A GLASGOW reader having his haircut at the weekend tells us the little chap on the seat next to him told his mother at the end of his haircut that he didn't like it, and he wanted to get his old hairstyle back.

His mother laughed a little and told him that was not possible.

"How not?" he replied with a certain logic. "We took back the T-shirt I didn't like."

Smashing response

THE Glasgow International Comedy Festival begins on Friday, and we must remind those attending to make sure they switch off their mobile phones. We recall the comedy gig where the no-nonsense comedian, fed-up with an audience member's phone ringing, grabbed the phone and answered it himself with: "Hi, I don't know whose phone this is - I've just picked it up by a car crash."

Scotch and fry

BEING international, the festival lets us Scots see how we are viewed from folk outwith the country. It was at last year's festival that American stand-up Scott Capurro pointed out: "Scotland has all this oil - and all you want to do with it is deep fry everything."

Canned laughter

HUMOUR in the independence debate continued. Writer Robert Florence tweeted: "In an independent Scotland it's Alex Salmond in a bikini on all the Tennent's lager cans. Just warning ye."

Legal advice on draft

FOSTER Evans sends us the email that barrister Daniel Barnett regularly produces on employment law for clients. We commend his advice this month which states: "The Government is consulting on the draft Shared Parental Leave Regulations, which will allow parents to share the leave after birth of a baby. Here is the best advice I can give: Do not read them! The draft regulations consist of 29 pages of migraine-inducing drafting, and are supplemented by two other sets of regulations." Instead Daniel directs clients to another lawyer's website who has taken the trouble to summarise it all.

It's always a clever lawyer who gets someone else to do the work.

Meteorological monikers

WE return to nominative determinism - the theory that your name can help determine what job you have. After our mention of the TV stuntman Stuart Fell, Ian Maclean in Bearsden tells us: "I watched the BBC lunchtime news which included a piece about coastal defences, with Hugh Dyke as the expert, followed by weather forecaster Nina Ridge talking about approaching high pressure."

Keep your friends close …

A READER on the bus into Glasgow felt the young girl sitting in front of him was being just a bit cruel when she asked her pal: "Hey, did you ever get that job you talked about for weeks then abruptly stopped mentioning?"

The wisdom of teenagers

MANY a parent will recognise this one. Sarah McRae heard a teenager tell her pal: "No matter how many times you say 'OK' your parents will not stop talking."

Barely worth a scan

A COLLEAGUE wanders over to break our concentration and tell us: "My mate's dating a radiologist. To be honest, I don't know what she sees in him."