NOT heard about former Glasgow Museums boss Julian Spalding for a while so was cheered to hear him rail against buskers outside his Edinburgh Grassmarket home whom he described as "talentless chancers". Julian went on to tell business website ScotBuzz that a friend on the High Street complained about a noisy busker outside, and the busker offered to rent his place for a month for £2000. Says Julian: "In desperation he accepted, but when he popped back for something he found 12 buskers dossing there, one sleeping in his curtains."
WE asked for celebrity fan stories and John Love in Glasgow tells us the intriguing: "Some years ago the singer Joan Armatrading lived in Surbiton, Surrey. In an interview with the local paper she mentioned that her favourite reading material was 'The Broons'."
And celebrities in general - a reader recalls queuing in a Byres Road coffee shop when rocker Ozzie Osborne came in and went straight to the toilet. Adds our reader: "He had a minder with him who felt obliged to buy a scone while waiting for Ozzy to reappear."
A SHORTLIST of five will be drawn up this week for Scotland's national poet - The Makar - and many folk are pushing for Glasgow's Tom Leonard although Tom himself says there are a few "over-my-dead-bodies" who will object. Which reminds us of when Tom was appearing at Glasgow's Aye Write festival and was surprised people had to pay £7 to see him. As he put it: "The rake-off I imagine will be needed to pay for the hotels and sizeable fees of the media celebs who are travelling from England. I've no doubt that if I was one of these whom the festival organisers think of as 'recognised in England, and in the English papers', council culture committee members would consider it a significant honour to be allowed to wipe my bum should I go to the toilet."
CONGRATULATIONS to Andy and Kim Murray on the birth of their daughter. A jaundiced tennis fan from London phones to tell us: "Andy says that after her birth, everything, including tennis, now comes second. Shouldn't be a problem for Andy."
IAN Lyle in Mauchline merely passes on without comment: "Overheard in Morrison’s - man to the woman with him, 'No dear, Pancake Tuesday is never on a Wednesday'."
GREAT to see vinyl making a slow but steady comeback in the music industry. A reader was flicking through the albums in a vintage record store when a fellow browser took an album up to the counter and asked how much it was. The chap behind the counter told him: "That one's £7. But there's a surcharge if I have to listen to your story about how your mother or your wife made you throw out your old vinyl collection."
WE did blow time on the late referee Tom "Tiny" Wharton stories but an extra-time yarn comes from a number of readers who cannot agree whether it was Celtic's Jimmy Johnstone or Rangers' Tommy McLean who ran beside Tiny - who was in fact six feet four, muttering: "It's no fair." Tiny finally caught up with the player and asked what was not fair.
"That I have to pay the same as you for a suit," was the diminutive winger's reply.
A COLLEAGUE catches our eye unfortunately and feels the need to pontificate: “There is something romantic about French sayings. They have a certain I don’t know what.”
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