For Lorne hope

SCOTS actor and former Dr Who, David Tennant, tried to explain square sausage to Americans in an interview at a fans' convention where he told them: "They scrape it off the floor of the butcher’s shop, slap it into a square, and you get this flat thing - like a tile shape. In fact, you could probably tile your bathroom with them and they would be entirely impregnable to everything.”

Inevitably a few butchers have taken umbrage at that description, but we recall the tale of the auld fella who asked his butcher if he added rusk when he made his square sausage. The butcher replied of course, as that's what binds it together.

"Aye," replied the worthy, "there was that much rusk in it, I didn't know whether to grill it or put milk on it."

Mum's the word

THE lovely American folk singer Joan Baez is returning to Glasgow's Royal Concert Hall in March. Irish folk singer Tommy Sands once recounted to an audience in Glasgow that he was on the same bill in Belfast as Joan who had arrived with her ageing mother, who was also called Joan. Tommy had invited both of them to his home before the show where his young son came home from school and naturally asked who the senior citizen was sitting in his house. ''I'm Joan Baez,'' said Mrs B, to which the young lad replied after careful consideration: ''You've got a good voice for an old woman.''

Rubbish question

PRESSING questions of our time. A south side reader phones to ask: "How far into January can I still blame my messy house on Christmas?"

That's torn it

WE asked what old insults should be revived, and old chum Reevel Alderson from BBC Scotland asks: "What was the meaning behind the exhortation, now sadly in desuetude, 'Away and raffle your doughnut!' And who these days could envisage what a 'face like a torn blind' looks like?"

Paints a picture

INTERESTING musing from comedian Kate Robbins who appeared at Glasgow's King's Theatre not so long ago in the show Fifty Shades of Beige. Said Kate: "A few years ago I met Princess Anne at a charity event. In the pre-show line-up she asked me what what I did.

I said, ‘I’m an impressionist’ to which she replied, ‘Do you have an exhibition on anywhere?’"

Called to account

TOUGH time financially just now for many who overindulged their credit cards at Christmas. A Glasgow reader swears he heard a young woman tell her pals: "I went into the bank and asked if I could open a joint account. The woman said, 'Of course' and asked me who I was going to open it with. 'Anyone rich,' I told her."

Bare faced cheek

AND for sheer daftness, a reader in Knightswood emails: "I scared the postman today by going to the door naked.

"I’m not sure what scared him more, my naked body or the fact that I knew where he lived."

Hold your horses

HONESTLY thought a colleague had come over to tell me something interesting when he pitched up and declared: "Just found out my mate is the front end of Black Beauty in a new stage production." But then he added after a pause: "He’s a bit of a dark horse."