A PUB quiz in Glasgow the other night where the young quizmaster read out:

"Who were known as the Busty Babes?"

There was a murmur of conversation before someone shouted out: "Busby Babes ya muppet."

"It's very poor lighting in here," said the quizmaster, as if that absolved him.

Sympathy for the Denny

AFTER our stories about former Rangers manager Jock Wallace, we read in David Leggat's just published biography about him, entitled Big Jock, that Jock played an inexperienced defender Jim Denny for a number of games due to others being injured, but Denny never really won over the Rangers support. As David Leggat writes: "The Rangers crowd were often on Denny's back, to such an extent that during one Old Firm match at Parkhead when he was on the bench, Wallace told Denny to warm up. The player started out towards the Celtic end only to hear Wallace growl that he was going the wrong way. Denny told Wallace that he got less abuse from the Celtic end than from the Rangers end."

Elton jibe is on the mark

SINGER Elton John is to play the Glasgow Hydro in June. It reminds us that Elton and fellow singer Rod Stewart are old friends and often play practical jokes on each other. Celtic fan Rod once confided: "I had a huge soccer ball over the arena I was playing in on one occasion, and Elton got a marksman to go and shoot it down. It then slowly collapsed in front of us."

Not the full shilling

A READER tells us about going into her corner shop in Glasgow where the assistant told her that a little girl came in, picked up a couple of chocolate bars and handed over a pound coin. The assistant rang them up but the total came to £1.05, and the girl had no more money. Feeling generous the assistant took a 10p coin out of her pocket, put it in the till and took out a five pence piece. The little girl was still standing there, and when the assistant asked if there was something else she wanted, she replied: "The change."

What really matters

WE like the reaction of Leith author Irvine Welsh of Trainspotting fame to his latest project. As he explained yesterday: "Just got a 19-page contract from my lawyer in Hollywood for this film I'm about to start work on. Trying to find the 'how much?' and 'when by?' pages."

Roll on Christmas!

OH we like Christmas stories. Writer Deedee Cuddihy was talking to an elderly lady from south-west Scotland who recalled a local farming family who cut up newspapers to use as toilet paper many years ago. One of the highlights of the year was their father buying a wooden box of oranges every Christmas - and the tissue paper around each individual orange would be carefully recycled as festive toilet paper. Goodness you don't see that in all the Christmas adverts, do you?

Lost in transmission

ABBREVIATIONS can be tricky. A reader hears a student heading up to Leuchars on the train from Edinburgh, after staring at her train ticket for a while, suddenly ask suspiciously: "Why does my ticket say STD?"

An easy ride for teenagers

"TEENAGERS today have got it too easy," said the chap in the Glasgow pub the other night. When his pals asked for an example he told them: "In our day there were no self check-out in the shops when we plucked up the courage to buy condoms."