CHRISTINE Hunter in Elgin tells us: "I was shopping in my local supermarket and on a whim bought a small tin of ready-mixed gin and tonic. I was asked by a very nice young cashier if I could show her ID for my alcohol purchase. Somewhat bemused, I produced my Senior Citizen Bus Pass. The cashier solemnly told me that was ok and proceeded with the transaction. Don't you love it when students take their summer jobs seriously?"

THE Diary story about the US consulate in Edinburgh reminds Bruce Skivington: "The consulate is at 3 Regent Terrace, just along from the old Royal High School. In the sixties the house at Number 4 was used by the RHS as a classroom. When the US nuclear Polaris submarines arrived at the Holy Loch, anti-nuclear protesters laid down on the pavement outside the consulate, and the police arrived with a wily sergeant telling consulate staff to wait and see.

"At 11am the school bell rang for morning break, and out poured a tsunami of black blazers heading at high speed to be first in the milk queue in the old school playground. House 4 had over 100 thirsty pupils who had to pass the consulate and would stop at nothing. When the dust settled the trampled protesters decided to continue the protest across the road."

A READER phones and asks: "Do you know what's fun?" He then explained: "Next time someone tells you the name of their new baby, repeat it back to them with their surname and innocently ask, 'Like the mass murderer?'"

BEING asked by a woman what you think of a potential purchase - never a wise idea. Reader Peter McMahon heard a woman trying on a hat for a wedding ask her presumably bored husband what he thought of the umpteenth hat she had tried on. "It's a good multipurpose one," he replied. When she asked what he meant he told her: "After wearing it at the wedding it could also double as a wreath at a funeral."

AND talking of shopping, a reader hears a chap looking at microwaves downstairs in John Lewis who remarked: "Why is that for years microwave designers have been working under the false assumption that people want extra features on their microwave? They don't."

WE mentioned how a child in the sixties would think a job in the future that used passwords every day would be more exciting than it actually is, prompting a reader to muse: "If someone from the sixties appeared today, do you know what the most difficult thing to explain would be?

"Possessing a device that fits in your pocket on which you can access all the information ever known to man. But you use it to look at pictures of cats and to get into arguments with strangers."

Any more time travelling mysteries?

A NEWTON Mearns reader received a text from his wife yesterday which read: "Nothing to tell you, but just got back into my car at Silverburn, and some idiot in a BMW is angrily waving at me to drive out so he can get my space. So thought I would send this first."

NO sooner are we back from our holidays when a colleague spots us and lumbers over to engage us with: "My girlfriend wrote on a balloon 'Will you propose to me'. I immediately popped the question."