LOTS of runners braved the blustery, rainy conditions yesterday to take part in the Moira Jones 5k in Queen's Park.
Some ran the course but others were content to stroll around. As the rain got heavier, we heard one spectactor, absolutely drookit, call out to his wife nearby, as she continued walking the course at a leisurely pace.
"Come on, doll," he said jokingly (at least, we hope it was a joke). "I need to get home for my tea."
The punchline, of course, is that it was still only 10.50am.
Monkey business
ANIMAL story of the week, from the North-West Evening Mail: "Reports are emerging that a monkey has been roaming around Dalton. The Evening Mail has received reports that a monkey was seen in the Newton Road area and that it was trying to gain access to houses."
A legal calling
INAPPROPRIATE places where mobile phones have been used, Part Three.
"Depressingly," begins one reader, "at Glasgow Sheriff Court - a solicitor, while addressing the court, also using a mobile phone."
Bit of a sewer point
APOLOGIES if you're eating while reading this, but we thought we'd pass on a snippet from David Long's new book, Bizarre Scotland: Discover the Country's Secrets and Surprises, about the weird things recovered from Scottish Water's sewers.
They include a sheep, an Action Man figure, a pink bicycle, several sets of false teeth, a shopping trolley, a traffic cone, a live badger, a six-foot-long Mexican Desert King Snake, and some deck-chairs.
Apparently, Scottish Water spends £7 million a year on flushing out lots of alien objects. Among the stuff which shouldn't be there, but is, is enough cooking fat to cause 20,000 blockages.
Interestingly, adds David, another item discovered items was a credit card belonging to a sewage worker whose wallet was nicked two weeks earlier.
Sharp royal humour
DAVID also reminds us of a rare example of royal wit.
The Queen Mother used to travel up from London to her Castle of Mey, in Caithness. On on occasion when she arrived by helicopter, she observed: "The chopper has transformed my life - even more than it transformed Anne Boleyn's."
Not-so-super Mario
NICE little joke on Twitter yesterday, moments after Liverpool's goal-shy £16 million striker Mario Balotelli missed an open goal from six yards against Queen's Park Rangers, thus ensuring that he has yet to score for his new club in the Premier League.
"Brendan Rodgers," it read, "has spent the last 60 minutes looking for the receipt for Mario Balotelli.Refund."
A singular idea
STILL on a football theme, we liked one Dundee United fan's observant response to the club's Facebook announcement of a "goals clip" from the match against Partick Thistle. "Goals?," retorted Philip Emery. "Thought we only scored 1!"
That final score again: Dundee United 1 Partick Thistle 0.
Milton misunderstands
AND finally ... Milton Jones, comedian-turned-film-critic, on his latest movie viewing. "Watched Sin City," he tweets. "Not even a mention of trigonometry."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article