AMERICAN singing star Johnny Cash's visits to Glasgow still provoke memories.

John Kelly in Baillieston tells us a friend was an usher in the old Green's Playhouse when Cash had two shows on the same day. Says John: "As the man in black entered from the wings he tripped on a trailing cable and drawled: 'Who put that darned thing thar' to much amusement.

"Ever the showman, Johnny decided to keep it in the act and amazingly tripped at the exact same spot at the second show that evening."

Deep thinking?

A COLLEAGUE wanders past the Diary desk to tell us: "My wife said she had dug a hole in our garden and filled it with water. I think she meant well."

Plate suffices

TENEMENT tales continued. Says Morag Jones: "In the mid-eighties when living in a Bruntsfield tenement in Edinburgh, we had an elderly neighbour in his nineties. He had lived there since a young man, when his employers had told him he could stay for as long as wanted for a nominal rent. He could however only have either a brass name plate or a letter box on his front door - and yes, being Edinburgh, he chose the name plate.

"He never did have a letter box."

Close encounter

AND tenement life takes us to stairheid rammies. Sheriff JP Murphy recalls: "One example involved two doughty ladies who came to blows on the landing and breached the peace to an extent that brought them both before the court. One claimed that the cause of the trouble was the abuse by the other of a new arrival in the close, a young mother. 'She called her a clarty besom,' she explained. 'And, of course,' said the fiscal, herself a young woman, 'you rushed to deny this slur on your new neighbour'.

"'No, it wisnae that,' replied the accused. 'She is a clarty besom, but that's her ain business'."

Pack up your troubles

A COUPLE returning from their holidays at Glasgow Airport were watching the luggage going round the carousel when the wife mused: "Do you not think everyone's got nicer luggage than we have?"

Although he was lugging their cases from the belt, hubby came back with the witty line: "Yes, it's a real worst-case scenario."

A league of his own

GREAT display by Scotland in Macedonia the other night. The only criticism came when Rangers player Lee Wallace came on as a substitute, and a Dunfermline Athletic fan tweeted: "A second division player comes on for Scotland and it's not leading Dunfermline scorer Andy Geggan? What's the point in all those goals, then?"

Inconvenient

A READER hears an unusual work confession from a girl on the train into Glasgow the other day. The girl told her pal: "Have you ever been in the loo at the office when someone in the next cubicle is on their phone claiming to be somewhere else? I always flush the toilet at that point."

Bumper fun

AFTER our story about Hillary Clinton, still being tipped as a future presidential candidate, coming to St Andrews this week, our political contact in New York phones to tell us: "There is a new bumper sticker over here you can buy for your car. It says 'Run Hillary, run!'. Democrats put it on the rear bumper and Republicans put it on the front bumper."