ANDREW Fogarty tells us about a slimming club meeting in Paisley this week where one woman asked another regular where her competitive pal was.

"Running late, as she's doon the toon hall giving blood," she said.

"She'll do anything to be slimmer of the week," replied the first lady.

Unsuitable

MENSWEAR shops continued. William McKinlay tells us of a business associate who was flying from Amsterdam to Glasgow for a meeting, only for the airline to lose his luggage. He was given a modest sum by the airline so that he could buy a replacement suit, but when he visited a Glasgow menswear shop and explained how much he had, the Glasgow assistant told him: "I couldn't cover you in brown paper for that money."

Desperate measures

OUR tale of the youngster wanting to know how the childproof lid knew it was a child trying to open it reminds Peter Mackie in Aberdeen: "I was on the drill floor of a North Sea oil rig in the 1980s. Having a sore head I went to the first aid cabinet for aspirin to find the container with its top hacksawed off. Obviously this container didn't know the difference between a child and adult either."

Fetching quality

ANNUAL assessments and personal development plans are yet another hurdle as one earns a crust these days. A reader in Glassford was told by a company director: "If you ask him to do something, he doesn't always come back with what you expect. It's a bit like sending him to the shop for 10 Benson & Hedges but he comes back with a roll and sausage."

The director then added: "That's OK, because I like rolls and sausage."

We think that's a positive assessment then.

Mind your language

SHAME that learning a foreign language is diminishing in Scotland's schools. A reader on a train into Glasgow heard a young chap announce: "I wish I speaked Spanish."

His pal told him: "Why don't you worry about English first?"

Humour to the four

WE asked for your five-word jokes, and now a few folk have gone for four words. "Tried Vanish, Mrs Macbeth?" says David Donaldson. And a few readers reminded us of the Glasgow hospital classic: Nurse: Comfy? Patient: Govan.

But the English reader who suggested: "Scotsman walks out of pub" stings Norrie Johnstone in Kilmacolm to respond :"Englishman buys round."

Which is now taking us down to three words.

Any more?

Burning topic

OUR story of the about-to-be-nationalised Prestwick Airport reminds Roy Gullane of flying in to the Ayrshire airport from Canada some time ago when the hallway was lined with portraits of famous Scots. Says Roy: "The entire queue burst into laughter when it heard an American lady shouting to her husband, 'Honey. What's a Bruce?'"