Using their loaf
NOT exactly a terracing shout but 
Bill Lothian tells us about a friend refereeing an Ayrshire junior match when he was alerted to a commotion 
in the away-team penalty box where home fans were pelting the goalkeeper with bread.
Explains Bill: “He couldn’t work out what that was about until, a minute later, the seagulls started to swoop for the bread just as the keeper was off his line trying to cut out a cross ball amidst flurries of feathers.
“Clever these Ayrshire junior fans.”

Having a word
COLLINS Dictionary has made Brexit, the widely used word to describe Britain’s withdrawal from the EU, as 
its word of the year. Dave Bromage suggests: “If Collins had any chutzpah, they’d make its entry solely this – Brexit (noun): Brexit.”

Spicing up the cleaning
HAVE you noticed the fad of supermarkets giving even their cleaning products Christmas versions? Gareth McLean spots a bottle of Tesco “Mulled Spice” bleach and remarks: “Bet this 
is simply delicious warm, in front of 
a roaring fire, snow falling outside (though the snow would probably 
delay the ambulance).”

Speedy reply
A READER hears a young chap tell his pals in a Glasgow pub that he had been stopped by police for speeding on the M77 out of Glasgow, and when they came over for a quick word he came out with the old excuse: “I was just trying to keep up with the traffic.”
When the officer looked around and remarked that there was no traffic to keep up with, the lad added: “I’m really far behind.”

Cutting remark
WE mentioned the Aviemore Centre’s 50th anniversary and we are sent a newspaper cutting from 1970 when Princess Alexandra and husband Angus Ogilvy visited the centre with Angus dressed in a kilt. The newspaper quotes him as saying: “It’s no place up here for a kilt. But at least this gale will blow the cobwebs away.”
“What can he mean?” asks our reader.

Goodbye, everybody
HARD to believe that today is the 25th anniversary of the death of Freddie Mercury, lead singer with Queen. Was it really that long ago? Anyway, we always liked the fact that, in the 1980s, a Midlands radio station asked listeners to vote for the favourite and most hated singles of all time. Bohemian Rhapsody was easily the winner … in both categories.
 
Driving home a point
OH, what a lark. BBC Scotland is frequently accused of being biased, so when morning radio presenter Gary Robertson asked on social media: “Driverless cars likely to be on UK roads by end of the decade. Who is at fault if they crash?” it was perhaps inevitable that a Cliff McCabe would reply ironically: “My guess is the 
SNP, Gary. Is there a prize in this competition?”

An American abroad
WE haven’t had a German language 
gag for a while so we pass on Jackie Kemp’s observation, looking at the latest suggestions of whom President-elect Donald Trump will give jobs to, that: “If Mitt Romney becomes Secretary of State, he can go to Berlin and say ‘Ich bin Mitt Romney.’ Everyone will go, ‘Und wehr ist Romney?’”

Seasonal statement
JAMES Doleman, ponders: “Surely an Autumn Statement should be something like, ‘The nights are getting longer and more people are wearing jumpers’.”