THE release of the new James Bond film reminds retired Glasgow detective Les Brown of being a young beat cop in Gorbals who came across a young lad kicking a can along the pavement, and asked him his name.

He gave the curious reply: "I'll tell you if you don't hit me."

Reassuring him that violence wasn't being considered, the lad said: "My name's Bond. James Bond."

Says Les: "It was, and he wasn't hit."

In the pink?

SOME conversations just have to be passed on. A reader out in the West End at the weekend heard a young woman tell her friends: "I'm okay with white wine – but rosé wine gives me a hangover."

She thinks about this before adding: "Maybe I'm allergic to pink things."

And after a further pause: "I'm fine with bacon though."

Pumped up

DAVID Hay in Glasgow tells us: "I was devastated to see the headline in The Herald: "Bar Association vote for strike", until I realised it was just lawyers."

Getting fizzical

AMERICAN Deedee Cuddihy, now resident in Glasgow, has brought out a mini book entitled I Love Irn-Bru. Not that we would wish to stereotype Glaswegians, but she quotes a member of staff from the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow who comments: "Everyone in my family drinks Irn-Bru with their meals, except my gran. She only takes it with vodka."

Sticking point

RUGBY tours continued. The All Blacks hammering Scotland at the weekend reminds a reader of a previous New Zealand trip to Scotland when the team were invited to a post-match dinner in the then North British Hotel in Edinburgh. Five of the team were missing during the meal, and a search of the hotel later discovered them stuck in a lift between floors. The lift had a sign stating it could carry up to eight passengers but the safety switch was triggered with only five New Zealanders, such was their size.

A Scottish Duke

WE ended our Hollywood/Scottish crossovers, but Ian Barnett tells us: "A pity you are finished with this. I meant to remind you earlier of the late John Wean."

Pen friend

JOHN Holliday and Mike Hughes have written a book, Tiree: War among the Barley and Brine, which recounts how the Hebridean island coped with thousands of Allied troops during the war. Some 150 folk turned up for the book launch on the island, and when an embarrassed John and Mike realised they had no pen to sign the copies, retired journalist Ian Sharp offered his.

Someone shouted: "Bi curmach, cha deam am peann seo lithirichs" which Ian thought was a lengthy thank-you in Gaelic but turned out to actually mean: "Be careful, that pen cannot spell."

Driven to distraction

LYNDA Nicolson spots a driving school car with the company's name "LPASSO" and wonders how many other cheesy but funny driving school names are out there.