RANGERS fans won't went to be reminded about yesterday's game, so instead we turn to last week's fundraising match at Ibrox for former player Fernando Ricksen, who is suffering from motor neurone disease.

Musician Roy Gullane was in the Netherlands the other day when the game was featured on a late-night talk show.

Says Roy: "Fernando was one of the guests, and they showed interviews with fans at the benefit match. Fernando's speech is now so impaired that he is difficult to understand, for which he apologised. 'You're easier to understand than the fans we interviewed' was the talk-show host's response."

ANOTHER great Celtic Connections music festival has just finished in Glasgow. A member of the back room staff tells us: "I bumped into a sound engineer pal at a gig, who I hadn't seen about for a while, and he explained that he'd been battling bronchitis, so lying low and getting the early nights in between his gigs. 'Mind you,' he said, 'being ill has actually kept me healthier than I've ever been at this festival'."

FINALLY, on foreign toilets, Jane Bigggart in Kilmacolm tells us she was in Rome some years ago when an English lady emerged from a public toilet where there was a simple hole and two areas either side where you stand. Says Jane: "The lady came out and told her pal, 'It's the kind you kneel down to, dear'. The mind boggles."

OUR tale of the wooly hat on sale in New York with the slogan "Baws" reminds musician Jimmie Macgregor in Glasgow's west end: "A friend has a cat bearing the very cutesy name of 'Hairy Paws', which causes some local embarrassment when she calls it in at night."

A NEWSPAPER interview the other day with a retired civil servant who made money as a Sean Connery lookalike reminds Robin Gilmour in Milngavie: "My friend Angus genuinely looked like Sean. He and a pal were dining in Dundee as were three giggly young ladies, who were loudly whispering, 'Yes it is!' They suddenly headed towards Angus's table, and he smiled modestly awaiting their request for an autograph.

"'Excuse me Sir!' said one of the girls. 'Are you Jimmy Shand?'"

NATURALLY tales of Glasgow curries in less sophisticated times remind entertainer Andy Cameron: "In the early days of the Kohinoor and Shish Mahal there was a rule about partaking of the Madras and Vindaloo curries and it concerned the three loo rolls. One had to make sure of bringing one out with them of an evening, whilst remembering to leave the other two in the fridge for the following morning."

And there, surely, we must leave the subject.

YES, February now, so St Valentine's Day not far away. Allison Gillespie in Berwick-on-Tweed says that the British Heart Foundation is capitalising on it by having folk pay for heart-shaped messages in the window of its local charity shop. Alison says that one of the messages is "I love Mia, even though she moults."

We hope of course that this is an expression of affection for a family pet rather than a slur on some local girl.

GREAT news, you would think, that the funding is now in place for the new V&A design museum to be built at Dundee's waterfront. But Fionna Black tells us that someone has taken the style of William McGonagall to comment: "The Tay, The Tay/The Silvery Tay./I canna see it/For the damn V&A."

Pic capt:

A Milngavie reader sends us this poignant sign from Canada.