OUR story of the chap donating to a student thinking he was a Big Issue seller, reminds Bob Gardner:

"I went to a shopping arcade where there was a charity collector with a can at the door. When I left it was pelting down and the collector had disappeared, but in her place was a young lad drinking from a lager can. Just then an old lady came out and put a pound in his can. His face was a study."

New order

BAFFLED by technology continued. Jim Morrison was at the bowling centre at Whiteinch where one player was saying he'd bought a boat. "Where did you get it?" asked another member. "I got it on e-Bay," he replied.

"Is that on the east coast or the west coast?" he was asked.

Prize catch

A PIECE of showbiz glamour from the biography of iconic Celtic assistant manager Sean Fallon, entitled Celtic's Iron Man by Stephen Sullivan. When Celtic had a summer tour of North America before their European Cup win, they bumped into entertainer Bruce Forsyth on holiday in Bermuda who was looking for a game of golf. Recalled Sean: "We managed to get him a space. I was going fishing, though, and he asked me: 'Would you mind taking my girlfriend along with you?' 'No problem,' I replied. Turned out that his girlfriend was Miss World. So of course I reluctantly accepted.

"It was better than looking at Jock Stein across the boat."

Look who's twerking

BEN Verth, MC of Edinburgh's Beehive Comedy Club, was having coffee at a shopping centre, when a girl picking up her dropped napkin winced with pain and told her pal that she had a "twerking injury". When her pal asked: "What? That Miley Cyrus dance thing?" Referring to the American singer's bottom-protruding dance style, the girl explained: "Yeah, I tried it, and went properly mental with my bum, and hurt my back a bit."

But probably not an everyday occurrence among Edinburgh ladies.

Animal magic

WE asked for your daft Hallowe'en costumes, and a Kirkintilloch reader claimed: "One year my son dressed our pet dog as a cat. He then complained it wouldn't come when he called it."

Brief explanation

AND our story about the girl who pinned pairs of pants to her jumper and said she was "a chest of drawers" brings forth the admission from Iain Urquhart: "I believe that's my girlfriend. Her costumes always needed explaining." But defending her from the charge that she hadn't put much effort into it, he said: "She also had a plant pot with a flower in it on her head to complete the look."

Vatican ditty

NEWS that the American spy agency, the NSA, even monitored the Pope's phone was being discussed in an Ayrshire golf club where members wondered what the Americans had hoped to learn from a religious leader. "Perhaps," said one, "they finally wanted to solve the age-old question of whether he was a Catholic."

Sweet nothing

MORE on chaps unlucky in love. Paul McElhone recalls a stag weekend where the blokes were collecting points for every girl they snogged. One came back with the nickname "Norway" - a reference of course to the Scandinavian country getting "null points" in the Eurovision Song Contest that year.