VALENTINE'S Day on Sunday - you're welcome lads for the heads-up. Anyway a reader tells us he still remembers the pain of fancying a girl at school and wanting to leave her a Valentine's card. He wanted to write it was from a secret admirer, and just to make it anonymous he got a pal to write it so that it was not in his hand-writing, and left it on her desk. The plan fell to bits when the girl recognised his pal's handwriting, asked his pal out, and he said yes.

SAD times funerals, but also a time to remember fondly a memorable person. As David Bratchpiece tells us: "Heartbroken as we said farewell to Aunt Cathie. But my dad recounted the story of her coming out of the theatre after watching a musical - at the age of 96 - and found a 5p on the ground which she gave to a busker. The busker starts giving her hassle, saying it's not much. Some old ladies may have been intimidated by this. Not Cath. She turns round round and says to the guy, 'You're lucky you got that much, 'cos you're rubbish!'"

EXTRA time on referee Tom "Tiny" Wharton stories as Bryce Drummond recalls: "A Junior Football ref was at a seminar run by Tiny and at question time asked if he arrived at a match, say in darkest Ayrshire, and a player bad-mouthed him and his refereeing skills before kick-off, did he have to let him play?

"Oh yes indeed," replied Tiny. "But not for long."

WE asked about celebrity encounters, and John Mulholland tells us: "A few years ago, Meatloaf played the SECC in Glasgow. Between songs, because of a health condition, he required oxygen. He requested that it be administered by the attractive blonde paramedic who was on duty. The ambulance crew duly obliged. However, the 6ft tall, muscular, male paramedic with short blond hair wasn't quite what Mr Loaf was expecting."

WE congratulated Andy and Kim Murray on the birth of their daughter, and reader George Crawford in West Kilbride was one of many who asked: "Do we have a name for Kim and Andy's wean yet? Annette, surely?"

EDINBURGH stand-up Ben Verth was in a cafe on George IV Bridge when an elderly lady with her daughter stared at a poster for a speed-dating night and tentatively asked: "Does that... does that mean they're all on drugs?" The daughter explained what speed-dating was, but then expressed her concern that her mother was using the street name for amphetamines. Perhaps she feared an illegal drug ring down at the old folk's day centre.

However her mother explained: "Oh well, I don't really know much about drugs. Just what they talk about on New Tricks."

A READER on a bus into Glasgow commends the young woman who was more honest than most when she explained to her pal: "You secret is safeish with me."

OH dear, we foolishly allowed someone to make a joke about the French language. Thus emboldened, a reader says: "Did you know that 20% of people say 'maintenant' is their favourite French word. For now."