READER Jim McDougall tells us that one of the joys of leafleting is the signs some folk have attached to their front doors.

While out in his native Largs the other day he came across "Visitors welcome. Family by appointment", "All who pass through this door bring happiness; some in arriving, others in leaving" and the simple plea "Ring bell, if no answer, pull weeds".

And the vest is history

THE joys of being a star - just ask Elaine C Smith who played Rab's wife Mary in the BBC's comedy series Rab C Nesbitt. As Radio Scotland's Travelling Folk presenter Bruce MacGregor revealed last week: "Was in the BBC canteen in Glasgow when who should stroll in but Elaine C Smith. The obviously star-struck girl behind the till did a double-take before blurting out, 'Are you Rab C Nesbitt?' Elaine's response was as amiable as it was phlegmatic, 'Well, no' exactly - and it widnae be so bad, but it's no' the first time I've been asked'."

What's the score?

OUR mention of a Lugar Boswell Thistle v Cumnock junior football match in Ayrshire brings forth a confession from a retired referee that he was in charge of one such encounter when he had forgotten to bring his notebook. Confident that he would remember all the details, he was undone by the fact it was a high-scoring game. He was about to send a report to the junior football officials that it had ended in a five-all draw when the Evening Times reported that Cumnock had won 6-5. Our man in black assumed the Evening Times was more accurate than his own memory, and amended his report to match that of the paper.

It's in the bag

ROYAL visits continued. Stuart Miller tells us: "I had to sit in on planning meetings for the Queen's Jubilee service in Glasgow Cathedral. They were chaired by a senior military bigwig who was concerned that military musicians would be flown up from London, driven to the cathedral to perform and then travel straight back down to London. As he spoke with a cut-glass accent, I wasn't surprised when he asked the chap in charge of catering if he could arrange for the musicians to be given 'a nosebag'."

Playing on words

PIANIST Alfred Brendel was the guest on the BBC's Desert Island Discs, which reminds Jackie Kemp of going to see him at Glasgow's City Halls. Her then six-year-old son overheard her talking about it and demanded to know why he wasn't included in the trip to see "the world-famous peanut". Says Jackie: "When we told him the word wasn't 'peanut', his next guess was equally amusing."

Out of his league

AS we approach the 50th anniversary of John F Kennedy being murdered, older readers are remembering where they were when they heard the news. Norman Brown in Barassie tells us: "As an 18-year-old, I was at Rugby Park for an evening game that Friday when just before kickoff, word went round the ground that Kennedy had been assassinated. My first thought was, 'Oh no, that won't do our league chances any good'. An older fan quietly informed me that the US President had been shot and not the Killie halfback, Bobby Kennedy."