Chickening out

A NEWTON Mearns reader passes on: “My friend was telling me that bringing up three kids of pre-school age meant she had to say no to many dinner party invitations.

“When she eventually went out for dinner at friends, she automatically started cutting the chicken of the person sitting next to her.”

What drives the police

THE Edinburgh International Book Festival ended with its biggest ever audience with over 250,000 people visiting Charlotte Square Gardens. Author Ian Rankin of Rebus fame gently joked with his largely middle-class Edinburgh audience that he researched a scene in his latest book by visiting a Lidl and then added: “You know what a Lidl is? It’s a supermarket chain.”

He also spoke about the difficulties of Rebus interfering in cases even though he’s retired. Said Ian: “The police are now saying to him, go away and have some fun. Move to Marbella. Be an Uber driver. All the retired cops I know in Edinburgh are now Uber drivers.”

Now a basket case

OH he’s got a sharp tongue that X Factor judge Louis Walsh. Interviewed with fellow judge Sharon Osbourne in the Radio Times he declared: “I think Leona Lewis was also a great winner. She’s lost her way since, but that’s not our fault. “

Sharon replied: “She works! I see her in LA.” “In the shops?” asked Louis.

Bob puts them in a spin

TACITURN folk continued. Says Roy Gardiner in Kilmarnock: “I remember being at Glasgow Union for the Saturday dancing in the seventies when Whispering Bob Harris was on. With no introduction he played some obscure song that seemed to go on forever. His response ‘Nice’.

“A second lengthy obscurity followed. By this time the natives were restless. Amazingly Bob spoke to tell us if we didn’t like the music we could get a refund. Cue stampede for the door.”

Sailing close to the wind

MALCOLM Allan in Bishopbriggs hears a woman on Radio Scotland criticising Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn for not “nailing his sails to the mast”. Malcolm fears that anyone nailing sails to masts would soon find themselves very much at sea.

Let’s ear it for Ivor

GLASGOW writer Ian Pattison was reminiscing about the late, great, Glasgow poet Ivor Cutler. Recalled Ian: “I met Ivor at a book launch years ago. He looked approachable so I, well, approached. For two painful minutes I burbled flattery at him while he stared back, unblinkingly. When I finally stumbled into silence he spoke, saying ‘Your facial expressions suggest praise. Let me just take out my ear plugs and listen.’ And he did. And I started all over again.

“He was, I later learned, a long term member of the Noise Abatement Society.”

Speaking from the heart

CRAIG Levein appointing himself as the new boss of Hearts encourages a spokesman for Tennent’s Lager who says: “It reminds us of the old favourite, ‘What colour do Hearts play in?’ ‘Maroon.’

“’Very kind of you. Pint of Tennent’s’.”

Office eejit

TRAPPED in the office by a colleague who tells me: “The wife called me an ‘eejit unfunny annoying’. So I wait.

“Completely out of order,” he adds.