EDINBURGH stand-up Ben Verth was in an Italian restaurant in the capital's Grassmarket when he heard a chap at the next table declare that the desserts were too fancy for him, but his daughter encouraged him to try one.

"Have the chocolate brownie and panna cotta. You'll like it," she said.

"Not for me thanks. I'm not putting anything inside my body you can use to build with. The Chinese built a whole statue army with it."

"Terracotta, Dad," replied the daughter.

ERIC Smith was in a Cambuslang pub where the menu had under the headline "Scottish Classics" dishes such as haggis, and Balmoral chicken, and then "macaroni cheese."

"Justa likea mya Heilan mama useta make," says Eric.

PUBLIC relations company boss Alex Barr was at the Shore Capital Annual Burns Supper in Edinburgh the other night, and like all true professionals, he had a quick scan at the other name cards on his table. Says Alex: "Imagine how excited I was when I read the place cards either side of my seat. On my left was David Bowie and on my right was Alice Cooper. Before they arrived, I considered scribbling 'Elvis Presley' on my place card but you can take these things too far."

Alice turned out to be a fund manager and David is in agriculture technology, but charming company nevertheless, we are sure.

AH the joys of computers. A consultant physician tells us he had to fill-out an on-line report to the Medicine and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency about a drug a patient was given. "Since the patient died," he explains, "I selected 'Death' from the boxes on the drop-down menu labelled 'What was the consequence'?

"To my surprise, this produced another opportunity to select a response to the question 'Was this serious?'"

BOB Shaw passes on to us that a rocket delivering a satellite is being launched from Florida, with the first stage of the rocket hopefully landing on a giant barge so that it can be reused. What we like about the story is that the barge was previously known as the "Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship" or ASDS, but the scientists involved have announced that it has been renamed "Just Read The Instructions" in tribute to the late Scottish science fiction author Iain M Banks, who regularly had gigantic starships in his stories, and generally gave them interesting names.

Says Bob: "The second ASDS - currently under construction - will be named "Of Course I Still Love You" in another nod to a Banks' vehicle." We like that.

WE mentioned folk on Facebook being asked by friends to write seven interesting things about them that people might not know. We like one chap who put as number one: "I am deeply suspicious of these types of things and worry that they may be a scam by Nigerian hackers to get personal info out of me."

He didn't write any more.

AS the excitement of transfer deadline day wafted around fitba fans yesterday, Scottish Comedy FC explained on Twitter: "When you put 'there are still plenty of deals in the pipeline' into a translation programme it comes up as 'basically, nothing is happening'."

A COLLEAGUE wanders over to interrupt us, places his hand on our shoulder, and tells us: "It hurts me to say this - but I have laryngitis."