Retched dinner lady

MARYHILL Primary, formerly Gilshie School in Glasgow, is closing next year owing to a falling school roll. It has provoked a series of nostalgic tales from former pupils on the site celebratingmaryhill. org. uk.

Among the tales of pieces being thrown down from grannies'windows and being bullied for being English or from the Highlands, former pupil Douglas Reid recalls: "I remember a fearsome dinner lady - Mrs Brass - who would not let me leave coconut strawberry cake and purple custard until I had eaten it all.

"But I think I got my revenge as she asked, 'Well, doesn't that feel better?'As I was shaking my head I threw up all over her.

"Revenge is sweet, but I have never been able to stomach strawberry coconut cake since."

Ah, happy days.

Collision course

TALES of university Tannoy announcements remind Jim Clegg of a Freshers'Week at Strathclyde when over the PA system came: "To avoid congestion on the stairs, would everyone going up the stairs keep to the right and everyone going downstairs keep to the left."

The penny drops

ONE Kilmacomic - the name apparently for residents of sniffy Kilmacolm in Renfrewshire - wanted to put GBP20 worth of petrol into his car at a Paisley supermarket, but the counter tipped over to GBP20.01. With only a GBP20 note on him he went inside and jocularly asked: "How about GBP20 for cash?"

The attendant insisted that he should pay twenty pounds and the penny, and when he said he had no change, she told him: "Well, you'd better get some."

So all he could do was go outside and search the musty corners of his car where he finally found a two pence coin.

Taking it into the shop, he watched as the attendant opened the till and somewhat shamefacedly admitted she didn't have a penny coin.

"Well, " said he, "you'd better get some."

As a result, the supermarket's profits are down by a whole 1p this month as she gave him his 2p back.

Fighting talk

THE court story about the 31 Airdrie fans travelling to Paisley to start a fight with St Mirren supporters, brings forth the response from Paisley Buddie Gerry McAleer: "If only so many Airdrie fans got together at their home matches then they would set an attendance record at New Broomfield."

Colour blind

WE WOULD never suggest that women are not keen followers of football - it was just that two women in a Glasgow west end bar were watching the Brazil and the Australia World Cup games, which were being shown simultaneously on different television sets. Admittedly, Brazil and Australia have similarly coloured shirts, but it was a good 10 minutes before one of them declared: "Wait a minute, these are different games, aren't they?"

Easily confused

IN ANOTHER bar, Colin Lamont of Edinburgh tells us that after the Brazil game, a punter asked: "Well, guess who's overweight, overpaid, over-the-hill, but can still manage to score."

When his pal inevitably answered: "Ronaldo?" he trimphantly replied: "Naw . . . John Prescott."

Reader Frank Eardley gets in touch to ask: "Has anyone else heard the rumour that if England meet Germany in the World Cup, they plan to bring the Americans on towards the end if they are losing?"

Spoiled for choice

THE Eagles' concert at Hampden brought visitors to Glasgow from all over the country.

A group of Ayrshire friends were heading to the ground when they decided to take a taxi, and one of them, seeing the colour explosion that has now taken place on the city's formerly uniformly black hackney cabs, jauntily announced: "Oh, look, which taxi will we take? A white one or a purple or black one?"

Before her friends could reply a wee Glasgow wummin directly in front of them yelled: "Don't be so bloody fussy. Take the wan that comes first."

Well-travelled

RICHARD Ardern from Inverness reads in the eminent Fodor's travel guide to Ireland that the "South Pole Inn was set up by local Tom Crean when he returned from Walter Scott's Antarctic expedition".

Truly, the skills of the Scots author are even more remarkable than we realised.