A READER watched a hippy-type face painter with purple hair on Buchanan Street, Glasgow, on Saturday doing the usual tiger, Spider-Man or cat faces on children's coupons.
She was touched to see a teenage boy sitting down to have some face art, thinking it was great he was neither embarrassed nor worried about being bullied for having something so whimsical painted on him.
She was interested to hear what the boy wanted, and listened to his request. So where else than Glasgow, she pondered, would a face painter be asked: “A Union Jack.”
Nuisance call
THE last train from Edinburgh to Glasgow can be a bit boisterous. A reader was trying to enjoy some peace on the train but was disturbed by four young men around the table opposite who were discussing the night’s events in extremely loud voices and laughing relentlessly.
The penny finally dropped, however, as one of them suddenly told his companions: “Guys, guys -- we’ve become the people on the train everyone else wants to shut up.”
Guff justice
The dullest television show of the week, many argue, was the Ant and Dec show Red Or Black, where folk choose well, red or black, to try to win a million pounds.
A reader heard a man on the bus into Glasgow discussing it with a pal, and declaring: “I chose red -- the colour of the standby button on my remote control -- after five minutes of that rubbish.”
A cunning plan
AS ithers see us. An expat in Iowa sends us a joke from his local newspaper which states: “An American and a Scotsman are discussing ways to bring tourism to their countries. The American says, ‘I’ll build a theme park costing millions, employing thousands of people, which will bring people from around the world.’ The Scotsman replies, ‘I’m just gonna go down to the nearest loch and shout “What was that!” Should do the trick.’”
Guilt to last
A RETIRED traffic cop tells us he once approached a driver he had stopped on the south side of Glasgow and asked him: “Do you know why I pulled you over?” When the driver shook his head our reader told him: “You have a broken brake light.”
“Oh I thought it was because my MOT’s out of date,” replied the driver.
Bayou must be kidding
GLASGOW Cajun band Domino Gumbo, appearing at The Ferry’s blues night on Sunday, spent weeks in Lousiana last year researching the music, which included a trip to the famous Cajun bar Fred’s Lounge.
They found they were drawing some strange looks from the locals, and eventually one weatherbeaten fellow asked where they were from. On learning they were Scots he breathed a sigh of relief and passed the word round the bar that they were Scottish tourists, not Amish visitors who’d entered by mistake.
“I never realised we were that peely-wally, to say nothing of our fashion sense,” says band leader Gavin Paterson.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article