Man up

WE asked for your GP stories, and Moira Campbell tells us about a relative's neighbour who thought he was ill with the flu. Says Moira: "His wife sent for the doctor, who examined him and said, 'I'll tell you what we should do here.' He then told the ailing husband, 'You get up - your wife is in a worse state than you are!'

"Needless to say," says Moira, "it was the talk of the steamie for weeks."

His number's up

EVER take revenge on a former boyfriend or girlfriend? A reader in Dublin says a girl on a bus there was telling her friend that every week she still plays the same Lotto numbers as her ex. She explained that if he ever won he would have to cope with the news that the millions were divided in half and he had to share it with his former girlfriend.

Over the sea

OUR story about the BBC reporter who thought Shetland was next to the Western Isles reminds Stuart Allan in Drongan: "In the seventies I worked as a service engineer and phoned my boss to request a part to complete a job on Skye. He told me that the best he could was send it Red Star for me to collect at Inverness, drive back to complete the work, and if all went well to then drive back to Glasgow. When I asked him if he knew how far it was from Dunvegan on Skye to Inverness, he said, 'About two inches on my map'."

For F's sake

WE read that thousands of previously classified documents on the assassination of John F Kennedy have been released in America. We phone a contact there who tells us: "My neighbour said to me, 'At last! I can finally find out what the F stands for'."

In a spin

WELL, did you remember to turn your clocks back yesterday? Perhaps inevitably a reader phones to tells us: "Remember to put your clocks back one hour - unless you voted Brexit. You've already put us back a hundred years."

Beat that

WE bump into Dr Alistair Dorward, Deacon Convener of Glasgow's Trades House at the Incorporation of Bakers Dinner who tells us about the impact The Diary had on the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley many years ago. My old chum Tom Shields had written a story about a heart monitor which suddenly flat-lined, and the nurse telling the anxious patient: "Don't worry - you're no deid - it's just faulty." Alistair said the cutting was shown to hospital management who were so embarrassed that new equipment was ordered - and Tom was invited out for lunch by delighted staff.

Of course equipment today is far better than back then.

Who needs friends

GETTING old continued. Says Gordon Smith in Govanhill: "Listening to 'With a Little Help from my Friends', my nephew asked, 'Who's that on the radio?' I said it was The Beatles. He tutted and said, 'Sounds like an Oasis rip-off'."

No rip-off

"IS there a new Diary book for Christmas?" asks an anxious reader. There is indeed. It's called The Herald Diary. Somebunny Loves You, is published by Black and White and remarkably is still under a tenner. It includes the story of the catty girl on the late night Glasgow bus putting down a mutual friend and declaring: "She's that lazy she only shaves the bits of her legs you can see through her ripped jeans."

Harping on

DAFT gag as we approach Hallowe'en from a reader who emails: "Had to dress up in costume for a Hallowe'en party at the weekend. 'What are you?' asked the host. 'A harp,' I replied. 'Your costume's too small to be a harp,' she said. 'Are you calling me a lyre?' I told her."