THE family of the author of the Flashman series of books, the late George MacDonald Fraser, are publishing his first ever novel, Captain in Calico, which is about pirates, after finding the manuscript in his safe. George used to work at The Herald and we remember that when Flashman was a success he finished his shift at the paper, announced he had to leave the country for tax reasons, and was not seen again.

Anyway, years later George told former colleague Willie Hunter that he watched a contestant on Mastermind answer questions on his Flashman books. The person on the telly got 18 questions right out of 18. George could only manage 16.

A READER saw the story that Scots pupils found the Higher Maths paper last week extremely difficult, and fears that his doctor would have struggled with it as well. He has just picked up a prescription the doc had left for him, and the label states: "Seven tablets daily, ie four in the morning and four in the evening."

LINGUISTIC misunderstandings - folk singer Roy Gullane was once talking to an American about the village of Atholl in Perthshire and its Jacobite connections. It turned out that many states in America have a town named after it, or as the American put it: "America is full of Atholls".

CONGRATULATIONS to Bellshill boy and former Hamilton Accies boss Alex Neil getting Norwich promotion to the English Premier League. As one football fan commented when the sports announcer mentioned shaven-headed Alex's age, and the fact he would be the youngest manager in the EPL: "Alex Neil is only 33! Where did he do his paper round? Afghanistan?!"

SCOTS author Steve Christie, whose detective novel Cold Shot, set in Aberdeen, is published next week, recalls he was struggling to work out how to stage a security van robbery in one of his books as his research showed that the vans were always kept locked, and the windscreens were made of bullet-proof glass. Still puzzling over it, he walked past one such van in St Andrews Square in Edinburgh, delivering to one of the banks, where suddenly the driver's door opened an inch so that the driver sitting there could have a sly smoke. Problem solved without any further research required.

BILL Forgie heard a young person on his bus tell her pal: "I was takin' selfies of other people." Her mate thought about this for a second before telling her: "So just photos then."

THE John Byrne BBC TV series set in Scotland, Your Cheatin' Heart, is released on DVD this week. Folkie Jim Wilkie recalls when it was made that he was asked to help leading actress Tilda Swinton sing a version of the eponymous song in Gaelic. He still remembers the ever-polite Tilda's reaction to learning the lines in Gaelic. "The problem here is," said Tilda, "that one appears to be reaching for sounds that one has never heard before."

STEPHEN Porteous passes on: "Was in a restaurant in Newton Mearns at the weekend when the woman at the table behind us asked for the banoffee pie - but without the banana. 'Would that not make the pie 'offee' replied the waiter. Witty banter that sadly went way over the lovely lady's blonde head."

A COLLEAGUE feels the need to interrupt us with: "Held a pipe insulating race against my dad. Left him lagging."