WE asked you for the oddest Hallowe'en costumes encountered, and a reader tells us about opening her door to a girl with a variety of pants pinned to the front of her jumper.

When asked what she had come as, she replied: "A chest of drawers."

And John Bannerman in Kilmaurs recalls in the 1960s spending a week making a realistic Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz outfit for his then young son. The consequence was that his son to this day is still nicknamed "Cansy".

Spice world

ALSO not perhaps spending a lot of time over their costume was the girl who got all those little glass jars out of her mum's cupboard, put them on a tray she carried in front of her, and told folk opening their doors that she was "a Spice Girl".

Not playing ball

TALKING of not making an effort at Hallowe'en, Hugh Shaw in Kilbirnie tells us: "Could I fast forward a few days into early November when I answered the door to a young lad with a football with a crudely drawn face on it tucked under his oxter who then asked, 'penny for the Guy mister'."

Suits him to a tee

AN unexpected side effect of the storm in the south of England was a group of chaps in London who had to cancel their weekly game of golf. When they later talked about what they had done instead, one of them said he had spent the day at home just chatting to his wife. He then added: "She seems like a nice person."

Way to go

A COLLEAGUE wanders over to tell us: "The wife has knackered the satnav and wants £300 for a new one. She can get lost."

Frankly frank, Frankie

GLASGOW comedian Frankie Boyle has a rant at almost everything in his just published book Scotland's Jesus. Backing independence for Scotland, Frankie argues: "Labour's Alistair Darling described Scottish independence as a 'one-way ticket to nowhere', which is coincidentally the exact phrase I use at the Virgin counter whenever I want to travel to Newcastle. I'm not surprised the Tories in Scotland are using this phrase also, but I just thought it would be appearing as the slogan on the front of their manifesto."

Goodness. Labour, the Tories and Newcastle all traduced in the one paragraph, so not very saint-like of Frankie despite the title.

Death becomes it

ACTUALLY we think there are a few English towns Frankie is not keen on. He was once asked in a list of questions from the Guardian newspaper: "What is the closest you've ever come to death?" and he replied: "Middlesborough."

Suits you, sir

FURTHER proof that men in business suits are not common in all parts of Scotland comes from reader Frank Bendoris who, as a sales manager, stopped with a sales rep, to use a telephone beside a tenement block in Greenock - before the days of mobile phones of course. Says Frank: "As we got out of the car and made our way towards the phone box, a wee wumman came out of a tenement close, looked at us in our best business suits, and inquired, 'Are youse gaun tae a weddin'?'"

Lone star

WE occasionally refer to chaps who are unlucky in love. A reader tells us in his younger days when he and his friends went clubbing, one of them was given the nickname Macaulay Culkin - because he always went home alone.