WHIZZING about at this time of year are all these delivery vans getting the Christmas presents delivered on time.

A Lenzie reader tells us his delivery man yesterday had come all the way from the north of England with a host of deliveries in the Glasgow area. The driver went on to describe one place in Glasgow which he said was "so rough even my satnav told me not to go there."

Grin and bear it?

TOUGHEST job at the moment must belong to these charity folk trying to sign up glum-faced shoppers at the top of Glasgow's Buchanan Street. A reader heard one of the chuggers, as they are called, tell a passer-by: "You've dropped something." When the sodden passer-by grunted: "What?" the charity person shouted back: "Your smile!"

And no, we don't think that got her a sale.

Stiff response

OUR tale of inadvertently sending Christmas cards to the deceased reminds Alan Briggs in Oxfordshire: "Years ago I edited a newsletter sent to some 400 souls scattered across Kent and Sussex.

"I'm ashamed to say I wasn't able to suppress a smile when one was returned bearing the message, 'Please don't send any more newsletters as Mr Stiff is now deceased'."

Name that tune...

TALKING of names, we're a conservative lot in Scotland when it comes to naming the weans. The latest list shows that for the fifth year in a row, the most popular boys' names are Jack and Lewis, while Sophie tops the girls' list for the eighth year in a row.

We do feel sorry though for the woman in America with the surname Oakey who is in her thirties. How were her parents to know that the Japanese would inadvertently make folk laugh at their daughter's name, Carrie?

Any other favourite names out there?

Where there's hope

A GLASGOW reader muses: "They say God lioes a trier. So imagine the amount of celestial goodwill heading for the cafe owner at Anniesland Cross yesterday who put out tables and chairs on the pavement, desperately trying to encourage customers to sit outside and enjoy a continental-style café experience. In Glasgow. In the rain. In the week before Christmas."

French toast

AS thoughts turn at this time of year to food and drink, a reader attending the wedding of a Scots girl to a French lad tells us her father told the French guests in his speech: "You French have a reputation that if it moves, you will eat it. But we Scots also have a reputation, if you can pour it, we'll drink it."

Mystic pizza?

THE football chatter in Glasgow yesterday was of course Celtic drawing the famous Italian team Juventus in the Champions League. One excited fan was heard telling her pal in Glasgow yesterday: "I'm really looking forward to it. My boyfriend might take me over to, to, Juventus, no that's not right, well wherever they play, for the game."