HO hum.

Most of the award winners did not turn up in Glasgow this week at MTV's European Music Awards. However, host Nicki Minaj was suspended over the stage in a ruffled dress with a 14ft train. As an attendee at the Hydro told us: "It reminded me of the doll my granny used to hide her toilet rolls underneath."

Recipe for success

GREGORY'S Girl actor John Gordon Sinclair is back in Glasgow this month at the Theatre Royal in the Jeeves and Wooster play Perfect Nonsense. We remember John recounting his sudden move out of the family home and going to London after the success of Gregory's Girl. As he once explained, his first phone call home from London to his mum in Glasgow was: "How do you boil an egg?"

Walk the walk, Judy

WHAT larks. Tennis coach Judy Murray is still garnering the votes to remain in television's Strictly Come Dancing despite a slightly wooden performance. Or as one programme watcher fumed: "Who is voting for Judy Murray? My week-old French stick has more flexibility and rhythm than her." But adding to the delight is the fact that a London-based newspaper declared that cunning Scottish Nationalists are voting for her as they see the BBC programme as a symbol of British popular culture and they want to destroy it. Superb.

But we like Judy's own reaction when she was accused of simply walking through the dance. "Can't wait to try some Viennese Walking in Blackpool next week," she declared.

Cash for questions

OUT in the real world, reader Jim Lawrie tells us: "A customer in Tesco's, Penicuik last weekend, on requesting cashback, was hesitantly asked if Scottish banknotes would be OK. On bemusedly asking why they would not be, she was told by the check-out girl that customers had recently been specifically asking for Bank of England notes. Help ma Boab, is this what currency union has come to?"

Kipper conundrum

TALKING of politics a reader requests some help. "I'm confused," he phones to tell us. "I'm trying to follow the arguments of the Ukip party, but do millions of immigrants come to Britain to steal our jobs or claim our benefits? Which is it?"

Take your seats...

IAN Dickson was having coffee with a business client in a stylish hotel on the outskirts of Edinburgh when they moved a couple of armchairs away from other guests in the foyer in order to have some privacy. But they were asked by staff to put them back. Says Ian: "I asked the waitress who had told her that the chairs had to go back. Her answer, without a trace of irony was, 'The chairman'. Here surely was a man who has found his role in life."

Heavyweight champion

PUTTING a brave face on it was the Glasgow husband who came down to breakfast at the weekend and told his wife: "Not to brag or anything, but I just got the high score on the bathroom scales."

Here for the beer

THE blockbuster film just released is the space film Interstellar. But as the chap in the Glasgow pub claimed the other night: "It doesn't warn you that it has nothing to do with a man who is obsessed with lager."

Turn over a new leaf

A COLLEAGUE wanders over to interrupt us with: "Cabbage patches are a waste of time. I can give up cabbages quite happily without them."