Play it again
NEXT year's spring season of Oran Mor's brilliant A Play, a Pie and a Pint series will mark the 500th new play produced at the west end venue in the past 15 years. Audiences have voted Morag Fullarton's Casablanca (The Lunchtime Cut) starring Still Game's Gavin Mitchell as the play they would most like to see again, and it will be returning.
Our favourite story Gavin once relayed was about how welcoming Glaswegians were when the Commonwealth Games were on in the city. Said Gavin: "Met a nice wee happy guy in Tesco's who told me, 'Aye ah'm across the road in the pub there wi' some English people - ye know The Games' innat. Never tried tablet. Tablet! Imagine that! Cannae huv that. Poor souls.' He produced his shopping bag full of it, winked, and staggered into the traffic back towards the pub."
Warring comedians
THE Herald feature on Kelvin Court, the two London-style housing blocks at Anniesland Cross, reminds Alastair Ross: "That great Glesca comedian Tommy Morgan made the long financial journey, via the Pavilion Theatre, from Brigton to Kelvin Court. Morgan was questioned on stage about his supposed army service in Italy by his fellow comedian, Tommy Yorke. 'Did ye touch Florence?' 'Naw, her Maw was there'."
Zsa Zsa's pink slip
OUR tales of old Glasgow buses remind us of entertainer Andy Cameron once working as a conductor in the days when you could claim you had forgotten your money, and the conductor would get you to fill in a pink slip with your name and address so that you could pay it later. Says Andy: "I am still amazed at the celebrities who lived in Glasgow. I issued slips to Cary Grant from Springburn, Rita Hayworth from Shawfield, John Wayne from Cranhill and my favourite, Zsa Zsa Gabor from Castlemilk."
It's a gas
WE mentioned Scotland and Partick Thistle goalkeeper Alan Rough, and Robin Mather in Musselburgh tells us: "My former boss, the marketing director of Scottish Gas, was an ardent Partick Thistle supporter. One day he was in conversation with the chairman when the director of engineering rushed in, ashen faced, and announced, 'We’ve lost Rough!' My boss said he thought at first it was something serious until he realised they were talking about the Rough gas field, the largest in the North Sea."
Bookish
NOMINATIVE determinism - the theory that folk are often drawn to a job that reflects their name - reminds Patricia Watson, and we suggest this only works for Scottish folk: "At Argyll County Library HQ in Dunoon in the 60s the names of the librarian and his assistant were Mr Reid and Mr More."
In a spin
GETTING into the Christmas spirit? As one reader put it: "This is that magical time of year when me and my brother-in-law exchange money in the form of gift cards of equal value." You can of course cheer folk up by getting them instead the latest Herald Diary compilation, now in the shops, which includes the story of that lovely publican Elaine Scott retiring from the Ben Nevis in Finnieston who listed in a magazine interview all the famous folk who had drunk there, including Dolly Parton's drummer. She then added: "He was just passing the time while he washed his drawers in the laundrette across the road."
Scientific fact
A COLLEAGUE hovers around my desk until I finally stop typing and look up. He then blurts out: "You know the saying, 'I before E except after C'? It's disproved by science."
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