TOM Hosie was in a west end restaurant when a couple complained the dessert they had ordered was taking a long time to arrive.
Says Tom: "The dessert duly arrived, and a short time later, in no doubt an attempt to placate further, the manager stopped at their table and asked whether the couple were celebrating anything special.
"'Just the arrival of the dessert,' was the dead-pan reply."
Major operation
SIR Walter Scott's hefty Ivanhoe novel has been edited to half its size by Professor David Purdie to make it more accessible to new readers.
As ex-surgeon Prof Purdie put it at the novel's launch by Scottish publishers Luath Press: "I removed more colons than in a lifetime of abdominal surgery."
Taken to the cleaners
DAVID Macleod in Lenzie tells us an enterprising wee business distributed leaflets at his office offering: "Car Wash – £7. Valet – £7. Wash and Valet combined – £15."
Says David: "I phoned them to point out the problem.
"'That explains a lot,' said the voice on the other end of the phone. 'We couldn't understand why so many folk were ordering a wash and a valet, but separately.'"
Copy that
THE BBC took over the Platform Theatre in Easterhouse last week for Question Time. Iain Urquhart, who was there, passes on: "An important-looking TV person with a handful of paper commanded my young colleague to 'Take me to the scanner'.
"Being a helpful theatre type, he led her to the photocopier. And not the massive truck with a satellite dish on top, which apparently was what she wanted."
Savings and loan
A SOUTH side reader tells us his eight-year-old daughter told her big sister: "I'm going to get one of those big buckets of Halloween sweeties with my £1 pocket money and ask Dad to give me next week's pocket money so I can buy another for my pal, and then I won't get any pocket money next week."
Her sister, wiser by two years, replied: "Dad won't let you do that. That's what Rangers did."
The weegie games
AS THE Glasgow Commonwealth Games slowly approaches, a reader asks if the games have a motto – for example the London Olympics used the phrase "Inspire a generation".
We didn't know of one, but as it is in Glasgow we wondered if they would adopt the colloquial phrase "Take a run and jump".
Can any readers suggest a motto more appropriate for Glasgow?
A cut above
ANNE Johnstone and Martin Shields's just-published glossy book, Strathblane and Blanefield Now & Then, tells of a blacksmith at the Blane Smithy generations ago who was also a vet, a doctor and a dentist, treating cuts, for example, with a red-hot iron to seal them with tar. A local who bought the book, a pictorial history of the villages below the Campsies, said they shouldn't send the book to the Coalition Government in case it gave them any ideas for saving money on the NHS.
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