AN Inverclyde reader informs us: "Gourock Baptist Church's wayside pulpit message was put up last week. It read, 'In Gourock it rains most days. In Heaven Jesus reigns forever!' Two days later the weather turned nasty. The rain and wind forced off the cover and within 24 hours the poster had become soaked and fallen off.

"Well, the Baptists were right!"

STAND-UP Richard Herring, who has appeared at the last 11 Edinburgh Festival Fringes, is not going to be there this year, preferring to do a show in London instead. We like his criticism of Edinburgh property owners when he explains: "As much as I love the Fringe, it has become an over-crowded marketplace. But mainly I resented paying £3000 to stay for a month in a flat that might charitably be called 'studenty'. It struck me that I could make the market less over-crowded and stay for free in my own house."

WE'VE all thought this at some point. Rhys James tells us: "So cute how my taxi driver is taking an unnecessarily long route so that he gets to spend more time with me."

GOSH there was a bit of a drama getting all those new SNP MPs to Westminster. Glasgow MP Anne McLaughlin reveals after getting train to London she hopped on a bus. Says Anne: "I offered cash. It was refused. Because it was Scottish? Nope, because it was cash! London buses don't take cash any longer. I can hear choruses of 'everyone knows that'. Well maybe all you cool, happening people who know everything know that, but I didn't. So we were ejected (very nicely it has to be said, but ejected all the same) from the bus."

So in a bit of a fluster, Anne phones fellow new MP Tasmina Ahmed Sheikh. Recalls Anne: "Her husband answered. 'Is Tasmina with you?' I asked him. 'Who's Tasmina?' he replied. Well I know she's been busy lately but that's a bit much I thought. 'Your wife' I said to which he replied 'Anne this is Tam, not Tasmina'! I'd called the actorTam Dean Burn."

WHEN she did get there, all the new MPs were taken on a tour, including the famous debating chamber. As fellow newbie John Nicolson explained: "The Tory MP giving us an initiation talk says clapping in the chamber is 'deplored'. SNP members respond by applauding warmly."

BUT let's not forget the other parties. A reader phones to anxiously ask: "Any news on who has lost 'paper, rock, scissors' to become Lib Dem leader?"

A READER who received a bit of a pompous letter from a firm of solicitors, passes on his reply which read: "Please write to me in plain English. I know what 'inter alia' means. But, when writing to a layman you might want to consider, inter alia, avoiding the use of Latin: its unnecessary use, among other things, does not impress."

A GLASGOW reader tells us he heard a chap in the pub the other night complain: "All my mates in relationships have less freedom than my dodgy cousin who has to wear an electronic tag."