A WEST End reader watches a chap try to chat-up a young woman in an Ashton Lane bar and heard the girl tell him: "Every time you smile I want to take you away from this place."

"What, to your flat?" said the chap excitedly. "No, to my surgery - I'm a dentist," she replied as her female friends fell about laughing.

LANCASTER University organises AuroraWatch where it monitors electromagnetic particles from the sun so that it can predict when these great aurora borealis are going to light up the northern skies. It excitedly put out a red alert that such a display was imminent then later reported: "It was based on magnetic field data from our magnetometer. Unfortunately, the readings were spurious and not related to geomagnetic activity. It appears that some local interference set off a massive spike in the data. We believe the interference was caused by university staff mowing the grass on a sit-on mower. We’ll work with the facilities team to try and avoid an incident such as this in the future."

FIFE has been named as the happiest part of Scotland. Fifer and author Val McDermid has just been interviewed in the Big Issue where she explained how unusual it was for someone from Fife to go to Oxford University. As she said: "I went to a 40th reunion recently and one of my old friends said, 'We all thought you were so exotic.' Because I was from Scotland! I did think of myself as a fish out of water – I had to learn how to speak English because no one understood my Fife accent – but never exotic."

TALKING of Fife, we have mentioned before how Levenmouth Police have enthusiastically taken to social media. As they reported the other day on Twitter: "A 19-year-old lod fae Kennoway joined us for breakfast club the day. Huckled for threatening behaviour and being a tube."

Good to tell it like it is.

WE like stand-up Jo Caulfield, appearing at the Edinburgh Fringe, explaining how she deals with people who send her vile and misogynistic messages through social media. Says Jo: "I just write back, 'Thank you so much. If you want a list of my tour dates here is a link to my tour page."

AND Scots stand-up Darren Connell tells us: "Guy in Edinburgh just handed me a flyer for a show called 'Subway' when you basically just watch someone make a sandwich. A bit too art-house for me. No thanks."

LINDSAY Young tells us: "I just spotted a newspaper headline 'Rangers forced to shoot nine bears'. I know that their supporters can get out of hand, but that seems a bit drastic. Read on and found out it was wild-life officers in Canada who had to shoot the wild bears as they were foraging in bins."

A READER on a late night bus in Glasgow heard a gently-swaying young woman argue with her pals: "But in dog wines I've only had one."

TODAY'S piece of whimsy comes from comedy writer Sanjeev Kohli who declares: "My optometrist told me my eyesight would be perfect for the rest of my life. My pessimetrist wasn't so sure."