GOOD to see Glasgow-based clothing range Abandon Ship win retailer of the year at the Scottish Fashion Awards.

The company is known for its bold, trendy designs and moody fashion shoots. The early pics of their clothes were taken at Iceland. Sounds chic, but as company founder Duncan Sweeny actually explained: "Our first photo shoot was at night round the back of our local Iceland store. We used my car headlights to light it up."

So not the chic Iceland then.

Police attempt a sett-up

FORMER police officer turned stand-up Alfie Moore, who has just completed a sell-out run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, has been commissioned to do six shows for Radio 4 entitled It's A Fair Cop. He once told us that the police force he served on in England was keen to keep crime figures down, so officers often tried to talk folk out of reporting crimes. At one house where a couple claimed to have been broken into, he said, they showed the police officer what looked like scratch marks on their patio doors, and he told them it could have been caused by a badger.

When they then told him that their 42-inch plasma screen TV was missing, he added: "Must have been two of them."

I've not bin out in ages

READER George Ferguson passes on: "Was at a wedding the other week sitting beside some folk in their twenties when one of the guys said to a young lady, 'Every time I call you, you're in the pub. You are never at home'.

"Her reply, delivered with perfect timing was, 'Nonsense. My wheelie bin goes out more than me'."

Youngster wants to vote

YES, it's the referendum later this month. Reader Jack Wright tells us: "I think politicians may have missed a trick. I overheard a harassed

mother, as I was collecting my Herald, explain to her son in an exasperated manner, 'You cannae vote! You're only nine!'"

What will it all mean?

AND a reader passes on to us a letter in an English newspaper which asks: "If the independence referendum is passed, would that mean the rest of the UK would walk away Scot-free?"

Final whistle for show

SO the cheery Scottish children's act The Singing Kettle is calling it a day after this year's Christmas show. Inevitably readers get in touch to say they think the show has gone off the boil in recent years while others felt they were still in their element.

Plastic is not so fantastic

A COLLEAGUE wanders over to pose the question: "If plastic bags are bad for the environment because it takes a hundred years or so for them to biodegrade, how come that any plastic bag I'm given in a supermarket biodegrades as soon as I put anything heavy in it?"

Who are these people?

A BEARSDEN reader hears a girl on the train into Glasgow tell her pal: "I swear nearly a quarter of my Facebook friends are girls I met in club toilets when I was drunk."

Cursory rhymes

And so another colleague decides to wander over and interrupt us with: "Tried to get the wee 'un to sleep by repeatedly saying 'cursory'. Was the only nursery rhyme I could think of."