THE Herald business story that haggis makers Macsween are to go back to their roots as a traditional butcher reminds John Bannerman in Kilmaurs: "In days of old, butchers and housewives had a small hand-driven mincing machine fixed to the table. My mother-in-law had such an item, which was her pride and joy, as she was a great cook.

"Returning from the 'Rural' meeting one night, she was shocked to walk into the cottage to find her husband and his brother putting bars of thick black pipe tobacco through the machine. I never knew that a quiet wee woman could utter such words of condemnation."

SINGER David Essex is returning to Glasgow's King's Theatre in November for his only Scottish date in his first major tour in four years. We recall a previous visit to Glasgow by David when an adoring fan handed him a glow strip which he tried to fix around his wrist but was struggling with it. Another woman rushed forward to the stage and gestured for him to lower his wrist. As she worked away, he looked down and asked: "You're not trying to steal my watch are you?"

A READER swears to us that he was filling in forms at Glasgow's Victoria when the nurse looked over the form and said: "Lacoste intolerant? I take it that's a mistake." He couldn't help replying: "No, I really can't stand sweatshirts with crocodiles on them."

WE open an email from a reader which explains: "Scientists have discovered that people will believe anything as long as you start a sentence by saying, 'Scientists have discovered that...'."

HAVING a quick pint in a Glasgow pub at the weekend, a reader hears a young chap argue with his pals: "I don't get me girlfriend. One minute she says I'm a typical man and can't multi-task, the next she's accusing me of seeing another woman behind her back. So which is it?"

TODAY'S piece of whimsy comes from Quintin Forbes who tells us: "I don't think preparing a melon boat really counts as cooking, but it'll do for starters."

A HERALD archive picture of children in Govan growing vegetables during the war, and stating that people kept chickens in their garden to augment food rations, brings the correction from reader Duncan Miller in Lenzie: "It is quite likely that they did keep chickens in Govan, but I wonder if they kept hens too? I notice hens are rarely mentioned these days with the term being anglicised to chickens. In the world I grew up in hens laid eggs and chickens were reared for eating."

Thanks Duncan. Oh and it somehow reminds us of the chap who took his wife to the doctor and said she thinks she's a hen. "How long has she been like that?" asked the doc. When the chap replied that it had been three years, the doc asked why he hadn't brought her in sooner, and he replied: "We needed the eggs."

Sorry about that.

A READER phones, confused about the Panama tax haven story. "So you put your money in a Panama hat then put it through a washing machine. Have I got that right?"

OH dear, a colleague wanders over, wanting to talk about his jobs before he went into journalism. "I secretly resigned from my job as a set designer," he tells us. "I didn't want to make a scene."