READER John Barrowman tells us about a friend running a clothes shop in Kilmarnock who advertised for a new member of staff.

A young woman arrived drinking a can of Coke and finishing off a cigarette. The shop owner told her there was no smoking allowed in the shop, or even outside at the door, and that no cans of juice could be consumed in case it got spilled on the dresses.

The job seeker replied: "Ah'll no boather. It must be like bein' in the jile in here."

Sour remark

A SOUTH Side dog owner walked into his golf club at the weekend and trumpeted: "Some big munter barged into me in the park earlier. She was wearing a pink t-shirt, with 'Birthday Girl' emblazoned across the chest. She asked, 'what do you think I'm going to turn today?'

"'Milk,' I replied."

Cereal killer

OUR story of the priest in the hospital mistaking the abbreviation Cath (for catheter) beside patients' names, as signifying they were Catholic, reminds John Newlands: "As a nurse in the Beatson I was approached by an irate nun complaining about our new patient notice board. I explained that 'p' after each name meant porridge, 'c' cornflakes and the less than receptive patient she had approached was a devotee of Rice Crispies."

No pride?

OUR tall tale of the escaped lion from the former Calderpark Zoo prompts a reader to tell us: "I was in Easterhouse at the time, and two police officers came running towards me shouting that a lion had escaped.

"Which way is it headed?" I asked. "Are you daft?" one of them replied. "You don't think we're chasing it do you?"

Take five ...

OK, time to put on your thinking caps. We want jokes that only consist of five words or fewer. As a starter we suggest: "Salome! Not in the fridge!"

Any more?

Off track

TOURISTS continued. Bob Laird in Kippen was in an Inverness hotel where a party of Americans was staying. Says Bob: "One of the tourists asked a fellow traveller 'Where are we today?' His friend replied 'Innsbruck'. My friend corrected him, to which he replied, 'It must be Innsbruck tomorrow'."

Off his stroke

THE buzz in Glasgow just now about next year's Commonwealth Games reminds Derek Petrie in Milngavie of bumping into Scotland's Olympic silver medallist, swimmer Bobby McGregor, recently, who said he was once confronted by a gent in Glasgow who came out with the memorable line: "Here, did you not used to be Bobby McGregor?"

It wasn't me ...

THE news story of American special forces capturing a terrorist in Libya makes Janet Whitecross muse: "Mr al-Liby- surely with a name like that he will protest that it wasn't him as he wasn't there at the time?"