QUEEN'S Speech yesterday in Parliament.

Our political contact calls to say: "The thing about the public's perception of the Tories these days is that when the Queen's Speech includes a Modern Slavery Bill you have to stop to think whether the Government is opposing it or bringing it in."

Dressed for success

A BEARSDEN reader tells us he was shopping with his wife, who wanted a dress for a wedding they were going to. When she came out of the changing room in an outfit and asked him what he thought, he knew the pitfalls. Wanting to get home, told her: "It's great. It makes your waist look smaller and your legs longer."

From behind a rack of dresses near him, a female voice called out: "I want one of these. Where are they?"

Girl talk

HOW things have changed. Barrie Crawford tells us a friend in her fifties bumped into her old physics teacher, and as she told Barrie: "There were two girls in the class and he called us both Daphne. He couldn't be bothered learning our names, because he thought girls shouldn't be doing physics."

Angry messages

OUR Glasgow bus tales remind Lynda Nicolson of when she was on the No 4 bus and two wifies got into a kerfuffle as one tried to get on and one tried to get off, but ended up blocking each other. Says Lynda: "In a fit of anger, one picked up the other one's messages and hurled them off the bus. Once it had all calmed down, a passenger said, 'Hen, do you want me to go and collect your sawdust? The bag's burst and it's all over Hope Street'. "'It's no sawdust', she said indignantly. 'It's my hamster bedding'."

Heaven sent

TOUR guides continued. A reader was on a coach tour in Germany when they neared the town of Singen, beside the Swiss border, He tells us: "The heavens opened, prompting our courier to utter 'At least you can all say you've been to Singen in the rain'."

Nothing to shout about

MUSIC fans were a tad underwhelmed that Lulu is to front a Glasgow Green concert to mark the opening of the Commonwealth Games. As one reader forecasted: "She will put on her version of a 'Glesgae' accent which will be patronising and toe-curling, then tell us she is 'fae jist up ra road.' Aargh."

She won't, will she?

Smelling trouble

MORE on Glasgow sludge boats. Neil Macleod worked on the SS Garroch Head which also carried up to 72 pensioners on day trips. Says Neil: "The smelly times were when we loaded at Shieldhall and again when we discharged our cargo south of Bute - 3500 tonnes in 12 minutes. On one occasion as we started the discharge three old ladies were strolling along the maindeck. Two immediately dived into handbags for handkerchiefs to hold to their noses while the third, whose sense of smell had obviously departed, exclaimed, 'I cannae smell a thing'. I had difficulty keeping a straight face."

Barking tale

OUT of nowhere we are sent a Glasgow joke. It reads: "A Glaswegian bangs on his neighbour's door and tells him: 'Do something about your dog. It's been barking for hours and I've got a terrible hangover and need some sleep'.

"You shouldn't have crawled into his kennel then," replied the neighbour.