A READER hears a woman in Glasgow giving advice to a friend who had been moaning about her boyfriend not showing her enough attention.

"Listen dear," her pal replied, "if you want a man to take you wherever he goes, and to reach for you first thing in the morning, then you'd better turn yourself into a mobile phone."

Fat chance

OUR mention of football ground burger vans reminds Jim McGovern in Dundee of being at one such vehicle when the supporter in front ordered a double burger.

The van man asked: "Do you want anything on that pal?" referring to sauce, or perhaps mustard.

"How much is it?" asked the fan. "Nothing," replied the server.

"Well gies a fried egg oan it then," said the hopeful fan.

Bear facts?

AS Edinburgh Zoo officials, and the country's media, await news of Tian Tian's possible pregnancy, reader Gerry McDade opines: "She lies about all day, has her accommodation and upkeep supported by the public, and her baby has two potential fathers. Why is she such big news in Scotland?"

Pipe dream

THE book A Piper's Tale, which has stories about the musical instrument from some of the top pipers, is launched at Plockton High School next week. In it Dougie Pincock talks of one of his hardest gigs - when he was recording a radio play by Scots writer Don Paterson.

In it he played a drug-dealing piper.

Don had written some jazz for him to try on the pipes which was hard enough, and then over the earphones Don came on to tell him: "He's on stage playing the pipes and his mobile phone goes and he has to answer it, so you need to play this bit with one hand."

Remarkably he managed it.

Relative discomfort

A READER in London swears to us that a friend announced: "My mother has become cold and distant since her divorce."

When her friends expressed sympathy she added: "She's moved to Scotland."

PC madness

AN IT person tells us he was called to an office to fix a computer, and as the staff stood around watching him, one of them asked: "If a computer crashes, do the other computers slow down to see what happened?"

Culling time

AS news breaks of a badger cull going ahead in England, a T-shirt manufacturer has sprung into action by advertising shirts with a picture of a badger and the slogan "Save Badgers. Cull MPs".

Poetic lines

ORGANISERS of the shambolic Edinburgh tram project have announced that they will be putting up poetry at the tram stops to uplift travellers.

David Donaldson suggests a variation of the Pete Seeger classic, with the words "Where has all the money gone?" and the apt chorus 'When will they ever learn?"

Any more suggestions?