Dirty talk

DO you know, it's been a while since we saw anything written on a dirty car – perhaps it rains too much. Anyway, Malcolm Boyd in Milngavie tells us: "While driving through Clydebank I saw a police van in need of a wash. Written in the dirt on the back doors was, 'No prisoners are kept in this van overnight'."

Seeing red

SAD to hear of the death of engineering union leader Gavin Laird, who was originally from Clydebank. Gavin was always a little bit different from the stereotypical trade union boss – I remember him turning up at the TUC conference in Brighton just after his 60th birthday in motor-cycle leathers driving a bright-red 1100cc Honda motorbike his wife had given him for his birthday. As he enthusiastically talked about how fast the machine could go, a fellow general secretary who was passing mourned: "I only got a wallet for my birthday."

Roger that

LOOKS as though tennis ace Roger Federer enjoyed his trip to Glasgow for his charity match against Andy Murray. Roger went on social media to pass on a pic of a tin of shortbread made by Andy Murray's grandmother, plus a can of Irn-Bru, and asked: "Andy, is this your usual pre-match routine?"

Performance anxiety

THE Herald archive picture the other day of a tramcar almost crashing into a City Bakeries shop reminds Malcolm Allan in Bishopbriggs: "Well-known Glasgow wedding photographer Jimmy Morrison told of sending an assistant to photograph a wedding reception in the City Bakeries at St George's Cross which had a function room. When Jimmy viewed the proofs of the bride and groom cutting the cake he explained it wouldn't do. The background showed the Metropole Theatre with a large sign stating 'Performances twice nightly'."

A dog's life

AND talking of tramcars, enough readers to fill a tramcar have got in touch with the classic tale, so I suppose we should repeat it, of the greyhound owner outside Shawfield trying to get on a tramcar with two dugs but being told by the clippie that there was already a dog on board and only two were allowed in total.

After a long and heated argument in which the conductress would not bend the rules, he eventually stormed off in anger, shouting at her: "You can stick your caur up your backside." She merely shouted back: "Aye, if you'd done that with wan o yer dugs, you would've got oan."

Waxing lyrical

POLITICS at Westminster still a huge talking point. Madame Tussaud's have unveiled a statue of Prime Minister Theresa May, and a reader phones to tell us: "It's very realistic. It, too, falls to pieces when things get too hot."

And James O'Malley comments on the row over Government Minister Priti Patel's dealings in Israel: ""If you kids don't shut up, I'll turn this car around and there'll be no Benjamin Netanyahu for anyone!' – Priti Patel on holiday."

Colourful tale

OUR tales of GPs remind Chris Ide in Waterfoot: "When the tranquilliser Librium was first marketed, it was put in capsules which were half dark green and half black. I attended a presentation on their use where we were told that some patients reported that if their anxiety symptoms predominated, they said they were relieved more quickly by swallowing the capsules green-end first whilst depressive symptoms were eased more speedily by taking the capsules black-end first."