RON McKenna's upbeat review of The Indian on Skiving Street - the restaurant's name - in The Herald reminds Malcolm Allan of when his father ran the premises in Shawlands as a chemist's shop. Says Malcolm: "I would work there on Saturdays and I recall a lady (well, it would be a 'lady' as it was south side) producing a bottle of a white antacid mixture which had been dispensed the previous day. She pointed to a black particle floating in the mixture and expressed her concern as to its identity.

"'Absolutely nothing to be worried about,' was my father's reassuring response after examining the bottle. 'That's simply a vitamin'."

COUNCIL elections of course last week, and Eleanor Manchanda in Bearsden tells us: "My eight-year-old grandson announced to his mum that he would vote for the 'Labour Democracks' when he was older. Who knows, there may well be such a party before too long."

AND looking forward, if that's the phrase, to the General Election, Bruce Skivington opines: "The easiest way for Labour to win on June 8 is for Diane Abbott to count the votes."

STREET traders continued. Says John Parker in Glasgow's west end: "My wife and I were walking through the Barras a few years ago and heard a DVD salesman espousing the positives of a Barras' DVD. 'Not one film, not two films, but three films on wan disc - just the way Disney disnae do them'."

THE Duke of Edinburgh's imminent retirement from public life reminds Jim Nicol in Lenzie of a Garden Party he attended at Holyrood Palace. "I was advised that the likelihood of my getting a word with Her Majesty or the Chooky were extremely remote. Imagine my surprise then when Prince Philip approached and asked of my Highland garb, 'What's the tartan?' I eschewed the temptation to say, 'The tart is in a cream hat and navy blue jacket', but replied instead, 'It's Bannockburn sir. But I'm not looking for a fight'."

WE'VE not had a tale form the courts for a while and George Tomlinson was reminiscing with a chum about a mutual friend, now departed, who was a lawyer in Glasgow who also liked a wee refreshment. On one occasion at Glasgow Sheriff Court he was not doing so well in his arguments when the Sheriff inquired if he had been drinking. "Just a little coq au vin for lunch, your honour,' he replied.

GREAT weather at the weekend, and a reader emails: "Friendly parenting reminder - as the weather starts to get nicer, don't forger to close the windows before you yell at the kids."

And a citizen of Scotland's biggest city took to social media yesterday morning to explain: "It's not Glasgow till you walk past a junkie with his shirt off, singing 'Like a Virgin' at 10am on a Sunday."

A SOUTH side reader tells us it was surely unfair of someone who had written on a poster an anxious animal owner had stuck to a lamp-post seeking help in finding missing cat, "Cats know where they live. Your cat didn't like you".