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."