Bit of a dust-up

WE asked for your student flat tales, and Arthur Yaffy in Busby tells us: "My grandson at Edinburgh University moved into digs in a lovely old building in the New Town which had become a bit of a midden due to all the students. His flatmates planned a party to get to know one another, and I asked if they were inviting everyone in the building.

"He replied, 'Not the people on the second floor - we don’t think they're students'. 'Why not?', I asked. 'We heard the noise of a vacuum cleaner coming from their flat,' he replied."

A ring to it

A VARIATION on the glass half full conundrum as a Bearsden reader emails: "Optimist, 'The glass is half full'. Pessimist, 'The glass is half empty'.

"Mother, 'Who put that glass down without a coaster?'"

Bit of a squeeze

A PR company gets in touch to tell us that accordion-playing Max Restaino, only 21, will be the support act for pop legends Steps when they play the Hydro in Glasgow next month, and they add that the accordion is making a comeback thanks to Max. We'll take their word for it, but we are reminded of a book about unusual words which stated that in the Tok Pisin pidgin English language of Papua New Guinea the accordion is known as "Liklik box you pull him he cry you push him he cry."

Batting an eyelid

OUR story about the chap who worried that his girlfriend was about to throw up when she tried to make a sexy pout with her lips struck a chord with a Glasgow reader who tells us: "My girlfriend tried to wink at me which she thought was in a seductive manner. She was making such a hash of it I momentarily thought about Googling 'signs of a stroke' just to be on the safe side."

A bit needled

GETTING old continued. Says Eric Duncan in Cardross: "As a friend recently pointed out to me, 'You know your social life's in trouble when you find yourself dressing up to go for your flu jab'."

An angry Tennent

WE bump into old chum and author Douglas Skelton, who has a book out this month on strange things that have happened entitled "Amazing and Extraordinary Scotland", and our conversation for some reason turns to haggis. Said Dougie: "When I was a youngster volunteering at a hospital radio station - Radio Hairmyres - I interviewed Bill Tennent, then a regular face on the telly who was known as Mr STV. He told me that a haggis is shaped like a football, but you don't kick it, you eat it. And once eaten, you wish you'd kicked it."

Hair raising

A DAFT gag from a Woodside reader who phones to tell us: "My husband wants to go to a fancy dress party as a Rastafarian and has asked me to do his hair.

"I'm dreading it."

Hacked off

WE’VE done a few gags based around London boroughs for some odd reason. Councillor Jim Sharkey at Renfrewshire Council asks us: “Any more jokes about London areas? Surely they’re a bit Hackneyed now?”