LABOUR leader Ed Miliband was giving a speech in Clydebank yesterday and accused Alex Salmond of "a combination of bluster and bluff." A reader phones to ask us: "What would that be then?

Bluffster?" Incidentally, the BBC on-line story originally described Alex Salmond as "SNP leader". Either someone not keeping up with politics or someone reminiscing about the good old days.

Perhaps the mildest of criticism of Ed yesterday came from reader Edward Simpson who tells us: "Horrified to hear Ed Milliband on the BBC lunchtime news say, 'Me and Ed Balls will...'. One might expect such poor grammar from someone with less education. What a pity he did not receive a Scottish education in the 1930s to the early 1950s to learn the difference between the subject of a sentence and the object."

SO if a good education is one Scottish stereotype we hear of another stereotype from an Ayrshire reader who was speaking to a Scottish friend on the Pacific islands of Vanuatu which were devastated last week by a cyclone. Our Scot out there said they were given a warning to get some supplies in and batten down the hatches before the storm struck. "What supplies did you get?" he was asked.

"A crate of lager and six cans of beans," he replied.

GOOD to see the BBC's Question Time coming from Glasgow earlier this month. But as David Patrick puts it: "Regardless of who's on the Question Time panel, you only need to watch a few editions to realise why it's not called Answer Time."

WE continue to get on-line dating site stories. As Rhys James explains: "I found the love of my life on eHarmony two months ago. Which is extremely upsetting because we've been together for three years."

A READER swears to us that he heard a group of pensioners in Glasgow discussing the fact that one of them had been stepping out with an elderly gentleman. Eventually one of them plucked up the courage to ask: "Are you sleeping with him?"

"Good lord no", she replied. "I don't even sleep with my teeth."

LONDON Mayor Boris Johnson was doing one of those answering questions on Twitter sessions when he declared: "I'm a mega fan of Jeremy Clarkson, but if a vacancy occurred on Top Gear I would definitely put my name forward." As someone then hopefully asked him: "If you took Clarkson's job, would that stop you mucking about in politics? "

A GLASGOW reader on the bus into work yesterday was concerned for the wellbeing of the father of a young man on the bus. The young chap told his pal: "My mum asked my dad for a hand in the kitchen last night. So he followed her around, clapping."

NERVOUS time as secondary pupils start gearing up for exams in the next few weeks. A Bearsden reader tells us his son came home and said one of his teachers was giving them a little speech to gee themselves up for the exams and told them: "Whatever you do, always give 100%." The teacher then turned away, paused, and turned back to add: "Unless you're donating blood of course."

A THOUGHT to leave you with. A reader phones to say: "The downside of being an atheist is that I don't know what to say when people sneeze."