CLYDEBANK stand-up Kevin Bridges's autobiography, We Need to Talk About Kevin, is now in the shops, and in it he describes his first ever gig at the Stand comedy club in Glasgow when he was only 17.

His opening line? "I'm only 17 and I just got sold a pint at that bar, so get it up ye." And thus a career began.

However, we see that humour runs in the family. Kevin needed an adult with him as he was under 18, so his dad went along, and parked near the Subway station. To take Kevin's mind off his first gig, he pointed over at the Kelvin Bridge illuminated sign and said: "There, your name up in lights already!"

Praise be

RETIRED Episcopal Church bishop Idris Jones has been elected Deacon Convener of the great Glasgow chartable institution, The Trades House of Glasgow. At the annual dinner to mark his new post, there was great applause as he was introduced. Modestly he told the guests: "Nobody ever did that when I was preaching."

Rising to the occasion

SO millions of folk were glued to the final of the Great British Bake Off on the telly this week. As those cheeky chaps at Irish bookmakers Paddy Power put it, mixing up their programmes: "Nancy is the winner! She gets the trophy, but more importantly, that one year contract to work in Greggs."

And should we forgive the reader who told us: "The most in tents show in British television."

Lidl wonder

IT'S good to know where your food comes from. Paul McBride tells us his wife was in a Lidl supermarket where an old couple were scrutinising the frozen beef. "Is is British?" the old fellow asked his wife. She said it was, but he then demanded to know how she knew. "It says so on the packaging," she told him. "But where's it from?" he persisted.

"Do you want a bloody postcode?" the exasperated woman replied.

For peat's sake

WE mentioned the sad death of political journalist Angus Macleod, who grew up in Stornoway. Fellow scribe Mike Ritchie recalled: "I was sent on a door-knock job to Stornoway when I was a news hack at the Daily Record, and bumped into a woman who knew Angus from their school days.

"Back in Glasgow, I mentioned her name to Angus and he replied, 'Och, yes, she had fine shoulders on her - good for carrying the peat'. With his droll humour, it was hard to tell whether he was serious or not."

Ayring issues

MATT Vallance tells us the television programme about Billy Connolly's great-great-grandfather serving in India was being discussed at the Opportunities in Retirement class in Ayr when it was pointed out that Ayrshireman Brigadier-General James Neill, responsible for the indiscriminate killing of Indians during the uprising, had a statue in Ayr's Wellington Square Gardens.

Says Matt: "One of the regulars mentioned the irony that the brigadier's statue looks directly at the Rupee Room, one of the finest Indian restaurants in Ayr."

You don't get any rasher

NATIONAL Service continued. John Bannerman in Ayrshire recalls his two years' service which involved a tedious two-hour long church service every Sunday morning. Recalls John: "One bright spark decided to register his religion as being Jewish, so that he didn't need to attend.

"He changed his mind rapidly when the dining room staff refused to serve him his favourite daily bacon sandwiches."