THE great music festival, Celtic Connections, begins in Glasgow this week, but already there is the occasional snag.

As Stephen Wright at Glasgow arts company Fair Pley tells us: "You would have thought that Irish airline Aer Lingus would be pretty used to folk musicians taking their instruments on flights, but apparently not. I booked Irish folk legend Tommy Sands on a flight from Dublin to Glasgow to perform at Celtic Connections, and the airline apparently has no facility for pre-booking musical instruments such as Tommy's guitar and case. But it does allow large items of sports equipment. Which is why the 69-year-old Sands was bemused to receive his booking confirmation authorising his snowboard."

MIKE Ritchie bumped into a Glasgow chum who works in a Buchanan Street store and who told Mike there actually is a benefit from all this rain and wind sweeping though the city centre. She said: "It means we don't have to listen to endless out-of-tune, repetitive renditions of Wonderwall, bagpipes, pan pipes or other forms of musical torture from the buskers."

OUR story about needing identification reminds Alex Smith in Troon of when bank tellers insisted on proof of identity before cashing cheques. Says Alex: "An elderly lady approached the bank counter and requested encashment of her cheque for just £3.The teller rightly requested confirmation that she was, in fact, the payee as stated. She replied by pointing, and explaining that, ' this is ma dug'. The teller leaned over the counter and asked, 'Are you Mrs W's dug?' Receiving the merest tailwag in response, he cashed the cheque."

THE local television station STV Glasgow is not that bad, although some of the old shows have not aged well. Anyway, STV is now encouraged to launch another local channel this time in Edinburgh. As Bill McKelvie opines: "I look forward to hearing the announcement 'Welcome to STV Edinburgh. Here is the You'll-have-had-your-Tea Time News'."

JOHN Mulholland tells us about his teenage daughter having a birthday party, and the girls sitting down on the floor in a large circle. Says John: "My wife panicked, thinking that they were anticipating a game of pass the parcel and she wondered if she should have planned children's party games for a bunch of 14 year olds. However it transpired that our wifi password was being passed around the circle so the girls could link up their mobile phones. I still haven't worked out why 11 friends in the same room spent the evening texting each other and posting on social media. Bring back conversation and charades."

AH if only it were true. Christine Pacione in Milton of Campsie reads in her local newspaper: "The best diets involve sensible steps such as cutting down high-fat, high-sugar foods, and substituting booze for water".

IT'S not as if men need another excuse for not treating their wives, but a North Carolina newspaper has reported that a local man was shot when he tried to surprise his wife with breakfast in bed. He had actually gone to the shops for supplies, but on return triggered the house alarm, and she thought it was an intruder coming up the stairs. Luckily he escaped serious injury.

It does remind us of the woman who was told on Mothers Day by her children to stay in bed and they would make breakfast. She soon smelled eggs land sausage cooking, but after waiting nearly half an hour she went downstairs to see her kids tucking into the food. They told her: "It's our surprise for Mothers Day. We decided to make our own breakfast this morning."

TO end with a piece of whimsy, Moose Allain tells us: "I've built a model of Mount Everest". "Is it to scale?" we ask. "No, just to look at."