Taking the plunge
DON’T really want to get into the Doctor Who debate so will just leave you with the comment of Jonny Sharples, who says: “Your dad thinks Doctor Who being a woman spoils the realism of someone travelling through space and time in a phonebox while fighting bins with plungers on them.”

Noises off
GROWING old continued. Confides a Milngavie reader: “I was on the phone to a pal when he suddenly said, ‘What’s up? Were you being sick?’ I explained it was simply the noise I now make when going from standing up to sitting down.”

Steaming on your holidays
WE asked for your memories of the Glasgow Fair, and entertainer Andy Cameron recalls: “I remember as a boy going every year to Stevenston. Of course the mode of transport then was the steam train rather than today’s jet aircraft, which fly Ferr holidaymakers to their destinations in sunnier climes.
There were no stops halfway to eject unruly drunken bums and
have them arrested. Ah, the good
old days.”

Ruffled his feathers
MANY folk who go abroad on holiday get themselves a tattoo after injudicious amounts of alcohol. We are trying to verify the story that a young Glasgow lad on a Greek island heard the tattooist working on his back declare: “Eagle? I thought you said beagle.”

She chickened out
OUR story about auto-correct reminds Linda FitzGerald in Killin: “Some years ago I was the editor of our community newspaper, The Killin News. I was feeling quite proud of my reporting on the Killin Agricultural Show, which was won by local farmer Gilbert Christie.  However, pride comes before a fall, as in print for the whole village to see, auto-correct had changed his name to Giblet Christie. Kind of appropriate for a farmer.”

They have a word for it
AN interesting point from Chris Ide in Waterfoot after our medical tales who says: “In 1968, I travelled to Dundee to begin my medical studies. I was amazed by the ability of Dundonians to describe dramatic changes in their health and well-being by simply swapping two consecutive words in a sentence. 
“Thus, if a patient said ‘I’m no’ awffy weel’, that implied they were merely feeling a bit under the weather. By contrast ‘I’m awffy no’ weel’ meant that they believed that they were at death’s door.”

Eunuchs in Edinburgh
GOOD to see our old chum Robert Dawson Scott, former newspaper theatre critic, having a play put on at the Edinburgh Fringe. His satirical play, Assessment, explores how a future Government will cope with the growing number of pensioners.
As Robert ruefully observes: “Imagine all the aggrieved theatricals queuing up for this chance to get their own back. After years of telling everyone else how to do it, it is definitely a bit weird doing it oneself. I guess all those jokes about eunuchs and critics – they see it done every night but they can’t actually do it themselves – might finally hit home.”

Where jokes are born
THE office is quiet on Fair Monday so there is nowhere to hide. A colleague tracks me down and declares: “I went to my local library the other day and asked where I could find a book on childbirth.”
I just stare at him but he continues anyway: “The librarian said, ‘Try over there in the C Section’.”