trip in Scotland visiting many pubs up the west coast with his male friends. As the coach was driving up the side of Loch Awe, the driver said that usually he drove groups of elderly holiday-makers and as he had an all-male group he was going to give the information that he always wanted to give. He then switched to his tour guide voice and said if the passengers would look out the left hand side they would see the magnificent and scenic Loch Awe. He then added, 'and, gentlemen, if you now look out the right hand side you will be greeted with a wonderful view of 'F*** Awe'."

Eye-raising

STILL good weather in Scotland although it's not as hot and clammy as London apparently. As Robin Flavell described it: "You know it's hot when you're on the Tube and you're forced to wipe the sweat out of your eyes. And it's not even your own sweat."

Not my type

MANY pensioners are wizards on the computer these days, but there are still some learners. An Ayr reader tells us: "I was setting up an email account for my dad and as I typed away he was looking over my shoulder and said, 'So the password is six asterisks?'"

For fox sake

AS worries continue about a hard Brexit, former Labour councillor Alan Stewart sees the news story about Prime Minister Theresa May welcoming the British cave divers who helped rescue the 12 boys in Thailand to Downing Street and asks: "Any chance of them getting us rescued from the dark, isolated, resourceless cavern that will be a Tory Brexit?"

But some folk are trying to be positive. As Glasgow stand-up Frankie Boyle put it: "Boring to moan about the downside of Brexit. Let’s focus on the exciting possibilities - living in an abandoned motorway services; coming up with a tasty recipe for fox; marrying a 3D-printed rifle; trading sexual favours for insulin, and vice versa - none of it will be dull."