COMEDY writer and former Python John Cleese stirring things up it seems after taking umbrage at something written in a London magazine by a Scottish journalist. As Cleese fulminated: "Why do we let half-educated tenement Scots run our English press? Because their craving for social status makes them obedient retainers."
We like the fact that an American news site felt the need to add: "Tenement refers to high-density housing blocks in Edinburgh and Scotland, historically built to house the poor, leading to slum conditions in many parts."
Try telling that to the outraged folk in Glasgow's G12.
AN Edinburgh reader hears a customer in the cafe he is in urging her pal to take out pet insurance after she announced she is getting a cat. He liked the pal's reply of: "So if my cat has to stay at the vet's do they give you a courtesy cat?"
A SOUTH Side reader swears to us he heard a youngster on the bus into town tell his pal: "I'm glad I don't have to hunt for my food - I don't even know where sandwiches live."
TALKING of buses, sad to see that bus company First Glasgow is chopping the route of the number 4 bus so that it will no longer go to Knightswood. We remember when the renumbered the 44 as the 4 and a passenger got on and told the driver: "What number is this bus? Wan of yer fours is missing."
When the driver tried to explain, the passenger asked: "Still go the same route as a 44?" When the driver answered in the affirmative, the passenger told him: "Aye well, it's a 44 then," and triumphantly made his way on board.
HOW technology is changing our lives, continued. A young reader tells us: "Letting your girlfriend use your charger even though you're own phone is at 10% is the 21st century equivalent of putting your coat over a puddle."
WHAT'S been happening at the Tory Party conference, almost no one asks. But we do come across a joke. Well sort of. Andrea Leadsom - remember her? She stood for party leadership before abruptly pulling out, was talking about the Labour Party while giving a speech yesterday when she explained: "I don’t know about you, but it seemed to me Labour's leadership election dragged on far too long. If only they’d come to me for advice on how to keep it short.”
DISSENT in Police Scotland it seems. Our story about the woman phoning the police office to report a missing cat, provokes David Moncur in Falkirk to tell us: "The retired police officer who contacted you regarding the lost cat story was undoubtedly an ex-Strathclyde officer. Nowhere else refers to a police 'office' as opposed to a police 'station'. Since the formation of Police Scotland, and the hostile takeover of the seven other forces by our west coast colleagues, no other topic has caused as much feather spitting as this."
And David refers to himself as a "Recently retired feather spitter."
TODAY'S piece of whimsy comes from a Bishopbriggs reader who emails us: "I don't know why people say an apple a day is good for you. Just ask Eve, Snow White, Blackberry or any pig in a very fancy buffet."
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