OUR tale of Helen Mirren being offered "red or white" when she asked for wine in Glasgow 30 years ago, reminds Jean Edmiston in Prestwick of a friend from England visiting round about the same time and asking in a grocer's:

"What type of cheese do you have?" The answer "both" confused her somewhat, not realising she could have a white-coloured cheddar or a red cheddar.

Skye's the limit

AND John Craig in Falkirk recalls: "The late Sir Bob Grieve, first chairman of the Highlands and Islands Board, told me that he was at a dinner on Skye in the 1960s when the waitress coming round with the wine asked him if he would like some wine or would he 'prefer something to drink'."

Talk is cheap

THE Winter Olympics have been gripping - the commentators less so. Tom Bogle in Ayr was taken with the commentator who came up with "she's on fire on this ice". Or the chap who was less than chivalrous to the female hill jumpers: "There's three left - we're down to the real heavyweights."

Phil Gault noticed in the Giant Slalom, the skier from the Czech Republic, Ondrej Bank. He mused: "So it would be fun to introduce him as, 'Hi, this is my pal, Bank the Czech'."

Any other favourite sayings?

Hair today...

"HAVE you been watching any curling?" asked a chap of his pal on a train into Glasgow this week.

"I have," remarked his mate, who then went for the line: "But the hairdresser came out and told me to move away from the window as it was disturbing her customers."

Name game

MUCH debate about whistleblower Edward Snowden being elected Rector of Glasgow University. Journalist Iain Martin was recalling when he edited the Glasgow University Guardian, and singer Pat Kane was elected Rector. Kane offered to write a column for the Guardian, but Martin found the writing terribly pretentious.

So in the next column, Kane's reference to American futurist Alvin Toffler was changed to Alvin Stardust. It was the last column Kane offered them.

Only one way to go

OUR story about losing a car in a car park reminds Marilyn Copland in Scotstounhill of husband Bill driving in Germany and asking his pal Ian to take a careful note of the street they were parked in. Returning hours later, Bill realised that Ian was asking people for directions to "Eingangstrasse" which, of course, means one-way street, and that it might well take them a while to find the car.

What's in a name?

POSTSCRIPT to our spelling howlers, as Tom Hamilton tells us: "I remember from my distant days in academe at Strathclyde Uni, Professor Tom Devine, then just a plain old Dr, said that one undergraduate, when writing an essay on the French Revolution, referred to the infamous sovereign lady as 'Mary-Anne Twanette'."