YES, it's that time of year when folk join gyms after a Christmas and New Year of excess.

We pass on the truism of one new member who declared to the folk around her: "Anyone who thinks a minute goes by really fast has never been on a treadmill."

Lost and found

STRANGE are the things that happen at bus stops. A south side reader was at Buchanan Bus Station in Glasgow where a young father was playing with his toddler son before he stopped to read the bus timetable. He then suddenly looked around frantically and said to the woman with him: "Where's the boy gone?"

The woman shook her head and replied: "He's still sitting on your shoulders."

Yes, he had indeed forgotten he had swung the little one across his back.

Melting moment

MARTIN Shields, now in Australia, fears some Aussies don't share his Scottish sense of humour. He bought three bags of ice for New Year at his local garage. The next day more friends were expected so he trotted off to the garage for more ice where he told the assistant: "See that last lot of ice I bought, it was rubbish. I got up this morning and it had all turned to water."

Sadly the assistant became defensive and queried if he had bought the ice there.

Guessing game

YES, folk were having a great time at Glasgow pubs on Hogmanay. One chap in a west end bar told a young woman he could tell her what day she was born if she gave him a passionate kiss.

After being locked in an embrace, he came up for air and told her: "Yesterday."

Cover up

AND for all you fans of television's Star Trek, a Lanarkshire chap tells us his mate was in the doghouse for the first three days of 2013 after his lovely wife squeezed herself into a dress for a Ne'erday party and asked the inevitable question about whether it made her bum look big. Unable to stop himself, he replied: "It's a dress, not a Klingon cloaking device."

Just proves it's never a good idea to answer such a question.

In the news

A READER keeping in touch with the news phones to tell us: "Convince people you were famous in the 1970s by walking grim-faced out of a police station."

Panto tales

SO how has it been for the actors now the country's pantos are drawing to a close? We like the advice from Grant Stott, appearing in Mother Goose at Edinburgh's King's Theatre, who said at the weekend: "Another valuable lesson learned in panto today – never give a big fright to someone in the front row who likes to use the F-word."

And a behind-the-scenes story from Jane McCarry, Isa of Still Game, appearing as the Fairy Godmother in Dunfermline, who revealed: "My wee Mack truly is an actor's dog. He went into the Prince's dressing room, ate poor Rita the dog's dinner, had his way with her, then fell asleep."