AS ithers see us.

American sports website Soccerly interviewed Partick Thistle's Mexican player Gabriel Piccolo about playing in Scotland - he'd like to wear gloves because it's so cold, but doesn't think it's the right image for a centre-back. Anyway when asked what it was like walking into the Firhill dressing room - they called it locker room - for the first time, he told them: "I thought they were speaking French or German. I was like 'Are they speaking English, really?' I didn't understand anything in the first two weeks."

Still, when Motherwell put five goals past Thistle it was probably best he couldn't understand what the fans were saying.

Go away punk

MEETING celebrities continued. A Scots businessman tells us he and three other Scots were at the exclusive K Club golf club in County Kildare, Ireland, where they were a bit boisterous while sharing the bar afterwards with movie star Clint Eastwood. Eventually one of the Scots went over, and using Clint's classic Dirty Harry line, asked: "Clint, could you make my day?"

Clint replied: "No. But you could sure make my day by shutting up."

Only then did he relent and agree to a picture.

City lights

AND a chef in a leading Glasgow restaurant says he occasionally has fun with famous people by looking at them quizzically and asking: "River City?"

"The silence is usually deafening," he tells us.

Sweet danger

IAN Barnett was shopping in the upmarket Fortnum & Mason's store in London as he had promised to bring his wife back some coloured sugar.

He asked the assistant to bubble wrap it to put in his suitcase as he wasn't sure he could carry it as hand luggage. Making light of it he joked with the assistant: "I don't know why I am asking you to wrap this - how could I use a bag of sugar as a weapon on a plane?"

"The pilot might be diabetic, sir" replied the assistant.

Off her perch

TORY MSP Jackson Carlaw wants a robin as the national bird of Scotland, as a golden eagle is associated too much with Nazi Germany. Comments reader John Taylor: "I don't understand all this fuss about the golden eagle being Scotland's bird. I thought it was Jackie."

Any other suggestions for Scotland's national icons?

Tuft enough

ANDY Clark reads about a hair tattoo centre opening in Glasgow, and comments: "It confirms the theory that the stress of modern life can lead to hair loss. After all, when the going gets tough, the tufts get going..."

School notes

WE mentioned Labour MP Norman Buchanan bringing folk singer Pete Seeger to Glasgow. Before going to parliament Norman was a teacher at Rutherglen Academy, and as ex-pupil Daivd Stubley in Prestwick tells us: "Norman brought Tom Paxton, Ewan McColl and Pete's sister Peggy Seeger to give concerts in the school. Every concert ended in enthusiastic singing of Pete Seeger's We Shall Overcome making it the unofficial school song. Somehow I can't imagine Eton ever adopting Seeger's hymn of optimism."

Measure of madness

STILL a tricky business for some people this metrication lark. A reader in Galloway was in a shop buying a window blind, and said he needed one that was 65cms broad. The woman in the shop, shook her head and said: "We don't do centimetres, just millimetres."