STILL a bit Baltic out there.

A Rhu reader heard two women chatting at the shops with one declaring: "Ah think it's a sin that they make the weans go intae school when it's as cauld as this."

He was puzzled by the other lady replying: "Aye. They could gie them the day aff an' they could get oot tae play."

THE snow also reminded Bob Jarvie of when he sent two engineers to a job in Aberdeen in bad weather. He recalled: "They didn't want to go as it had been snowing heavily. I told them to get their backsides into the van as the councils would have the road cleared by lunch-time.

"My two intrepid engineers made it as far as Forfar and then spent three days in police cells as there was no other accommodation left due to the weather. I wonder still if they've forgiven me."

CELTIC Connections going strong in Glasgow just now. Mike Ritchie tells us: "Liz Clark, presenter and co-ordinator of the hugely popular Danny Kyle Open Stage Sessions at Celtic Connections, issued an urgent warning to Monday evening's audience in the Royal Concert Hall. 'A TV crew is coming in to film some of the show,' said Liz, who's also a director of Celtic Music Radio, which was broadcasting the event. 'So, if you're sitting beside someone you shouldn't be with, change seats quickly'."

ONE of Ireland's richest businessmen Michael O'Leary was in Glasgow to announce new flights from Glasgow to Berlin with his airline Ryanair, and was seen having a long chat and a laugh with Denis MacCann, the new manager at the Radisson hotel. When we asked Denis what amused fiery Michael so much he told us: "We went to the same school in Ireland. As I said to him this morning, 'Michael - where did it all go wrong..."

NO, not an old story, but a classic as we prefer to call them. Our toilet tales remind Stephen Gold: "Some years ago I went to a lecture by the late Maitland Mackie, the Aberdeenshire farmer who founded Mackies Ice Cream. He said he had seen much change during his life and reminisced about the night he and his neighbour Willie, who owned the next farm, were having dinner one summer night on his impressive patio. 'You know Maitland,' said Willie, 'things have sure changed since we were wee.'

"'Back then, we used to eat inside and toilet outside, and now, we eat outside and toilet inside!'"

Although he may have used a more demotic word than toilet.

PROVING your identity in banks continued. Says David Stubley in Prestwick: "The new headmaster of my children's school, having moved up from England, decided it was sensible to have a bank account in Scotland. When he applied to the local Clydesdale Bank he included a letter of recommendation from the school's chairman of governors. The bank official asked why they should accept the signatory's recommendation. 'Because he signs your banknotes', was the response. The signatory was indeed the CEO of the bank."

SCOTLAND'S tourist bosses have issued a map of what locations in the country were used in Bollywood films in the hope that it will tempt more visitors from India. It reminds us of former restaurant entrepreneur, Charan Gill, telling a Glasgow charity audience that he loved Bollywood films - particularly Bollywood westerns. "At least," said Charan, "I know the Indians will always win."

FURTHER turmoil at Rangers with caretaker manager Kenny McDowall resigning.As Bruce Skivington innocently inquires: "Instead of manager of the month, do Rangers have their own award 'manager for a month'?"