YES, you might have a tram running in Edinburgh now, but you still can't beat the Edinburgh buses for interesting conversations.

Ben Verth, gearing up for his Fringe comedy show, was on Edinburgh's 24 bus when he heard the girl in front of him tell her pal: "I'm looking for a new place. I can't live with her anymore, she's such a slob. The other day we'd ran out of milk so she just dumped two of my Actimels in her tea instead."

But her pal replied: "At least she's a healthy slob."

Poster boy

IN all the furore about Ukip having an MEP elected from Scotland, we missed some of the other strange candidates that were elected. We like Martin Sonneborn, former editor of the German satirical magazine Titanic who was elected for "Die Partei" in Germany with its slogan "Yes to Europe, No to Europe, Die Partei". What impressed us was that Martin's election posters came with teeth blacked out, and glasses and moustache drawn on him to save disgruntled voters from having to deface them.

Changing gear

SO presenter Gary Robertson is being let go by BBC Scotland, which is causing a bit of a stushie. We remember when Gary replaced Derek Bateman on Good Morning Scotland. On the BBC noticeboard at the time Derek put his Mazda car up for sale with the wording: "Genuine reason for sale (owner moving to new job). Starts well and sounds great even in early morning. Being replaced by new hybrid."

Charred luck story

HAD some barbecue-flavoured crisps at the weekend," said the chap in the Glasgow pub.

"Didn't like them," he continued. "Tasted of grease-covered metal and charcoal."

Deadpan humour

SO many people want to be comedians, it seems. A south side reader says he was in his doctor's waiting room, when an elderly gent came in, flicked through a magazine on the table, and announced: "Oh no! Winston Churchill's dead!"

Ref justice

JUNIOR Cup Final at the weekend with an all-Ayrshire final bertween Glenafton and Hurlford. Underdogs Hurlford won the cup although referee Colin Steven had an "erratic" game according to the report in yesterday's Herald.

Our Junior football contact Matt Vallance tells us: "Poor Mr Steven did indeed have a nightmare match. In the kebab shop in New Cumnock after the game, when two of Police Scotland's finest appeared, they were asked if the old catch-all charge of 'conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace' was still on the statute book, and, if so, why wasn't referee Steven arrested and charged."

Managing expectations

GOODNESS, it's all very confusing at Celtic just now with Roy Keane ruling himself out as the new manager. So we turn to trusted Irish bookies Paddy Power, who put Sir Alex Ferguson at 300/1 to take over and Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho at 500/1. However the bookies, who had Pope Francis also at 500/1, have now put the Pope at 1500/1 which would suggest the company has some inside info that Francis has also ruled himself out.

Clouded judgment

A COLLEAGUE wanders over to interrupt us with: "Keep being asked if I have meteorological records for Scotland. And I keep saying, I haven't the foggiest."