A READER spotting the queues of cars trying to get into the car park at the Silverburn shopping centre on Glasgow's south side on Monday, muses: "Boxing Day – the day Mary tries to return the frankincense."

Wordplay

AN American survey named "whatever" –the word used by the young to grudgingly admit they are wrong –as the most irritating word of 2011. Presumably as it was an American survey, the words Clegg, Cameron or Salmond, didn't feature.

A wind-up?

IF you foolishly thought Germans don't have a sense of humour then we pass on this from Barrie Crawford, who spots in the German newspaper Main Post the story of the Nuremberg woman who reported to the police that the windows on the front doors of her car had been stolen while she was Christmas shopping. The police who arrived asked her to get in, turn on the ignition, and press the electric window switch. Lo and behold the windows amazingly appeared. And no, the paper didn't try to claim that she was blonde.

Getting shirty

YES the sales are on and a reader overhears a trendy young man in Glasgow's city centre telling his girlfriend who was holding up a garish shirt for him to consider purchasing: "I don't know. Are you surepeople would know I was wearing it ironically?"

Cheque mate

IT gladdens the heart to see folk still using cheques. Before the lengthy bank holiday a Knightswood reader was behind an elderly chap in the queue who was depositing a sizeable cheque into his account and for some reason was being asked for some form of identification. Our reader liked the old chap's reply of: "Are you saying that if folk are trying to put money in my account you would stop them?"

All saints' day?

ANDY Cumming tells us: "It is as you know a joyful time, and we must remember the saints associated with this time of year. St Stephen for the feast, St Nicholas for our dear Santa, and of course for all Celtic fans, St Mirren."

Such a twit

SO the last, daft, technology gag of the year. A man tells his doctor: "You have to help me. I'm addicted to Twitter." Replies the doc: "Sorry, I don't follow you."

Deserving a clip

IT'S the crucial Celtic Rangers game tonight, which is why the chap in the pub the other day announced: "The wife has to go into hospital for a small procedure, and she asked me to go with her. I told her it clashed with the Old Firm game, and she said, 'Can you not tape it?'

"I told her that was an excellent suggestion, but was she sure the hospital would allow her to take a camera and tripod in?"

Boxin' clever

WE asked for your Scottish haikus, and Kate Gordon in Brookfield, Renfrewshire, goes topical with:

Boxin' day the day,

Thank God fur some peace on earth,

Batteries a' deid.