A READER on a Glasgow train watched as a dad sat down to read his paper while his toddler son sitting opposite played with a pair of binoculars.

Dad's mood changed, though, when his son went into his backpack and took out a toy trumpet that he started enthusiastically blowing.

Dad immediately pointed to a poster on the train explaining fare rises, and told the little one: "It says here you can't blow a trumpet on the train. You'll have to put it away."

So possibly the first time a fare rise has been of any use.

Child's play

"I GOT an email from a hotel company saying if I booked a holiday then my kids could go free," said the chap in a Glasgow pub the other night.

"Things must be bad if they've turned to kidnapping," he added.

Franco file

THE Herald's Teddy Jamieson, writing in our magazine tomorrow about Derry-Londonderry becoming the first UK City of Culture, was told that Spanish dictator Franco bribed jury members so that Cliff Richard's Congratulations, which was co- written by the city's Phil Coulter, did not win the Eurovision contest that year.

Says Teddy: "Later I was telling this story to Michael Bradley from the Undertones. 'Franco had better taste than we give him credit for,' he said."

At your convenience ...

LATEST technology breakthrough is an iPotty which is a potty that allows toddlers to watch films and play games on their iPads while sitting on said item.

"Nothing new in that," says David Donaldson. "There is a generation out there who got a large part of their childhood education from reading the pages of the Sunday Post torn into squares and hung on string in the loo."

Led astray

OUR story about rocker Jimmy Page's birthday reminds Steve Inch in Bishopbriggs of when his pal Dean went to a Led Zeppelin concert in Aberdeen in the early 1970s.

Having two spare tickets he went into the Star and Garter Bar opposite the Aberdeen Music Hall where he spotted two potential customers having a quiet drink in the corner.

When Dean asked if they fancied buying a couple of tickets to see the show, one told him: "Sorry mate, we're the band," and at that Jimmy Page and Robert Plant finished their drinks and headed across the road to tune up.

TV listing

WE mentioned the whimsical pastime of changing one letter in the name of a TV programme. Dennis Johnston in Ayr suggests: "A medieval knockout tournament, Strictly come Lancing; an advice show on giving up smoking, Patch of the Day; Robson Green's latest wild fishing show, Marlin, and a new sitcom about a young man having woman trouble, Outlumbered. This last would, of course, only be shown in Scotland."