TUESDAY 25 SEPTEMBER

GOVAN-BASED IT specialist Sean Grant, who only took up performing when asked to do a best man's speech last year, was named Scottish Comedian of the Year at a contest organised by Ha Ha Comedy as part of the Merchant City Festival.

Compere at the event in the Old Fruitmarket, Des Clarke, pictured at foot, turned to one of the judges, Radio Scotland producer Margaret-Ann Docherty half way through the evening and asked: "You work for the BBC, Margaret-Ann, so presumably you know the winner before the votes are even counted?"

Thai-ing the knot
NOT all the finalists were gritty working-class funsters from the central belt. In third place was Aberdonian Gus Tawse, who came out with the age-old comedy line: "My wife doesn't understand me."

But then added: "Which is odd, as the website said she had conversational English. What a waste of 100,000 baht."

Goal feast
MEANWHILE, the innapropriate choice of phrase award, we reckon, goes to Scott Booth on Setanta summarising the Hibs-Celtic game, who commented on Hibs sub Zemmama being a Muslim who had been observing Ramadan.

Said Scott: "You can tell Ramadan hasn't affected Zemmama - he's still hungry."

Holding the fort
FURTHER news from the raucous opening party at BBC Scotland which could be heard over the late-night news broadcast. Among the great and the good swigging the free booze and canapes were some SNP ministers from the Scottish Government.

A fellow partygoer was overheard going up to communities minister Stewart Maxwell and asking: "If all you ministers are here, who's running the country?"

Replied Stewart: "Probably Eck" - a cheery, if irreverent, reference, of course, to First Minister Alex Salmond, who decided not to go to the party.

False economy
WE must pass on the sad tale of a young bank worker in Lanarkshire and her boyfriend who decided on a holiday in glitzy gambling capital Las Vegas, given the cheapness of the dollar just now.

So she was delighted to find on the internet return flights to Vegas from Manchester for the equivalent of about £100 each. Well worth the drive down the motorway to England.

It was only after she had booked them, however, she discovered that they are, in fact, flying from Manchester, Ohio.

Jambo lie
WIKIPEDIA, the easily sourced, but sometimes inaccurate, web encyclopedia has a rival in Conservapedia, a fledgling source started by right-wing Americans who feel Wikipedia has too many left-wing leanings. But even Conservapedia is not immune to cheeky mistakes being inserted. Under Edinburgh it tells us: "Edinburgh has two football clubs; Hibernian FC and Heart of Mid-lothian FC. The famous author Sir Walter Scott wrote a novel The Heart of Midlothian based around the early days of the club and its founder Vladimir Romanov, an exile from Tsarist Russia and friend of the author Alexander Pushkin."

Close, but no cigar.

The death of Marcel Marceau, the world-famous French mime artist, makes reader Gordon Cubie ask: "Would it be appropriate in this instance to hold a minute's noise?"

Pop goes his heart
TV and radio presenter Angus Simpson had a spring in his step when he arrived at Kelvingrove Gallery for the launch of the Glasgow Philharmonic Male Voice Choir's new DVD, We Belong to Glasgow, which he produced.

"I couldn't get over the size of the queue for the DVD," he tells us, "until an attendant gently pointed out the queue was for the Kylie Minogue exhibition."

Twin insult
A READER in Greenock tells us about a colleague who came back to work after lunch in high dudgeon after the chatty assistant in the local corner shop asked her when her baby was due. The woman was not, in fact pregnant, but merely a tad paunchy.

Her mood wasn't helped when she phoned her husband later to tell him what had happened and he told her: "Never mind, hen. She should have known just by looking at your coupon that you were too old to have weans."