"DID you see that the captain of the Costa Concordia cruise ship got 16 years in jail for leaving a sinking ship?" asked the chap in the Glasgow pub last night.

 

"So how come Ally McCoist has not been arrested?" asked a fellow toper.

WE mentioned the 25th anniversary of music venue King Tut's in Glasgow and fans have been posting on the club's Facebook page about their most memorable gigs. Everyone's definition of memorable is different, as one chap wrote: "Dubstar....fell asleep drunk before it started, and woke up when it all ended. Cheers to the guy who gave me a glass of water. Epic night."

READER Iain Stuart from Perth went to Stirling Castle to see the Great Tapestry of Scotland which is on display there. Wonderful stuff he says, but feels just a little pedantic for pointing out that on panel 158, the late, great, politician Margo MacDonald has her name spelled with an extra 't" so that it reads "Margot". We wonder if it was a little joke that, as the parliament meets in Edinburgh, that someone was asking Margo if she had 'had her t".

Sorry about that.

AH students. Don't you love them. One young student in Glasgow told her friends on social media this week: "Walking home with a traffic cone on my head, and a For Sale sign in my hand last night. The police drove by and gave me a thumbs up. I love Glasgow."

GOOD to see old ideas updated. Reader Tom Little was driving on the East Kilbride Expressway the other morning when he saw a dirt-encrusted white van in front on which someone had written on the back door "Dirtier than...." Tom assumed it would be the usual claim of such graffiti merchants of "your girlfriend" or "yer wife". But drawing closer he noticed it was actually "50 Shades" which only gets its cinema release this weekend.

Talking of the saucy film, folk have been having fun rewriting sections of the original Fifty Shades of Grey on the basis of what it would read like if written by a man. We liked: "'I'm a bad girl,' she whispered, 'Punish me in a way only a real man can!' 'Alright,' I said and left my wet towels on the bathroom floor."

ST Valentine's Day tomorrow. A West End reader swears to us: "Every St Valentine's Day I book a table for two in a local restaurant, turn up by myself, and keep on looking at my watch for the next hour before fighting back fake tears. I always end up getting free drinks."

IT'S amazing what people can be almost poetic about. An American on an internet discussion board was talking about strange things you encounter in Britain, and he asked: "What is brown sauce?" Apparently he was only used to the tomato ketchup variety. A Brit replied: "Every now and then you want something a bit different. Something with attitude, with a bit of kick. Reach for the HP. That delicious viscous brown fluid, when mixed with salty bacon and buttery bread - it's like an angel crying on your tongue."

Goodness, they should print that on the label.

INTERNET dating continues to grow. But as one Glasgow woman was telling her pals: "I don't agree with all this stuff about meeting a first date in a coffee shop instead of a pub. After three cappuccinos he still isn't going to look any better."

AS plans continue to introduce plain packaging for cigarettes in Britain, Bruce Skivington ponders a possible advantage. He asks: "Does plain packaging now mean we can have front of a fag packet ideas in addition to back of fag packet ideas?"

Pic capt:

A town planner with a sense of humour in Vallejo, California.