COMEDIAN Mark Steel is doing a show for the BBC in Paisley next month, and as he usually does, he asks folk on social media what they know about the place he is visiting to see if they throw up any unusual stories. So he put on Twitter: "What does anyone know about Paisley in Glasgow?"

Within a few hours he had to add the message: "I should of course have said Paisley NEAR Glasgow, not 'in' Glasgow. Surprisingly only 5000 of you pointed this out." Touchy folk the Buddies.

INCIDENTALLY, Mark is a late arrival to social media. As he once memorably put it: "Like many of my generation, for a long time I was sceptical of internet technology. Whatever the potential, the main purpose seemed to be for bored office workers to send e-mails such as "Can people take only ONE MALTESER AT A TIME from the chocolate tin as some of us haven't had any while others have had FOUR!!!"

Well summed up.

TALKING of the internet a reader swears he heard a chap ask his pal: "What does the 'G' in Gmail stand for?"

When his pal replied: "Google" the chap huffily responded with: "OK fine, I will. I was only asking, for goodness sake."

SCHOOL tales continued. Says Donald Grant in Paisley: "I'm reminded of a teacher friend asking his class what they thought of Glasgow's motto, 'There's the tree that never grew, there's the bird that never flew, there's the fish that never swam, there's the bell that never rang.' Back came one bright spark's unexpected reply, 'Is it no' a wee bit negative!'."

THESE Gaelic signs in our railway stations can be a bit confusing. Andy Cumming was on the Glasgow train to Edinburgh when he he heard a young lad ask his dad why the stations have foreign words on their signs. Dad, not wanting to confess he didn't know, came up with the wrong, but nonetheless inspired reply: "It's because a Dutch company took over the trains."

THERE has been some criticism of Alex Salmond's new book about the referendum which some folk have described as "self-congratulatory waffle". A reader contacts us to say how prescient The Diary was by printing a story over two years ago in which an SNP MSP at a Burns Supper got a big laugh for telling the audience that he had just read Alex Salmond's proposed autobiography. It was entitled, he said, Famous People Who Have Met Me.

A COLLEAGUE walking past is quietly singing under his breath: "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing." He suddenly stops and interrupts us with: "I'll say this about Duke Ellington. He certainly knew which playgrounds he would play in."

OH and another good use of new technology. A Lenzie reader says he was downstairs in his house when he got a text message from his teenage daughter. It said: "Just put moisturiser on my hands and now I can't get the bathroom door open. Send help."

"It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing". Duke Ellington knew which playgrounds he would play in