A WHITECRAIGS reader was in a Glasgow clothes shop where the oleaginous assistant told a mother and daughter shopping together that they looked like twins. Our reader thought the mother was quite sharp in replying, “Well, we were separated at birth.”

A quiet trip

OUR taxi tales remind former Ayrshire Labour MP Brian Donohoe: “I remember myself and fellow MPs Donald Dewar and Tommy Graham sharing a taxi in Glasgow after arriving on the sleeper from London. The taxi driver looked in his mirror, spies Donald, turns to Tommy, who of course was sitting in the front seat, and says, ‘is that Donald Dewar?’

‘Aye,’ says Tommy, to which, inadvisably, the taxi driver says, ‘I don’t like politicians’. Tommy responded by saying he didn’t like taxi drivers, that he had the driver’s number, and would make sure he would lose his licence. Not the most diplomatic response, but it did mean we had the journey in silence.”

Ah, instant karma

TALKING of trains, Tom Rafferty tells us: “On the train from London to Birmingham, the chap beside me has been hammering at his laptop and making a succession of calls where he criticises people, mainly for poor progress, and ‘not really getting it’. As the train pulled out of Birmingham International, he asked, ‘When do we get to Coventry?’ only to be told, ‘10 minutes ago’. Yes, Mr Bollocking had missed his stop.”

Mockery the best policy

CHANCELLOR Philip Hammond was on a visit to Standard Life’s Edinburgh offices where he criticised the SNP’s attitude to Brexit. Reader Derek Service was perhaps not impressed as he asks: “Was the Chancellor visiting Standard Life just to find out what a policy is?”

And Paul Nuttal, the new leader of Ukip, has not been impressing everyone with his comments. Jim Lynch wonders if Paul’s full name is hyphenated, and is actually Paul Nuttal-There.

Don’t say you didn’t know

MEANWHILE, over in America, folk are still trying to come to terms with Donald Trump’s imminent presidency. As Morgan Murphy astutely put it: “Trump – if only we knew then what we knew then.”

No hiding place

OUR mentions of parenting skills brings a response from a Hillhead reader who says, ‘If a four-year-old says, ‘I’m scared there’s a monster living under my bed,’ don’t reply, ‘Oh, that’s where he’s been hiding’.

“I know that now.”

Warm regards

WE mentioned folk out on Christmas nights out and a colleague wanders over to tell us: “A mate of mine was out on his office do at the weekend where he was chatting up a woman in the pub by talking about global warming.

“He thought it would be a great way to break the ice.”

He should have gone to ...

RHYS James speaks for many who have been given Advent calendars when he declares: “Right well, there’s literally not a 4 on here. I’m looking and there’s not one. What idiot makes an advent calendar with no.... oh, it’s there.”

Head was screwed on light

AND today’s piece of whimsy comes from a reader who asks: “I wonder what appeared over Thomas Edison’s head when he got the idea for the light bulb.”