THE HERALD story abut a rehabilitation clinic in Ayrshire offering meditation reminds reader Bob Jarvie:

"Years ago I attended a transcendental meditation course in Glasgow. On the second night our mentor asked each person how they found the previous session had influenced them. One lady, a doctor, said she felt, 'so relaxed driving home to Greenock.' 'Well done,' stated the mentor.

" 'Not so well,' said the doctor. 'I live in Kilmarnock'."

X-tremely worrying error

BUS tales continued. Jack Mair in Cumnock was on a bus heading to Ayr before the last general election when they passed a lamp-post with an election poster for "Sandra Osborne. Labour". Says Jack: "Two young ladies were sitting in front of me talking loudly about being 'smashed oot their faces' the previous week. At this point one of the young ladies started shouting, 'Sharon Osbourne! Sharon Osbourne! I'm gonna vote for her.' Then added rather sadly, 'If only I knew how to vote'."

Jack still wonders whether she actually believed the former X Factor judge was hoping to become MP for Ayr.

Bio-bus is wheely good

A READER is intrigued by the story on the Herald's website that a "bio-bus" has been introduced on the Bath to Bristol Airport route which will be powered by gas made from human waste. "If it takes a corner too fast," asks the reader, "will it leave skid marks?"

Disappearing world

IT'S 50 years since the first section of the M8 motorway between Glasgow and Edinburgh was opened. Even now there is still a debate on whether the later section which tore a large swathe through Glasgow at Charing Cross was a good thing or not. As the Rev Eric Hudson in Bearsden recalls: "The late Andrew Herron, Glasgow's Presbytery Clerk, told of the time his office was in Elmbank Street, and a minister from Ayrshire was coming to see him. Not knowing Glasgow well, and being very confused by all the work at Charing Cross, the Ayrshire man asked a worker, 'If I go along here, will I find Elmbank Street?' To which the worker responded, 'If you hurry'."

Not a rare occurrence

TRENDY dining phrases take a while to be generally accepted. As Stewart MacKenzie asks: "I was in Penrith where one of the bigger hotels had a special offer on a board outside. 'Steak with two sides'. What's so special about that?"

Lost in translation

GLASGOW-BORN David Moyes is learning Spanish after being made manager of Real Sociedad. He is not the first Scot to manage a club in Spain - former Rangers boss Jock Wallace was the man in charge at Seville for a while. As Nigel Robson remembers: "I was on holiday in Spain at the time, and passing a lunchtime in a bar in Barcelona, I half followed a match preview programme on the TV when the growling Scots tones of Jock Wallace grabbed my attention.

"I was the only person in the hostelry who could understand him. Everyone else had to wait for the Spanish translation and/or Catalan subtitles. Both were somewhat slow. Presumably the translators had been expecting English."

Chanel-hopping wife

AND the first Christmas joke sent in. Says John Mulholland: "My wife changes the perfume she wants as a present every Christmas. No.5, Allure, Coco and back to No. 5.

"Now that's what I call Chanel hopping."