A GLASGOW reader tells us about her group of girlfriends meeting up.

One of them, a mother of four, was asked, if she had her time again, would she still have four children? "Absolutely," she replied. "Just not the same ones."

The hole truth

READER Lachlan Bradley tells us: "The lunchtime news on Smooth Radio last week was reporting on the Nobel prize-winning scientist Peter Higgs. It confirmed the recognition of his part in discovering the Higgs boson particle. It went on to note that the particle was discovered using the Large Hadron Colander. Not as high tech as they would have us believe, then."

Opportunity knocks

FRENCH football club St Etienne is buying the old Hampden football posts for its museum as the club always argued it was the old-fashioned square posts which denied the team the European Cup when they played in the final at Hampden in 1976. It was a memorable final. As my colleague Tom Shields put it: "I recall the social aftermath when a follower of St Etienne, known as Les Verts, sporting a green and white top hat, was drowning his sorrows, being bought pints and chatting up the girls in a heavy Maurice Chevalier accent. He was, of course, a chancer from Maryhill."

Death 'n' venison

DOWN in Ayrshire, David Clark in Tarbolton recounts: "A colleague of mine was telling me how much he had enjoyed eating a piece of roe deer that someone had procured for him. 'Was it hung?' I asked. 'Naw, it wuz shoat,' came the reply."

Repetitive strain

KELLAN MacInnes's book Caleb's List, shortlisted for a Saltire Society Scottish First Book Award, opens with mountaineer Caleb George Cash standing at the top of Arthur's Seat in 1898 looking out to the distant hills. When Kellan talks to mountaineering clubs about the book he always gets a laugh when he reads an extract about Caleb looking at North Bridge where the cable-hauled trams frequently break down, bringing the entire tram network to a halt.

Kellan tells us: "So even in 1898 the trams were a source of heated discussion among Edinburgh folk. A case of plus ca change?"

Off the ball

WE got down to two-word jokes, and radio presenter Tam Cowan gets in touch to suggest "women's football".

No, of course he didn't, but reader Ewan Innes just wondered if he had.

O unlucky man

There was a council by-election in Glasgow last week, Labour winning the Govan ward from the SNP. Foster Evens notes that bringing up the rear out of the 14 candidates was the Scottish Democratic Alliance candidate, who got one vote. What makes the result even more astonishing, says Foster, is that statistically the SDA should have had more votes through people making a mistake on their ballot paper because there were so many candidates. So we reckon that makes James Trolland the unluckiest candidate ever. Well done.

Wit and miss

DADS who think they are funny, continued. When a Bearsden teenager asked her father for the TV remote he told her: "Do you know why it's called a remote? Because those are the chances of you finding it when you want to change the channel."