Jaggy jersey

YES, serious issues in Spain just now, but this is The Diary which is why Chris Matheson-Dear in Linlithgow tells us: "A friend who is a Patrick Thistle fan is heading to Madrid for a city break. It dawned on him that if he sports his Thistle top in the centre of Madrid, the colours, which are shared with the Catalan flag, might arouse the interest of the local constabulary in a manner that Firhill regulars may not be used to."

Write answer

GOOD to hear writer Alan Bennet on Radio Four yesterday defending the fact that he still writes with a pen and a typewriter in this electronic age. As he put it: "It just about works, so why do it differently?"

Height of nonsense

STUDENTS have been getting used to sharing flats since going back to uni a few weeks ago. Not all flatmates are easy to deal with. A reader in Manchester sends us a text message that a fellow student there got from her flatmate which states: "Guys, I don't mean to sound like I'm nagging, but I've noticed that the swivel stools are all at different heights sometimes, and I just think if you've used a stool you should return it to its full height before leaving the kitchen! I don't want to come in from a long day of lectures to see all the stools are different heights. Thanks guys."

Apart from wondering about a flat with actual stools and a student who actually attends lectures, we just wondered if readers had their own tales of nightmare flatmates.

A wonderful time

POSTCARDS continued. Says Ronnie McLean: "On a school trip in the sixties, a classmate sent the following message on a postcard to his parents. "Imagine several hackneyed platitudes, David."

A breed apart

AS we often say, relationships can be tricky things to be in, but surely we wouldn't go as far as Aaron Gillies who says: "Reasons to be in a relationship: 1. the other person tells you what dogs they saw that day and you then discuss dogs. 2. That's it I think."

Actually, doesn't sound that terrible really.

Hot stuff

WE are marking National Curry Week, and David Martin tells us: "I remember as a 17-year-old in the late 70s going out on a first date with a girl a year older than me. She suggested we went for an Indian meal, and I agreed, never having had any knowledge of the cuisine prior to this. As we sat looking at the menu, I was lost until I spotted one word I recognised and ordered a chicken one with rice. She seemed impressed at my knowledge and ordered the same. I am still to this day glad that Led Zeppelin recorded a song called 'Kashmir', also the name of a mild curry, and not something called 'Vindaloo'."

All that jazz

WHAT'S happening in the eclectic world of jazz we ask Herald reviewer Rob Adams and he tells us: "Scottish saxophonist Tommy Smith has a headlining gig with his quartet at the famous Ronnie Scott's jazz club this month. But he's not the only Thomas Smith playing at Scott's that night. The late night show which starts after the main act, features the Tom Smith Quartet, also led by a saxophonist.

"You don't have to be called Tommy Smith to get a gig at Ronnie Scott's but for one night only, it seems to do no harm."

Sticky situation

OH dear, a colleague approaches with a smile playing on his lips. "Just spilt superglue on my autobiography," he booms.

I wait. "Well that's my story and I'm sticking to it."