It's in the bags

MUCH discussion about the Herald archive picture of the school cruise ships that went to Spain and Portugal in the sixties. Says Paul O’Sullivan: “Some pupils from my school went on the Portugal cruise in the summer of 1967. When they were being shown round the football stadium in Lisbon, they pulled out knives and plastic bags to take away bits of the turf where Celtic had won the European Cup a couple of months earlier.”

To Sir with love

A KNIGHTHOOD for Billy Connolly, and reader Norrie Christie comments: “The Herald reported that Billy thought Sir Lancelot sounded better than Sir Billy. My mother-in-law suggested Sir Lafalot would be much more appropriate. At 93, there’s ‘notalot’ wrong with her sense of humour.”

And best-selling Scottish crime author Alex Gray says: “So pleased to see Billy receive a knighthood. My own small tribute to him in my later Larimer novels features a Glasgow pub that I called The Big Yin. Happy to see if some of my fellow Scottish crime writers will follow suit.”

Driven up the wall

SAD news that the great west end toyshop The Sentry Box, just off Byres Road, is to close. That’ll teach us to use the internet so much. Anyway, it reminds us of the harassed mother, fed up hearing her childless friends go on about their fabulous spa weekends, telling them: “The nearest I get to a spa is when the wean drives his toy truck over my back.”

Pounding away

A FEW folk have been saying that there seems to be a few more folk begging on the city centre streets in Glasgow than there used to be. A reader once told us that on Great Western Road he overheard a chap telling someone who stopped him for change: “Why don’t you sell the Big Issue?” The mendicant replied: “I regard this as more of a challenge.”

It got him a quid.

Fearing the worst

BIG 10k charity run in Glasgow yesterday. As runner Craig Smith commented: “The start of the Men’s 10k reminds me a lot of the shops on Christmas Eve – a load of men walking about aimlessly with a look of fear in their eyes.”

Getting the hump

THINGS you did at school but never since, continued. Says Ron Beaton in Dunblane: “One delightful game in the playground was Fighting Camels.

One boy on a mate’s shoulders, swinging a WW2 satchel around

his head, would advance on

a similar pair. Sometimes there

were groups of boys, so you could be fighting one pair while another knocked lumps out of you from the rear. Winner was usually the pair with the heaviest satchel stuffed

with books.”

Number cruncher

FATHER’S Day yesterday, and James Martin comments on social media: “Can’t believe how ungrateful my day is – ‘World’s Number 4’ is still impressive.”

Losing game

TALKING of fathers, an Ayrshire reader tells us one of the members announced at the weekend: “My lad asked me for one of those fidget spinner things. I told him I had something bigger and better for him to try – and took him out to the lawnmower.”

And another father says he

was on the computer at home when his little son came over and asked him what game he was playing.

Says dad: “I told him I was paying bills. He asked me if I was winning.

I had to tell him that sadly no,

I wasn’t.”