Sofa so good

HARRY Dean Stanton, the well-respected actor with that lived-in look, who has died at the age of 91, was in Glasgow in 1980 to film Bernard Tavernier’s sci-fi film Deathwatch with Romy Schneider and Harvey Keitel. It allowed the late Freddie Boardley, the much-loved Glasgow actor, who then lived in Maryhill, to come out with a line that most of us wish we could have uttered at some time: “I woke up in my flat with a raging hangover. Harry Dean Stanton was asleep on my sofa.”

Keep mum

MUCH debate amongst TV watchers about a daughter in her 20s going on X Factor singing with her mother in a duet. As a young Glasgow woman of a similar age commented: “Imagine going on X Factor with your ma. I canny go to the shop with my ma without wanting to put her in a headlock.”

Flight of fancy

BRINGING up grandchildren continued. A reader confesses she was reading an article in The Herald yesterday about an online course on Jacobites in which, said The Herald: “Participants will study the Jacobite campaigns from the flight to France of James II in 1688.” She was spluttering at the newspaper calling him James II instead of his Scottish title James VII, and her grandson asked what was wrong. When she read the sentence out to him he merely asked: “When were aeroplanes invented?”

Face up to it

THE new iPhone X has a facial recognition system to unlock it. Reader John Henderson says the discussion in the pub at the weekend was on whether it would work for politicians, as so many of them are two-faced.

No thanks

BIT of a stooshie on social media as our old chum, writer and broadcaster Lesley Riddoch, commented: “Arriving in Glasgow, every person leaving bus thanks the driver. Such a contrast from impersonal silence at Stansted.” SNP MSP Roseanna Cunningham agreed with her, stating: “Used to do that in London to bus drivers – they always looked shocked that anyone would thank them!”

Many others though said that thanking bus drivers happened all over Britain, and people in Scotland should be less sanctimonious.

But the most searing reply was the chap who told Lesley: “I held the door open for you in Starbucks, The Gyle. You were walking with a stick and holding a coffee. Not much of a thanks was forthcoming.”

Ouch!

Grain of truth

GLASGOW Science Centre is screening The Rocky Horror Show film on Hallowe’en when, no doubt, many of the audience will be dressed as characters from the outrageous movie. We recall that, when a live version of Rocky Horror was staged at the King’s Theatre in Glasgow, there was a sign asking people not to throw rice because of the mess it made during the wedding scene. A reader told us a chap carrying a bag of rice looked at the sign and said: “Oh well, at least we can have a good risotto later.”

All that’s left

A READER in Hyndland emails the thought provoking: “I just want to be rich enough to throw leftovers after dinner straight into the bin rather than putting them in a plastic tub in the fridge for a week and then throwing them out.”

Diving in

TODAY’S piece of daftness comes from comedian Tony Cowards, who muses: “Turns out those school swimming lessons weren’t a waste of time after all. I’ve just rescued a brick from the canal whilst still in my pyjamas.”